Marisa Wikramanayake

writer, journalist & editor ~ I help you tell stories.

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    • Perth & WA Literary Calendar
    • Women who review
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  • A real bookshop by Elsie esq via Flickr
    Journalism

    So You Want To Be A Book Reviewer Panel at Continuum 2018

    June 15, 2018 / No Comments

    I promised a run down of Continuum and I realised I would have to do it bit by bit so here is the first panel on being a book reviewer. So You Want To Be A Book Reviewer I was joined by Elizabeth Fitzgerald and Stephanie O’Connell (better known as Figgy). Figgy writes for a rock and roll magazine and so her reviewing tends to be mostly within that genre of books though they are expanding a bit to take in other genres. Elizabeth is an editor who has her own book review blog where she reviews science fiction and fantasy work. Me, I was the journalist book reviewer. I…

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    The MEAA regional journalism campaign logo - a bundle of newspapers with the words our communities our stories superimposed on top.

    How you can help regional papers from closing even if you live in the city.

    June 15, 2020

    How to get started in journalism

    November 29, 2013
    Marisa Wikramanayake waiting to present during the IPEd Conference freelancing workshop in 2013

    Where have I been?

    May 5, 2013
  • KSP cat by Ashleigh Hardcastle via KSP Writers Centre
    Blog,  Writing

    I hit 10,000 words!

    June 4, 2018 / No Comments

    I suppose I gave it away in the title but oh my God! 10,000 words! Here’s what happened on each day. Day 5 was the Friday. Nothing got done on Friday. I was really exhausted. My sleeping patterns were out of whack and I was trying to fix my ear issue. I thought I could go out to meet my union colleagues and friends for drinks and come back and write. The drinks part happened and was fun but the writing part did not happen. So I had zero words for Friday. I had about four to five thousand words at this point to write in order to hit 10,000…

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    Katherine Susannah Pritchard and her typewriter (c) Marisa Wikramanayake

    Day 4: Freedom to write, freedom for writers

    June 1, 2018

    What is a typical day for a journalist?

    October 16, 2019

    How do you tell a story?

    February 9, 2019
  • Katherine Susannah Pritchard and her typewriter (c) Marisa Wikramanayake
    Blog,  Writing

    Day 4: Freedom to write, freedom for writers

    June 1, 2018 / No Comments

    Day 4 already. Well, nothing was going to happen on Day 1 given how tired and jetlagged I was. Today, most of the day was pretty boring. I had not slept well the night before. So the day was full of waking, sleeping, doing things I needed to do like eat and so on. I thought about the book a lot. And then I did my makeup, changed, called an Uber and went to see my friend Vicki Laurie interview Peter Greste at the WA State Library. So three things happened today on Day 4: Peter Greste pleasantly surprised me. I was very happy about that. Thank you Peter Greste.…

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    KSP cat by Ashleigh Hardcastle via KSP Writers Centre

    I hit 10,000 words!

    June 4, 2018

    Why journalists risk their lives

    October 14, 2019
    A phone with messags on its screen sits on a desk in front of a lit up keyboard

    7 Important Lessons I Learned About Running Awesome Livestreams

    January 30, 2021
  • KSP cat by Ashleigh Hardcastle via KSP Writers Centre
    Blog,  Writing

    Day 2: A cat is here!

    May 30, 2018 / No Comments

    Day 2 and I woke up joyful today. Joyful because it was such a wonderful thought that I could write and everyone was going to be mindful of that. That no one would disturb me, no one would interrupt me, no one would think to themselves “She is free – let’s get a hold of her.” Also annoyance because my article was overdue and I needed to get it done so I knuckled down to do that while battling my ear going strange again. I made a mental note to see my doctor as soon as I get back to Melbourne. I figured out the A/C and I had a…

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    How to deal with late payments as a freelancer

    January 26, 2019

    MEAA news for February 2019

    February 28, 2019
    A phone with messags on its screen sits on a desk in front of a lit up keyboard

    My 10 Compelling Reasons For Running Youtube Livestreams Right Now

    January 22, 2021
  • Blog,  Freelancing,  Journalism,  Writing

    9 things I did not expect in 2017 & Happy New Year!

    January 1, 2018 / No Comments

    2017 has been a year full of ups and downs.  Or at least for me, a lot of things that I well – did not expect to happen. Not to me. I am still quite giddy and grateful and in other ways also sad. We had a lot of unnecessary violence, hate and tragedy this past year. I did not expect… so much travelling I did not expect to travel as much as I did. I criss crossed Australia for the IPEd 2017 Editors’ Conference in Brisbane as a speaker and for the MEAA for union meetings.  You can catch up on my conference updates here. I did not expect……

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    A phone with messags on its screen sits on a desk in front of a lit up keyboard

    7 Important Lessons I Learned About Running Awesome Livestreams

    January 30, 2021
    A phone with messags on its screen sits on a desk in front of a lit up keyboard

    My 10 Compelling Reasons For Running Youtube Livestreams Right Now

    January 22, 2021
    KSP cat by Ashleigh Hardcastle via KSP Writers Centre

    I hit 10,000 words!

    June 4, 2018
  • IPEd 2017

    Building alliances – a panel on organisations working together

    September 17, 2017 / No Comments

    So I was asked to be on this panel about building alliances which mostly came about because I had previously contacted IPEd with ideas about how IPEd and MEAA could collaborate. The panel consisted of myself, representing all things MEAA, Juliet Rogers of the ASA, Sherrey Quinn from ANZSI, Queensland Writers Centre’s CEO Katie Woods and the Rosanna Arciuli from the Copyright Agency. In a nutshell we definitely agreed on several points: It was vital for us to band together on several big theme issues because there was power in numbers no matter which organisation spearheaded the issue and campaign. Such big theme issues that we cared about were copyright…

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    Marisa Wikramanayake waiting to present during the IPEd Conference freelancing workshop in 2013

    IPEd Conference 2017 is next week and guess who is going?

    September 6, 2017

    Freelancing panel at IPEd 2017

    September 14, 2017

    IPEd 2017: Workshops, whirlwinds and welcome

    September 13, 2017
  • Updates

    Amanda Jay’s The Other One is a Fairway Literary Award finalist!

    September 9, 2017 / No Comments

    Ok, first things first, who is Amanda Jay? Amanda Jay is a Sri Lankan writer – Amanda Jayatissa – who wrote a book titled The Other One. I edited it earlier this year and she decided to self publish it in both e-book and hard copy format. It’s not doing too badly sales wise. But yesterday she got the news that it was shortlisted for the Fairway Literary Awards in the English Language section. Guess who got shortlisted for the Fairway literary awards? One of my authors! @mandysillybob I’m very proud of you. I’m so excited. You better win so that we get two in a row! #srilankanauthors #srilankanliterature #theotherone…

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    writings in a planner

    How to successfully set goals and plan for 2022

    January 11, 2022

    The Defying Doomsday Anthology

    April 12, 2015
    City of Lights by Sammu on Flickr.

    Sri Lanka, December 2015 – February 2016

    December 5, 2015
  • The Paper House by Anna Spargo-Ryan
    Book Reviews

    3 amazing Australian authors I read in 2016 and absolutely loved

    January 9, 2017 / No Comments

    I tend to stumble upon my books (matters not if it is work by Sri Lankan or Australian authors) and I started young. We have a bookcase in our house that spans the length of the downstairs study. It is mostly filled with modern day thrillers and what I refer to as airport novels – Jeffery Archer, Frederick Forsythe, Connelly, Koontz, Deaver. John Grisham. Those books. A smaller bookcase housed the encyclopedia set and the treasure trove of Agatha Christie novels. In the bookshelf for us kids, there were Enid Blytons and Carolyn Keenes, topped up by regular birthday and Christmas gifts. I read the classics – the cornerstone foundation of…

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    Robin Bower’s Beyond Home

    March 28, 2015

    Australia Day Book Giveaway Blog Hop

    January 25, 2014

    AWW 2013: Marj McRae's Not A Man

    January 10, 2013
  • Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen by Carl Muller
    Book Reviews

    Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen by Carl Muller

    January 5, 2017 / No Comments

    The first author I read this year is not an Australian female writer but a Sri Lankan male one.  It was Carl Muller and his book Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen. I thought it would be prudent to try and read more POC authors this year as well as try to understand a bit more about my own English language literary background and read more Sri Lankan authors. Carl Muller can come across as crude. His stories about the Burghers (the mixed race descendants of European colonisers and native Sri Lankans) feature life in the raw as it was in what seems to be early 2oth century life in…

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    A few right thinking men by Sulari Gentill

    Sulari Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men

    June 6, 2016

    Australian Love Stories

    November 20, 2014
    A real bookshop by Elsie esq via Flickr

    Capering criminally with the challenge: what I read for Australian Women Writers 2013

    January 3, 2014
  • Cover of the book Portable curiosities by Julie Koh
    Book Reviews

    The best Australian books that 7 Australian writers loved in 2016

    January 2, 2017 / 1 Comment

    I wanted to write about some of the best books by other Australian writers that I had read and been blown away by during 2016. And then I thought – why not ask them who they read in 2016 that was amazing AND an Australian author? So that then I could have a list of books to then go read myself in 2017? So I did. I yelled out into the Twittersphere: Australian #writers: what was the best book by an Australian that you read this year? I want to write a blog post & will link back to you. — Marisa Wikramanayake (@mwikramanayake) December 24, 2016 And true enough, over…

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    Robin Bower’s Beyond Home

    March 28, 2015

    Australian Love Stories

    November 20, 2014

    Marianne Delacourt’s Sharp Shooter

    April 2, 2015
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