Marisa Wikramanayake

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

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  • Home
  • Blog
  • Services
  • Journalism work
  • Editorial work
  • Events
  • Free resources
    • Perth & WA Literary Calendar
    • Women who review
  • My Patreon
  • MEAA FAQs

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  • Events,  Updates

    Upcoming events in June 2018

    June 6, 2018 / No Comments

    I am going to be rather tired this month. But that’s a good thing because you get to see me at several events during June. Check out the events page. Continuum Panels The very first one kicks off in two days time: So You Want To Be A Book Reviewer? This is an awesome panel at the Continuum Speculative Fiction Convention at the Jasper Hotel in Melbourne running from Friday 8 June to Monday 11 June. I am on it with Figgy and Elizabeth Fitzgerald and it starts at 5 pm on Friday. We will discuss how book reviewing changes depending on how you do it, what you need to…

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    Crimescene WA & Real Scientists

    September 23, 2013

    Round up 05/01/2013 – 19/01/2013

    January 19, 2013

    Interview with Nury Vittachi on the 6th IPEd National Editors' Conference 2013

    March 2, 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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    How do you tell a story?

    February 9, 2019
    KSP cat by Ashleigh Hardcastle via KSP Writers Centre

    Day 2: A cat is here!

    May 30, 2018
    The Writers' Cabins at KSP (c) Writers Bloc

    Day 1: Home on my back, home where there is a bed

    May 30, 2018
  • 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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    How do you tell a story?

    February 9, 2019

    Gin & Tonic Update #3

    February 21, 2019
    The Writers' Cabins at KSP (c) Writers Bloc

    Day 1: Home on my back, home where there is a bed

    May 30, 2018
  • My desk in Phillips cabin at the KSP Writers Centre (c) Marisa Wikramanayake
    Blog,  Writing

    Day 3: So many emotions

    May 31, 2018 / No Comments

    Day 3 and I am just grateful. I didn’t get to sleep until five am because I was just so thrilled that I had met my goal. You get a high after you write and type everything in. But I did sleep in bursts till about noon. I would wake up, do some work related things, sleep a bit, write a bit and so on. I woke up at noon and went over to the main house and the office to meet Shannon who is the director here at KSP Writers Centre. I gave her some things from Sri Lanka and she offered to do a pharmacy run for me.…

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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
    I'm blogging this by Jhayne via Flickr (additional text by me)

    My top 10 posts in 2016

    January 20, 2017
    The Writers' Cabins at KSP (c) Writers Bloc

    Day 1: Home on my back, home where there is a bed

    May 30, 2018
  • 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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    City of Lights by Sammu on Flickr.

    Sri Lanka, December 2015 – February 2016

    December 5, 2015

    What is a typical day for a journalist?

    October 16, 2019
    Top down shot of two people sitting across from each other a table having coffee with just their arms and cups in view

    10 Important Things You Need To Know About Finding A Mentor

    January 14, 2021
  • Blog,  Freelancing,  Journalism,  Writing

    Frequently Asked Questions About Becoming A Freelance Writer:

    January 18, 2018 / No Comments

    Marisa Wikramanayake answers a few of the frequently asked questions about being a freelance writer.

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    My desk in Phillips cabin at the KSP Writers Centre (c) Marisa Wikramanayake

    Day 3: So many emotions

    May 31, 2018
    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
    An image of two hands writing in front of a computer screen with a phone on top of papers on a desk

    How to easily track pitches in Google Sheets as a freelance journalist

    January 7, 2021
  • I'm blogging this by Jhayne via Flickr (additional text by me)
    Blog

    My top 10 posts in 2016

    January 20, 2017 / No Comments

    It is a fact of life that whenever you try to plan your life you end up dropping something at some point – life intervenes and you have to. You have to prioritise. In 2016 it was this blog. But it is interesting to see what my top 10 posts were for 2016 in terms of how many people viewed/read them. I got views despite not being as active as I wanted to be on the blog. I am hoping to change that this year. It is also interesting to see what people read and to try and unpick why that was the case. PS: All headings are clickable and…

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    An update on Gin & Tonic

    January 24, 2019

    How to deal with late payments as a freelancer

    January 26, 2019

    Where you will find me in October 2018

    October 11, 2018
  • A few right thinking men by Sulari Gentill
    Australian Women Writers Challenge,  Book Reviews

    Sulari Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men

    June 6, 2016 / 1 Comment

    I grew up on a literary diet that had a healthy portion of crime fiction in it and these days if I see one crime novel that sparks my interest then the entire process of hunting down the whole series one by one begins. This is also one reason why I am so glad that the first book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series never fully grabbed me in the same way – I would still be trying to get through all of them decades later.

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    The Australian Women Writers’ Challenge 2016

    January 11, 2016

    Australian Love Stories

    November 20, 2014

    Eleni Konstantine's Snoop

    February 13, 2014
  • Books,  Sedition,  Writing

    HIM and the experiment to write the draft under watching eyes

    February 3, 2016 / 1 Comment

    On January 1st I started a new project. I was going to write a new book and get Sedition edited and you got to watch while I wrote. And I told you that I was setting up a Patreon account for those who wanted to donate towards editing fees for Sedition by letting them see the drafts of HIM as I wrote HIM.

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    temporary book cover for the novel in progress titled HIM by Marisa Wikramanayake

    HIM update for January 15

    January 15, 2016

    Gin & Tonic Update #3

    February 21, 2019
    monochrome photo of person using vintage typewriter

    6 Lessons from a year of writing crime fiction

    February 8, 2022
  • Opinion,  Writing

    Why you should love your writers more (or pay us more)

    January 20, 2016 / No Comments

    Note: I wrote this piece after seeing this image sometime in December 2014 on Facebook. I was reminded of it recently and thought I would repost it here: [aesop_parallax img=”http://marisa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/10689919_10153438607982501_2808857729860272201_n.jpg” parallaxbg=”on” captionposition=”bottom-left” lightbox=”on” floater=”off” floaterposition=”left” floaterdirection=”up”]   There are career paths and structures that support various other occupations but some of us don’t get that stability when doctors, lawyers, accountants etc can. And you can sell a million books and still make less than $10,000 per year because you get a small percentage of each sale as royalties. Every writer or artist or anyone in a similar occupation that has to deal with this weird pay inequality gap type thing…

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