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Curation of @realscientists starts tonight!
Colour me terrified. @realscientists is the brainchild of a few people, namely @scienceupulie and @DrYobbo both scientists in their own right and also science communicators. Which means they blog and tweet and podcast about science all the time. @realscientists is a rotation curation Twitter account which means one scientist takes over each week and tweets about his/her work, whatever field of science it may be. The curators are introduced and farewelled each weekend on the Real Scientists blog and their tweets are usually storifyed for posterity as well. Last week it was sharks with @WhySharksMatter taking over for the week. From next Sunday it will be a virologist who likes to…
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How to write a book: Part 1: Introduction
Three years is a long time. Three years ago, I was asked to run an online group on how to write books. The posts ended up here. A lot has changed in three years. It’s time to re-issue the posts with updated information. So for the next few weeks, every Wednesday (or for some of you, Tuesday night) there will be a post to do with writing a book, answering a specific question in your email and posted on this blog. What’s your part in this? Well, you are welcome to sit back and read the posts but you can also participate. You don’t need to be writing a book,…
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How to tell if you are a writer
You have at least three library memberships and at least three different piles of books that are overdue and need to be returned. You get excited at the idea of getting a higher borrowing limit at the library than usual. You have a thing bordering on an obsession bordering on a fetish for pens. And your-kind-of-pretty notebooks. You may or may not have amassed a collection of these without quite knowing what you will fill them with it. You are a member of an online fandom. At least one. You write fanfiction for it. And delight in the response of others along the lines of how good you are…
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16 rules for writing
So the other day I was teaching a class on social media and I was asked by one of the students to pause and go back to what I had said when I introduced myself about my creative writing. And when I did, she said, “That’s what my daughter wants to do – she’s 17.” “Is she really passionate about it?” I asked. “Yes – she is. She is always writing.” The student paused here. “What should she be doing? What degree? What degree did you do?” Fortunately, she was interested in an actual answer. Here it is in list form: Get used to the idea now that you will…
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Profile: Amanda Curtin and world weaving
Amanda Curtin’s book Elemental will be officially launched tomorrow in Perth. It has been available for almost an entire month and I had the pleasure of interviewing her for this profile feature piece in April when I got sent a review copy in the mail. A book from Amanda Curtin in the mailbox is always a delight and a treat.
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Australian Women Writers Challenge, Book Reviews, Events, IPEd Con 2013, Journalism, Political journalism, Projects, Science journalism, Updates
Where have I been?
Recovering mostly. The conference is over. But the organisation part of it isn’t. There are accounts to be finalised and even now, still a lot of emails to answer. So let me digress to answer the most often asked question via email now: Conference proceedings will be posted on the website and you will all be emailed to be told when they get uploaded. But what else have I been up to? Well, I have had a particularly weird and busy time of it and a lot of it has involved writing. So without further ado, here is the list: I have reviewed: Amanda Curtin’s Elemental which will end up in…
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What do you mean there is a conference in four days' time?
About two years ago I put my hand up to be conference convenor for the 6th IPEd National Editors Conference in Perth in 2013. We are now a mere four days away from the event and no one on the committee can quite figure out how we got here and where all the time went. Is everything done? Is everything ready? Well, yes, it is. Don’t worry. On that front we are fine. On the emotional side of things? Well, we are not so sure. As a committee we were so focused on making sure that everything was ready that it has only just hit us that we should be…
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Interview with Nury Vittachi on the 6th IPEd National Editors' Conference 2013
[wpcol_2third id=”” class=”” style=””]So who exactly is Nury Vittachi? Well, apart from being a crime fiction writer and a keynote at the 6th IPEd National Editors’ Conference here in Perth in April 2013, I’ll let him do the talking: Nury Vittachi in a nutshell? A small, bald Asian writer who was born on earth and still spends a fair bit of time there. Yes, so just so you know, he’s also exceptionally funny. Writers are cool, right? Yes, but only because few of us earn enough money to pay our heating bills. Why does he want to come to the conference? Why bother? Well, we asked him to – some of…
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New project: Guys Read Gals
First off, I did not come up with the name. That was all Rob Kennedy‘s fault. Second, last I checked I am not a male member of the species so I am not actually an active participant – I am just there to make sure everything runs properly. And to carry a metaphorical whip so that the guys involved behave like the gentlemen that they are. So what is it? It’s a website. For men. To post reviews of the Australian female fiction authors they have read. And for women and men. To contribute insightful articles, interviews and opinion pieces on the topics of men reading and/or Australian female fiction…
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Real men do read – they just don't let the sexy, geek goddesses know.
Rob Kennedy, an Australian poet (and male for the purposes of this discussion) asked this question in a blog post recently: Do real men read books?* He had several issues with this question: What the hell constitutes a “real man” anyway? To which I nod my head furiously because yes, what the hell are we discussing when we talk about “real men”? What makes one man more “real” than the next, apart from the fact that maybe he isn’t some intangible figure in your brain…… moving on. The reason he asked the question in the first place was because he had found a lot of American based programs and websites…
