Marisa Wikramanayake

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

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  • Blog
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  • Journalism work
  • Editorial work
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    • Perth & WA Literary Calendar
    • Women who review
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  • Blog,  Books,  Writing

    Gin & Tonic Update #3

    February 21, 2019 / No Comments

    The third update on the writing of crime fiction novel Gin & Tonic

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    Workers in black t-shirts outside a Fairfax building with flags protesting job cuts and the takeover by channel nine as part of the union MEAA's campaign.

    January 2019 MEAA Monthly Update

    January 31, 2019
    My desk in Phillips cabin at the KSP Writers Centre (c) Marisa Wikramanayake

    Day 3: So many emotions

    May 31, 2018
    Latest piece of research for the foundation fellowship: the book titled Police in Sri Lanka by Frank de Silva

    Foundation Fellowship update: a bit about Gin and Tonic

    January 12, 2018
  • Blog,  Books,  Writing

    Gin & Tonic update #2: I was so wrong! AKA #maricantmath

    February 7, 2019 / No Comments

    We interrupt this regular broadcast to tell you two things: 1. We are late. Apologies. I am still trying to get myself back into a routine and things keep happening to send me right out of it. More on that in a couple of weeks. 2. OMG I WAS SO WRONG! Let me explain. I intend to update you on what is happening with G & T and if you go to my Patreon and subscribe for $1 per month you can read G & T from start to wherever I am at by the time you catch up to it/the finish. So I have these posts on the blog…

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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 photograph of a microphone by Michal Czyz on Unsplash

    How my business will change for the better in 2021 and why

    December 17, 2020

    How to deal with late payments as a freelancer

    January 26, 2019
  • 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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    The Writing Calendar: June 2016

    June 9, 2016
    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

    Where you will find me in October 2018

    October 11, 2018
  • 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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    An update on Gin & Tonic

    January 24, 2019
    My desk in Phillips cabin at the KSP Writers Centre (c) Marisa Wikramanayake

    Day 3: So many emotions

    May 31, 2018

    Gin & Tonic Update #3

    February 21, 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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    The NYWF-ty List

    October 11, 2018
    City of Lights by Sammu on Flickr.

    Sri Lanka, December 2015 – February 2016

    December 5, 2015

    Where you will find me in October 2018

    October 11, 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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    The NYWF-ty List

    October 11, 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
    KSP cat by Ashleigh Hardcastle via KSP Writers Centre

    I hit 10,000 words!

    June 4, 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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    The NYWF-ty List

    October 11, 2018
    A mug full of coffee on an open planner

    Setting goals as a freelance journalist

    October 11, 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
  • Blog,  Writing

    I won the inaugural KSP – Varuna Foundation Fellowship

    January 5, 2018 / No Comments

    What is a writing foundation fellowship? In A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf argues and advocates for women to have a room of their own to write in where they are free from all the other duties and responsibilities one has to undertake in the business of living or running a house or working and so on. Male writers in the past have often benefitted from having a spouse who could keep everything going while they had the free time and space to write. Writing fellowships vary in what is involved or offered but this idea of having time to write free from other concerns underpins the KSP-Varuna Foundation Fellowship…

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    The NYWF-ty List

    October 11, 2018

    Gin & Tonic update #2: I was so wrong! AKA #maricantmath

    February 7, 2019
    Workers in black t-shirts outside a Fairfax building with flags protesting job cuts and the takeover by channel nine as part of the union MEAA's campaign.

    January 2019 MEAA Monthly Update

    January 31, 2019
  • 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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    The NYWF-ty List

    October 11, 2018
    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

    MEAA news for February 2019

    February 28, 2019
  • 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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    The Sri Lankan "war generation" and the books that "made" us.

    March 26, 2011

    Jane Rawson's A Wrong Turn At The Office Of Unmade Lists

    January 16, 2014

    Eleni Konstantine's Snoop

    February 13, 2014
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