Marisa Wikramanayake

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

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    • Perth & WA Literary Calendar
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  • monochrome photo of person using vintage typewriter
    Books,  Gin & Tonic,  Writing

    6 Lessons from a year of writing crime fiction

    February 8, 2022 / No Comments

    I spent a year writing crime fiction and here is what I learnt.

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    Stressed? by aaayyymm eeelectriik via Flickr

    All my worries as a WOC writer

    May 13, 2016

    Why my brain has no space and why I have no time

    May 11, 2016

    HIM update for Feb 26 and Mar 4 – sorry for the delay!

    March 7, 2016
  • Digital Writers Festival: HyperSpace Hustle

    October 31, 2018 / No Comments

    I am part of the Digital Writers Festival this year. Which is immensely exciting for me. The Digital Writers Festival happens all online. I am in a podcast episode on writing and working rights and conditions for writers. Ben Eltham is chairing the podcast and interviewing me and Osman Faruqi and it is all very exciting. The podcast episode drops on October 31st: http://2018.digitalwritersfestival.com/event/hyperspace-hustle-digital-writers-rights/ Date: October 31, 2018 Time: All day Venue: Wherever thou art. Link: http://2018.digitalwritersfestival.com/event/hyperspace-hustle-digital-writers-rights/ Cost: Free.

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  • Blog,  Editing,  Freelancing,  Updates,  Writing

    The NYWF-ty List

    October 11, 2018 / No Comments

    NYWF is National Young Writers Festival and this is the "NYWFty" ("nifty") list because it is truly nifty and is full of the resources the young writers were asking me and other people about at all the #NYWF2018 sessions over the past weekend.

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    The Writers' Cabins at KSP (c) Writers Bloc

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

    May 30, 2018
    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
    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
  • 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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    MEAA news for February 2019

    February 28, 2019

    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
  • 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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    Why I write at 4 am

    March 14, 2019

    How do you tell a story?

    February 9, 2019

    Where you will find me in October 2018

    October 11, 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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    My desk in Phillips cabin at the KSP Writers Centre (c) Marisa Wikramanayake

    Day 3: So many emotions

    May 31, 2018

    The NYWF-ty List

    October 11, 2018
    The Writers' Cabins at KSP (c) Writers Bloc

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

    May 30, 2018
  • 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 South Asian Women Writers Challenge 2014

    January 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

    The Sri Lankan "war generation" and the books that "made" us.

    March 26, 2011
  • 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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    Jane Rawson's A Wrong Turn At The Office Of Unmade Lists

    January 16, 2014
    Drive Me To Distraction by Caitlyn Nicholas

    Caitlyn Nicholas' Drive Me To Distraction

    February 21, 2013

    Kerry Greenwood's Unnatural Habits

    January 3, 2013
  • 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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    Kerry Greenwood's Unnatural Habits

    January 3, 2013

    Marianne Delacourt’s Sharp Shooter

    April 2, 2015

    Samantha Tidy's The Happiness Jar

    February 20, 2014
  • Marisa Wikramanayake will be appearing at two sessions at the Digital Writers Festival this year.
    Updates,  Writing

    I’m in the Digital Writers Festival this year!

    October 28, 2016 / No Comments

    Back in June or July, I sent Jane Howard, who was organising the Digital Writers Festival, a message on Twitter: have ideas on diversity panels etc and grassroots movements and have applied so will await decisions & twiddle thumbs. 🙂 — Marisa Wikramanayake (@mwikramanayake) July 20, 2016 In September/October I received a series of emails the upshot of which meant I was in TWO (count them, TWO) sessions for the Digital Writers Festival. TWO SESSIONS! The Digital Writers Festival runs from November 1 to November 11 which basically means it starts next Tuesday. And it is all ONLINE. YES. Thanks to the magic of Google Hangouts and some other spiffy…

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    Round up 05/01/2013 – 19/01/2013

    January 19, 2013

    Happy Independence Day, Sri Lankans!

    February 4, 2013

    Diverse and need a writing group?

    October 23, 2016
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