Photos from the Fellowship of Australian Writers Local Writers Showcase 2013

This morning I had the pleasure of participating in the inaugural Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) Local Writers Showcase. After a brief opening by MLS (Local Member of the Legislative Assembly) Greg Piper, and a lovely intro from poet Carol Heuchan, Beryl Mullard, Jaye Ford, Judy Johnson and I spoke to the enthusiastic audience about our different (and yet surprisingly similar in many  ways) paths to publication.

After that we had lots of questions from the audience about book publication and what to do if you don't like the way your publisher is editing your book, how to keep track of plot twists, on fitting writing into our lives, the legal pitfalls of writing (illegal!) nonfiction, whether there's an easy formula for genre books, and quite a bit more.  I suspect that we could easily have gone on for several more hours, and I was honored to be able to sit amongst such illustrious and capable company (and learned as much from their generous answers as the audience did).

I imagine that organising such a gathering, which included a whole day full of talks by a number of wonderful local authors, was a massive undertaking and big thanks to FAW and particularly Linda Visman and Victoria Norton who created such a valuable community event.