When my life upended in 2018, one of the things I did to re-anchor was to take a course of workshops in ‘Creative Writing Outside’.

BY TESS GADD ‘What?’ my lecturer asked me in her I-only-baby-my-children-and-not-my-students voice. She looked up from her laptop, glasses holding on to the edge of

BY REV DR JILL RICHARDSON I got my first World Religions paper returned with an ‘A’ slashed across the top. This should have elicited joy

BY KIRSTY MACDOUGALL ‘Write what you know, Kirsty.’ This advice stayed with me for well over a decade. At 17, I wrote an essay about

BY WENDY SPENCER My phone beeped as I was buying milk in Sainsbury’s. Mom’s icon flashed on my screen and I smiled. We had said

BY LYN CUBILLAS Time checked: six o’clock in the morning. I was gearing up for my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. I looked towards

BY MESHNA BHATTARAI The best writing tip I ever received was to get my hands bloody.  ‘Wrestle with words, scream at them, claw at them,’

By Ross Ian Fleming 1994 It’s 11.30 a.m.. Early April 1994. Probably a Monday. Our country is on the cusp of a ground-shaking change. But

BY EVA BELL Writing was always my first love. One thing I wanted above all else was to be a writer. But my father had

BY LISA CORTEZ ‘I’m bored already,’ my mother said, removing her reading glasses and throwing my manuscript down on the coffee table. She’d come to

BY BELINDA MOUNTAIN The best piece of writing advice I ever received? It was from a professor of journalism in my hometown of Makhanda, Eastern

BY LIZ AMOS I have a confession to make: no one told me this. No one sat me down, looked me in the eyes and

BY SIMON WINTER Bill Nighy, the famous English actor, recently celebrated his 74th birthday. Interviewed, he said, ‘I am a world-class procrastinator. I’m only an actor

BY TOM LARSEN I wrote my first short story at ten years of age. Back then, magazines would have a back page full of two-inch

BY AMY HADDEN Writers. Each stroke of the marker let out a faint ‘shhh’ across the yellow chart paper. Its scent danced over the rainbow

BY SARAH DAS GUPTA It had taken five very sexy young firemen to move me to the ambulance on that hot July afternoon. I couldn’t

BY RINA BESTER My life was a mess: children grown up, husband retired. In the background, an unnerving prodding from my unfulfilled dreams begged me to

BY TRI NGUYEN I am a gardener. Well, I am not a gardener by trade per se, but a gardener by style. That is the

BY ALANA BETH DAVIES Plot was always my downfall, my weak spot, my Achilles heel – you get the picture. Description, I was okay with:

BY KRISTINE LACO Sheena wasn’t a writer, but she gave the best writing advice. She was my instructor at a cognitive behavioural therapy group. ‘What

BY GEETHA RANGANATHAN Sitting at the city library in Parramatta, I asked myself what drove me to write. As the clouds passed by, I realised

BY SHAYNA LEWIS My music career ended at age 15. I’d just finished my second year of high school. As a music student, I’d been

BY FATEMEH EBRAHIMI If, like me, you’re a woman in a traditional family and society, whether you’re working or not, you must do the housework.

BY TONY OSWICK When I was growing up, I wanted to be just like Great Uncle Ferdy. My mum was his only living relative and,

BY TOM BENTLEY When I first started sending article queries out in the eighties, callow youth that I was, I sent them to all the

BY RUSSELL MICKLER The best writing tip I ever received was not to write. It began with an essay, a critique of Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s

By KIM PATTON Because my stories keep my heart pounding at night with the possibility of it all, when I can’t get words on paper,

BY SARAH KELLEHER For me, writing used to move in cycles. First is the inspired phase. I’d put my laptop by my favourite window, wear

BY ROBERT B. ROBESON If I’d wanted an easy life, I could have taken up quantum physics, brain surgery or attempted to open a McDonald’s

BY SIOBHAN MURPHY Writing. It’s hard. Everyone who writes has been told this more times than the word count of The Lord of the Rings.

Spiegel im Spiegel BY PETRA HILGERS If you’ve ever read H C Anderson’s fairytale Die Schneekönigin – which I played endlessly on our record player

BY KRISTIN HOYT My numb, icy fingers grasp the frozen metal handle. Whoosh! A burst of warmth wraps around me like a familiar hug as

BY AMELIA RAY Don’t ask me where but once I read that Keith Richards reportedly has a unique songwriting approach. Supposedly, he writes down every

By Taryn Hochstrasser During my last year of high school, I wrote an essay based on one of the given topics. I don’t remember it

By Helen Aitchison Our lives are riddled with self-doubt. Some more than others. We worry, analyse and focus on the negative. ‘I can’t do it!’

By Chase D. Cartwright That’s it. That’s the best advice I can give. Don’t write it; be it. Don’t live your life to become a

By Baks Wa Muthamia English is neither my first nor my second nor my third language. It comes in at a distant fourth! But I loved

By Laura Borjas There is a challenge every writer goes through – one might call it a ‘rite of passage’ – where you smear your

By Sujana Vangala For years, I lived in a space of hesitancy, in Plan B’s and safety nets. In the same way, my writing survived

By Dorotea Saputo The best writing advice I’ve ever received came from my grandfather who bragged about never having read a book in his life.

By Triyasha De ‘The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.’       

By Sufia Aleia For a story to exist, it must have characters. For characters to exist, they must be given life. After all, lifeless, inanimate

By Tarumbidzwa Chirume I was 15 when my English teacher, Mrs Williams, told me to commit murder.  It was Speech Day, and we all had

‘What’s Your Favourite Popsicle?’ By Archanaa I stared at the red circle on my calendar. I had three weeks to submit my short story. The

by Luciana Patri ‘Wanna be successful? Don’t value your time.’ – read the daring title of a video by Teal Swan, one of my favourite

By Kathleen Marple Kalb Rejection is bad, but the fear of it is worse. Too many good writers are afraid to put their work out

When I was a child, I understood grief because I’d had an elephant cookie jar on my shelf that was missing a lid. I’d watched

By KIRSTY MAC DOUGALL ‘Trust in the writing process.’ ‘Trust in your innate and untapped writing abilities.’ ‘Trust in yourself.’ Great advice. Tony Robbins would

By DAMON CROCKER He moved the bodies of the fallen soldiers to a central location. No, that’s not right, I thought as I violently hit

By CARTER LAPPIN You’re on a bus, about to head up the side of a winding mountain road. You’re trying to get comfortable in your

By ETHAN ALEXANDER    I was never the popular kid in high school. In fact, I was mostly ignored. I had just transferred to a

By AIMAN SHAHID   Take a wound as a starting point; it doesn’t need to be a dramatic blood-splattered Monty Pythonesque affair. It can even

By NEELESH RATHI You shouldn’t be afraid of writing garbage—or of other people seeing it. But, what if it’s not garbage? What if it’s not

By EWING EUGENE BALDWIN I had ruined my voice touring for three years in a bus and truck company of Jesus Christ Superstar. I had

By JAVI REDDY There is a notion held by non-artistic people that creatives sit around half-nude for most of their days, stewing in their emotions,

By SARAH DITTMORE “It’s a great story,” my teacher acquiesced. I beamed with the smile of an over-achiever receiving the much longed-for validation of a

BEST WRITING ADVICE: GET A HOBBY The lettuce wilted. The basil died as soon as it flourished, and the oregano never sprouted in the first

“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” This piece of wisdom came from an American baseball player long deceased.

  I have always been highly susceptible to anything that promised I could become a writer. I believed in magical notebooks, charmed pens, lucky knickers,