Enviable advice for new writers

Last weekend I had the great honour of being one of the Ambassadors for the Emerging Writers' Festival in Melbourne.
The opening event was a fascinating one. Each of the five Ambassadors presented seven pieces of advice for new writers in a session called Seven Enviable Lines. I will be blogging my own seven tips later, but here are the items that I found most interesting from my fellow presenters:


Melinda Harvey


First up was academic and critic Melinda Harvey, who said:

  • There's no such thing as "made it" - we can never afford to rest on our laurels

  • Go out and ask literary editors for review work - constantly pitch. No-one is about to come knocking on your door.


John Safran


Television personality, radio host and soon-to-be true crime author John Safran said:

  • Keep coming up with new ideas - don't be in love with that one great idea. Always have new projects in the wings.


Performance poet, Okka


Indonesian Performance Poet Okka urged us to:

  • Just keep going, even when you know it's shit

  • Type up the things you scribble down 

  • Go through your archives occasionally





Fiction writer and reviewer Jennifer Mills told us:

  • Always try to get paid - she has a project called Pay the Writers. It is up to us to make sure that creative work is valued in our culture.

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