Sydney Writers' Centre blog

Tim Winton at the Orpheum

What better place for an evening with Tim Winton than the Orpheum Picture Palace in Cremorne.

On Tuesday 12 May Tim Winton will be talking about his latest book, Breath. Presented by Pages & Pages books, this will be his only Sydney appearance on this book tour. The book will be on sale on the night and Tim will be signing copies.

Live on Stage – Tim Winton
Tuesday 12 May, 7.30pm
Cost: $20 (from the Orpheum or Pages & Pages books)
Details: www.orpheum.com.au

Book rant

I’ve made a decision. A weekly book rant is clearly too ambitious for me right now, so I’m going to make it a fortnightly book rant. Not as catchy a name I know, but I’m too easily distracted to finish a book a week.

So, I’ve gone back to non-fiction this week. I’m reading Paul Krugman’s The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 – or, Economics for dummies. This book is actually an updated version of Krugman’s original analysis of the Asian and Latin American crises in the 1990s – crises the author saw as an omen for all of us.

Krugman is generous in his writing in that he avoids writing ‘things that nobody understands’, something he admits he’s quite capable of doing. And I for one am very grateful! While I feel like I have a basic grasp of what has led us to our current state (too much credit, falling house prices, loan defaults), I’m at a loss to understand the more complicated economic factors behind it all. One problem I think is that I simply cannot fathom the amounts of money we’re talking about – it’s impossible to visualise trillions of dollars – and I just find it all too overwhelming.

Which is where I hope Krugman will be able to help. Once I’d read his introduction I felt confident that I’d be able to get through this book and not only understand our own economic crisis better, but also gain a better awareness of how the world’s economy affects us.  I’m about 1/3 of the way through the book and, believe it or not, I’m finding it hard to put down. I’ve no great insights yet on how we came to find ourselves in a recession so suddenly as the book is still focusing on Latin America and Asia in the 1990s, but it’s fascinating anyway.

I’m looking forward to my next dinner party and showing off all my new economic knowledge!

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Writing at work – at some stage we all have to do it, whether it’s emailing clients and colleagues, writing reports, writing tenders or preparing press releases. In my experience, many people don’t have the basic tools for writing well at work. A quick glance at rental listings on Domain or realestate.com brings up some fine examples of not-so-great writing at work! There are often spelling mistakes and poor grammar. I also sense some laziness in the writing – perhaps the writer hasn’t bothered to capitalise the first word of a sentence or start a new sentence where they should have.

So, how do you tackle this? Will learning basic grammar and punctuation automatically improve a person’s writing or do they need to learn the basics of business writing first? Personally, I found my writing improved in leaps and bounds when I took a grammar refresher course. I realised that many of the rules I learnt were ones I knew instinctively, but had never thought about why that rule applied. Once I had a better grasp of ‘why’, I was able to write more clearly.

But then again, a business writing course that focuses on how you should structure your work could be all you need to refine your writing or to learn how to write more succinctly. If you already have an understanding of grammar and punctuation, it may be that you need to understand the structure of business writing to be able to master it.

So which comes first, grammar or structure? Maybe it comes down to personal preference or natural talent. Or maybe you should just do both!

Grammar and Punctuation essentials: what you need to know
Date: Tuesday 5 May, 9am - 5pm
Cost: $395
Click here for details or to enrol online

Professional Business Writing
Date: Thursday 21 May, 9am - 5pm
Cost: $395
Click here for details or to enrol online

Check out Tristan Banks latest project - it's yr life

Live Poets@Don Bank

The Live Poets meet every month at 6 Napier Street, North Sydney. Their next meeting will be held on Wednesday 22 April from 7.30pm. This special birthday issue will feature a GIANT OPEN SECTION for poems from or about childhood. Folk singer Kate MacLurcan will be a special guest and there will also be a session on Poems from Guantanamo: the inmates speak. Entry is only $7 so this is well worth the effort!

Live Poets @ Don Bank
6 Napier Street, North Sydney
Wednesday 22 April, 7.30pm
$7 including supper and drinks
For more information phone 02 9896 6956 or email dannylivepoets@yahoo.com.au

New People's Choice Award announced!

The shortlist for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards was announced back in March. Now in its 30th year, the award covers a broad range of writing and offers generous cash prizes to writers of fiction, non-fiction, plays, kid’s books and academic works.

The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction is possibly the most prestigious award out of all the prizes – the winner receives $40,000 as well as major industry kudos – and this year readers have a chance to have their say in who wins.

I’ll admit to being sometimes mystified by judges’ choices in major literary awards, such as the Nobel and Booker prizes, so I think this is a great initiative. Not only do we finally have a say in who deserves one of the country’s richest awards, we could also win stuff ourselves!

The short list for this year’s Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and the People’s Choice Award is:

The Spare Room by Helen Garner
The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville
Disquiet by Julia Leigh
The Good Parents by Joan London
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
Breath by Tim Winton

To vote in the People’s Choice Awards visit www.pla.nsw.gov.au by Monday 11 May. That gives you just over a month to read all six books!

Winners will be announced on Monday 18 May.

Sydney Writers' Centre Survey

Thanks so much to those of you who have given us your feedback via our recent survey. We’re really pleased with the response we’ve had - we now have a better idea of what you want and have already started planning the rest of the year.

If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to tell us what you want, just visit our survey page and tell us! I promise it will take only a minute. We want to know what courses you want and when you want them. Are you interested in fantasy fiction but can only attend on weekends? Need to do an online marketing course during the week?

We’ll also be donating $1 for every completed survey to Doggie Rescue. These wonderful people take care of the most desperate dogs in the pound. They feed them, walk them, have them checked by the vet and given their shots – everything until they find a home. We’d be so grateful if you could fill out our survey and, by doing so, donate to Doggie Rescue.

Click here to fill out the survey or copy and paste this URL into your browser - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=e3t3xfR_2fwgKJiQwOfRnRqQ_3d_3d.

NT Writers' Centre festival

While those of us in Sydney have been frantically ticking off our must-see events at the upcoming Sydney Writers’ Festival, the Northern Territory Writers' Centre is ready to release the program for their annual festival.

This year’s festival, ‘In the Eye of the Storm’, will feature some of Australia’s best known writers, such as Kate Grenville, Shane Maloney, Linda Jaivin and Nicholas Jose. There will also be a strong focus on local and indigenous writing, so writers and artists such as Richard J. Frankland, Steve Gumerungi Hodder (hip-hop and spoken word artist), Yvonne Holt and Jennifer Mills (author of the recently released The Diamond Anchor) will also feature.

The venues for this event include the spectacular landscape of Central Australia and some of the Alice’s best known restaurants and resorts. There are plenty of free events, such as the Central Australian Aboriginal Wordnsongfest and some literary launches. Some of the more spectacular events are the 1001 nights (food, desert and storytelling) and a sacred sites and cultural tour.

You can pay for events individually or purchase day/festival passes. They’re also calling out for volunteers and, if you’re keen, you’ll receive a free four day pass. (I’m very tempted!)

Click here for more details.

Publishing success

Justin Sheedy attended a seminar at the Writers’ Centre on how to get your book published and has now published his memoir through Sid Harta Publishing. Goodbye, Crackernight is a humorous account of growing up in Australia in the 1970s. To promote the book, Justin has set up a website and blog and included some (very funny) excerpts – so you can read before you buy.

Click here to check it out. And, if you like it, don’t forget to visit the blog and leave a comment.

Weekly book rant

I know – it’s a week late. But Jervis Bay beckoned last Friday and I just couldn’t focus long enough to write a blog.

So, back to Everything is Illuminated. Jonathan Safran Foer’s story of an American Jew’s search for the woman who saved his Grandfather was actually inspired by his own journey to the Ukraine in 1999. On its release, the book won many major awards and was lauded by most critics. I can see why.

My last book rant mentioned just how funny this book is. And it really is. But that clearly isn’t Foer’s main motivation. I read somewhere recently that to write tragedy well, you must include humour, lest the reader become so depressed they put the book down. Perhaps that’s why the tragedy in Foer’s novel is so moving.

As the journey continues, Alex and Jonathan become closer friends and Alex’s relationship with his grandfather becomes warmer. It’s tempting to go on and on here about the story, but my intention with this blog is only to let you know how I felt about a book – not give the story away! All I can say is, you must read this book - I’ll be passing my copy on to anyone I can find who hasn’t already.