Writers Write: My Favourite Book 3
Richard Harland Today’s Guest Post has Richard Harland reminiscing about his cherished book from childhood. Richard is one of Australia’s most popular YA Fantasy writers. The first books I truly loved when I was old enough to read for myself were two...
Extraordinary People: Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard
One of the best (and most unexpected things) about being a writer in this interconnected world is that I’m in touch with people who are interested in books, reading and writing, and they live all over the place. When it becomes known that I have various research needs, these...
Writers Write: My Favourite Book 2
Sophie Masson This is the second in a series of Guest Posts from some of our finest writers. Today, it’s Sophie Masson. Sophie has had more than 50 novels published in Australia and internationally, mostly for young adults and children, but also for adults, including the internationally-selling ‘Forest of...
Michael Pryor interviews Michael Pryor
Yes, I really do. ...
Writers Write: My Favourite Book 1
Barry Jonsberg This is the first in a series of Guest Posts from some of our finest writers. Today, it’s Barry Jonsberg, the writer of the wonderful ‘The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull’. I first read R.M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island when I was about eight years...
Talbot Mundy – Adventurous Writer of Adventures
Almost forgotten today, Talbot Mundy was one of the great adventure writers of the first half of the twentieth century. It was fellow bibliophile and curiosity seeker Stephen Bresnehan who put me onto Mundy, sending me a copy of ‘King – of the Khyber Rifles’, a thrashingly good tale...
Powerless Heroes
I know this article should really be called ‘Powerless Protagonists’ or ‘Powerless Main Characters’ but I couldn’t resist the nuance of ‘Powerless Heroes’. What I’m talking about is the tendency of many stories to have a main character who is helpless. Put upon. A loser. I was reading a...
Writing and Magic
As a fantasy writer, I spend much of my writing time about magic, how it works and its effects on the people and societies in my stories. In ‘The Laws of Magic’ series, for instance, magic is a codified, rational endeavour which is explored and experimented with in the...