Luke Ryan is a Melbourne-based writer, comedian and man about town. We spoke with Luke about his comic memoir, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Chemo, and the pathways from pathos to punchline when writing comedy.
Pamela Cook is a city girl with a country lifestyle and too many horses. Her rural fiction novels feature feisty women, tangled family relationships and a healthy dose of romance. She has published four novels and has taught writing workshops around Australia. What role does tension play across your novels? Many people think tension is […]
‘Identifying precisely where less is more is an art that writers – and editors – spend a lifetime refining.’
‘One of my aims with this biography was to present Caroline as not just a figure from a bygone age but as a flesh and blood woman, someone that the reader could identify with and who was still relevant 150 years later.’
‘I tried to become immersed in the popular culture of the time – music, film, celebrities – to tap into what I imagined to be the psyche and to get a sense of ‘texture’ or zeitgeist.’
‘There are three steps for using an author platform – discoverability, which we’ve already nailed (congratulations), engagement and sales.’
‘A compelling podcast needs to be authentic and showcase something people can identify with.’
‘You’re writing about real people, people you know, perhaps your family, your ex-husband, your children. How do you do this? It can be a challenge but we have to rise to it.’
‘The best memoirs are not ‘lessons’, but rather quests.’