‘We celebrate and commiserate together, attend festivals and each other’s launches, and we have an awesome Christmas dinner at the pub. But most importantly, we are a family.’

This month we interview feature Sheila Ngoc Pham, accomplished creative non-fiction writer and 2015 CAL WestWords Western Sydney Emerging Writers’ Fellow.

‘You are in the business of writing and selling books, and to do that you have to promote and advertise. You have to develop a loyal readership that will come back for more – which is why most successful indies write in series.’

‘Attend as many literary events that focus on your genre as you possibly can. Read, read, read. And if you’re serious, dedicate yourself to your writing like you would to running any other type of business.’

‘The thing is, with writing non-fiction, there’s going to be a lot of research. And if it’s bad research, it’s hard to supplement it with good writing. And readers are going to know.’

‘No man is an island. Most, if not all, writers need to receive regular feedback during a writing project. This may be from a group of other emerging writers or someone with greater experience.’

‘Writing crime fiction is a lot of fun – painting the full picture and then chopping it up and scattering clues throughout the book is a great game.’

‘…write something you would actually like to watch. Create characters and a world you haven’t seen before but want to see on the big screen.’

‘Every character needs to want something out of what is happening. If there are any problems in the prose, it’s often because these objectives aren’t clear enough.’