I believe our mental instability and persistent dissatisfaction in life can be attributed in part to being writers – the anxiety about a permanence that can never be perfect. We live with our past selves in print— yet we are allowed to grow. At any chance we are given. How do we write a self that will continue to expand and twirl across the eons of our limited time?

The Writing NSW team is heading to Sydney Writers’ Festival! Check out what we’re most excited to see, and give us the strength to not spend every dollar we have on books.

Please note, the Writing NSW office will be closed on Friday 26 May.

‘Research has given me characters and their stories and if the synopsis is the bones of my novel, research helps me put flesh on those bones.’

There are lots of things to do in May with these wonderful writing events. Find a range of events on our calendar this month, including book launches, in-conversations, festivals, and more!

‘I’m a strong believer in the stimulating qualities of limitations: the more constraints you have to work within, the more creative you have to be; the less room you have to overthink, the better.’

There are lots of things to do in April with these wonderful writing events. Find a range of events on our calendar this month, including book launches, in-conversations, festivals, and more!

‘Dirt Town started as a short story. I wrote about a group of small-town kids, describing all the different ways they’d made their way home from school on a Friday afternoon. After I’d written that, it occurred to me that there needed to be a reason for them to be talking about that day, in particular.’

I write nature. Or, more correctly, it writes me. My creativity stems from my connection to landscape and my relationship with the natural world. It is source and subject – who I am, how I write, and how I live my life.

Take a look at what we’ve read in March: funerals, thrillers, Songlines, and the Ming Dynasty. It’s quite a list this month…