This month the Writing NSW team has been devouring poetry, fiction and non-fiction, read on for what we’ve been enjoying!

‘The notion that we write simply from our minds is a myth. Our bodies hold our emotions and secrets and tensions and blocks. We need to engage the body, just as much as the mind, if we want to write with authenticity.’

‘I love it when I hear parents read with their kids and read what their kids are reading so they can chat about it. That warms my heart.’

Check out some of the wonderful literary events happening in Sydney and around NSW (and online) this September!

This month, the Writing NSW team has been reading memoir, devouring essays on women’s football in the midst of the Matildas fever, and listening to podcasts that tell stories and discuss writing for video games.

‘What if systems were created to ensure that disabled people were put first, and not last? What kind of world would exist if disability was taken for granted, rather than tacked on? Let’s write some stories to find out.’

‘I have so many lovely moments when readers have recognised themselves in my personal essays and felt like I was writing about their own lives. It is in these moments that I see the true power of memoir; we are writing our own personal truths and yet these are universal truths.’

‘I don’t want to read a romantic comedy where the romance looks like red roses and diamond rings and sounds like an Ed Sheeran ballad … The most romantic moment in Five Bush Weddings centres around a meat pie being dropped on the ground.’

‘There is no rule that says “this is the end of draft 1 and the beginning of draft 2”. Your work can and will progress uniquely to you…You can move on whenever you feel like it. Sometimes a fresh start is exactly what a manuscript needs.’