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As Fiction Editor of Overland literary magazine for over five years, Claire Corbett has more than 200 short stories waiting for her evaluation at any one time and supervises a reading team of 20-30 readers—most of whom are themselves published writers and editors. What does it take to get your short story over the line? In this in-person workshop, author and fiction editor Claire Corbett takes you through the steps of what makes a short story stand out, and how you can increase your chances of publication.

Is this course right for you? Read our FAQ >

The modern short story is relatively young; it’s dynamic, developing and still one of the most exciting literary forms. Publishing a short story is one of the main avenues to first publication for writers and often provides their first experiences of working with professional editors and publishers. In this workshop, through close reading of selected stories by writers such as George Saunders, we will gain a clearer understanding of how the modern short story works and how it has changed over the last few decades. This process of close reading is the most powerful technique for improving your own writing and story structure.

We then work through the process of submitting a story to a journal and learning how your story will be read, evaluated and either rejected or accepted.

Participants are taken through the editing of a real story from submission to final publication and gain invaluable insight into the production of contemporary Australian fiction.

Expected learning outcomes

In this workshop, participants will:

1. Receive an overview of the modern short story
2. Learn in depth how contemporary short stories work and how to use these insights to strengthen their own writing
3. Learn how to submit their short stories to literary journals and simple things they can do to make it more likely their work will be read and published.

This workshop takes place at Writing NSW in Sydney.

Participant requirements

Pen and paper, or a fully charged device. Participants will need to complete some pre-reading before the course.

Please read our FAQ before enrolling.

If you have questions about this course, please contact us.

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