Category Archives: Guest Posts

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Guest Post: Shirley Marr, Care Bear Child of the Awesome 80s – Plus win a copy of Preloved!

Thanks for having me on your blog today Megan! I was a teen of the 90s, but the 80s are very special to me because those were the years I spent my childhood. 1988 in particular is significant as it was the year my family emigrated to Perth, Australia. It's also the same year that features in Preloved as a catalyst of a very traumatic chain of events that reverberate right into the present that my MC, Amy, lives in. I think it slipped in there semi-consciously which is interesting, so today I'm going to talk about me, the great brown nation and the late 80s! As my novel is called Preloved, I will wear my heart on my sleeve a little bit today!

Shirley Marr: bubblegum pink rah rah skirtI was born on Christmas ...

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Guest Post: Wrap-Up of the 2012 Walkleys MediaPass Student Industry Day: Melbourne by Lana Wilson

Because I'm an idiot, I didn't register in time for the 2012 Walkleys MediaPass Student Industry Day and thus was put on the waiting list and ultimately missed out. Luckily for me, Lana Wilson, up-and-coming Melbourne journalism student (and one of my sisters' best friends!) agreed to write a guest post summarizing the event for anyone else who missed out like me!

With a stellar line up of young and experienced journalists from a range of mediums, this year’s annual MediaPass Student Industry day proved to be of exceptional insight for those craving a career in the media sphere.

The first, and possibly the best panel of the day consisted of successful freelancers in the industry, including cartoonist and comedian Jason Chatfield, documentary maker John Doggett-Williams, travel journalist Lee Mylne and local blogger Lady Melbourne aka Phoebe Montague.

After explaining their working background ...

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Guest Post: Adam Wallace on Writing What You Love

In what I think is a perfect way to start a new week, here is a little reminder about writing what you love by Adam Wallace:

I don’t like write what you know. I know that a lot of people say it. I know that a lot of “experts” say write what you know is the only way to go.

But there’s so much more to it than that.

Why? Well, for me, a lot of what I know is either boring as all hell or not anything I want to write about. I spent my whole year twelve writing about things I knew, and I hated every minute of it because I had to:

a) write in a style I knew very well but that was not me at all, and
b) I started realising I knew about a lot of boring stuff!

It ...

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Part Two of the Interview with Me!

Part one is here, written by Rani McDonald.

There are a number of perks that come with successful Blogging. Talk us through those.

Yes there are perks but they don’t come for free… well technically they do come for free but it’s a lot of work. I get tonnes of review books, even more emails from people wanting to send me books, which I’ve been forced to decline. So yeah I get a lot of free books, I get a lot of event invites, I guess I’m also privy to a lot of information. I guess another major perk is networking. I mean… I would like to think I’m a pretty good networker!

There are a lot of people out there that are in it just for the perks, how do the publishers distinguish them from the genuine literary lovers?

Totally. Word of mouth. ...

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Me interviewed! (So more of me rambling, essentially :P)

Hey kids! Something a bit different and special today: part one of a two-part interview with me by a lovely girl from uni, Rani McDonald. Read more for insights into blogging, writing, reading, books and everything related! Part two will be up tomorrow.

 

The Girl Most Likely

 In a world where the internet is fast becoming the nerve-centre of society and blogging is the new darling of the media, I sat down to talk with rising star Megan Burke about her blog, the Melbourne literary scene and her new manuscript.

It’s 11:04am on a brisk spring morning in Melbourne and I’m running late. I rummage in my bag as I walk, locate my phone and shoot off a quick text explaining. Before long there is a bleep! bleep! and a reply comes back, ‘That’s ok! ...

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Guest Post: Steven O’Connor on The Writers’ Curse

Invited to write a guest post on the writing, editing or the publication process, I thought I’d talk about that bump in the road all writers know: the rejection.

Like most published books, my one and only (and, sigh, very close to my heart) young adult thriller, EleMental, was rejected quite a number of times before it was finally published last year.

But what writer can boast of actually possessing a favourite rejection? For I do. My favourite, without a doubt, has to be: ‘Your book is satanic’.

This assessment wasn’t directly served to me; a very nice gentleman who runs a local independent publishing house passed it on. Up until then he’d been considering publishing my book but needed financial backing. It was this hoped-for backing that had determined it ‘satanic’.

We’d even had preliminary discussions about the cover artwork (a very exciting ...

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Guest Story: A. S. Patric’s ‘Paradise River’

Hey Lit Life-rs! I have a treat for you today!

To celebrate the launch of the Rattler and other stories, A. S. Patric has very kindly given us one of his stories to read!

So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy...

PARADISE RIVER

Lincoln Wallow didn’t believe in being as busy as a beaver. He was well known to be as lazy as hell, truth be told. That didn’t stop him dreaming of living in the best dam house on the River.

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Guest Post: Patricia L. O’Neill on Discovering Secret Histories (Plus win her trilogy!)

Have you ever discovered a secret about someone that changed the way you felt about them?

Suppose everyone said a person was a major dirt-bag, but you stumbled across some information that proved that the dirt-bag was really a hero. Wouldn’t you want to tweet that to the whole world?

That’s why I wrote The Hatshepsut Trilogy.

Hatshepsut was ancient Egypt’s famous female Pharaoh, and she’s the most misunderstood woman in history, IMHO.

I first heard of her in history class, where they told us that she was a power-hungry usurper who stole the throne from her young nephew. Although she became one of Egypt’s greatest rulers, after she died, her nephew had his revenge. He destroyed all her monuments and tried to erase her from history, which was punishment for her audacity in daring to rule over men. To me, the whole lesson ...

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Guest Review: Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson (reviewed by Clare Griffin)


“Who are you?” I say.
“I’m your husband Ben,” he says. “You had an accident a long time ago. You have trouble remembering things.”
“What things?”
“Everything.”
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll look after you. I’ll always look after you.”

Each night when Christine Lucas goes to sleep her mind erases the day. Each day when she wakes she tries to put the puzzle of her life together. But how can she know who she is if she forgets her past?

How can she love someone she can’t remember? Are these things best forgotten? And why is she so frightened?

The central theme to S.J Watsons debut novel questions, who are we if we don’t have our memories?

It’s a scary notion to think that every morning we could wake up and not know
where we are or who ...

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Guest Post: Sean McMullen on Changing Yesterday



Guest Post: Sean Mcmullen on Changing Yesterday

Sean sold his first stories in the late 1980s and has become one of Australia's top Science Fiction and Fantasy authors. In the late 90s he established himself in the American market, and his work has been translated into Polish, French, Japanese and other languages. The settings for Sean's work range from the Roman Empire, through Medieval Europe, to cities of the distant future. His work is a mixture of romance, invention and adventure, while populated by dynamic, strange and often hilarious characters. Sean's venture into Young Adult science fiction, Before the Storm, won immediate ...