Category Archives: Writing

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Emergency Art: 24 Hour Art Residency

GUESS WHAT! My appearances page has been updated with news of my new residency!

Winter in Banyule Festival 2012 (Winter In Banyule program)

Visit the shortest and most intense pop-up residency ever! Four artists sweat paint and words as they attempt to start and finish a complete work of art in only 24 hours. Come by the studio to watch and talk to the artists as they work. Celebrate with them at the finish line!

Friday 17 August – Saturday 18 August, 8am-8pm Banyule Arts Space, 14 Ivanhoe Pde Ivanhoe

‘Finish line’ celebrations, 6pm-8pm Saturday 18 August

If you're in Melbourne, you should come down.

I'll be writing about suitcases and there are three other brilliants artists there as well as me so you can see them too!

And there are closing celebrations on the Saturday too!

Hooray!

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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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Interview with me in Bookseller + Publisher Magazine

I've been sitting on this for a few weeks now and can you imagine how hard it has been to NOT tell you?

Very hard, is the answer!

I am very excited to be able to tell everyone to go check out October's Bookseller + Publisher magazine as there's a feature in there by the lovely Andrew Wrathall interviewed myself and Steph of Read In A Single Sitting as well as a couple of publishers.

It covers blogging as new media and a little of the relationship between publishers and bloggers.

Look! Look! I got the pull quote! HOW VERY EXCITING AND AWESOME!

As a side note, I don't know how many of you noticed but the top bar has been changed from "Ramblings of a Book Nerd" to "Literary Life: Ramblings of a Book Nerd" as it was this article that made me ...

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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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When You Talk To Someone You Haven’t Seen In A Very Long Time

Good evening to you all! What a wet Melbourne evening it is!

Sorry I've been a bit slack on the blog front this week.

Truth is, I've been madly working on the manuscript.

In short: it feels amazing.

In long: I've been ignoring most other things in my life, namely uni homework and sleep.

I had this grand plan to finish this round of edits by Sunday night however when I actually sat down and looked at what I have to do... Well, suffice to say it won't be done.

But it's so much closer than what it was a week ago, and I'm so so happy with the progress.

Did I tell you I have a title?

I HAVE A TITLE!!!

Needless to say, I won't be sharing it presently (:P) but hopefully one day I can let you know!

Also something else big happened this week in relation ...

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To The Beach I Go

Guess where I'm off to tomorrow!

If you guessed the beach, you'd be right :p

Sadly for everyone involved (ie me) the forecast is rain, clouds and not very nice :(

Which totally ruins my plan to sit on the beach and watch the sunrise.

However! All is not lost. I have slightly amended that plan to watch the sunrise from the carpark, sitting in the car :D If I can see through the pouring rain, that is :p

The reason I'm going is to do research for my manuscript! Hazzar!

I'm so excited.

Well, about the research bit.

Because secretly I hate the beach.

Yes, beachies, shush. I know. I know!

But when I started writing it, the beach just came. Granted my characters don't actually spend *that* much time on the beach. But still.

In actual fact, I went to this beach a lot as a kid as my ...

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Melbourne Writers Festival: UNblogger

YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS!

I have very exciting news. GUESS WHAT!!

If your guess was that I'm one of five UNbloggers for the 2011 Melbourne Writers Festival then you'd be right!!!

If your guess wasn't that, well, then you're wrong :P

Let me explain:

I saw an advertisement in the Victorian Writers Centre newsletter:

MWF seeks bloggers

Melbourne Writers Festival is looking for avid bloggers to post on their own blogs about MWF as 'UNbloggers'. Winners will get a festival pass and their writing promoted through the Festival's networks. For more information visit website.
Closing date: 22 July

I, of course, applied straight away. (And by straight away I mean after I drafted and drafted and edited and edited my application!)

You had to write a repsonse to their theme, which is Stories Unbound.

Here is my response: 

Stories Unbound:

Unbound stories are limitless. They are imaginative, inventive, interesting. ...

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On Revising

Tonight I was watching MasterChef, as I often do.

The challenge they had tonight was to:

Make up a recipe Test it out until they perfected it in their kitchen at home (and by home I mean the large house they all share) Write the recipe out Make the dish in the MasterChef kitchen, to be professionally photographed for the recipe card Home cooks then came in and tested the recipes

It occurred to me while watching it the importance of testing things.

Mistakes were evident in the testing phase as wrong measurements were written, wrong times, missing ingredients.

This has been on my mind lately as I was talking with a friend about the revisions I'm doing on my manuscript.

Without my betas (my lovely, lovely, wonderful betas) I wouldn't've picked up half the stuff they did.

Without my betas, I wouldn't know things that I thought worked but don't.

Without ...

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Journal Writing

Today I bought a journal.

It's bright orange cover appealed to me, as well as it's funny (and true) title and description (I especially like the bit about people not indicating when they turn. That's one of my pet hates).

I got it from the NGV giftshop.

I love that place. It's all arty and has the best random things to find. They have kids books and toys and really unique stationary and lots of pretty expensive art books.

My new journal has quotes about how stupid people can be on the left side, and space to write on the right side.