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Ep 70 The secret of work/life balance with Dr Hilton Koppe
What happens when your job results in PTSD, forcing you into unexpected retirement? You write a memoir, of course! At least, that’s what Dr Hilton Koppe did when he suddenly had to leave his practice as a rural GP. Hilton Koppe is a writer, workshop facilitator, podcaster and doctor living on Bundjalung land on the…
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Writing advice – Keep going
A lot of emerging writers ask, ‘Can I do this? Should I keep going, or am I wasting my time?‘ I asked it all the time during my many years as an aspiring and emerging writer, and I kept sending my work to people hoping someone could give me a definitive answer. I used to…
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Keen to improve your creative non-fiction skills?
I know I recently came out as a crime writer – and I love crime fiction! One of my absolute favourite authors is John Sandford. That said, I think my first love is creative non-fiction. In fact, I love it – eep! – even more than fiction, because of its basis in real-life events and facts. If…
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On writing and persistence
In 2017, my manuscript was one of five shortlisted for the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award. None of the writers on the list had a book published at the time. Here’s an excerpt from the announcement: I started the creative non-fiction manuscript that became Full of Donkey in 2010. I had my first essay,…
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87 words to cut from your writing
For four of the past six weeks, I’ve been on writing retreat, first as an artist-in-residence at Bundanon in rural NSW, and then as a fellowship recipient at KSP Writers’ Centre in Perth, WA. I love writing retreats because they allow me to focus on my current project to the exclusion of almost everything else,…
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But how does your HUSBAND feel about your memoir?!
When I started writing, one major thing I had absolutely no idea about was narrative structure. I thought I just had to write a good story – and that’s true, but it was only later that I discovered how essential structure is to good stories. It took me an embarrassing number of years to even realise…
Ashley Kalagian Blunt 