Michelle Scott Tucker

Shortlisted! Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship

In exciting news, I've been shortlisted for the 2021 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, worth $15,000. The shortlisting is for a project I've been quietly working on for a while - I'm (ghost) writing a memoir for Aaron Fa’Aoso, Torres Strait Islander actor, film and television writer, director and producer. You can read more about my newest project here. And stay tuned, there is even more exciting news to come! The Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship was established by the family and friends of Hazel Rowley, one of the world’s leading biographers, to [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2021-01-14T11:24:19+11:00January 14th, 2021|Aaron Fa'Aoso, Work in Progress, Writing|4 Comments

Talking about crime on the ABC

Had a little chat on ABC radio the other day, about books. No, you didn't hear it because I was on - live to air - from 4:30 to 5:00am. The loveliest people are listening then, and they ring in, to chat. I'd love to get a regular guest gig (even if it IS at 4:30 am!) so feel free to let the ABC know how much you love love love to hear my dulcet tones... oh, and my insightful, bookish commentary. Listen to me rabbiting on here. Tell the [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-12-29T14:31:04+11:00December 29th, 2020|Writing|0 Comments

What I read in 2020 – Part 2: Fiction

The discomforts of 2020 were, for me and my family, relatively minor in the scheme of things. Living in regional Victoria as we do, yes we were partially locked down and working and schooling from home, but apart from that we were safe and well (and employed - no small thing right now). Yet for the most of the year I found it hard to retreat into the solace of fiction. Too many times I picked up a book that I thought I should read - because it was a [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-12-07T17:53:00+11:00December 7th, 2020|Book Review|11 Comments

What I read in 2020 – Part 1, the non-fiction episode

2020 has been, for me, a year of comfort reading. Lots of books were tossed aside by page 6 or 7, if they couldn't hold my interest. And for a while there, during the deepest part of the COVID-19 lockdown, it seemed like very little could hold my interest. Miles Franklin prize-winners: tossed. New York Times best-sellers: tossed. Quirky little books highly recommended by friends: tossed. In the end, it was commercial mass-market fiction that saw me through and I'll share my thoughts about my fiction reads in another post, [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-12-01T14:47:54+11:00December 1st, 2020|Book Review, Writing|17 Comments

Writing Q&A: What were they thinking?

Every now and then, people ask me questions about how to write. I like the questions, but whether my answers are useful or not remains a moot point. Recently, I keep getting asked about thinking. Specifically, how can anyone write about a historic figure's mindset, if there's no primary source material to say what they were feeling or thinking on any given day or hour? How much can a writer of non-fiction inject into the story? In my view, there's a few different ways to tackle the problem. But first [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-06-29T19:43:10+10:00June 29th, 2020|Writing|4 Comments

Brave New (online) World

Hands up if you’re quite the expert at videoconferencing now. Got your lighting all sorted? Your headphone hair? De rigueur Indigenous artwork behind you? With the onset of the COVID-19 shutdowns, the Australian literary community has moved its events online with commendable alacrity. A few organisations, like the Wheeler Centre, were ahead of the curve. They’ve regularly livestreamed some of their events for a while now. But for the rest of us, the haste with which the move to online ‘events’ had to happen resulted in a few bumps along [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-06-23T22:11:35+10:00June 23rd, 2020|Life|2 Comments

Mary Macarthur’s Hunter Valley Home

The home of one of Elizabeth Macarthur's daughters looks set to be relocated - to make way for coal mining. According to this online article, The 1820s Ravensworth Homestead in the Hunter Valley, among the first agricultural properties in the area, is now in the way of a proposed expansion of the Glendell coal mine, which wants to extract an additional 140 million tonnes of coal from the site. As a result, operator mining giant Glencore has offered to pay an estimated $20 million to fund a local plan to [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-05-28T19:01:30+10:00May 28th, 2020|Colonial History, Elizabeth Macarthur, Writing|1 Comment

Come to my seminar!

Sometimes the most compelling non-fiction stories are about other people. Whether you’re writing biography, interested in ghost writing, drawing together your family or local history, or even thinking about feature interviews – if you want to tell someone else’s story then learn how to illuminate your subject with writing that is engaging, ethical and insightful. On Sunday 14 June 2020, I'll be delivering an online workshop for Writers Victoria. We'll talk, we'll laugh and best of all, afterwards I'll provide personal feedback about a short excerpt of your writing. This [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-05-15T15:22:22+10:00May 15th, 2020|Writing|0 Comments

Book Clubs

Book clubs really are the best, aren’t they? People with a common interest—reading—coming together to talk about books, ideas, and issues. Also, possibly to drink some wine, eat some cheese and catch up with some friends. It sounds like heaven to me (I always especially enjoy the cheese part). Earlier this year I boldly started up a new book club, aiming to meet every second month with some friends who live nearby, but we only managed to meet once before the coronavirus shutdown happened. We read The Weekend, by Charlotte [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-04-21T11:53:12+10:00April 21st, 2020|Author Talk|9 Comments

All About Author Talks

I won’t lie – I LOVE doing author talks. Since my book was published in April 2018 I’ve delivered many talks and interviews. Clearly I’m not a proper writer though, because apparently real writers are meant to be all shy and introverted. Sorry, but nope. EM’s story is interesting and important and I’m very happy to tell it over and over again. However. I have been loath to blog about my speaking adventures and I think I know why. Giving an author talk is so much fun that I fear [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2020-02-16T22:29:35+11:00February 16th, 2020|Author Talk, Elizabeth Macarthur|5 Comments

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