Writing Archives | Page 6 of 12 | Michelle Scott Tucker

Winner 2017 (Australian) National Biography Award

The 2017 winner is Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the birth of a dynasty by Tom D. C. Roberts (UQP).* The annual National Biography Award of $25,000 for a published work of biographical or autobiographical writing aims to promote public interest in these genres. The award is administered and presented by the State Library of NSW on behalf of the award's benefactor Mr Michael Crouch AO. The total prize value is $31,000 – $25,000 for the winner and $1,000 each for shortlisted authors – making it the richest national [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-24T00:52:35+11:00August 21st, 2017|Writing|10 Comments

2016 – the latest Stella Count

Women write about two thirds of all the fiction books published in Australia. Yet books written by men are still more likely to be reviewed in the Australian mainstream media. The situation is changing, but very slowly. The 2016 Stella Count surveys twelve Australian publications – including national, metropolitan and regional newspapers, journals and magazines – in print and online. The Count assesses the extent of gender biases in the field of book reviewing in Australia. In order to do this, it records the authors, book titles and book genres [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-25T00:56:51+11:00August 2nd, 2017|Writing|2 Comments

So now I’m judging a writing competition

With some trepidation, I recently said yes to judging a writing competition. The Grace Marion Wilson Emerging Writers Competition for short stories and creative non-fiction. Sian Prior is judging the non-fiction and Mark Brandi and I are judging the fiction. Yes, there are a lot of entries to read. Yes, the stories vary widely. And of course picking a winner is not an easy task. So what insights can I give you into the judging process? I read each story with care. I can only presume each was crafted with [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-25T12:05:28+11:00July 21st, 2017|Writing|6 Comments

Interview with Bill Wilkie, author of The Daintree Blockade

Last week I reviewed The Daintree Blockade: The Battle for Australia's Tropical Rainforests. This week Bill Wilkie, the author of that excellent book, kindly took the time to answer some questions for me. He's also generously made a special offer to readers of this blog, Adventures in Biography. Details at the bottom of this post... Bill grew up in Brisbane and studied sociology and Australian history at the University of Queensland. He has lived in London, Dublin and Sydney, and travelled throughout Europe, Asia and South America. Bill now lives in [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-25T12:05:51+11:00July 7th, 2017|Author Interviews, Writing|6 Comments

Australian National Biography Award – Shortlist Announced Today

The State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) has announced the shortlist for the $25,000 National Biography Award. The award is administered and presented by the State Library of NSW on behalf of the award's benefactor Mr Michael Crouch AO. The Award was established in 1996 by Dr Geoffrey Cains to encourage the highest standards of writing in the fields of biography and autobiography and to promote public interest in these genres. The total prize value is $31,000 – $25,000 for the winner and $1,000 each for shortlisted authors – [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-25T01:04:02+11:00July 3rd, 2017|Writing|10 Comments

Hilary Mantel talks about history, facts and fictions

Hilary Mantel, a novelist rightly famous for twice winning the Man Booker prize with her historical novels about Thomas Cromwell, yesterday gave the first of her three BBC Reith Lectures. In the first lecture (published here in this weekend's The Guardian), Mantel explores the complicated relationship between history, fact and fiction. You should really go and read the whole thing. Now. But if you still need prompting, try this excerpt... Evidence is always partial. Facts are not truth, though they are part of it – information is not knowledge. And [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-23T01:27:15+11:00June 4th, 2017|Interesting Articles, Writing|11 Comments

My Writing Day

Her name is Winter. She's a Scottish Deerhound. Yes, she's very tall. Saves bending over to give her pats - she's already at just the right height. One day a week. That's all I have for my own writing. And when I say 'day' I don't mean a whole day, I mean a school day, between about 9:30 and 3:00pm. Also minus the school holidays. And minus time spent hanging out the washing, catching up on my day job, making cups of tea and procrastinating by playing Tetris. [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-23T01:36:22+11:00May 26th, 2017|Elizabeth Macarthur, Life, Work in Progress, Writing|16 Comments

Done! For now at least…

With apologies to those who already know, via Facebook and Twitter - I sent the draft manuscript to my editor at Text Publishing late last week. Very happy. Subsequently spent a relaxing weekend in the garden, and celebrating Mother's Day with my gorgeous kids. No deadlines, no pressure - bliss. Next steps? The editor edits the manuscript, sends it back covered in comments and I go back to working on it. And in the meantime I keep following up and trying to source all the images I need. And yes, [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-24T01:15:23+11:00May 15th, 2017|Elizabeth Macarthur, Work in Progress, Writing|12 Comments

How to finish a manuscript

Young Woman Writing a Letter (detail), from a poster for Encre Marquet by Eugene Grasset, 1892. Image courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Well, by not spending time writing blog posts, obviously. The manuscript must go to the publisher (for editing) in about week, so the last little while has been just a teensy bit frantic. I kind of finished working on the text a few weeks ago, and since then I have: drawn up a Macarthur family tree (thank you PowerPoint), included a list of [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-25T01:09:13+11:00May 8th, 2017|Elizabeth Macarthur, Work in Progress, Writing|14 Comments

Helen Garner and me

So I'm reading an article about Helen Garner in the Weekend Oz magazine. It's an excerpt from a new book about her, called A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work by Bernadette Brennan. Then I read this: [After discarding a third draft of the Farquharson book] Garner once again contemplated dropping the whole project but she could not break free. Then, in February 2012, she received a letter from a police officer's wife. In part it read: "The issue of why men kill their children is enormously [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-24T01:29:54+11:00March 26th, 2017|Writing|17 Comments