This could be you

Student Success: A publishing deal with Allen & Unwin and two first-time feature writers

Here’s a snippet of an email we received recently from Robyn Windshuttle of NSW:

“As a previous student at AWC, I thought I’d let you and your team know that my manuscript has been picked up by Allen & Unwin and my book, Dancing with A Cocaine Cowboy…a true story of love and life with a Colombian drug trafficker, is scheduled to be on the shelves in October. I was given a sizeable advance and there is talk of international sales. It's very exciting for me.”

Student Success: Articles in The Sydney Morning Herald, Aljazeera and Outback magazine

It's been another huge week for Australian Writers' Centre graduates. We've heard from quite a few Magazine and Newspaper Writing graduates and we're thrilled to be able to share their success with you here.

First up, Kristyn Maslog-Levis from NSW. She did the online course in Magazine and Newspaper Writing in 2013 as well as the How to Get Your Book Pubished seminar.

Student Success: Published in Crikey, New Daily Website, and New York Times online

Our graduates are kicking so many goals recently we can hardly keep up! We've heard from graduates in Magazine and Newspaper Writing, Writing Books for Children and Young Adults and Blogging for Beginners, who all wanted to share their success stories with us.

Let's start with Richard Curzon from NSW. He's completed a number of courses and seminars with the Australian Writers' Centre – including the online course in Magazine and Newspaper Writing, Travel Memoir and Life Writing, and seminars on From Blog to Book, How to Create and Sell Your Ebook, How to Get Your Book Published.

He's been busy working on his book and an extract from that, Destination Detention (which is almost ready for publication), was published on Crikey on 6 March under the heading “The Indian Solution”.

Chris Muir: Ad man writes action thriller

For author and AWC graduate Chris Muir, writing the fictional adventure thriller A Savage Garden, set in Africa, was a natural progression for the life-long passion he’s had for the country. But when you read this book, you realise that Chris’ experiences in Africa are anything but ordinary. And on more than one occasion, he’s […]

Food adventures in Vietnam

Expect the unexpected on this gastronomic adventure written by Australian Writers' Centre graduate Dianne Bortoletto. You can find her at travelletto.com

Everyone says that the food in Vietnam is “delicious” and “so fresh”. You hear it all the time. My mother never cooked with lemongrass, coriander, or fish sauce and the few Vietnamese restaurants I’d been to in Australia were, well, ordinary at best. It was only when foodie friends returned from Vietnam raving about the county’s cuisine that I realised I was missing something.

A small mention about a food writing tour of Vietnam in a previous issue of Latte jumped out at me. Two things crossed my mind: this was a chance to properly explore what I was missing out on with Vietnamese food, and an opportunity to have a tax-deductible holiday because a learning element was involved. Win-win. Nine days touring Hanoi, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City interviewing chefs, visiting markets, attending cooking classes, eating and learning how to write about it … I felt compelled to go.

AWC graduate Tamsin Janu on writing and publishing her first book

Australian Writers' Centre graduate Tamsin Janu completed the Writing Books for Children and Young Adults course in 2012 and immediately afterwards started work on her book Figgy in the World. That book is now being published by Scholastic Omnibus and will hit bookstores in June 2014.

Despite feeling she was ‘too young' to write for children, Tamsin undertook her Australian Writers' Centre course while also studying law. She had spent some time in Ghana on a volunteer program and it was that experience that inspired her to write for children. She now works in a remote community in the Northern Territory as a youth worker.

Victoria Birch: From corporate world to freelance writer

Victoria Birch always wanted to be a writer. She just didn’t know it was a viable option. Until now. The Sydney-based mother has always been interested in music. While living in the UK, Victoria would write music reviews, develop music websites and immerse herself in this artistic world. This passion ran parallel with her life […]

Sue White: The ultimate success story

Sue White, is now one of Australia's busiest feature and travel writers. She has an enviable portfolio that includes the country’s most respected publications including The Good Weekend, The Sydney Morning Herald, Vogue Australia, Travel + Leisure (Australia), Sun Herald Travel and Women’s Health, to name just a few. Sue had flirted with the idea […]

Aoife McGee: Getting paid to do what she loves

Aoife, 44, is now a freelance writer living in Sydney. She completed the Australian Writers' Centre online course Magazines and Newspaper Writing Stage 1. Aoife has written for Body+Soul (The Sunday Telegraph), Echo Paper and TNT magazine. She is also a regular contributor to Australia and New Zealand Magazine in the United Kingdom. A love for writing […]

Susannah Hardy: Combining acting with freelance writing

Susannah Hardy is an actor who always knew she could write, but wondered how she could improve her skills, and if it was possible to make a living from her writing. She had always had a love for writing, often creating material for her performances. But she admits, “I wrote from instinct, and I realised I needed tuition”.

Unsure of how to get that tuition, she says her mother noticed an ad in the local newspaper in 2006 advertising the Australian Writers’ Centre Newspapers and Magazine Writing Stage 1 course. She decided then and there that the course would be the perfect way to polish her nascent skills, and so she enrolled immediately.