Writing a Novel
with Sophie Cunningham
and guests Chris Womersley, Shane Maloney, Carrie Tiffany, Mandy Brett and Jenny Darling
18 April - 26 September 2012
Applications close 28 March 2012
The Wheeler Centre
176 Little Lonsdale Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Course Fee: $5,950 (inc. GST)
Maximum of 15 students
Writing a Novel is a six-month, intensive, practical course for writers ready to make the leap into creating a full length work of fiction. Using a combination of writing exercises, readings and discussions, this course will focus on the joy of novel writing and should lead to the development of a full draft of a novel.
Beginning in April 2012, students will attend weekly evening workshops designed to develop novel writing skills from the first conception of an idea through to getting words on a page, narrative structure and style and re-writing. In addition, there will be six full-day sessions to take place on one Saturday each month.
Most of the classes will be led by Course Director – novelist Sophie Cunningham – but there will also be guest seminars given by well-known writers and publishers.
Apart from the writing classes, students will be expected to devote as much time as possible between sessions to developing their work, with the aim that by the end of the six months they will have created a body of material towards the first draft of a full-length novel.
Towards the end of the course there will be an opportunity to discuss next steps, time management for the writer, and presentation of work for agents, publishers, and so on.
There are fifteen places available on this course. The course will be selective.
About the Course Director
Sophie Cunningham has worked in publishing for twenty-five years, at McPhee Gribble, Penguin, Allen & Unwin, Lonely Planet - and, most recently, as the editor of the literary journal Meanjin. She has also worked as a teacher of writing and editing at RMIT and the University of Melbourne. Her journalism has been published by a range of papers, most recently in Crikey, The Drum and The Age. She is the author of two novels, Geography (2004) and Bird (2008) and her non-fiction book Melbourne is coming out in August of this year. Her third novel (in progress) This Devastating Fever is about Leonard Woolf's years in Sri Lanka. She's also writing a non-fiction book, Warning, on Cyclone Tracy and other extreme weather events.
Praise for Sophie's work
On Geography: 'Geography is a new map of the heart from an author equipped with the latest global positioning system.' - The Australian.
On Bird: 'Cunningham never puts a foot wrong in relating a fabulous story, as unpredictable as it is convincing, as thoughtful as it is absorbing.' Judith Armstrong, The Age.
On Melbourne: 'Cunningham offers an intimate, nuanced perspective of Melbourne past, present and future. This is the Melbourne of Graham Kennedy, Helen Garner and Mick Gatto, but also of generations of artists, cyclists, Collingwood fans and the covert urban explorers known as the Cave Clan. Cunningham also examines pivotal Melbourne institutions and events as diverse as Cole's Book Arcade, the Black Saturday bushfires and the ongoing gang wars. Through her engagement with the city's cultural evolution and its denizens past and present, Melbourne becomes a character in its own right. Cunningham is affectionate but objective towards her home. She does not shy away from the gentrification of the city's recent history, its legacy of parochialism and generational culture wars, nor the sometimes stifling overfamiliarity of the inner suburbs. This book is lively and accessible, with a voice that is informative but not didactic, making it ideal both as an insiders' guide for locals and an introduction for curious outsiders.'
About the guest lecturers
Chris Womersley is a writer of fiction, reviews and essays. His work has appeared in Granta, Best Australian Stories 2006 and 2010, The Griffith Review, The Monthly and The Age. In 2007 one of his short stories won the Josephine Ulrick Prize for Literature. He won the 2008 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction for his novel The Low Road. His second novel Bereft was short-listed for both the Miles Franklin Award and the Australian Society of Literature Gold Medal and won the Indie Award for Best Fiction.
www.chriswomersley.com
Shane Maloney is the creator of the popular Australian crime novel series – the Murray Whelan novels: Stiff, The Brush-Off, Nice Try, The Big Ask, Something Fishy and Sucked In. The Brush-Off won the Ned Kelly Prize for Crime Fiction in 1996. It was shortlisted for the Premiers Literary Award and set as an English text for Victorian secondary students. Nice Try was a nominee for the Age Book of the Year in 2000. In 2009, he was presented with the Crime Writers' Association of Australia Lifetime Achievement Award.
Carrie Tiffany is the author of Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living, which was published in the UK, US, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia. In 2006 it was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, the Orange Prize for Fiction, and the Guardian First Book Award, and was the winner of the Western Australian Premier's Fiction Prize. Her second novel, Mateship with Birds, will be published in February 2012. Carrie has a MA in Creative Writing from RMIT and has taught at the University of Melbourne and RMIT. Her essays and short stories have appeared in The Times, The Age, Australian Book Review, Overland, Penguin Summer Stories, HEAT and The Griffith Review.
Mandy Brett is a senior editor with Text Publishing, working on both fiction and trade non-fiction titles. Previously she was editor and publisher at IAD Books, an Aboriginal publishing house in Alice Springs. Mandy is guest lecturer in fiction editing for the RMIT Grad Dip in Editing & Publishing.
Jenny Darling started her career in publishing working in some of Melbourne's best independent bookshops. In 1990 she was employed as assistant to Caroline Lurie at Australian Literary Management and in 1993 became manager of the Melbourne office of that agency. Jenny has a particular interest in literary fiction. She is a founding member of the Australian Literary Agents' Association. Her clients include Tim Winton, Charlotte Wood, Mem Fox and several tutors from this course.
Please note in the event of unforeseen circumstances, courses - including tutors and venues - may be subject to cancellation or change.
Course Program
The course consists of:
22 x evening sessions |
6.30 - 8.30pm Wednesdays |
6 x full-day sessions |
10am - 4pm Saturdays |
Each student will receive two 30 minute one-on-one sessions with the tutor. Time will be set aside for these at either beginning or end of each session, meaning that occasionally classes will start half an hour later (or end half an hour earlier).
PHASE ONE: Generating
Session 1: Wednesday 18 April
Introductory Session: Course outline/Goals and inspiration
Session 2: Wednesday 25 April
Getting things clear: Learning to articulate your project
Session 4: Saturday 28 April
Project introduction/Finding structure
Session 3: Wednesday 2 May
Memory
Session 5: Wednesday 9 May
Guest lecturer – Carrie Tiffany
Session 6: Wednesday 16 May
The importance of reading to writing
Session 7: Wednesday 23 May
Finding your character
Session 8: Saturday 26 May
Using the self in your work
Session 9: Wednesday 30 May
Place
Session 10: Wednesday 6 June
Research
PHASE TWO: Crafting
Session 11: Wednesday 13 June
Elements of style
Session 12: Wednesday 20 June
Guest lecturer
Session 13: Wednesday 27 June
Relationship between voice and structure
Session 14: Saturday 16 June
Project review
Session 15: Wednesday 4 July
Point of view
Session 16: Wednesday 11 July
Guest lecturer - Chris Womersley
Session 18: Saturday 14 July
Getting dialogue right
Please note course break for 2 weeks
Session 17: Wednesday 1 August
Revisiting structure
Session 19: Wednesday 8 August
Revealing character
Session 20: Wednesday 15 August
Passage of time
Session 21: Wednesday 22 August
Details to come
Session 22: Saturday 25 August
Guest lecturer - Shane Maloney
Turning points and stakes; putting pressure on your characters
Session 23: Wednesday 29 August
How to edit your own work
Session 24: Wednesday 5 September
Guest lecturer – Mandy Brett on working with an editor
PHASE THREE: Completion
Session 25: Wednesday 12 September
Endings and momentum
Session 26: Saturday 15 September
Guest - Literary agent Jenny Darling
How to sell your work/Student pitch
Session 27: Wednesday 19 September
Debrief/What Next?
Session 28: Wednesday 26 September
Concluding Session/Celebration
Course content may vary and will be finalised according to the experience and interests of the group and guest speaker availability.
The detail of the course content is at the discretion of the Course Directors and the Faber Academy.
Course Fee
Successful applicants will be asked to pay a non-refundable first instalment of the course fees of $2,000 by 4 April 2012. The balance of the course fee, a further $3,950, will be payable in four further instalments of $987.50 on 1 June, 1 July, 1 August and 1 September 2012 respectively. No refunds will be given to students who miss sessions or drop out of the course.
How to apply
To apply for a place at Faber Academy at Allen & Unwin's Writing a Novel course, applicants are asked to submit a 1000 word sample of their prose writing, together with the application form and a covering letter stating their writing experience, to faberacademy@allenandunwin.com or by post to:
Edwina Johnson
Manager: Faber Academy at Allen & Unwin
PO Box 8500
St Leonards NSW 1590
For more information please contact Edwina Johnson on (02) 8425 0171 or Isabella Penna on (02) 8425 0100.
Please do not send your only copy of your work, as it will not be returned.
The deadline for applications is Wednesday 28 March 2012. Successful applicants will be notified by the following week.
