Wordsmith Spotlight: News from the wordsmith beat
21 Jul
- Victoria Mixon dishes the dirt on the six personality types that will succeed as writers. What category do you fall into? I think I am the sensitive, but I am not entirely sure.
- In something that’s a little more fun, journalist Nicole Haddow tweeted who she writes like yesterday, after visiting http://iwl.me/ Despite plugging in blog posts, a few paragraphs from my novel and a few paragraphs from my latest article in Madison magazine, I kept getting the same guy, one Cory Doctorow. Despite the fact that they are all different types of writing! Oh well, at least it was something to play around with.
- Need a writing tutor? Jan at Writer’s Journey supports writers of all contexts and genres through writer’s retreats and workshops that take you ‘back to your creative self’. Sounds like something I need to enrol in, my head’s a little clogged up with all my tasks at the moment.
- But hopefully not for too long, as Melbourne writer and blogger Megan Burke of Literary Life has just offered her services as an intern with moi. Yes, I know we’re separated by a stately border, but if Megan thinks it will work, I ain’t complaining. Megan is going to help me try and stay on top of wordsmith news and worthy interview candidates, so you’ll occasionally find posts that are either written, researched or inspired by her. She’s also going to help with a little bit of mundane research and admin stuff (such is life of an intern), and in exchange, I will mentor her in any way possible about the foray into freelance feature writing. Thanks for volunteering yourself Megan!
- The pretty, smart and wonderful Corrine over at Frock & Roll (love that title!) has written part three of her series “The Blogger’s Guide to Hustling: Networking, Promoting & Getting your blog OUT THERE”. A good read for all you aspiring wordsmiths who have taken my advice (and that of my fellow writers) and got yourself a web-based shop-front aka blog or website. See parts one and two of Corrine’s hustling series here and here.
- The NSW Writer’s Centre is running a fiction writer’s critique group on Saturday afternoons from September, which might be a good avenue for this of you who have started writing and are after some workshopping of your work. Other interesting courses include The Business of Being a Writer, Writing for Children & Young Adults and Writing Creative Non-Fiction (get in quick, this last one starts in ten days).
- Ardent glossy-mag girls would know that there’s been a bit of a shuffle in mag land recently, with Sarah Oakes from CLEO taking up a maternity leave position as Editor of Sunday Life, and Gemma Crisp of the Show Pony (and former Dolly Ed and CLEO Features Ed) taking up a spot in the CLEO Editor’s Chair as her replacement. Amelia Bloomfield from Bride to Be has also left her Editor’s chair as she gears up for a move to Byron Bay, with former CLEO Features Ed, (shortlived) Aussie Glamour Features Director and OK! Special Projects & Lifestlye Director Sarah Gawthorne taking up her position. Cealia Corse has also left her job as Cosmo’s Features Editor to take up a spot as the Beauty Editor on Women’s Health, and replacing her is one Melanie Senior. (Of course, you might have gotten all this at Mumbrella and Girl With a Satchel anyway, but on the off chance you have not, here it is from moi).
- Not that my news compares to all of the above, but I’ll dish it out anyway:
- I’ll be contributing a six-part beauty series to Trespass magazine in the near future, entitled “The Adventures of a Beauty Amatuer”. You might have noticed that I have a few more beauty posts than usual up on wordsmithlane, and that’s because my interest in beauty writing has peaked somewhat in recent weeks. Of course, the likes of these posts will compare not to online beauty portals and magazines like Beauty Haven, Primped and such, but coming from the point of a view of a features writer who has never written style and beauty before in her life, it’s going to be a learning curve as much for you as it is for me. Especially because my interest in beauty writing, or lack thereof, stemmed from my lack of interest in beauty products themselves, which, thanks to my quest to be a beautiful, glowing bride, has also peaked.
- In other Sarah news, American Journo student and Soccer Blogger Alex Veeneman has written about me on his blog, and I have been featured on girly travel website She Goes.
- And in another bit for mother country, Beirut has yet again been named a must-visit destination by Daily Candy (site which I love moreso because of the book of the same name). My cousins have just returned from there begrudginly, all bronze and high on all-night cocktails and partying and Euro-shopping. I am superbly jealous. Tell me how it is possible for a supposed war-torn, supposedly fundamentalist country to have ZARA, MNG, Bershka, TopShop (yes, the British chain) and H&M, while Australia only has one of the above? If I suddenly disappear, it’s because I have a dual reason to go there other than visiting my grandparents!
- Speaking of Lebanon, Miss Lebanon Australia Daniella Rahme, flies out today to compete in the Miss Lebanon Emigrant Pageant in Beirut. The competition is created to name the queen of Lebanese beauty queens who has grown up in another country to migrant parents of Lebanese origin. Good luck Daniella, we hope you do Australia proud!
- Would you like to see some Wordsmithlane Video Blogs? Any other thing you’d like to see up here that I am not already doing (ahem, not that I do much). Might do some beauty vlogs, me thinks…
Goodness me! Thank-you so much for the lovely, LOVELY words (I’m not going to lie; there’s a bit of double-taking and ”what? She’s talking about ME?!” going on here right now!), Sarah, and for linking to my series – I appreciate it enormously, especially coming from such an extremely talented wordsmith as yourself!
Looking forward to reading your contributions for ‘Trespass’!
HOORAH!