Louise Allan’s first novel, The Sisters’ Song, is out now from Allen & Unwin. The manuscript was shortlisted for the 2014 City of Fremantle—TAG Hungerford Award and awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship. I absolutely adored The Sisters’ Song. Set in Tasmania, it’s the story of two sisters and how music and motherhood break their hearts but […]
Writing
How I built Maternal Instinct’s fictional world – world building in fiction
This is a post about the making of Maternal Instinct, a dystopian novel published on 7 October 2019. Find out more about Maternal Instinct: A Novel here. I write speculative fiction, which means I build fictional worlds that aren’t quite like the world we live in. Spec fic worlds can be completely different – dragons […]
My manuscript is going to the London Book Fair! – #LBF17
The 46th London Book Fair starts today. 25,000 publishing professionals from 124 countries are meeting in London to talk about books and my manuscript is going to be there. Publishers from dozens of countries (okay, so maybe not all 124 of them) are going to be talking about my novel, Maternal Instinct. I may be just a tiny bit excited. […]
7 things I’ve learned about signing with a literary agent
Two months ago I finished re-drafting Maternal Instinct – the working title of my first novel – and started to research publishers and agents in Australia. Last week I signed an agreement with FinePrint Literary Management – a literary agent in New York – to represent my novel to publishers worldwide. It’s not been a particularly conventional journey. Here’s how […]
Interview with Susan McCreery, author of Loopholes
Susan McCreery is a poet and writer of micro fiction from Thirroul, NSW. Her new book, Loopholes, is like a wonderful degustation menu of fiction. Each snippet only takes a minute to read but leaves you hungry for the next course. I’m thrilled to welcome Susan to the blog today, in conversation with Nicole Schalchlin. Make sure you to […]
Interview with Virginia Franken, author of Life After Coffee
I’m thrilled to have Virginia Franken with me today to answer a few of my burning questions about her hilarious debut novel, Life After Coffee. Life After Coffee follows the parenting fails of Amy O’Hara who has been thrown in the deep end of parenting after she loses her high-powered coffee-buying job. When Amy’s husband (until […]
