General Creative Writing Resources

ACT Writers’ Centre  www.actwriters.org.au

Australian Society of Authors  www.asauthors.org

www.writing-world.com

www.writerswrite.com

www.explorewriting.co.uk

http://research-writing-techniques.suite101.com/

BBC World Service: How to Write http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/howtowrite/index.shtml

Seton Hill University: 10 Tips for Novice Creative Writers http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative/shortstory/index.html

Short Story Writing

www.mahalo.com/how-to-write-a-short-story

BBC: Get Writing: How to Start Writing a Story http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/A2981900

Author Network: How to Write a Short Story http://www.author-network.com/advice1.html

ESL Teacher’s Board: How to Write a Short Story http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/writing/index.pl?noframes;read=37

eHow: How To Write a Short Story  http://www.ehow.com/how_3337_write-short-story.html

Joseph Masucci: The Least You Should Know About Outlining Your Short Story (2000) http://massucci.com/Articles/Outlines/outlines.html

Seventh Sanctum: Online Story Generator http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=storygen

TIME: How to Write a Short Story http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555136,00.html

Wikipedia: Antagonist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonist

wikiHow: How to Write a Short Story http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Short-Story

wikiHow: How to Write a Great Short Story http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Great-Short-Story

Writing101.com: Tips for Writing a Short Story  http://www.write101.com/shortstory.htm

Writing Corner: You Can Write a Short Story http://writingcorner.com/young/shortstory-1.htm

Writing-World.com: Your Story Outline: What’s It All About? http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/outlining.shtml

http://www.explorewriting.co.uk/FictionCategory.html

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/index.shtml

http://www.writerswrite.com/cgi-bin/fictart.pl

Writing for Children

http://writingforyoungchildren.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_write_for_young_children

http://writingforyoungchildren.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_write_for_young_children_the_3rs#ixzz0etfrrtHv

www.write4kids.com

writingforchildren.suite101.com/

www.writingforchildrenandteens.com/

www.explorewriting.co.uk/WritingForChildren.html

www.writing-world.com/children

www.writerswrite.com/childrens/

www.scbwiaustralia.org/

Australian Centre for Youth Literature  www.slv.vic.gov.au/about/centreforyouthliterature/youthlit.html

Family History / Creative Non-fiction

http://resourcesforwriters.suite101.com/article.cfm/writing-creative-nonfiction#ixzz0ewGhaMmS

http://www.ehow.com/how_5590744_write-memoir-easy-way.html

http://www.explorewriting.co.uk/Memoirs.html

http://www.explorewriting.co.uk/FamilyScrapBooks.html

http://www.writing-world.com/creative/index.shtml

http://www.ehow.com/how_2103529_write-family-memoir.html

http://writingmemoirs.suite101.com/article.cfm/digging_for_entertaining_family_history_stories

Editing

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/proofread.html

http://www.copyblogger.com/edit-your-writing-2/

http://home.earthlink.net/~jdc24/selfEdit.htm

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/five-words-you-can-cut/

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/category/misused-words/

Categories: Backyard Project 2010
No Comments »

Hello Majura Womens Groupies

This is your creative writing tutor Melinda here. I thought you might like to know about something happening down south thath might interest those of you keen on family history for your writing project:

It’s on every Saturday from 27 February until 27 March:

“Writing your family history
Tuggeranong Library

Come along to these weekly sessions to learn about writing your family history. No experience necessary – you only need an interest. Participants are asked to please bring along a notebook (e.g. school exercise book), a ruler and a pen. This is a free event. Bookings can be made online www.library.act.gov.au or by phone on 6205 9000.”

Categories: Backyard Project 2010, Events, What's on
No Comments »

Hello all – Melinda Smith, the MWG writing tutor here.

Thanks to everyone who came last week for session 1 of creative writing, it was wonderful to see so many people attending and heaps of new faces among them.  I hope the exercise we did was beneficial for you and got the juices flowing a bit.

I will be posting links on this site to some of the material we cover in class so don’t worry if you miss a session, you’ll be able to access it all online at your own convenience.

This week we will be looking at editing and doing a short exercise practising editing some small sample pieces of work.  After that we will have time for working on our own writing projects.

Looking forward to seeing you there! 

PS Some people last week mentioned wanting to read some of my work. I will bring some of my books along to this week’s session to satisfy your curiosity. In the meantime you can check out my blog at www.melindasmith.wordpress.com

Categories: Backyard Project 2010
No Comments »

Singing can be used to relax, inspire, comfort and show love were the encouraging words in the schedule for this week’s session.

Singing teacher Cecilia led us through a few breathing and relaxation exercises first, some of which were very funny – blowing raspberries in a room full of other adults is more entertaining than you might think!

After that we sang some nursery rhymes, an indigenous ballad, spiritual songs and Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” (you probably know the version recorded by James Taylor). A very enjoyable way to spend the morning.

Categories: Session Reports
No Comments »

Click on the image below to read a review of the exhibition published in The Canberra Times Times2 section on 22 January 2010.

If you missed the show, you can see the works in the virtual exhbition.

Categories: Backyard Project 2009, Events
No Comments »

This article appeared in The Chronicle on 19 January 2009.

Categories: Backyard Project 2009, Events
No Comments »

Our exhibition has now closed, and the project formally concluded, but images of the exhibition and individual artworks are available through our website.

View the virtual exhibition here.

Clicking on the description of an artwork will take you to a separate image of that artwork, and clicking that image will enlarge it. Many thanks to Ann McMahon for the wonderful photographs.

Categories: Backyard Project 2009, Events
No Comments »

It was so exciting to see so many women at todays group, and lots of lovely new babies to cluck over, too! Welcome to all our new members.

After introductions by poet and member Melinda Smith, and a demonstration of the types of books it would be possible to create from book artist Caren Florance, we kicked off with Melinda encouraging us to do a guided writing exercise based on remembering a sensory experience, and then just getting some words onto a page.

After the exercise members shared how useful they found the idea of doing writing rather than sitting down “to write something”.

Melinda outlined that the range of lengths for our individual books will be a minimum of 8 to a maximum of 32 A5 sized (half A4) pages, comprised of text and illustration as decided by each woman. If wanted, we can contribute pages to a group book, and the group is happy to post members work online if they’d like it to be available to a broader audience.

Melinda is very happy to provide guidance about poetry writing, and has resources available for people interested in writing for children, short story writing, and memoir/autobiographical writing. She also has some resources about writing that can be borrowed (thanks, Melinda!)

We’ve all got a couple of weeks before the next BYP session to think about what we might need to say …

Categories: Backyard Project 2010, Session Reports
No Comments »

Following the response to a course run in Term 4 last year, Majura Women’s Group is holding a second Parenting Effectiveness Training (PET) Course with Larissa Dann .

The course is also open to partners of members and in fact parents who aren’t members of MWG- so please mention to interested friends. Contact majurawomensgroup@gmail.com to register your interest.

P.E.T.:

• helps you yell less and be less stressed
• helps you enjoy your relationship with your children.
• helps you to understand your children, and your children to understand you.
• helps you raise confident, considerate children in an atmosphere of mutual respect
• is suitable for parents of children from birth to adulthood
• offers you the “how to” of helping your child become emotionally intelligent.
• offers you an alternative to using rewards and punishment – to help your child develop inner discipline.
• is evidence based and extensively researched

The course consists of three-hour sessions, once per week, for eight weeks. It will run on Wednesday evenings 7pm-10pm, commencing 10 February 2010, at Downer Community Centre (Frencham Plc, Downer).

It may seem like a lot of time, but it’s really worth it. Parents who did the course last term found it very valuable. There were also a lot more laughs than you might expect.

The course will be subsidised by MWG and cost members $135 for 10 sessions (this is half price). A couple of free places are reserved for people whose circumstances mean they can’t pay; please get in touch if you’d like to make an arrangement. Training includes work book and text book.

Categories: Events, What's on
No Comments »

It was great to see lots of new faces, and lots of little babies at today’s first session for 2010. We were fortunate to have a salsa dancing lesson from Sharon of Danzon: Social Dancing Australia.

Along with the more straightforward social and ballroom dancing, Sharon teaches Zumba classes, which are described as a “Latin Dance Fun Workout” – well, it was all of those things and there were a lot more funky moves than you might expect from a room full of Canberra mums!

Come and join us next week for the first session in our 2010 Backyard Project, creative writing with Melinda Smith.

Categories: Session Reports
No Comments »