Book

If you want to write fiction, whether it be short stories, novels or filmscripts or plays, we recommend you start writing by following these three basic rules from Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Keep your pen moving Capture first thoughts Let yourself write junk These deceptively simple rules are designed to help you access […]

Monica McInerney’s latest and fifth book Family Baggage (Penguin Books) was selected as the Great Read by The Australian Women’s Weekly and was a bestseller. To all aspiring writers, Monica highly recommends Stephen King’s On Writing. Here are Monica’s four top writing tips: 1. Space Set aside a writing area in your house that won’t […]

Exclusive extract from Plan B (Review), written by Emily Barr. It was a terrible day to emigrate. The sun was shining. The sky was a deep spring blue. My breath came in clouds all around me. Clifton Street was beautiful. The tall white houses opposite were bleached by the light. I could smell the sea […]

Exclusive extract from Gone With The Windsors (HarperCollins) by Laurie Graham. Gone With The Windsors is the story of the affair between American widow Wallis Simpson and the Prince of Wales and the crisis that followed when Edward chose love over duty and abducted from the throne. Based loosely on historical fact and set in […]

Exclusive extract from Those Garrison Women by Louise Shaffer, published by Bantam. The newspaper could have been hers. Hank had been toying with the idea of selling it for a couple of years, and Peggy had offered to buy it for her. Peggy Garrison had been her friend, as were the two other members of […]

Exclusive extract from the Great Read in the June issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly: Family Baggage by Monica McInerney, published by Penguin/Viking. It was all coming back to her, Harriet Turner realised. The key to being a successful tour guide was to think of herself as a duck. A mother duck, to be precise. […]

Call Me Elizabeth, Wife, Mother, Escort – A True Story by Dawn Annandale (Time Warner $29.95) When Dawn Annandale’s marriage falls apart she is confronted with a pile of debts and a burning desire for her children to stay at their posh schools. Needing to make a lot of money very quickly, she decides to […]

The Australian Women’s Weekly is delighted to announce that publishing giant, Penguin Australia, have become our partners in what has become one of the biggest and most popular writing contests in Australia. The 2005 short story competition will be launched in August at the Byron Bay Writers Festival by the Editorial Director of The Australian […]

Exclusive Extract from The Italian Romance by Joanne Carroll. One thing I know for sure is that whoever she is, this woman who knows my family, I do not want to meet her in full view of a voracious pack of strangers. I get up. I must have lost my balance, for whatever-his-name-is has grabbed […]

When she turned off the ignition that evening, Barbara Havers remained inside the Mini, once again listening disconsolately to its sputtering engine. She rested her head on the steering wheel. She was knackered. Odd to think that spending hours upon hours on computers and telephones was more exhausting than hoofing round London to track down […]