Resources

Recommended Reading and Listening

Date: 9 November 2022
FICTION AND NARRATIVE NON-FICTION

Please note that many of the principles that apply to fiction are equally relevant to narrative non-fiction.

  • Carmel Bird, Dear Writer, McPhee Gribble, 1988
  • Lisa Cron, Story Genius How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel, Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed, 2016
  • Gary Disher, Writing Fiction: an introduction to the craft, Allen & Unwin, 2001
  • Louise Doughty, A Novel in a Year, Simon & Schuster, 2007
  • Sherry Ellis (ed), Now Write! Fiction Writing Exercises from Today’s Best Writers & Teachers, Penguin, 2006
  • Kate Grenville and Sue Woolfe, Making Stories: How Ten Australian Novels were Written, Allen & Unwin, 1993
  • David Jauss, On Writing Fiction: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About the Craft, Writer’s Digest Books, 2011
  • Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000
  • Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anchor Books, 1995
  • Priscilla Long, The Writer’s Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life, Wallingford Press, 2010
  • John Mullan, How Novels Work, Oxford University Press, 2006
  • Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer, HarperCollins, 2006
  • Alexander Steele (ed), Gotham Writers’ Workshop: Writing Fiction: A practical guide from New York’s acclaimed creative writing school, Bloomsbury, 2003

 

SELF-EDITING
  • Susan Bell, The Artful Edit: On the practice of editing yourself, Norton, 2007
  • Helen Corner-Bryant and Kathryn Price, On Editing: How to edit your novel the professional way, John Murray Learning, 2018
  • Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers, Riverhead Books, 2000
  • Alan Watt, The 90-day Rewrite, L.A. Writers’ lab, 2012

 

STORY STRUCTURE
  • Gail Carriger, The Heroine’s Journey: For writers, readers and fans of pop culture, Gail Carriger, 2020
  • Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance and the Principles of Screenwriting, HarperCollins, 1997
  • John Yorke, Into the Woods: How stories work and why we tell them, Penguin, 2013

 

MEMOIR
  • Judith Barrington, Writing the memoir, Allen & Unwin, 1997
  • Vivian Gornick, The Situation and the Story, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001
  • Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir, Harper 2015
  • Patti Miller, Writing Your Life, Allen & Unwin, 2nd ed. 2001
  • Drusilla Modjeska, Timepieces, Picador, 2002

 

CHILDREN’S BOOKS
  • Ann Whitford Paul, Writing Picture Books – A Hands-On Guide from Story Creation to Publication, Writer’s Digest Books, 2009

 

PODCASTS
  • Inside Writing by Gotham Writers Workshop (see also Gotham Writers YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/gothamwriters)
  • The First Time with Katherine Collette and Kate Mildenhall
  • The Shit No One Tells You About Writing with Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra
  • The Writer’s Room with Charlotte Wood
  • The Manuscript Academy #MSWL (Manuscript Wish List)
  • The Secret Life of Writers by Tablo with Jemma Birrell, Tablo Publishing

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