Felicity plans a romantic evening of hot chilli con carne with Tyrone only to be ambushed by the Hollywood paparazzi. 

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Everyone fails. No one fails forever. There are many ways to negotiate the gap between, in the arts and in academia. The Word Docs have risen through the ranks themselves, and now devote a large proportion of their life to helping others do the same. As teachers, mentors, positive role models, and occasional drinking buddies, Amy, Alex and Sean are here for you.

Episode 11 - tags

Accidental success

Blackface

Carpe Diem

Commercial flops

Computer crashes

Consultation

Covers

Cruelty to animals

Curses

Drafts

Editors

Fail better

Hindsight

Hubris

Ideal reader

Inertia

Jealousy

KPIs

Laziness

Log lines

Luck

Manuscript assessments

Marketing

Miscasting

Misjudgement

Misrepresentation

Numbers game

One-pagers

Opportunities

Owls

Playing Dice

Preparedness

Process

Public embarrassment

Regret

Sales figures

Self-failure

Selling out

Submissions

Teaching

Timing

Unpublished books

Vicissitudes

Whitewashing

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What’s the secret to getting published? Alex, Amy and Sean tell all, or at least as much as they can in thirty minutes.

Episode 10 - tags

acting

advice

awards

bottom drawer stories

bravery

commandments

community

conferences

contests

creative writing programs

deadlines

fear

feedback

flipside

fonts

footnotes

formatting

genres

heartbreak

industry knowledge

long game

marking

mentors

perfectionism

performance writing

PhD

resilience

rules

serendipity

shyness

soundtracks

study

titles

typos

validation

work

Writers of the Future

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Felicity charms Tyrone on the set of his new movie and invites him back for chilli con carne. Little does she know Aunty Barb is planning the 'girl's night in' from hell.

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Would you rather win all the awards or make all the money? “Both” is a valid answer, but few writers are so lucky. Sometimes peers and publishers will push you one way or another, when really, all you want to do is be yourself. How have the Word Docs managed this? In a lively conversation spanning everything from pop culture to professorships, Amy, Alex and Sean reveal all.

Episode 9 - tags

Academia

Awards

Bias

Classism

Comic-Con

Comics

Community

Competition

Conventions

Cultural capital

Cultural cringe

Defining success

F-bombs

Genre fiction

Inclusivity

Intellectual laziness

Literary fiction

Parental advice

Participatory culture

Polymaths

Pop culture

Popularity

Power relations

Prejudice

Reading habits

Representation

Sexism

Slang

Supanova

Tortured metaphors

Youth

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Felicity arrives in Los Angeles to find her Aunty Barbara has indecent plans for her, Patricia's hairdressing business starts to go down the toilet and Randy tries to set up Tyrone with his R'n'B superstar, ex-girlfriend, Chantelle.

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Alex, Amy and Sean take a closer look (see Episode 6) at two of our favourite character types and explore ways to write thrilling new ones. It’s harder than it seems. Maybe it’s okay for good people to be bad sometimes, but would Darth Vader ever pat a puppy? Answers await in the Cubby House/Lair of the Word Docs.

Episode 8 - tags

Acting

Adaptations

Antiheroes

Boring Good

Drafting

First crushes

Goal/Motivation/Conflict

Horror

Kittens

Ownership

Piping shrike

Plotting vs Pantsing

Puppies

Romance

Secondary Characters

Star Wars

Strengths and Weaknesses

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B-grade comedian Tyrone Jackson dies on stage in Chicago. Meanwhile back in Bordertown, Felicity bids farewell to Benno Flannagan forever.

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Who are Amy, Alex and Sean? What have they written? How do they juggle teaching and writing? Is it even possible to teach people to write? Why does this podcast exist? One of them swears too much, one makes an unconvincing soldier, one wrote epic D&D poetry as a teenager: by the end of this informal Q&A, you will know who, and much more about your Word Docs hosts.

Episode 7 - tags

ABC

Bad Poetry

Bob Roberts

Children's Book Council Award

Chocolate

Collaboration

Confessions

Coronavirus/COVID-19

Creative Writing

Creative Writing PhD

D&D

Drunk writers

Editing

Elbows

Failure

Fears

Flinders University

Genres

Gremlins

Heroes

Horror

The ideal reader

Ideas

Lockdown

Mentors

Networking

Nostradamus

NSW Premier's Literary Awards

Once Upon A Midnight

Playwriting

Power Rangers

Practice Led Research

Publication

Publishing

The Queen

Romance

Routines

Screenwriting

Secrets of writing

Short Stories

Space Opera

Star Wars

Teaching writing

Teletubbies

Tess LeSue

Thrill Me! anthology

Tom Young

Villains

Vulnerability

YA fiction

Interest plus hours

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Episode One: The Silver Bodgie

Discontent with her own waning notoriety after creating Bob Hawke’s hairdo in 1982, local hairdresser Patricia sends her daughter Felicity to Hollywood in search of fame.

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