creative writing at uq

Cecilie Anne Sloane Postgraduate English Creative Writing Research Scholarship

About this scholarship.

Established in 2006 in memory of Cecilie Anne Sloane, a former tutor and lecturer in the Department of English at The University of Queensland, and maintained by the income from a perpetual endowment fund setup by a gift from her brother-in-law, RF (Ron) Diamond, and her sister, HM (Helen) Diamond. The purpose of the scholarship is to enable a Higher Degree by Research candidate to undertake English language creative writing research within The University of Queensland.

Eligibility

You are eligible if you are a PhD candidate researching in the field of creative writing

How to apply

You must submit the following documents to the School of Communication and Arts HLO ( [email protected] )  by 11:59pm Sunday, 15 September 2024.

• a cover letter addressing the selection criteria, noting academic and creative writing achievements, and stating how the $2000 would be used to support their research
• the version of the prospectus as at time of confirmation
• a copy of your Confirmation Milestone report

You must also request a confidential referee report written by your principal advisor, or by your associate advisor if the principal advisor is on the selection committee.  This report is to be submitted by your advisor to the School of Communication and Arts HLO ( [email protected] ) by the application deadline.

Selection criteria

Your application will be ranked on the basis of:

• academic achievement and potential for scholastic success; and
• the quality of the your academic and research work throughout your academic career, including demonstrated aptitude, suitability and potential for original research; and
• your experience and achievement in English language creative writing.
• any other matters the selection committee sees fit.

Selection of a scholar will be made by the Dean of the Graduate School on the advice of a selection committee comprised of:

• Academic staff from the School of Communication and Arts; and
• Non-university experts in the field of English language creative writing, with university academic staff in the majority.

The scholar must, not more than 3 months after the scholarship ends, submit to the selection committee a full and final written report, suitable for circulation within the university, of the progress and outcome of the research undertaken during the tenure of the scholarship.

The scholarships listed on this page are philanthropic HDR travel scholarships which adhere to the terms and conditions outlined in the  Schedule A Postgraduate Research Scholarships .

All philanthropic scholarship recipients must follow the conditions of  UQ research and travel scholarships , including reporting and progress requirements.

Donors may invite the recipient to present on the work conducted as part of the scholarship, in which case they must comply or risk losing the scholarship.

Holders of these philanthropic scholarships must acknowledge them in any paper that is published as a result of the research conducted while the recipient held the scholarship.

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MFA in Creative Writing

December 1 — MFA Round 1 applications due January 15 — MFA Round 2 applications due

The MFA degree in Creative Writing provides a combination studio/academic course of study.

Students receive critical feedback on their poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction in writing workshops, scrutinize aspects of genre in special topics classes and investigate larger theoretical and historical contexts for creative work in literature, rhetoric, writing, and linguistics courses.

They have the opportunity to gain editorial experience by working with  Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts and participate in cultural outreach programs such as The Young Writers’ Institute . 

The MFA program culminates in a creative thesis comprised of a book-length manuscript of original creative work.

Excellent financial support, including generous funds for travel and manuscript submission.  The Graduate Students in English  organization, area study groups, and other activities draw students together as an intellectual and social community with shared passions and aspirations.

How to Apply

Note: The GRE is optional. All applications will receive equal consideration, and applications will not be harmed by not including GRE scores.

For Consideration in Round 1 (no fee)

• creative writing sample of no more than twenty-five pages of fiction or creative nonfiction, or fifteen poems
• a statement of purpose/letter of intent including your name, phone, and email.
• Name the pdf Lastname.firstname.genre (e.g. Morrison.Toni.fiction.pdf).
• Send the PDF to:  [email protected]  by December 1. (Applicants who want to be considered in both genres should send two separate applications).

Notifications for Round 1 will be emailed by January 1. Applicants who are finalists will be invited to submit a full application through the Graduate School, including paying the application fee.

For Consideration in Round 2

A full application (including a $60) is due to the Graduate School by January 15.

This application will also include:

• Online Graduate School Application
• Statement of Purpose
• Transcripts for all colleges and universities previously attended
• Three letters of recommendation
• A critical writing sample of up to twenty pages with works cited
• A creative writing sample of up to twenty-five pages of fiction or creative nonfiction or fifteen poems
• Copies of GRE scores (OPTIONAL)
• NOTE: International students must submit TOEFL scores as required by the Graduate School.

Information

Q: If I want to skip Round 1, or if I missed the deadline, may I still apply for Round 2?

A: Applicants who wish to skip Round 1 may apply directly to Round 2 and pay the $60 application fee.

Q: What is the advantage of applying to Round 1?

A: All applications will receive equal consideration. Submitting an application to Round 1 allows an applicant to learn whether their work would rank among admitted and waitlisted students without the financial outlay and effort of the full application.

Entrance Profile of Candidates

The admissions deadline for the MFA program is January 15. All students admitted to the program begin their work together as a class in the fall.

All MFA students in Creative Writing must complete:

• 12 hours of writing workshops at the 500 or 600 level (some combination of English 580, 581, 582, and 686)
• 9 hours of graduate course in literature, rhetoris, writing, or linguisitics at the 500 or 600 level.
• 3 hours of English 505 (Composition Pedagogy).
• 6 hours of English 555 (Creative Thesis). The thesis will be directed by a professorial member of the Creative Writing faculty and approved by him or her and two other professors from English . The completed thesis will be defended in an oral presentation. The presentation will consist of a public reading from the work followed by a Q and A session in which members of the public (as well as the thesis committee) may take part.
• Completion of a second year of a language at college level with a grade of C or better;
• Completion of French 302 or German 332 at UT with a grade of B or better;
• Passing the doctoral foreign language examination as administered at UT.

All applicants to the MFA program must hold a BA or BFA degree by the time they begin their coursework in the fall. While majors in English or Creative Writing are preferred, we also consider students in related disciplines who have completed at least 18 credit hours in upper-level English courses.

The Graduate School requires a 2.7 GPA average in all previous coursework for admission to all master’s programs, but most of our applicants have a much higher GPA.

We evaluate all of our degree candidates holistically, based on a portfolio of grades, recommendations, GRE scores (with an emphasis on the Verbal score), a statement of goals, and two writing samples (one in creative writing and one in critical writing). We are interested in the overall picture of strengths and interests that these materials provide.

We have no specific cutoff numbers for the GRE scores, though our most competitive candidates have Verbal scores of 160 (600 on the old test) or higher.

For information about how to complete your application, click on Admissions.

Teaching in the MFA Program

We strive continually for teaching excellence in the graduate and the undergraduate classroom. Our professorial faculty and our graduate students share the balance of teaching and research that makes up the academic life. MFA students are introduced to the rewarding work of classroom instruction through our award-winning first-year writing program, which has been nationally recognized for its excellence in teacher training and professional development.

MFA students have the opportunity to teach both First-Year Composition and a course in Creative Writing. First-year MFA students on teaching assistantships apprentice with a master teacher, assist as tutors in the Writing Center, and study the best practices in writing instruction with our rhetoric and composition faculty. The director of First-Year Composition and the director of the Writing Center provide valuable guidance, insight, and support throughout the teaching experience. In their second year, M.F.A. students are appointed as teaching associates and take full responsibility for their own courses. MFA teaching associates can expect to teach two courses per semester, typically three First-Year Composition courses and one course in Creative Writing.

Our graduate student teachers, as well as our professorial faculty, regularly win departmental, college, and university teaching awards for their superb classroom work. Our assistantships and associateships include a tuition waiver and health insurance. Stipend amounts are competitive, rising to $13,511 during the second year. For more information about our teaching assistantships and associateships, see Fellowships and Assistantships.

Requirements for MFA Degree

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Year 4. Creative Writing Pack. The Mysterious Superpowers

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

4 September 2024

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Year 4 Creative Writing Pack.

The pack is revolved around a picture that is used as a writing stimulus.

This pack includes:

• Creative Writing Success Criteria.
• Creative Writing WAGOLL.
• Comprehension Questions.
• ‘Fix the Punctuation’ activity.
• Sentence Challenge.
• Magpie Map.

This resource is perfect for Year 4 writing interventions with either encouraging children to achieve Expected or Greater Depth. This resource would have to be adapted accordingly for Expected as the Success Criteria is for Greater Depth.

This could also be used as part of a writing assessment, or as part of a weeks’ worth of morning activities/meaningful time fillers. It could also be used as a stimulus for writing newspaper reports, letter, setting description etc which could then go towards the pupil’s writing moderation folders.

If you found this resource useful and would like more, please leave a review. All feedback is greatly received. [email protected] All my English resources roughly contain the same format.

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Creative writing books by our students

For a full list of publications from the school of communication and arts, please visit  espace ., the kingdom of the lost – book 4: the velvet city.

Written by: Isobelle Carmody

Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia 

Details: In this last part of their long journey, Bily and Zluty must each travel to the dangerous Velvet City, where they will learn the shocking truth about themselves . . . even as their beloved Monster faces the fate he fled. A thrilling series for younger readers from the award-winning author of Little Fur and The Obernewtyn Chronicles.

Written by: Nick Earls

Details: Alaska, 2018, and Mike is a long way from home, nursing a wrecked knee and an unspoken grief, striking out into real estate and parenting his partner’s son. London, 1978, and Simon is an Australian fish out of water navigating adolescence during the Winter of Discontent, and drawn to an eccentric impresario next door. Washington, DC, 1928, and a retired US senator is interviewed about his time in Russia in 1916, and his mission to save a young heir to an empire. Vienna, 1809, and an Irish teenager on the run from the law takes refuge among composers as Napoleon besieges and shells the city. Hong Kong, 2019, and estranged brothers Mike and Simon reunite in midlife to face the secrets of the past, and reconnect in more ways than one.

Who Gets to Be Smart  

Written by: Bri Lee

Publisher: Allen & Unwin 

Details: In 2018 Bri Lee's brilliant young friend Damian was named a Rhodes Scholar, an apex of academic achievement. When she goes to visit him and takes a tour of Oxford and Rhodes House, she begins questioning her belief in a system she has previously revered, as she learns the truth behind what Virginia Woolf described almost a century earlier as the 'stream of gold and silver' that flows through elite institutions and dictates decisions about who deserves to be educated there. The question that forms in her mind drives the following two years of conversations and investigations: who gets to be smart?

Interrogating the adage, 'knowledge is power', and calling institutional prejudice to account, Bri once again dives into her own privilege and presumptions to bring us the stark and confronting results. The questions Bri asks of politics and society have their answers laid bare in the response to the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, COVID-19, and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.

The Imitator

Written by: Rebecca Starford

Publisher: Allen and Unwin 

Details: Out of place at boarding school, scholarship girl Evelyn Varley realises that the only way for her to fit in is to be like everyone else. She hides her true self and what she really thinks behind the manners and attitudes of those around her. By the time she graduates from Oxford University in 1939, ambitious and brilliant Evelyn has perfected her performance.

War is looming. Evelyn soon finds herself recruited to MI5, and the elite counterintelligence department of Bennett White, the enigmatic spy-runner. Recognising Evelyn's mercurial potential, White schools her in observation and subterfuge and assigns her the dangerous task of infiltrating an underground group of Nazi sympathisers working to form an alliance with Germany. But befriending people to betray them isn't easy, no matter how dark their intent. Evelyn is drawn deeper into a duplicity of her own making, where truth and lies intertwine, and her increasing distrust of everyone, including herself, begins to test her better judgement. 

The Kingdom of the Lost – Book 3: The Ice Maze

Details: Bily and Zluty, the injured Monster and two diggers journey into a land of ice and darkness. Here they find a secret settlement and learn more about the mysterious Makers. But the Monster must make a dreadful choice . . .

Vanishing Falls

Written by: Poppy Gee

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Details: Deep within the lush Tasmanian rainforest is the remote town of Vanishing Falls, a place with a storied past. The town’s showpiece, built in the 1800s, is its Calendar House—  currently occupied by Jack Lily, a prominent art collector and landowner; his wife, Celia; and their four daughters. The elaborate, eccentrically designed mansion houses one masterpiece and 52 rooms— and Celia Lily isn’t in any of them. She has vanished without a trace.…

Just as the water from the falls disappears into the ground, gushing away through subterranean creeks, the secrets in Vanishing Falls are pulsing through the town, about to converge. And when they do, Joelle must summon the courage to reveal what really happened to Celia, even if it means exposing her own past…

Written by: Kathleen Jennings

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Details: In a small Western Queensland town, a reserved young woman receives a note from one of her vanished brothers— a note that makes her question her memories of their disappearance and her father’s departure.

A beguiling story that proves that gothic delights and uncanny family horror can live— and even thrive— under a burning sun, Flyaway introduces readers to Bettina Scott, whose search for the truth throws her into tales of eerie dogs, vanished schools, cursed monsters, and enchanted bottles.

The Republic of Birds

Written by: Jessica Miller

Publisher: Text Publishing Australia 

Details: Olga loves the stories of the old cartographers and pores over their ancient books and maps, trying to unlock their secrets. Sometimes, she can even feel through the maps— almost see into them— as if by magic.

When the bird army kidnaps Olga’s sister, Mira, Olga knows that only she can venture into the Republic of Birds to rescue her. But first, she must unlock her magical ability.

As her journey takes her into the hidden world of the Iagas and the wilds of the Unmappable Blank, Olga discovers the truth about the war with the birds— and learns just how much is at stake in her quest to save her sister.

On a Starlit Ocean

Written by: Charlotte Nash

Publisher: Flying Nun Publications 

Details: Erin Jacobs spent the last four years on racing yachts, working for outrageously wealthy owners in glittering regattas around the world. She hasn't been home in all that time, carrying the unspeakable secret of her father's mysterious disappearance offshore.

But when her sister Skye begs her to return home to Great Haven Island, Erin finds the former holiday paradise has fallen on hard times. To save the village, Erin agrees to work with old flame Tristan Drummond, now a powerful developer who plans to re-open the resort and establish a prestigious regatta.

But big plans never do run smooth. Working with Tristan reveals his desire to rekindle their romance, while Erin falls for new doctor Alex Bell, even as their relationship threatens to uncover the truth of her father's death. With home and future at stake, and Tristan's jealousy taking a dangerous turn, will Erin be able to save everything she loves? Or will her dreams be washed into the Haven sea?

A Guide Through Grief: First Aid for Your Heart and Soul

Written by: Edwina Shaw

Publisher: Red Backed Wren Publishing 

Details: Practical tools, creative activities and yoga exercises to help you cope with loss. Whether you’re grieving the loss of someone you love, or going through a divorce, the loss of a job, or money, or just struggling to find the joy in life, let Edwina take your hand and gently guide you towards healing.

Writing with the wisdom of experience, after losing her father, brother and son, Edwina shares practical advice, gentle yoga techniques, creative activities and even recipes, to help you heal and grow through grief.

The Girl with the Gold Bikini

Written by: Lisa Walker

Publisher: Wakefield Press 

Details: Eighteen-year-old Olivia Grace has deferred her law degree and ducked out of her friends’ gap-year tour of Asia. Instead, she’s fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a private investigator, following in the footsteps of Nancy Drew and Veronica Mars— who taught her everything she knows, including a solid line in quick-quipping repartee, the importance of a handbag full of disguises, and a way of mixing business with inconvenient chemistry.

Playing Watson to the Sherlock of her childhood friend, detective agency owner Rosco (once the Han Solo to her Princess Leia), Olivia pursues a routine cheating husband case from the glitzy Gold Coast to Insta-perfect Byron Bay, where she faces yoga wars, dirty whale activism, and a guru who’s kind of a creep. Olivia Grace is a teenage screwball heroine for the #metoo era, and The Girl with the Gold Bikini is a body-positive detective romp, rich with pop-culture pleasures.

The Dragonfly Sea

Written by: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group 

Details: On the island of Pate, off the coast of Kenya, lives solitary, stubborn Ayaana and her mother, Munira. When a sailor named Muhidin, also an outsider, enters their lives, Ayaana finds something she has never had before: a father. But as Ayaana grows into adulthood, forces of nature and history begin to reshape her life and the island itself— from a taciturn visitor with a murky past to a sanctuary-seeking religious extremist, from dragonflies to a tsunami, from black-clad kidnappers to cultural emissaries from China. Ayaana ends up embarking on a dramatic ship's journey to the Far East, where she will discover friends and enemies; be seduced by the charming but unreliable scion of a powerful Turkish business family; reclaim her devotion to the sea; and come to find her own tenuous place amid a landscape of beauty and violence and surprising joy. Told with a glorious lyricism and an unerring sense of compassion, The Dragonfly Sea is a transcendent story of adventure, fraught choices, and of the inexorable need for shelter in a dangerous world.

The Astrid Notes

Written by: Taryn Bashford

Publisher: Pan Australia 

Details: Astrid Bell. Dutiful daughter. Classical singer. Secret pop songwriter. And suffering from stage fright.

Jacob Skalicky. Trust-fund kid. Indie singer. Immensely gifted performer. And refusing to sing again.

Are they polar opposites? In his grief and fury at the world, Jacob certainly thinks so. But when Jacob loses everything and Astrid uncovers a shocking family secret, they may need each other to make sense of their lives.

Shadows in the Stone: A Book of Transformations

Written by: Jack Dann

Publisher: IFWG Publishing Australia 

Details: The author of The Age #1 bestselling novel The Memory Cathedral returns to Renaissance Italy with a transcendent vision of the ultimate battle between good and evil. In Shadows in the Stone, Jack Dann creates a fully-realized, living, breathing universe, a universe where the Vatican is in Venice, Jehovah is really a lesser god known as the Demiurge, and the magus John Dee’s experiments with angels are true and repeatable. Here you’ll discover a nun who has the expertise and agility of a Ninja warrior, the reincarnated snake goddess known as the Daughter of Light, the famed Florentine magician Pico Della Mirandola, a young magus who is part stone, the Knights Templar of the Crimson Cross, the sapphire tablet: the most secret of the Dead Sea scrolls, and a 15th Century dirigible kept aloft by imprisoned souls. Here you’ll find wild adventure and Machiavellian subtlety, treason and heroism, love and carnality, joy and loss, magic, machines, the cosmic machinations of angels, demons, gods, and half-gods; and the absolutely breathtaking vistas that are their battle grounds.

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Details: In recent decades women have made momentous progress fighting the patriarchy, yet they are held to ever-stricter, more punishing physical standards. Self-worth still plummets and eating disorders are more deadly for how easily they are dismissed.

In Beauty, Bri Lee explores our obsession with thinness and asks how an intrinsically unattainable standard of physical 'perfection' has become so crucial to so many. What happens if you try to reach that impossible goal? Bri did try, and Beauty is what she learned from that battle: a gripping and intelligent rejection of an ideal that diminishes us all.

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Details: In their tiny pale green cottage under the trees, Mallory Cook and her five-year-old son, Harry, are a little family unit who weather the storms of life together. Money is tight after Harry's father, Duncan, abandoned them to expand his business in New York. So when Duncan fails to return Harry after a visit, Mallory boards a plane to bring her son home any way she can.

During the journey, a chance encounter with three retirees on the run from their care home leads Mallory on an unlikely group road trip across the United States. Zadie, Ernie, and Jock each have their own reasons for making the journey and along the way the four of them will learn the lengths they will travel to save each other - and themselves.

Eggshell Skull

Details: This is the story of Bri's journey through the Australian legal system; first as the daughter of a policeman, then as a law student, and finally as a judge's associate in both metropolitan and regional Queensland— where justice can look very different, especially for women. The injustice Bri witnessed, mourned and raged over every day finally forced her to confront her own personal history, one she'd vowed never to tell. And this is how, after years of struggle, she found herself on the other side of the courtroom, telling her story.

Bri Lee has written a fierce and eloquent memoir that addresses both her own reckoning with the past as well as with the stories around her, to speak the truth with wit, empathy and unflinching courage. Eggshell Skull is a haunting appraisal of modern Australia from a new and essential voice.

The Secrets at Ocean’s Edge

Written by: Kali Napier

Details: 1932. Ernie and Lily Hass, and their daughter, Girlie, have lost almost everything in the Depression. Abandoning their failing wheat farm, they make a new start on the west coast of Australia, where they begin to build a summer guesthouse. But forming new alliances isn't easy— and when Lily's shell-shocked brother Tommy wanders into their new life, his presence will raise questions that cut to the heart of who Ernie, Lily and Girlie really are.

Kali Napier breathes a fever-pitch intensity into the story of these emotionally fragile characters as their secrets are revealed with tragic consequences.

The Paris Wedding

Details: Ten years ago, Rachael West chose not to move to Sydney with high-school sweetheart Matthew. Instead she stayed on the family wheat farm, caring for her seriously ill mother and letting go of her dreams. Now, Matthew is marrying someone else. And Rachael is invited to the wedding, a lavish affair in Paris, courtesy of the flamboyant family of Matthew's fiancée— a once-in-a-lifetime celebration at someone else's expense in Europe's most romantic city.

She is utterly unprepared for what the week brings. Friendships will be upended, secrets will be revealed— and on the eve of the wedding, Rachael is faced with an impossible dilemma: should she give up on the promise of love, or destroy another woman's life for a chance at happiness?

Green as the Sky is Blue

Written by: Eben Venter

Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa 

Details: Simon Avend, a South African living in Australia, can be unruly. He often sets out to exotic destinations, indulging his desires in places like Bali, Istanbul, Tokyo, and the Wild Coast. But along the way unsettling memories arise, of people and also places, especially the cattle farm in the Eastern Cape where he grew up. He approaches a therapist to help him make sense of his past, a process that leads them both on a journey of discovery. When circumstances bring Simon back to South Africa, he must confront the beauty and bitterness of his country of birth, and of the people to whom he is bound.

Green as the Sky is Blue  is a bold, unflinching exploration of sexuality, intimacy, and the paradox that lies at the heart of our humanity.

Publisher: Lacuna

Details: Antarctica is getting hotter …

Summer Wright, hippie turned TV production assistant, organises her life down to the minute. And when her project-management-guru boyfriend, Adrian, proposes marriage— right on schedule— she will reach the peak of The Cone of Certainty.

At least, that’s the plan— until adventure-show queen Cougar Gale intervenes. Suddenly Summer is impersonating Cougar in Antarctica: learning glaciology and climate science on the fly, building a secret igloo, improvising scripts based on Dynasty, and above all trying not to be revealed as an impostor.

Paris Syndrome

Publisher: Harper Collins 

Details: Happiness (Happy) Glass has been a loner since moving to Brisbane and yet still dreams about living in Paris with her best friend Rosie after they finish Year Twelve. But Rosie hasn’t been terribly reliable lately.

When Happy wins a French essay competition, her social life starts looking up. She meets the eccentric Professor Tanaka and her girl-gardener Alex who recruit Happy in their fight against Paris Syndrome– an ailment that afflicts some visitors to Paris. Their quest for a cure gives Happy an excellent excuse to pursue a good-looking French tourism intern, also called Alex. To save confusion she names the boy Alex One and the girl Alex Two.

As Happy pursues her love of all things French, Alex Two introduces Happy to her xylophone-playing chickens whose languishing Facebook page Happy sponsors. But then sex messes things up when, confusingly, Happy ends up kissing both of the Alexes. Soon neither of them is speaking to her and she has gone from two Alexes to none.

The Harper Effect

Publisher: Pan Macmillan 

Details: Sixteen-year-old Harper was once a rising star on the tennis court— until her coach dropped her for being "mentally weak." Without tennis, who is she? Her confidence at an all-time low, she secretly turns to her childhood friend, next-door neighbor Jacob— who also happens to be her sister's very recent ex-boyfriend. If her sister finds out, it will mean a family war.

But when Harper is taken on by a new coach who wants her to train with Colt, a cold, defensive, brooding young tennis phenom, she hits the court all the harder, if only to prove Colt wrong. But as the two learn to become a team, Harper gets glimpses of the vulnerable boy beneath the surface, the boy who was deeply scarred by his family's dark and scandalous past. The boy she could easily find herself falling for.

The Kingdom of the Lost – Book 2: The Cloud Road

Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

Details: The second book in the award-winning The Kingdom of the Lost series for younger readers.

Adventure and danger follow Bily, Zluty, Redwing and the Monster as they cross a desert and journey through high stony mountains in search of a new home.

Written by: Marianne de Pierres (as Marianne Delacourt)

Publisher: Deadlines 

Details: Dead bodies, a complicated love life, and a conflict between the local drug cartels, and a favour owed to the local bikies have Tara scrambling to stay ahead of the game. Just another Tuesday for Tara.

Bjelke Blues: Stories of Repression and Resistance in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland 1968-1987

Publisher: AndAlso Books 

Details: Anthology of short stories by various writers, telling some of the serious, silly, and surreal aspects of life in Queensland during the politically turbulent 1960s-80s.

‘Bjelke Blues gives heart and soul to the remembrances of the men and women who were at the end of police batons... at the front line fighting for justice and decency’ – Matthew Condon, journalist and author of Three Crooked Kings, Jacks and Jokers, All Fall Down and The Night Dragon.

Warriors of Love: A New Interpretation and Introduction

Written by: James Cowan

Publisher: S&S Watkins 

Details: In 1244, a man wrapped in a coarse black coat entered Konya and so into the life of Islam’s most celebrated poet and mystic: Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi.

A wanderer and spiritual vagabond, Shams of Tabriz proceeded to wrestle with Rumi’s soul. What he wanted from his protégé was for him to embody a wilder, more robust spirituality that would enable him to embrace life’s rawness more completely than any saint had done in the past.

Dreaming in the Dark

Publisher: PS Publishing 

Details: A celebration of Australia’s current Golden Age of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magical realism. Jack Dann— the multi-award-winning author and co-editor of the classic Dreaming Down-Under, the anthology that “has been credited with putting Australian writing on the international map” and the first Australian book to win a World Fantasy Award— has collected a wonderfully eclectic range of short fiction that showcases what our best fantasists are doing right now at this genre-bending moment in time.

The Birdman’s Wife

Written by: Melissa Ashley

Publisher: Affirm Press 

Details: Inspired by a letter found tucked inside her famous husband’s papers, The Birdman’s Wife imagines the fascinating inner life of Elizabeth Gould, who was so much more than just the woman behind the man. In a society obsessed with natural history and the discovery of new species, the birdman’s wife was at its glittering epicentre. Her artistry breathed life into hundreds of exotic finds, from her husband’s celebrated collections to Charles Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches.

Fired by Darwin’s discoveries, in 1838 Elizabeth defied convention by joining John on a trailblazing expedition to the untamed wilderness of Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife.

Hamlet’s Ghost: Vespasiano Gonzaga and his Ideal City

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 

Details: Occasionally a man emerges from history without us knowing him. Duke Vespasiano Gonzaga (153191) of Sabbioneta escaped the net of sixteenth century Italy, its history of wars and conflicts, to fashion a life that was uniquely different. He set out to change the way urban man lived. Importantly, he was the first man to build a Città ideale. Sabbioneta is the prototype of all planned cities of the modern era. As a confidant of King Philip II of Spain and a traveller, he quickly acquired a cosmopolitan worldview, which led him to become a uomo universale. It was in this capacity that he designed Sabbioneta as a genuine little Athens. His life was fraught with tragedy, however. Not only did he suffer from syphilis, but his personal troubles left him emotionally damaged. The mysterious death of two wives, including the beautiful Diana of Cardona, forced him to find solace in the construction of his ideal city.

Written by: Carmen Leigh Keates

Publisher: Whitmore Press Poetry 

Details: In this much-awaited first collection, Carmen Leigh Keates draws on her experiences of cinema and of travelling to regions in Scandinavia associated with iconic films — among them, Bergman's remote Swedish island of Fårö, and the Estonian capital Tallinn, where Tarkovsky filmed his science fiction masterpiece Stalker. In these poems, geographical, dream and film worlds collide with brilliant results, taking the reader on unexpected and unpredictable voyages. 

Elizabeth and Zenobia

Details:  When Elizabeth and her unusual and fearless friend Zenobia arrive at Witheringe House, peculiar things begin to happen. Especially in the forbidden East Wing. The flowers and vines of the wallpaper sometimes seem to be alive. A mirror has a surface like the water of a pond. And an old book tells a different story after midnight.

Zenobia is thrilled by the strangeness, but Elizabeth is not so bold...

Until she makes a mysterious and terrifying discovery.

Wasted: A Story of Alcohol, Grief and a Death in Brisbane

Written by: Elspeth Muir

Publisher: Text Publishing 

Details: In 2009 Elspeth Muir's youngest brother finished his last university exam and went out with some mates to get drunk. Later that night he wandered to the Story Bridge. He put his phone, wallet, T-shirt and thongs on the walkway, climbed over the railing, and jumped thirty metres into the Brisbane River below. Three days passed before police divers pulled his body out of the water. When Alexander had drowned, his blood-alcohol reading was almost 0.3.

Intimate and beautifully told, Wasted mixes memoir with reportage to illuminate the sorrows, and the joys, of drinking. Muir traces her own history with the bottle. She speaks with the father of a boy who died in a drunken attack, and returns to Schoolies on the Gold Coast. And she tries to make sense of her much-loved brother's death.

The Horseman

Publisher: Hachette Australia 

Details: It's been eleven years since Dr Peta Woodward, born into a horse-breeding dynasty, fled the family stud in the wake of a deadly tragedy that split her family apart. Carrying wounds that have never truly healed, Peta has focused on helping others. But when an injury during a solo trip through the Australian high country leaves her stranded, the man who comes to her rescue is Craig Munroe, a born and bred high-country horseman, and the kind of man legends are written about.

Stuck in the tiny town of Yarraman Falls while she recovers, Peta is surrounded by prying eyes and heartbreaking reminders of all she has lost. But while she resolves to leave as soon as she can, fate has other ideas . . .

The Obernewtyn Chronicles: Books 1 - 6

Publisher: Penguin Random House eBooks 

Details: An eBook containing the first six volumes of award-winning and bestselling author Isobelle Carmody's beloved epic fantasy series, The Obernewtyn Chronicles.

Written by: Marianne de Pierres

Publisher: Watkins 

Details: Virgin’s in a tight spot. A murder rap hangs over her head and isn’t likely to go away unless she agrees to work for an organisation called GJIC (the Global Joint Intelligence Commission). Being blackmailed is one thing, discovering that her mother is both alive and the President of GJIC is quite another. Then there’s the escalation of Mythos sightings and the bounty on her head. Oddly, Hamish is the only one she can rely on. Life is complicated.

Analogue Men

Details: Andrew Van Fleet and Bamberg Davis Kirchner have parted company. Private equity has let him go without a fuss and he’s opting for a job that will let him spend more time at home. But the house is overrun by iPads and teenage hormones and conversations that have moved on without him. Plus his ailing father is now lodged in the granny flat, convalescing from surgery with his scrappy bulldog in tow.

And then there’s Brian Brightman, the expensive fading star at the radio station Andrew’s signed up to manage, still gotcha-calling and dropping single entendres as if it’s the eighties. He too is starting to wonder if the twenty-first century might prove to be his second best. He’s Andrew’s worst nightmare, but they’re thrown together on a road trip to face their shared fear of obsolescence, with hilarious consequences.

Details: Adjusting to a new country and a new school was never going to be easy for Herschelle. The food is strange, it's so different to South Africa and, worst of all, no one understands the Aussie slang he's learnt on the web. But it's the similarities that make things really hard. Herschelle will have to confront racism, bullying and his own past before Australia can feel like home...

Crystal Creek

Details: Medical student Christina Price has worked hard to rise above an upbringing filled with neglect and the assumption that she would never amount to anything. She promised herself she was never going back to Townsville. But when a twist of fate lands her in a Townsville army base clinic, she must confront past hurts if she wants to succeed and, just maybe, find love.

Captain Aiden Bell is used to the hard life of an army officer. But his career has taken an emotional toll that he hasn't dealt with until meeting Christina stirs memories, desire - and hope.

Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School

Details: It was supposed to be a place where teenagers would learn resilience, confidence and independence, where long hikes and runs in the bush would make their bodies strong and foster a connection with the natural world. Living in bare wooden huts, cut off from the outside world, the students would experience a very different kind of schooling, one intended to have a strong influence over the kind of adults they would eventually become.

Fourteen-year-old Rebecca Starford spent a year at this school in the bush. In her boarding house sixteen girls were left largely unsupervised, a combination of the worst behaved students and some of the most socially vulnerable. As everyone tried to fit in and cope with their feelings of isolation and homesickness, Rebecca found herself joining ranks with the powerful girls, becoming both a participant— and later a victim— of various forms of bullying and aggression.

Publisher: Knopf 

Details: Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father brings his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany’s mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas’ house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation.

Written by: Richard Jordan

Publisher: Playlab 

Details: One month ago, David Sergeant made the ultimate commitment to social media, choosing to forever separate mind and body by uploading his consciousness into social networking site Machina. An experimental and irreversible new process known as ‘Going Inside’, the user discards their need for a physical body and attains a kind of digital immortality in the cloud.

Now, as David’s family, friends and ex-lovers struggle to come to terms with his physical absence, questions are being asked about why this promising young man committed the equivalent of social suicide. Did he go willingly? Or was he pushed? David’s mother is determined to find out, even if it means reaching out to her son from the other side …

Over the Water

Written by: William Lane

Publisher: Transit Lounge 

Details: Seduced by the sights, sounds, and magic of Indonesia, Joe finds himself unwittingly drawn into the lives of three women. Firstly, he rents a room in fellow teacher Lisa’s house, and discovers that she has a small harem of Indonesian boys living with her. Then there is Danu, a Javanese beauty, who says she is trying to escape an arranged marriage. Danu and Joe find common ground in seeking aspects of themselves— for Danu this means the West, for Joe it means the East. Joe also feels a connection with Babette, a reclusive English woman who lives in a crumbling Dutch villa. She is an old friend of Joe’s elder brother, Emile, who once lived in Bandung. Her relationship with Emile has long ceased, but Joe makes a remarkable discovery. As Over the Water unfolds, Joe discovers that his identity is not only fragile, it is disturbingly arbitrary.

The Art of Being Deaf: a memoir

Written by: Donna McDonald

Publisher: Gallaudet University Press 

Details: Born in 1950s Australia, McDonald was placed in an oral deaf school when she was five. There, she was trained to communicate only in spoken English. Afterwards, she attended mainstream schools where she excelled with speechreading and hard work. Her determination led to achievements that proved her to be “the deaf girl that had made good.” Yet, despite her constant focus on fitting in the hearing world, McDonald soon realized that she missed her deaf schoolmates and desired to explore her closed-off feelings about being deaf.

When she reconnected with her friends, one urged her to write about her experiences to tell all about “the Forgotten Generation, the orally-raised deaf kids that no one wants to talk about.” In writing her memoir, McDonald did learn to reconcile her deaf-self with her “hearing-deaf” persona, and she realized that the art of being deaf is the art of life, the art of love.

Iron Junction

Details: Desperate to get away from her family's expectations of success in love and in work, Dr Beth Harding leaves Sydney behind and takes a locum job at Iron Junction— a mining town in the distant Pilbara. With the mine growing at a rapid pace, the town full of contractors and tensions running high, Beth is convinced she’s made a huge mistake until she meets Will, a man who shares her dreams and could make the difference between going home and staying on. 

Iron Junction seems like just another gig in the long road that’s taking Will Walker even further from home. But in the lonely fly-in, fly-out life, he never counted on meeting Beth …

But when Beth and Will discover that the choices they make will have far-reaching consequences neither could ever have imagined, they have a decision to make. Will they be brave enough to risk loving each other despite everything that stands in their way?

Written by: Felix Calvino

Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing 

Details: Alfonso is a gentle yet searching exploration of a Spanish migrant's feelings and experiences in the country Australia used to be more than forty years ago. Felix Calvino infuses the stuff of everyday life with tenderness and magic. He recovers a lost time and sensibility. The past shimmers back to life.

Fleeing Herod: A Journey Through Coptic Egypt with the Holy Family

Publisher: Paraclete Press 

Details: When the Holy Family fled to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod Antipas, they journeyed for three years throughout Egypt, mainly along the Nile, to keep Herod’s agents at bay. Using an ancient 4th century text written by Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria as his guide, Cowan takes the reader on a fascinating journey through modern-day Egypt in the footsteps of the Holy Family, about the Delta region and up the Nile to a place called Mount Qussqam, where Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus resided for six months. The itinerary, according to Coptic tradition, was revealed to Theophilus in a dream.

Ghost Wife: A Memoir of Love and Defiance

Written by: Michelle Dicinoski

Publisher: Black Inc 

Details: Michelle Dicinoski has found the love of her life— and now she just wants to get married and live happily ever after. The only problem is, she's in love with an American woman, Heather, and neither Australia nor America recognises same-sex marriage. What to do when pride and prejudice— love and the law— collide? For Michelle, the answer is clear: go to Canada and get hitched there.

This is the deep, funny, heartwarming and brave story of that trip. Along the way, Michelle reflects on why anyone would want to get married anyway, on the power of acceptance, and on the startling ghost stories in her family. She investigates the hidden worlds of people who make lives for themselves outside social norms, sometimes illegally. Michelle doesn't want to disappear, not from her family and not from society. But living in Australia, will she always be a ghost wife?

Bay of Fires

Publisher: Hatchette Livre 

Details: Sarah Avery's reckless behavior has cost her a job, her boyfriend, and the independence she desperately craves. Reluctantly home for the holidays in the tiny seaside town where her parents live, her hopes for calm are shattered when she finds the body of a young female backpacker, washed up on the shore. A year earlier, another woman went missing and hasn't been seen since: is there a killer in this benign harbor?

Journalist Hall Flynn arrives to investigate the murder, which has set the locals reeling. Haunted by demons of his own and yearning for a fresh start, Hall will do whatever it takes to break the story— and Sarah will do whatever it takes to keep her own secrets safe.

Motherland 

Written by: Katherine Lyall-Watson

Publisher: PlayLab 

Details: Based in fact, the epic and intimate Motherland intertwines the sweeping stories of three very different women from different times, united in the heartach of exile from their homelands.

From the chaos of a Russian military coup, through the hell of Nazi-occupied France to a turbulent Brisbane in the throes of the Fitzgerald Inquiry, Brisbane playwright Katherine Lyall-Watson has penned a painstakingly researched historical drama about how world-changing events can ripple out and take a terrible toll on everyday lives.

Ryder’s Ridge

Details: Shaken after a tragic incident in the city hospital where she worked, Daniella figures that the small north-west Queensland cattle town of Ryders Ridge is just the place to hide. Caring and dedicated, she quickly wins the trust of her patients, and the attention of handsome station heir, Mark Walker. As their relationship grows, Daniella begins to think she could make a new life for herself in Ryders. But country towns have their own problems.

Under the big outback sky, Daniella discovers that the local rumour mill can threaten both friendships and careers, and that like the city, Ryders Ridge also has secrets. Mark, too, is a complication— as good as they are together, how can a doctor maintain a practice and live on a cattle station? Just as Daniella considers running away for a second time, a terrible accident forces her to face the secret she left behind in Brisbane, and risk losing Mark forever.

Merlo Girls

Details: A fascinating short story from celebrated Australian author Nick Earls, plus a sample of Nick’s edgy detective novel, The Fix!

He is leading another life, or toying with the idea of it, practising it, here at Merlo.

Two men, no longer youthful, through conversations about coffee, communism, cricket and the narrowing of possibilities explore the architecture of their friendship.

Details: In need of some quick cash when he returns to Brisbane after years in London, Josh whores himself to his brother's PR firm and inadvertently becomes part of ‘the fix’. Josh went to London with investigative journalism on his mind, but he carved out a reputation as a fixer instead and mastered the art of spinning any client out of a crisis. Now he's home in Brisbane, and this time the job is supposed to be good news. The client is a law firm, the talent is Ben Harkin, and the story is the Star of Courage Ben is about to be awarded for his bravery in a siege.

But it was Josh's messy past with Ben that was a big part of his move to London in the first place, and the closer he gets to Ben's story the more the cracks start to show. Throw in a law student who's an exotic dancer by night, and a mini-golf tour of the Gold Coast, and Josh's pursuit of the truth becomes way more complicated than he'd ever expected.

Welcome to Normal

Details: This collection of stories showcase the calibre and versatility of Nick Earls at his perceptive best.

An Australian wine-maker tries to crack the Taiwanese market. Two holiday-makers in Spain decide to tell a lie about each other every meal. A man drives home from work trying not to dwell on what he has just done.

From Arizona to Taipei to suburban Brisbane, Nick Earls's characters lead ordinary lives that, in these stories, become far from ordinary. Ranging widely in style, setting and narrator, Welcome to Normal vividly captures the uniqueness of the everyday through its author's eye for detail and his unfailing aim at the human heart.

Flame in the Fire

Written by: Susie Utting

Publisher: Ginninderra Press 

Details: Flame in the Fire poetically explores issues of an intense and unsettling nature. In this debut collection, Susie Utting offers the reader her ‘poetry of witness’ from her time spent as a volunteer in 2006 at an orphanage in Zimbabwe for children affected by HIV/AIDS. Through a series of autobiographical poems, Utting expresses an elegiac observation of social and political injustices, revealing the nuanced ways in which these experiences have altered the perceptions and understandings of her own personal grief. Utting offers this contextual information in the collection’s foreword, providing a frame through which to read the poems.

Thrill Seekers

Publisher: Cutting Edge 

Details: Set in Brisbane, Australia, and told as a series of skilfully linked short first-person narratives, this is an account of the descent into thrills-at-any-cost of the Oxley Creek Boys: from excited young teens on a sinking home-made raft to self-seeking drug-crazed adolescents on an inexorable trail of self-destruction and deep personal loss.

The Kingdom of the Lost – Book 1: The Red Wind

Details: The first book in The Kingdom of the Lost series. When a devastating red wind sweeps across the land, brothers Bily and Zluty are forced to fight for their survival and journey into the perilous unknown. A magical new series for younger readers from the award-winning author of the Little Fur.

Electricity for Beginners

Publisher: Clouds of Magellan 

Details: Poems about falling in and out of love. Poems about houses that shake and flood. Poems about frisbees and families. Michelle Dicinoski's 'Electricity for Beginners' is a lyrical exploration of the sparks and surges familiar to us all. 

'Michelle Dicinoski's poems have that clarity and zest that marks the arrival of a fresh new voice in Australian poetry. She coaxes you into her poems with sweet allure, and keeps you there... This is a book that hums lightly, warmly, and with charmed intimacy' - Judith Beveridge

Mezza Italiana

Written by: Zoe Boccabella

Publisher: ABC Books 

Details:  Growing up in Brisbane in the 1970s and 80s, Zoe Boccabella knew if you wanted to fit in, you did not bottle tomatoes, have plastic on the hallway carpet or a glory box of Italian linens. though she tried to be like 'everyone else', refusing to learn Italian and even dyeing her dark hair blonde, Zoe couldn't shake the unsettling sense of feeling 'half-and-half' - half Australian, mezza italiana— unable to fit fully into either culture, or merge the two. Years later, she travels to her family's ancestral village of Fossa in Abruzzo and discovers a place that is the stuff of fairytales— medieval castles, mystics, dark forests, serpent charmers and witches. As Zoe stays in the house that has belonged to her family for centuries, the village casts its spell. She begins to realise the preciousness of her heritage and the stories, recipes and traditions of her extended Italian family become a treasured part of her life. Then the earthquake hits... 

The True Story of Butterfish

Details: When Annaliese Winter walks down Curtis Holland's front path and into his life, he's ill-prepared for a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who's a confounding and seductive mixture of adult and child. After years travelling the world with his successful band, Butterfish, he's not used to having a neighbour at all, let alone one who appears unimpressed by the slightly chubby ex-rock star next door. So when Curtis receives an invitation to dinner from Annaliese's mother, Kate, no one is more surprised than he is when he not only accepts but finds himself being drawn to this remarkably unremarkable family. Even to Mark, a sebaceous fifteen-year-old at war with his own surging adolescence.

As Curtis gets to know the Winters, he soon realises that with Kate divorced, Annaliese and Mark need a male role model in their lives, but it's hard for him to help when he's just starting to grow up himself and struggling to deal with the death of his father, and harder still when Annaliese begins to show an interest in him that is less than filial.

An Absence of Saints

Written by: Rosanna Licari

Publisher: UQP 

Details: Filled with exquisite lyrical and narrative poems, this thought-provoking collection explores a variety of themes, including the sense of belonging, the human condition, family, being a stranger, love and desire, and beginnings and endings. Divided into three sections delineating the author's preoccupations with her family history in Europe, childhood, and the acquisition and processing of experience, this compilation— inspired by the poet’s mother, Sofia, who is the subject of several works— also offers insight into life after immigration to Australia.

Pygmonia: In Search of the Secret Land of the Pygmies

Written by: Peter McAllister

Details: The result of a chance encounter with an early 20th-century photograph of Pygmy-sized people in Far North Queensland, this book discloses the fascinating truth about Pygmy people, who, contrary to common belief, still live in isolated pockets around the world, from South America to Southeast Asia. As it explores several tribes of Aboriginal pygmies from Australia's rainforest— where many of their descendents still live— this enlightening account lays bare the importance of archaeology in modern Australia.

Bachelor Kisses

Details: Jon, Rick and Jen are in their mid-twenties and share a house in Brisbane. Together they share food rituals, sporadic cocktail nights and the quest for love. Rick seems destined to long, lonely nights beneath his Porky Pig doona. Jen consumes men like chocolate bars. And Jon gets lucky in a way he's never expected— more women than he knows how to handle. A young doctor with grand plans for the hormone of darkness, he finds his life is spiralling way out of control. Bachelor Kisses is the mess Jon Marshall makes of his life when it stops making sense. It's the story of one man's hilarious search for meaning: a chaotic comedy of misjudgements, misinformation and misguided intimacy.

Joel & Cat Set the Story Straight

Written by: Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow

Details: Joel would prefer to get through his final year of high school without Cat Davis or his mother's faux Spanish boyfriend and just hang-out with his best-friend Luke.

Cat Davis has an annoying best-friend, an even more annoying little brother, and a deep abiding hatred of Joel Hedges. Due to an unfortunate incident involving a leaking pen and suspected outbreak of Bird Flu, Joel and Cat are forced to sit next to each other in Extension English.

To make matters worse, and to their mutual horror, they are paired together for a tandem story writing assignment. What ensues reveals a lot about how smug teenage boys are and what teenage girls really think. No, wait – it's about a sane female and an insane male. It's about revenge and mistaken identity.

48 Shades of Brown

Details: A few months ago, Dan had to make a choice. Go to Geneva with his parents for a year, board at school or move into a house with his aunt, Jacq, and her friend, Naomi. He picked Jacq's place. Now he's doing his last year at school and trying not to spin out. Trying to be cool. Trying to pick up a few skills for surviving in the adult world. Problem is, he falls for Naomi, and things become much, much more confusing.

Kids’ Night In: A Midnight Feast

Details: Bedtime stories, rainy-day jokes, holiday reads, funny cartoons, cool art, recipes, and tips from celebrities and sport stars . . . Join your favourite writers, illustrators and celebrities and be the first to check out these never-before-seen stories and illustrations, and much, much more. There's something for everyone. There's no collection like it. It's a great kids' night in!

Zigzag Street

Details: Here I am, on a work day of some importance, riding out of town in a cab with a babe I've just concussed with footwear.

Richard Derrington is twenty-eight and single. More single than he'd like to be. More single than he'd expected to be, and not coping well. Since Anna trashed him six months ago he's been trying to find his way again.

He's doing his job badly, he's playing tennis badly, his renovating attempts haven't got past the verandah, and he's wondering when things are going to change. Zigzag Street covers six weeks of Richard's life in Brisbane's Red Hill. Six weeks of rumination, chaos, poor judgement, interpersonal clumsiness...and, eventually, hope.

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Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing

Gain the writing, editing, publishing, design and research skills to build a rewarding career in print or online.

In a world of rapid change, there has never been a greater demand for the mastery of the written word. The digitisation of the modern economy has created a raft of new job titles, all of which require expertise in writing and editing – in addition to the jobs that already drive Australia’s dynamic creative industries.

The Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing covers all stages of the writing and publishing process, and the skills needed to meet growing demands. During this program, you'll develop practical knowledge and experience in writing and editing across genres including creative writing, corporate and technical documents, academic research in the creative arts, advertising, marketing and more.

Your lecturers will include award-winning authors and arts industry professionals, as well as an array of guest lecturers with expertise in all aspects of professional writing and publishing. Together, they'll provide you with up-to-date insights and industry knowledge across traditional and new media.

You’ll learn about the continually evolving landscapes of the Australian and international publishing industries, and have the opportunity to intern at arts organisations, such as the highly respected University of Queensland Press, literary journals, educational publishers and trade publishers, including UQ’s own Corella Press , which specialises in rediscovering nineteenth century crime and mystery writers.

Program highlights

• Learn from award-winning authors and arts industry professionals.
• Develop practical knowledge and experience in writing and editing across a range of genres.
• Intern at highly respected journals and publishing houses.
• Become qualified to meet the growing demand for mastery of the written word.

1 in Queensland for arts and humanities

QS World University Rankings 2024

1 in Queensland for business and management studies

How you'll learn

Your learning experiences are designed to best suit the learning outcomes of the courses you choose.

• Work placements
• Research experience

What you'll study

At UQ, degrees are called 'programs' and subjects are called 'courses'. Here's a sample of the courses you could study in this program:

• Publishing and Professional Practice
• Fundamentals of Advertising
• Special Research Topic in Writing, Editing & Publishing
• Writing Creative Non-Fiction and Memoir

See courses and program structure

Career possibilities

Postgraduate study can take you anywhere. Here are some of the careers you could be on your way to:

• Editorial writer
• Content writer
• Book editor
• Digital editor
• Digital content writer
• Publishing executive
• Online publisher

Next steps after graduation

Our graduates have built rewarding careers in publishing, editing, and professional writing, with some going on to become best-selling authors and creatives.

This program offers graduates a wide range of opportunities to pursue freelance or fulltime careers in writing, editing and publishing. I learned so much during my Masters, both from the lecturers and industry experts, but also from the amazing students I got to meet.

The wide-reaching scope of the courses means I've been able to work not only in the arts, but in the corporate world globally.

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Everything you need to know about the UQ MBA degree

Entry requirements.

It's possible to complete this degree in 1.5 years or 1 year depending on your qualifications and experience.

You can apply for any duration as long as you meet the entry requirements. You may also be eligible to apply for credit or exemptions to shorten your degree further. You'll graduate with the same qualification no matter how long you take to complete the degree.

1.5-year degree (24 units of study)

To be eligible to complete the degree in 1.5 years full-time (or part-time equivalent) full-time (only available as full-time study) , you'll need:

• a bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline (see below), or
• a graduate certificate* in writing, editing and publishing, or
• a bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in any discipline plus 2 years full-time equivalent relevant work experience (see below).

You must have a grade point average (GPA) of 4.5 on a 7-point scale in your previous qualification.

Applicants are required to submit a 10 page portfolio with their application (see below).

*Please note if a graduate certificate is used as the basis of entry into the program and you do not have a degree in the relevant discipline, you will not be eligible for credit towards the Masters program.

1-year degree (16 units of study)

If you have relevant prior learning or experience, you can reduce the number of courses you need to complete and graduate in less time.

To be eligible to complete the degree in 1 year full-time (or part-time equivalent) full-time (only available as full-time study) , you'll need:

• a bachelor honours degree** (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline (see below).

** You must have completed a substantial research project in your Honours degree equivalent to at least one semester of full-time study (or part-time equivalent).

Relevant disciplines for previous qualifications

Relevant disciplines include English, English literature, writing, journalism, communication, art history, history, law as well as other relevant fields from the humanities and social sciences.

You must have completed at least a major, field of study, or approximately 30% of program content in the discipline, including a mix of introductory and advanced courses.

Relevant work experience

Relevant work experience includes work using writing and editing in a professional or volunteer context, which should be supported with evidence (see below).

Evidence of relevant work experience should include a letter from your employer (and/or previous employers) stating the following: 

• that you work (or worked) within the specified organisation 
• the nature of your work, including any relevant duties and responsibilities
• the length that you were there (i.e. 2 years) 
• the level at which you worked (full-time, part-time or casual)

*if part-time or casual, please list the average amount of hours worked per week. 

GPA equivalent

Select where you studied and your qualification to see the GPA equivalent you need to be considered for this program.

Use the GPA equivalent as a guide. When you apply, we’ll calculate your GPA using the UQ grading scale. Any failing grades will be included. Entry requirements are subject to change.

Equivalent subjects

Related programs

Depending on your previous qualifications and current goals, you might want to consider one of these related programs:

• Graduate Certificate in Writing, Editing and Publishing

English language requirements

IELTS overall 7; reading 7; writing 7; speaking 7; listening 7. For other English Language Proficiency Tests and Scores approved for UQ

TOEFL iBT (including Paper Edition) - Overall 100, listening 25, reading 25, writing 27, speaking 24.

PTE Academic - Overall 72, sub bands minimum 73.

CES - Overall 185, All sub bands minimum 186.

BE and OET are not accepted.

There are other ways to meet the English language requirements. For some programs, additional conditions apply.

Learn how to meet the English language requirements

Student visas

International students who are accepted into full-time study in the Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing are eligible to apply for an Australian student visa (subclass 500).

There are a number of requirements you must satisfy before a visa is granted, including the Genuine Student (GS) requirement.

Learn more about student visas

Additional application information

Applicants are required to submit a portfolio with their application for enrolment and demonstrate an appropriate standard to the satisfaction of the program director. The portfolio should include approximately 10 word processed pages of writing (e.g. assignments submitted in previous courses, workplace documents, creative writing manuscripts). Same discipline is defined as a degree in English, English literature, writing, journalism, communication, art history, history, law and other relevant fields from the humanities and social sciences. To satisfy the requirement for "same discipline" a minimum amount of content in that discipline is required - this would be at least a major, field of study, or approximately 30% of program content including a mix of introductory and advanced courses. *Please note if the GCArts or GDipArts or GCWEP is used as the basis of entry into the program as you do not have an existing approved degree in the same discipline, you will not be eligible for credit towards the Masters program.

Applicants are required to submit a portfolio with their application for enrolment and demonstrate an appropriate standard to the satisfaction of the program director. The portfolio should include approximately 10 word processed pages of writing (e.g. assignments submitted in previous courses, workplace documents, creative writing manuscripts). Same discipline is defined as a degree in English, English literature, writing, journalism, communication, art history, history, law and other relevant fields from the humanities and social sciences. To satisfy the requirement for <34>same discipline<34> a minimum amount of content in that discipline is required - this would be at least a major, field of study, or approximately 30% of program content including a mix of introductory and advanced courses. *Please note if the GCArts or GDipArts or GCWEP is used as the basis of entry into the program as you do not have an existing approved degree in the same discipline, you will not be eligible for credit towards the Masters program.

Fees and Scholarships

Indicative annual fee.

Approximate yearly cost of tuition (16 units). Your fees will vary according to your study load. Fees are reviewed each year and may increase.

Fee information for 2025 is not yet available. Fee information displayed is for 2024.

Learn more about postgraduate fees

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The program code for the Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing is  5681 .

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The program code for the Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing is 5681 .

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• To commence study in semester 2 - May 31 of the year of commencement.
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• To commence study in Semester 1 - January 31 of the year of commencement.
• To commence study in Semester 2 - June 30 of the year of commencement.

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Dear Faculty Senate: Our creative writing lecturers deserve better

I remember the first Faculty Senate meeting I attended like it was yesterday. After signing up on the RSVP list, I just showed up there and was finally able to put faces to the people making so many tough decisions on University governance. As the first person in my family to ever attend a school as historic as Stanford, I was overwhelmed by the experience of being in the same room as its top academic leadership. 

I admired them endlessly. And what’s more, I trusted them — naively — to take care to make sure of student and faculty well-being.

My previously unwavering admiration for our Faculty Senate is now being tested due to the recently announced restructuring of the Creative Writing Program that aims to cycle out Jones Lecturers in the next two years. Many lecturers have stood up against this change, which disregards the hard work they have put in to make the Creative Writing Program at Stanford the highly regarded program that it is. And many students are rallying against this change as well. 

What has shocked and disappointed me most is the Faculty Senate’s lack of action in response to this restructuring. As the central body entrusted with protecting faculty interests, I expected far more from them than allowing such a damaging decision to go unchallenged.

To the leaders of the School of Humanities and Sciences on the Faculty Senate — namely, Dean Satz and Associate Dean Safran, who both defended this restructuring — I ask: How could you allow this to happen? How could you justify stripping the Creative Writing Program of the very lecturers who have built its reputation and who continue to shape the student experience?

Stanford boasts a nationally renowned program in creative writing precisely because of the Jones Lecturers. As the instructional heart and soul of the program, they include in their ranks not only highly-acclaimed writers but also those that have taught Stanford students longer than much of the Class of 2027 has even been alive. Jones Lecturer Tom Kealey, who joined the University in 2004, estimated that the lecturers “advise 90% of the students in creative writing and almost 50% in English.” Jones Lecturers bring deep experience and even deeper care to their teaching. Naturally, this has skyrocketed student demand for their classes, which should prompt all professors to treat the Jones Lecturers with the dignity and respect that they deserve. 

The restructuring does not fairly value the work of the Jones Lecturers. In response to the great care that they take to inspire their students — the very work that makes creative writing at Stanford what it is — the Working Group of Creative Writing Academic Council recommended that they all be fired. To add insult to injury, this aforementioned working group is allegedly composed entirely of creative writing faculty members, who are not nearly as involved with creative writing as the Joneses are. This “ peasants and lords ” brand of leadership runs afoul of a key pillar of governance: representing the voices of those most affected.

Not only were the Jones Lecturers denied a vote on their future, but the working group also issued an anonymous , feeble rationale for their dismissal. This refusal to take responsibility only deepens the sense of disdain the professors seem to hold for the Joneses.

In my opinion, the English professors are exhibiting first-degree callousness and condescension when making this decision. These professors are, as phrased by one Jones Lecturer, committing a Red Wedding massacre against the Creative Writing Program. They are to blame for making the English major “less desirable.” It is evident from their remarks that these students would agree that their school’s supposed academic leadership aren’t valuing the work “that really changes people,” not even the very major of President Jonathan Levin during his undergraduate years at Stanford. 

The English professors’ cold-hearted perversion of leadership has presented the Faculty Senate a golden opportunity to ensure that the Joneses and the Creative Writing students see justice. Specifically, Satz and Safran right the wrongs by urging the Faculty Senate to reverse the Joneses’ termination, to give the Joneses the respect they should have always received. 

Stanford should be a place where the winds of freedom blow , and that can only be the case if its professors stop undermining what makes creative writing so special in the first place.

Clarification: This article was updated to reflect that the Working Group of Creative Writing Academic Council was composed of creative writing faculty members.

Sebastian Strawser ‘26 is an Opinions contributor. He also writes for Humor and The Grind. His interests include political philosophy, capybaras and Filipino food. Contact Sebastian at sstrawser 'at' stanforddaily.com.

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Student Write Club

In semester 2 2020, a weekly student write club  will be hosted on-campus in the writers studio with a concurrent online  zoom   for those off-campus..

The Student Write Club is open to all students studying a UQ writing course and is a friendly space to meet with your peers and to improve your craft!

Each meeting will consist of  3 x 20min pomodoro sessions  led by the 2020 writing student representatives and other volunteer writing students. There will be time at the beginning, end, and in between sessions to chat and share ideas!

Date: Mondays, 10 am-12 pm, starting in Week 4

Venue:  The Writing Studio, Level 6,  Michie Building

Due to COVID rules only a max of 20 people are allowed in the room at one time, so register quick! 

There is a hygiene station inside the studio, and social distancing will be enforced. Due to this, we ask that you  bring your own writing materials  with you, whether it be pen and paper or a laptop.

* You do not need to register for the online session. 

For any questions please feel welcome to email one of your student representatives:

Dianne Mai:  [email protected]

Thea Blaskovich: [email protected]