Interesting Websites for Writers

During the course I will give information about writing - some websites with articles that I think readers may find interesting.  There's so much on the Internet - and I know that is not necessarily the best resource - but I will do my best to give readers interesting information.

Writing History is always very challenging.  It really is the popular genre at the moment - and of course, as I have said, is something the piques my interest.  I am currently reading a book that I learned about at the recent Brisbane Writers Festival - when I heard Dr Anita Heiss read some of her book "Who am I The Diary of Mary Talence". I could not find the book and eventually located it in the Brisbane Council Library catalogue, but it took several months to be available.  Perhaps people who attended the Writers Festival queued up to read it.  

Mary Talence, was a 10 year old aboriginal girl, who was given a diary for her tenth birthday, and over a year, wrote everything that happened to this girl who was taken from her aboriginal family, and spent some time in a home before being fostered by a family who wanted her to forget being an aboriginal and live like a white person.

The story is fictional - but based on real facts, and is an enlightening read if one wants to learn about the way these children and their families were treated by the poorly named "Aboriginal Protection Board."  This book is not one of our readings for the course - or at least not for Module One - it may appear later, but I wanted to read it to see how the writer had created the story.  Dr Heiss is aboriginal, and clearly passionate about the  stories of her people, but it is a good read none-the-less. 

One article that I have just read, which is something from the course, is "Writing a Non-Boring Family History, on a website called WritersWrite .  I'm interested to learn that so many people think that family history is boring.  For me the collection of dates on marriage, births, deaths, etc is boring - I am interested in their stories.  I know that when one writes about it, one needs to have a theme for create a non-boring story - something to keep the reader hooked until the end of the book, and sometimes it is hard - which is why some writers fictionalise the material.