Student Successes: Essential Kids, Sydney Morning Herald and foodie famils.

Our recent rubbish winter weather makes this week’s glow of student successes so much warmer! And where better to start than Hawaii, where Brooke Lumsden managed to fit in a stay with her family and a story for Essential Kids. Nice work Brooke – another example of finding opportunities wherever you are. (In fact a single trip can yield a bunch of different magazine story angles…)

Also making their mark on the Essential Kids website lately have been Alison Bradshaw with a piece on cuddle buddies for kids with autism, Linda Moon with her story about kids and technology, and Julia Cahill‘s examination of when your child says they hate you! Well done everyone!

Meanwhile, Donna Webeck let us know about two stories. Her first, on Kidspot, asked if newborns should be kept at home. And she was really glad she persevered with the Editor at Essential Baby to finally accept her piece on baby meningitis – within the first 24 hours it had been shared on Facebook nearly 850 times!

All of these women are graduates of our Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1 course, and it’s great to see their names popping up regularly online and in print.

Another one who completed that same course last year was Amy McPherson, going on to successfully pitch and submit stories in Travel Talk magazine, MyCareer (Saturday Sydney Morning Herald) and The Big Issue. Yet another reminder if you’re waiting in the shadows just to take the plunge and pitch – you’ll be amazed the momentum you can gain!

Shifting gears, Rachel Freeman has had her piece on women’s rugby published in Pittwater Life magazine – a reminder of the wealth of publications available all around us.

And John Matthew keeps the ledger ticking over for the boys, with an exciting launch of his first book, The 10 Seeds You Must Plant to Grow Your Business – including a Foreword by Justin Langer and testimonial by our very own Valerie Khoo! He self-published with great success, and the book has led to offers of workshops and has raised his profile. John attended our How to Write a Business Book seminar in late 2012. “Valerie’s initial presentation that gave me the confidence to continue what has been a great journey!”

And finally this week, Lilani Goonesena scored herself a sponsored foodie famil gig to Tasmania with Appetite for Excellence recently, visiting farmers and producers across the state. She wrote six stories for them, with the first already up. Food and travel… not a bad life!

We hope these writers inspire you to a) write and b) tell us all about it, so we can share your wins with the world! Simply navigate to our Graduate Success Stories page and follow the easy steps. We’ll do the rest.

Happy writing everyone!