“Eighteen months ago, if someone had said to me you’re going to be doing freelance writing, I probably would have brushed it off and said ‘no way’…”
And yet today Josefa Pete, busy mum to two boys, proudly calls herself a freelance writer, without a moment’s hesitation. So what changed?
Lindy Alexander was working as a social worker two days a week when she decided to take the course in Magazine and Newspaper Writing at the Australian Writers’ Centre. She says it’s the single most important thing she’s done in her life to turn her dream of becoming a writer into reality.
After becoming a first time mum, Megan Blandford, then 34, surprised herself. She didn’t feel compelled to return to her human resources role in the corporate world.
Her company wanted her to return to work full time. “I remember sitting in front of my computer one day and thinking: ‘what do I do?'” she says. “I always wanted to try writing since I was a little girl and I got caught up in this sort of sensible path of the mainstream thing people do. So I sat there and thought, right it’s now or never.”
Courses taken at AWC:
Creative Writing Stage 1
Freelance Writing Stage 1
Grammar and Punctuation Essentials
History, Mystery and Magic
Susannah Hardy is an actor who always knew she could write, but wondered how she could improve her skills, and if it was possible to make a living from her writing. She had always had a love for writing, often creating material for her performances. But she admits, “I wrote from instinct, and I realised I needed tuition”.
Unsure of how to get that tuition, she says her mother noticed an ad in the local newspaper in 2006 advertising the Australian Writers’ Centre Newspapers and Magazine Writing Stage 1 course. She decided then and there that the course would be the perfect way to polish her nascent skills, and so she enrolled immediately.
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