Structure, Plot and Pacing with Roanna Gonsalves
Dr Roanna Gonsalves is the author of The Permanent Resident (UWAP) published in India and South Asia as Sunita De Souza Goes To Sydney (Speaking Tiger Books). The book won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award Multicultural Prize 2018 and was longlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award 2018. Her series of radio documentaries about contemporary India, On the tip of a billion tongues, and her social-satirical radio essay Doosra: The life and times of an Indian student in Australia were commissioned and broadcast by ABC RN.
Roanna is a recipient of a UNSW Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence, a Prime Minister’s Australia Asia Endeavour Award.and many other honours. She has been teaching, supervising and mentoring emerging prose writers and screenwriters within communities, schools, literary organizations and institutions such as New York University Sydney, UNSW, Western Sydney University, Macquarie University and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS). She is a recipient of grants through the Australia Council for the Arts, is a recipient of fellowships and residencies at Varuna and Bundanon, was the UNSW – Copyright Agency Writer-in-Residence 2018 and received The Bridge Awards’ inaugural Varuna – Cove Park Writing Residency 2019 (Scotland). She works as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at UNSW Sydney.
This 10-week online workshop series with Dr Roanna Gonsalves is a craft-based masterclass focused on structuring your fiction or non-fiction project. Each week, the group will explore different uses of beginnings and endings, points of view, characterisation, language and the handling of time to structure engaging fiction and non-fiction works.
Each writer will be encouraged to produce their own work to share with the class. Short writing prompts and exercises will be set inspired by weekly readings, and each writer will have several in-class opportunities for feedback from Roanna and the group.
In the final four weeks, each writer will be asked to produce a longer piece of writing to share with the group. Constructive in-class feedback will be provided by the group and Roanna.
This is a small group program for 8 participants.
HOW TO APPLY
Entry to this course is by application. Writers will be selected based on the creative potential of their work, commitment to craft, openness to collaborating with your peers, and the balance in the group.
Course fees are $1495 or $1400 for Varuna alumni. Payment terms are negotiable if you cannot pay the whole fee upfront.
Applications close at midnight on 20 February, 2024. All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their submission by 27 February.
Feel free to call 02 4782 5674 or email amy@varuna.com.au to discuss your application.
IMPORTANT DATES
Start date: Thurs 21 Mar 2024
End date: Thurs 23 May 2024
Zoom duration: 2 hour blocks from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (AEST)
The writing platform WetInk will be used for sharing work and extended discussion.
A second program may run later in 2024, commencing on Monday 9 September and running until Monday 18 November. You will be asked to specify which of the programs you would prefer to be considered for.
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In this course you will:
Analyse brilliant works of fiction and nonfiction from Australia and around the world to see how attention to language, narrative time and character design can create structurally beautiful and engaging works on the page
Create new knowledge by composing, refining and editing your work
Build a relational and ethical practice, in the composition of fiction or nonfiction, by considering a range of perspectives on craft, context and global developments in Creative Writing practice
Recognise your own writing methods so that you work to your strengths to build a sustainable writing practice
Learn and practice the art of giving and receiving feedback in a generous and rigorous way
Be part of a literary community as you build trust and a shared literary language with other writers in your cohort who will be your support system in your writing journey
Work to deadlines each week to show up on the page, develop your craft and finish your work.
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Week 1: Introduction to the course + On structuring your fiction or nonfiction project
Week 2: Character and desire
Week 3: Perspective and voice
Week 4: Managing time on the page
Week 5: Language and tension
Week 6: Beginnings and Endings
As we work towards the final weeks of the program, writers will be able to apply and test out the earlier course content in a series of workshops.
To explore the use of structure in practice across different works and genres, each writer will produce a longer piece of work to share on WetInk, which Roanna and the group will discuss and give feedback on in the workshop sessions and on Varuna’s online learning platform.
Roanna will post readings, exercises and prompts on Varuna’s online learning platform throughout this part of the program, and writers will be encouraged to respond to these invitations online and in the group Zoom sessions.
Week 7 - 10: Workshops led by Roanna