The Varuna Studio writers desk

Varuna Residential Fellowships

PREPARING YOUR SUBMISSION

You will need to save your submission (your writing sample of 7,000-10,000 words, your poetry sample of 10 poems; for graphic novels a sample of 10 pages; for children’s picture books you may send us the full manuscript) as a single PDF before you start the application.

FORMATTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Please note the following when formatting your work:

  • General: Submitted work should be predominantly in English, typed in Times New Roman (font size 12), double-spaced and with generous margins of 3 cm on both left and right.

  • Poetry should be predominantly in English, typed in Times New Roman (font size 12) and single-spaced. We understand formatting can be a major part of craft, so feel free to format poetry differently if required.

  • Plays can be formatted according to the Australian Plays Transform submission guidelines.

  • Screenplays can be formatted according to Australian Writers’ Centre recommendations.

  • Spacing: When work is double-spaced, it can be hard discerning where one paragraph ends and another begins. For this reason, we stress the importance of indenting the first line of each new paragraph (you can set up the style in Word to do this automatically). New paragraphs should also be used for each new speaker of dialogue. Poetry submissions should be single-spaced.

  • Justification: Paragraphs should not be right-hand justified, as this makes the manuscript harder for our assessors to read.

  • Headers: Include an identifying title and the page number on the top-right-hand corner of each page.

  • Editing: Please do take the time to check your manuscript carefully for spelling and grammatical errors.

As we assess submissions 'blind' it is very important that you do not include your name or identifying details on any portion of your submission.

SAVING YOUR WORD FILE AS A PDF

You will need to save your submission as a single PDF document. Please use the name of your manuscript as the PDF submission name, ensuring the name of the file is 25 characters or less. To convert your Word file to a PDF file: Go to File (on Microsoft Word), select PDF as your file format, then select ‘Save as’ with the name of your submission. 

MORE INFO