Writing Biographical Fiction with Melissa Ashley will familiarise participants with the major considerations, resources and skills required to create engaging narratives, vivid settings and unforgettable characters in your biographical fiction. Topics covered in the three-hour workshop include: whose story and why tell it; research, scope and getting started; interpreting textual and visual sources; when the archive is too big or too small; some secrets of transformation; and ethical considerations. The course will include resources, discussion, opportunity for questions and writing exercises.
This workshop will not be recorded.
About Melissa Ashley
Melissa Ashley is the author of historical fiction novels The Bee and the Orange Tree and The Birdman’s Wife, which won the Queensland Literary Awards Fiction prize and the ABA Booksellers Choice Award. She has published a collection of poetry, The Hospital for Dolls, as well as short stories, essays and academic articles. Melissa is passionate about historical women’s forgotten lives, particularly in science. Melissa’s novel The Naturalist of Amsterdam, which explores the life of entomologist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian’s daughter Dorothea Graff, is forthcoming in 2023. Melissa lives in Brisbane with her family.