Last year I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Magabala Indigenous Creators Scholarship. This enabled me to have a professional editor look over my manuscript and also provide some funds for mentoring.
I was very impressed with the service I got from the professional editor, Deonie Fiford. She picked up on things I was uncertain about and provided advice for things I hadn't thought of. From the 16 page report she provided I only half-disagreed with one point. I think that's a pretty good hit and miss ratio! Once I get back into the editing process I think the manuscript will really benefit from the edit.
Tomorrow I have my mentoring session. I had envisioned a 5 part creative coach type arrangement but it was ridiculously difficult to arrange something like this. Then trying to get an Indigenous author on board was a nightmare. I realised, why does the author need to be Indigenous? So I ended up going to ASA who were able to provide me with a consultation and voila, I am speaking with Isobelle Carmody tomorrow!
I have been a fan of Isobelle's work since I was a teenager and she is one of my top three most admired fantasy authors (Tamora Pierce and Justin Cronin are the other two. Just don't ask me to rank them, that would be too difficult).
Mostly I am hoping to get some sense of direction from this session by learning more about a very successful Australian author.
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