Writers Victoria

This online feedback clinic is an opportunity to work on your current picture book project or embark on a new one in a supportive group environment with guidance from a professional editor and picture book author Elizabeth Cowell.

Over the course of eight weeks, you will submit your work four times (up to a maximum of 850 words each time) and receive individual feedback from Elizabeth and fellow group members. The sessions are designed to help you build on your strengths and encourage you as you edit, refine, and polish your manuscript.

The feedback will be tailored to each submission, focusing on areas such as story, character, voice, point of view, structure, pace, language and expression.

Between submission rounds, Elizabeth will recommend picture books and online articles to inform, interest and inspire you.

Please note that this is a feedback-based course. There is no face-to-face component.

Submissions due on Tuesdays 29 September, 13 October, 27 October and 10 November by 11.59pm

Feedback due on Fridays 9 October, 23 October, 6 November and 20 November by 10am

Our Online Feedback clinics are asynchronous, with no face-to-face meetings, allowing you to engage with the content at the times of day and week that suit your schedule. They are hosted on our private Wordpress server. For more information on our online feedback clinics, please read our FAQs. 

You will learn:

• How to test what’s working on the page and what’s not
• How picture books are structured
• Strategies for getting a first rough draft down ​
• Tips for working with literary devices like rhyme and repetition ​
• Basic information about how picture book publishers work with writers and illustrators

About the tutor:

Elizabeth Cowell has more than 20 years’ experience working as an editor in the Australian publishing industry. She has also written several children’s picture books, including the bestselling All About Mermaids, under the name Izzy Quinn. Her books have been published in Australia, the US and Canada, and in translation in France, Italy and Greece.

* This event is recurring