Join Catherine McNamara, 2024 and 2025 judge and editor of the Newcastle Short Story Award (Australia), for a practical deep dive into the magic of the contemporary short story. Why do we attempt this deliciously difficult form?

Across the day, we’ll discuss idea generation: how to fish ideas from the reservoir of your mind, and beyond; how observation is the key to creativity; and how to weed out weak ideas and trust your strong ones. We’ll explore openings; do some writing prompts and first paragraphs; speak of openings, first sentences and hitting the right note fearlessly.

We’ll talk about how to structure a story… or not, about modulations of key, cadence, compression, impetus. We will do some exercises on dialogue. Also, on location. Voice. Clean text. We will move onto endings, about readiness, about fine-tuning, revision, rewriting, common errors and pitfalls; and, importantly, how to understand your weaknesses—and your strengths.

Toward the end of the day, we will address submissions: when and where to send off, how to cope with rejection and stay buoyant in your belief, and we’ll cover strategies for submission resilience.