Experience Communication at UTS

Hello curious people. I'm Associate Professor Alex Munt, a filmmaker, screenwriter and media researcher at UTS specialising in micro-budget filmmaking and creative screen practices. I'm here today to answer your curious questions about filmmaking, creativity, and the future of cinematic storytelling. This is creative curious. 
 
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The UTS community has sent in some thought provoking questions to tackle. Let's get started. How is technology shaping the film industry? Technology has always shaped the film industry. It’s a medium that was first designed with inspiration from the sewing machine. We can think of the inventors of cinema as the Lumiere brothers or Thomas Edison. All kinds of technologies have shaped the way we screen stories and made, and screen stories arrive to us. We can think about, virtual effects. We can think about, the introduction of colour to moving pictures. We can think about the birth of television, the remote control, the zapper which makes from one, one image to the next. 
 
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Today, there's a lot of hype around a few things and interests.One of those is AI, but also around the way that gaming technologies are affecting cinema, cinematic language, and the cinematic image as well. Is AI enhancing or threatening creativity in filmmaking? The answer is it's a double edged sword. On the one hand, the power of AI can really support and help creatives working with a hungry and technical kind of workflows, for example, in post-production and editing. On the other hand, AI can be an a homogenizing force. 
 
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It can make everything the same. It can basically reduce the emotion within our, within our storytelling and therefore, really have some kind of threat to the way in which screen stories arrive to emotionally impact an audience and those ideas and around authenticity. The other ideas are around labor. And we saw this, for example, with the with the writers strikes. And so in America, there's a threat that AI can basically devalue what humans bring to screen stories simply through an efficiency quota and replacing that human, labor and skill, which has generated screen stories across time with cheaper kind of technology. 
 
 
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What are some of the ethical considerations around using AI in creative work? We've seen a few controversies here. I can think of The Brutalist which is a low budget film. Its Oscar nominated, and the filmmakers got into a bit of hot water when, when audiences realised that some of the dialog which is, which was Hungarian, delivered by actors not completely familiar with that language was was basically put through AI in order to refine and correct that language. That's a really good example of AI in filmmaking. On the one hand, the production would have benefited from some of the efficiencies in using and sculpting the dialog for the film. 
 
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On the other hand, some people would say, is this an authentic screen performance? Does not devalue the human performance in the acting. That's maybe one for you to think about and decide. The other controversy is around this idea of digital resurrection. We've seen this with Paul Walker in Furious 7, Carrie Fisher in Star Wars. The idea that an actor's performance is posthumously recreated, and I guess some of the ethical considerations about that is that that actors no longer control of their legacy if they have any new roles, new speaking parts, new roles in drama production after they've passed away. 
 
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The big one, and it's one that we talk a lot, a lot at UTS across the different faculties is around copyright and the training of these AI models. What what is the data set that relies upon and what is the copyright that and have the artists of that data set given their approval for this, for this use of the technology? Can technology 
like AI coexist with artistic integrity? Technology and cinema and television have always been, hand-in-glove in the way that they impact each other. The one thing to remember is the AI is a predictive technology, is trained on a data set, which means that it's based on what already exists, what the rather than what already might be. 
 
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When we come to the cinema, when we sit in a dark room with strangers and watch the fluttering light beam, we want to be entertained but we also want it to be meaningful. We want to be connected with emotionally. We want to be in the moment with the story. It's hard to think about the ways which AI can deliver that kind of experience. 
 
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How is streaming changed filmmaking? Okay, another good question. Streaming change filmmaking in both more smaller and subtle ways. And also larger, more obvious kind of ways we can think of really as streaming is opening up content and opening up, certain genres and styles. Things like Squid Game, the Korean series, which has captured the world. 
 
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In Australia we can think about this idea of what the streamers call hyper localisation. And a good example of that is Heartbreak High. Heartbreak high was an Australian series, and that in the mise en scene of that, it introduce a global audience to the Eshays what they wear, how they speak. And again, a very successful example of that. The other question here is back to IP again, and Netflix have just announced 
the adaptation of My Brilliant Career. 
 
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First made as a feature film by Gillian Armstrong in 1979 and now going to be reimagined for 2025ish, TV series. So again, this idea of the future is also bound up with the past in the way that existing films are now becoming IP for streaming television versions of them. Another way we can think about that is really looking 
closely at the industry itself in relation to how the streaming platforms negotiate Australian made content. 
 
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In New South Wales, the screen and digital game sector is worth about $1.2 billion annually, also supports around 15,000 jobs of the crews from above the line to below the line. We have the big US productions coming here Thor, Love and Thunder, Mad Max Furiosa or The Fall Guy. But really, what we really want in Australia is for our screen industry to be both creatively sustainable and also economically sustainable, 
and that's where this idea of quotas come in. 
 
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There's a bit of a push and pull whether we need to force our streamers, our international streamers, to have a mandate on a certain percentage of Australian content. But on the other hand, streamers are audience friendly and want to give the audiences what they perceive they want to a degree. So we can see streamers like Stan who Australian content has become part of their brand. 
 
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But also like we talked about Netflix in basically using, prime Australian IP, like My Brilliant Career and adapting that from a feature film into a television series as well. 
So quotas are difficult. It's a complex, ongoing conversation and really the jury's a little bit out on that. 
 
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Why does it seem like there are no original movies? Everything seems to be sequels, adaptations, or part of a franchise. IP is a risk measure. IP basically tries to ensure that producers know that they'll get the bang for the buck to the money that they kind of invested. Returns to this idea of William Goldman, screenwriter, is that nobody knows anything. IP is a risk mitigation device. 
 
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Does indie filmmaking have a future? Okay, I really like this question, and it's one important to me. I've got fond memories of the 1990s with a thriving independent film, and today that's not the case. Indie film making is under certain amount of threat. In the 1990s, it produced some of the most talented and innovative filmmakers, and think of Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson or Jim Jarmusch and many more. 
 
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More recently, Sean Baker at won Canne with his independent film called Enora. Sean Baker talked about his own commitment to indie film, talking about making personal films, talking about making films with artistic freedom, and also talking about films that are intended for a theatrical big screen release, films to be seen with an audience as opposed to going straight to streaming TV. 
 
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At UTS in our creative practice research,one of our research strengths is micro-budget film production, and in this way, look at the ways in which films are made. Can we be more innovative in the ways that films are made using technology? For example, can we find ways which can deliver those personal stories, stories which are both, dynamic and content or bold in content and also innovative in cinematic form? 
 
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What's a low budget film that has had a significant impact? I think Talk to Me is a really good example of it. Is a film made in Adelaide is a film made of $4.5 million, that took $90 million in the global box office. The Philippou brothers, started their careers, if you like, on YouTube, under RackaRacka and that's where they really honed, their craft of filmmaking. 
 
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And you can see this sense of that as a low budget film. It really has this sense of a much sort of grand, a kind of budget kind of behind it. It's a good example of what we think about the convergence of the small screen of YouTube over to the theatrical screen as well. 
 
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What do indie filmmakers offer compared to major studios? Okay, it's a really good question. Ted Hope is a veteran indie film producer out of the US. He talks about you can't rely on what worked before, and what I think he means by this is that's the studio model in relation to using things of risk mitigation, using things which are very predictive about audiences, what audiences want in relation to what's come before. 
 
00:08:31:03 - 00:08:51:05 
 
Indie film really operates at a different scale. And that scale is, again, is about personal films, is talking about films which can provide, can lean into, I guess, an uncertainty, even sometimes a discomfort with screen experience and providing audiences with important work which connects emotionally with their own lives and the authenticity of the human with the experience. 
 
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Does the research add any value to the film industry? Absolutely yes. Some of the research we found at UTS is around the process of filmmaking. In other words, as creative practice, how is filmmakers and budding filmmakers? Do we reshape our processes to be both creatively sustainable and economically sustainable as well to deliver cinematic visions to audiences? Other modes of research, are more quantitatively based, so we can think here about some of the,  research which shapes the industries around diversity, for example, the gender matters, project for Screen Australia and so on. 
 
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And we can think of these two modes of research, which are interacting to affect both the creativity and the filmmaking industry itself, from a, from a political or diversity or an equity point of view. 
 
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How do you prepare students for future careers in the screen industry? At UTS, what we prepare our students for in media arts and production is really to be agile, to be creatively agile, and also technically agile. What that means is that we want them to be able to write, to shoot, to edit, to produce, and having this sort of toolkit that will enable them to basically be both resourceful and valuable to, to, to a, to production companies in the film and television industry. 
 
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At UTS, we're Avid and Arri certified. In other words, we work really closely with industry partners to make sure that our students, you know, practice orientated model of learning, learn the industry kind of protocols and proficiencies with the tech as well. We also work closely with the Australian Directors Guild, the ADG. It's the prime body for Australian, directors in Australia. And again, we've got sort of a collaborative relationship in that in relation to our pedagogy curriculum. 
 
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What are the strengths of the Australian film industry? I think the strengths, are our historical ones. What we have in Australia is really, a strong sense in screen storytelling. New Zealand as well. We can see that as well in the sense of it's underpinned by, creative and strong technical crafts in conjunction with really strong acting performances as well. We know how well Australian screen actors are performing on the world stage, but it's also our film disciplines as well. 
 
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You can think of a cinematographer like Greig Fraser. He shot Dune, their part of the Star Wars franchise as well, producing dynamic, moving images for an audience. So this interaction of the moving image and the lighting, the cinematography, the sound design, in conjunction with the screen performances of our actors and the screen directors are really those kind of, forces which, traditionally, historically really serve the Australian film industry, really well and will continue to do so. 
 
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That's all the questions for today. I hope you learned something new. Until next time, stay curious.

So I'd like to begin this event with an acknowledgement of country. I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, upon whose ancestral land our city campus now stands. I would also like to pay respects to the Elders, past, present and emerging, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for this land.

Good evening everyone and welcome to today's event of the Graduate Certificate in Writing, Editing and Publishing Showcase. My name is Kenny, I'm from the Domestic Recruitment Team and I'll be your emcee for tonight. For those joining us online, I extend my welcomes and thank you for attending tonight's event.

In tonight's sessions we are joined by industry experts, who will share their incredible insights into the world of the literary industry and provide advice on career opportunities. We are also joined by amazing alumni as well, who will share with us their inspiring success stories and what they have been up to since starting their degree. Today we will discover exciting new projects as well within the industry and finally of course the whole reason why we're here today is to learn about the course and what flexible options we have for future students.

With all that covered, I am pleased to introduce our amazing guests for tonight's event. First we have Delia Falconer, a senior lecturer in writing, editing and publishing and acting head in writing. She is an award-winning author of four books, including both fiction and non-fiction genres, including novels and thought-provoking essays.

Dr Delia has also contributed significantly to the literary industry as a critic, being awarded a weekly award in 2018 for arts criticism. She has also been a peer advisor and a judge for several prestigious awards, including the Age Book of the Year, the Stellar Prize and the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Next up we have Dr Andrew Pippos, who is a lecturer in writing, editing and publishing. He's a renowned writer of both fiction and narrative non-fiction, with his novel Luckies shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award. He holds a doctorate in creative arts from UTS and has been a valuable educator in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

Andrew's works have been featured prominently in publications and he has been a guest speaker at major literary events and conferences, including the Sydney Writers' Festival and the Adelaide Festival. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Also joining us tonight is Jane McCready.

Jane is an award-winning writer and journalist, renowned for her insightful work on science and its impact on society. She's an author of Making Girls and Boys Inside the Science of Sex and edited the best Australian science writing. Additionally, she founded the Quantum Words Festival, which celebrates science writing in Sydney and Perth.

With a rich background as a former book publisher, Jane's impressive career includes serving as the CEO of Writing New South Wales for 10 years until 2023 and until recently completing her term as a senior judge of the New South Wales Premier Literary Awards. Currently, she's pursuing a PhD in creative writing and the graduate certificate and engaging in freelancing, writing, curation and public speaking. She's also teaching the Industry Aligned Publishing Workshop subject in the graduate certificate program.

Welcome, Jane. Thank you so much for coming to us tonight. And finally, we are joined by Amanda Esnaola-Kluthke.

With over seven years of experience in business strategy and project management, Amanda is currently serving as the co-founder and product manager at Perpetual Hire. Additionally, she is one of the current students in the UTS Writing, Editing and Publishing program. Hello and welcome, Amanda.

With our introductions complete, let us delve into the exciting world of writing, editing and publishing. To kick things off, I would like to hear some of your insights on the Australian publishing industry and the current landscapes for writers and editors. Delia, would you mind expanding on that? Well, I think to quote Dickens, it's the best of times and it's the worst of times for publishing at the moment.

Certainly, people I've been speaking to in publishing are saying it is quite tough at the moment because of rises in production costs and rises in the cost of living, and that is what it is. But on the other hand, I can't remember the Australian writing scene being quite so dynamic, so diverse, so exciting as I've, you know, in my 20-something years of being in the writing world. It's really, there's lots of experimentation.

There's lots of hybrid, exciting books and works being written. Non-fiction is booming. Our literature is being noticed overseas.

We have an Australian writer on the Booker Prize shortlist at the moment. If you've been looking at the prize lists, Australia's Indigenous writers are, you know, sort of hitting it out of the park at the moment. So, we have, you know, this great energy and people who stay in the industry, you know, really stay in because they love it, because it's a really dynamic and exciting industry to be in.

The message that I have had from industry people about writing is that, and about working in the industry, is what they're looking for is flexibility. So, you know, the traditional roles used to have the differentiation between, you know, a publicist and a, you know, publisher and an editor and so on, those roles are getting increasingly blurred. So, you know, they look for candidates who can bring a lot of life skills and a lot of work skills to the table and bring a lot of enthusiasm.

So, flexibility, I think, is the way, path forward in publishing and editing and writing at the moment. Brilliant. Jane, it's lovely to have you here this evening and thank you so much for coming out.

With a well-rounded experience in the industry, could you share your story about how you transitioned from writing to being a formative editor and into publishing? And do you think it's rewarding for those looking to enter these fields to develop skills across different areas as well? I often feel as though my career has been a series of happy and unhappy accidents, honestly. I wouldn't say I've had a clear career strategy that I've followed. One thing's led to another thing.

I've had a lot of good luck and a lot of bad luck along the way, as everybody does. I feel very fortunate that I've had such diverse experience across the industry. I've, you know, I've been a writer, I've been a publisher, I've led a major writing organisation, I've been a literary judge, as you said.

I've worked as an editor and as a translator as well. All of those things have taught me skills that have been useful in all of the others, you know, they've all been enriched by the other things that I've done. That said, I don't think it's necessary for people to work in every aspect of the industry.

You know, if you want to be a writer and that's really what you want, you don't have to work as a publisher. What I do think you need to do, though, if you want to build a career as a writer, is you need to really understand the publishing industry. It is, as Delia said, an incredibly dynamic, exciting, creative industry, but it is also a very low margin industry, particularly in Australia where our population is small.

 

So, our readership is therefore small. It is really tough to make a book viable financially in our market, and publishers often say that 20% of the books that they publish support the other 80%, because it's pretty hard. It's pretty tough out there, and salaries in publishing are low as well, and I think probably everybody knows that writers, generally speaking, don't make much money either.

So, financially, it's a very difficult and constrained field to be in, but there are many, many other rewards that come with it. Would you say that the flexibility that Delia mentioned, is that something that we can definitely leverage to enhance this industry, especially in Australia where it does seem to be struggling a little bit, but is that an advantage that we can definitely leverage for? Yeah, definitely. Definitely, it is.

I mean, roles in every industry are changing, and new jobs are emerging all the time. It used to be in publishing that publicity and marketing were very separate fields, and that's no longer always the case, and obviously there are new marketing platforms emerging all the time. BookTok is now a really significant contributor to book sales in Australia, and that's been quite a rapid increase in quite a short time.

I think if you want to work in publishing, there's lots of advice I could give, but one piece of advice would be not to be too fixated on the job that you want in the end. So, you might want to be a publisher, but you might start out as the receptionist, the admin assistant, or writing publicity material, or whatever it might be. But if you can get into a publishing house, and you're good at your job and you work hard, opportunities will come to you.

So, not to be too concerned about what you do, but develop as many skills as you can that are relevant, and be prepared to be very flexible about what you do. Yes, fantastic advice, and I think it's a great segue into the next question would be for Dr. Andrew. Can you tell us about the diverse career opportunities available for graduates in the writing, editing, and publishing program? There are pockets of expansion in the Australian publishing industry at the moment.

So, for example, Simon & Schuster, one of the major multinational publishing houses in Australia, have established a new press called Summit Press, and they've acquired a small press firm with the project of expansion. So, there's some good news around as well. UTS graduates have found work at publishing houses in editorial, marketing, publicity.

Someone in the marketing department at my publisher, Pan Macmillan, is a UTS graduate. I can think of UTS graduates working at literary agencies, Curtis Brown and the recently established A4 Literary Agency. We don't specialize in script writing, but nevertheless, UTS graduates have written for soaps like Home and Away or dramas such as Mystery Road, and of course, UTS is known for graduates who are novelists.

We'll talk about some of those publishing successes later on. I think I would like to definitely expand on that and go towards Amanda now. You've studied our program and I believe that you're currently still in the graduate certificate program now.

Could you tell us about your experiences so far and what do you enjoy most about the course? Yeah, so I'm on the home stretch now. I have two assignments that I need to hand in this week, so that's exciting. And I'm really sad actually that it's ending.

I've really enjoyed it. I wasn't sure what to expect coming into it, but I think one of my favorite things about it was just being around a bunch of different people that are all sort of working towards the same thing. You have this baseline shared interest, which is typically writing or maybe it's editing.

And so coming together in some of the writing subjects and doing something called workshopping, which was a foreign concept to me at the time. Basically, you hand in a written draft and then everyone reads your work and then you come back and you get feedback from everyone and your lecturer. And I think that was a very insightful experience, not just from the perspective of receiving feedback, but also giving feedback and listening to the feedback that other people were giving.

And I think just as well, I think we forget our lecturers are published authors. And so being able to speak to these people and get their advice and guidance and encouragement was wonderful. With your assignments, how would you describe your assignments? Are they more practical based focus or are they more theory based? Yeah, that's a good question.

I think the majority felt very practical. A lot of it was, for me, a lot of my assignments were actually just doing the thing and writing. And then the professional editing subject that I did was very practical.

We did one assignment was a copy edit and then another assignment was a structural edit. And that was a fantastic experience. Yeah, so it was mostly practical, I would say.

Fantastic. Now, I understand that the program itself is co-designed with industry partners, allowing students to gain practical learning experience. And this is really the focus and one of the perks of this degree is the fact that there is a lot of practicality in it.

Could you kindly share how this collaboration happened and how it impacts on student experiences, learning and career outcomes? That question for me. Well, let's not forget that we're all industry people as well. And that is where we have a distinct difference from many other degrees where you might have one or disciplines where you might have one or two people who are publishing.

Our greatest asset, I think, is our people and our connections to industry. We're business people as well. We have active, busy, successful writing lives across many genres and areas.

And so, part of that set of connections that we have has been the ability to when we… So, we've reaccredited this course last year, which means that we gave it a full sort of, you know, fitness test and a whole set of tweaks. And we were able to call on people in industry. So, the head publisher of Penguin Random House, the CEO of a company that turns books into films, a senior publicist, a couple of other publishers.

So, we spoke to them to see what their needs were in industry. And that was very much where we received the… And so, we have those sort of people that we can always call on. We can call on them to come in and visit classes as well.

So, we have that very strong industry connection. And the message from them was very much this message about, you know, we really value students who come out of programs like yours because they can think and they can… You know, they have the kind of… It's a people industry. So, they have the cultural knowledge and the cultural skills, you know, that we are looking for as well.

So, one of the things that we did as part of that industry advice and connection was to… Well, we already have subjects. We have something called authentic assessment. So, authentic assessment is where we design our subjects so that the end product is as close to something that you would send out into the publishing world anyway.

So, for example, in the non-fiction subject that I take, the assignments are designed so that students can just send them out. We've had over 50 students in that subject. We get major publications in major literary magazines, newspapers, and so on.

So, that's sort of part of it. But what we did was also retweak the publishing course which Jane has been teaching for us where we made that as close to an intern-like experience as possible. So, students… I'm sure Jane will speak about this, but students are getting industry people in and they are to speak to them and we've partnered with Ultimo Press who are in our precinct.

So, they actually hear from a publisher about their list and they deliver a pitch to that publisher and perform other activities that they would and tasks that they would undertake in a publishing company, including the teamwork aspect because it is very much a business of building relationships. Even as a writer, your relationships are super important. That's fantastic.

So, essentially, you'll be creating a portfolio through the graduate certificate as well. Jane, would you like to just continue on with the publishing? Yeah, sure. So, in Publishing Workshop, the students have been working in groups to put together a publishing proposal for a particular book.

As part of that, they've needed to prepare a marketing pitch for their colleagues in the publishing house to persuade them that this book should be published. They've needed to identify the audience, how many copies they think they can sell, what the price should be. They've done a brief for a cover designer, what the cover should look like.

They've done an editorial brief on the manuscript and what changes might be made there or if there are any issues that the manuscript poses. So, they've prepared this whole document in the way that a publisher would do within a publishing house to go to an acquisitions meeting and persuade their colleagues that this book is viable and worth publishing. So, it's been a very practical, hands-on experience for them.

And as Delia said, they've had a number of industry guests coming in across the semester to learn from. So, at the beginning of the semester, they were all looking a bit shell-shocked and saying, but how do we do this? But by the end of the semester, they all felt pretty confident that they knew how you would approach doing something like that. I think something that's very important to know is that as students, we tend to have this mindset that everything needs to be theoretical.

But the fact is that, you know, the skills that we learn, those are the real things that we actually need to apply later on in life. And the fact is that the Graduate Certificate Program is designed to be as realistic as possible. It's just absolutely fantastic.

Amanda, would you like to continue? Yeah, actually, that got me thinking. I'm doing a subject at the moment which has been really insightful in the sense from the industry perspective. So, we've had a lot of online Zoom classes, but meeting industry professionals from, you know, different states as well.

And doing my final assignment at the moment, it's been a really reflective process because we've got to think about, we've got a project that we are working on and we've got to think about where we could get that published and what publisher might want, might suit, might want to publish that kind of story and why. And also thinking about our career as writers more broadly. As it's been discussed, it's not easy to make it as a writer.

And so, you kind of got to think creatively, which I guess that's one thing that we can already do. And yeah, find some other ways around. So, it's been very good to go through that.

And I remember before I had applied to come to UTS, I was looking at other courses available. And, you know, I saw there was one subject at a university that I won't mention. And it was like the writing life, how to be a writer.

And there was a lot of what seemed to be theoretical subjects. And the thing that drew me to UTS was the practicality of everything. So, yeah, it definitely lived up to that from my experience.

Fantastic. Now, I'm going to stick with you, Amanda. Would you mind telling us about the UTS Anthology? What is that? And I've heard that you've done some work with it as well.

Yes. So, we had the book launch last night. So, the UTS Annual Writers Anthology is a collection of short stories, a mixture of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and sometimes scripts written by UTS students.

And yeah, so, at the end of last year, I applied to be on the committee, not knowing what I was going to get myself into. And thank goodness for that. But yeah, it was last night we had the book launch at the State Library.

And it was flawless. And Delia, I have to say thank you so much for thanking us. We didn't want to make the event about us.

But for you to recognize like all the craziness and to see it come out so flawlessly, I'm like this feels like a lie, you know. But it was great. And yeah, you guys can, if you're interested, you can buy, I think you get a copy in your gift bags or something of last year's anthology.

So, you'll get a feel for it. But yeah, it was an amazing experience to work as a part of that editorial team. We all worked as editors with our own authors.

And then we all had some other roles to fulfill as well, like organizing the launch. And it was just really amazing exposure to the end-to-end editing and publishing process. And just really nice to be able to work with an author on their own work.

So, yeah. Sounds very exciting. Delia, would you mind just building up on Amanda's point about the UTF anthology? Are there any other features of the graduate certificate that contribute to the success of the graduates? And how do we evaluate this? Well, to go back to last night's event, which was just joyous, it was fantastic.

Part of what students get out of the degree is they make connections not only with industry people, but with each other. And you, as the editorial team, you will have that team of people that you have worked with well, and that you trust, and that knowledge that you carry forward. And you've got a whole cohort that you all carry forward.

We have such loyal alumni from over 40 years of this program running, that in the audience was a well-known Australian writer who was in the very first edition, edition 43. And she was there in the audience to support us. And we had students from other, many who have quite high profiles as a result of this degree, who also came to that event.

And it was an event that was attended by the head of writing from Creative Australia, which is the new name for the old Australia Council. And I guess that actually just another positive thing about the writing situation at the moment that I didn't mention is that we actually have, the government has come up with a cultural policy, Commonwealth Government, called Revive. And they are going to be creating a writing Australia board.

And so, some of those issues that the writing community is looking at are hopefully going to be sort of resolved. So, we had a representative, we had the head of writing from there, we had the head of one of the major publishing houses. So, I think that there's what you see on the page and in the brochure, and then there are those intangibles.

And I think that it's those sort of networks and connections that are probably, in some ways, the jewel in the crown of our writing programs. I mean, writing is such a solitary activity, obviously. Creating community is really important, people that you can talk to about a problem that you've got in a story or something you just read, story ideas, people who can read some of your manuscripts.

And that's one of the things that students do at UTS, they build community. Can I add to that? I talked about the workshopping experience earlier. And I think in almost every instance, I would go into that session, hating what I'd written.

And then all it takes is kinder eyes that are not yours, to offer you a different perspective, and then reinvigorate the writing process for you. So, yeah. For those who, just building up on your point, for those who feel perhaps a little bit intimidated with even starting to write, do you have any advice? And I'd like all the panelists to contribute to this.

People who are intimidated to start to write? If it's something you really want to do, then you kind of need to do it. And not worry too much about how good it is at first, you're really just working on your craft. And you shouldn't be thinking at the start, you shouldn't be thinking about, how good is this? When am I going to get a publishing deal? Should I quit? You should just be thinking about ways that you can improve as a writer.

And I should say, we do get that. We've been teaching writing for quite a while, we do understand that it is intimidating. It's hard.

Look, it's hard for those of us who are writing professionally, sometimes when you're faced with a big project to get started. So, our writing subjects are designed around often, you won't be asked to just here, produce this big, produce a novel for us. You might work your way up to that.

So, part of your class would involve writing exercises, and it might be just coming up with lists or coming up with response to particular exercises. So, we give students a lot of what I would call five-finger exercises to practice the skills, and even simulate in some of the more unusual genres. There's an end of creative non-fiction, which is my specialty, that kind of is like a combination of the short story and an essay.

It's called Lyric, the Lyric essay. And I give students exercises where they practice some of those kind of poetic elements before they start to put them together. So, we really sort of scaffold the learning with that understanding that writing can be daunting, even for those of us who are four books in, it can be quite daunting.

I mean, writing is an iterative process, and in these subjects, we take you through some of those early stages in writing a story or an essay. So, now that we've heard from our panellists, I think what we really want to hear now is what is the Graduate Certificate Program? So, the Graduate Certificate is really mainly for two types of people, people who want to publish their own work or people who want to publish the work of others. So, maybe you find it's time to get serious about your writing, you'd like to study it formally, you'd like to learn some narrative strategies, maybe you have a project ultimately in mind, then this is a good degree to start off with.

Or perhaps you want to change careers, work in publishing and editing or marketing or publicity. So, in the Graduate Certificate, you're developing skills in writing and editing and publishing. So, no matter where you want to end up ultimately within those three coordinates, it helps to know about the other practices and Jane mentioned that briefly.

So, if you want to be a writer, knowing something about editing is going to be essential because that's a key process in the production process of a book. You need to understand editing, you need to know that revision is how you make a piece of writing good and you need to know about the publishing process too. Publishing can be an opaque industry and there's so many things that I wish I knew about the industry before I started publishing.

So, the more you know as a writer about how the publishing world works, the better you can navigate the industry. For people in editorial and publishing, people who want to work in those areas, it's really good, it's important to understand narrative strategies and traditions. So, an insight into writing craft will make you a better editor or agent or publisher.

Ultimately, everyone in publishing is in the business of storytelling. And then why UTS? Well, you're studying in one of the oldest writing disciplines in Australia. We're always updating our subjects but we're also drawing on a long, long tradition of writing at UTS and our writing degrees have been successful.

Every year, two or three novels or works of narrative non-fiction are published in Australia by writers who began those manuscripts during their time in one of our subjects at UTS. And of course, more graduates are publishing their books every year. So, this is a snapshot of the graduate certificate.

The degree is designed to be studied in one year. So, one year comprises two sessions. Autumn and spring at UTS we call semesters sessions.

So, there'll be more detail on the individual subjects in a later slide. In autumn, you study professional editing in which you're trained as an editor and narrative and creative practices. Another writing subject which delves into narrative techniques for, say, creating good characterization, plot, point of view, among other elements of storytelling.

In spring, you study publishing workshop and creative non-fiction workshop. Publishing workshop explores the publishing process and creative non-fiction is a writing subject that guides students through the many forms of non-fiction that are popular today. I'll also mention that we have some Commonwealth-supported places available which means you don't pay course fees.

So, please do apply for those Commonwealth-supported places. Yes. So, I think Andrew's given a good explanation of the subjects but creative non-fiction workshop is the subject that I teach at the moment and it's really exciting to teach because creative non-fiction is booming and it is just, it is such a varied field, you know, everything from sort of, you know, fine personal essays through to, you know, quite out there writing and that is actually, commercially, there is, we're seeing that same sort of variety of writing that is, you know, there's been some quite popular hits in terms of creative non-fiction that have been, that aren't, you know, very traditional at all, that are really quite, you know, quite unconventional that are making big sales at the moment.

Narrative and creative practices is designed around an understanding of storytelling process and professional editing practice is taught, has been taught this year by my colleague Claire Corbett who is the, she's the fiction editor at Overland which is one of the major Australian journals and she takes students through the nitty-gritty of the editing process which is also not just about, you know, sort of marking up errors in someone's work but actually really talking about what the golden vision of, you know, of someone's work is and it's very much about sort of relationships, so students are also learning, you know, how to write a letter to, you know, to an author, how to communicate and exchange knowledge with an author as well and publishing workshop, well you've heard from Jane about how that runs and that's been, I've been hearing fantastic word of mouth from the students in that class. So what can you expect from this course? So in the two writing subjects you will learn techniques from other writers, not just your tutor but the authors of readings as you unpack their craft and read as writers do. So we use a mix of classic and contemporary readings to demonstrate how writers of fiction deploy certain strategies and the exercises and assessments in these two writing subjects are designed to train students in essential strategies for writing dialogue, for managing narrative time, for establishing setting, so and the exercises and assignments mean that you also acquire a writing portfolio if you're not already building one.

In the editing and publishing subjects you gain practical experience that trains you in authentic skills that you need in the field. In publishing workshop, Jane mentioned the publishing proposal. So those publishing and editing subjects are designed with current professional practice in mind, including the juggling of many roles that publishing professionals do, say marketing and publicity.

So publishing jobs, it seems to me, especially in editorial, require a wide range of skills which you develop in courses such as this one. This is the anthology which we spoke about earlier. How long has the anthology been running, Delia? We have published our 43rd issue this year and for the 40th anniversary a few years ago we published a big bumper edition of the writing that had been published across those anthologies, including writing by authors like Beth Yap or the late Gillian Mears who was one of our very revered Australian novelists who was nominated for the Miles Franklin for her last book, Foal's Bread.

Gillian was a canonical writer who studied here in the late 80s, early 90s? Yes. She was very, very shy and she said she hid for a lot of her degree but nevertheless got her great start. So even great writers again can be intimidated by the process to begin with and I always laugh at that story because, you know, there she was as such a major Australian writer and, you know, she said that she sort of hid a lot of the time for the first year of her degree.

And this year's anthology was absolutely brilliant. I read the whole thing. So well done, Amanda, and the whole editorial committee.

Please pick it up and have a read. We also have a Writer-in-Residence program every year. So this year's Writer-in-Residence is Vivian Pham, a novelist.

Previously we've had Nadi Simpson, Christopher Rajah, Brie Lee, Christine Piper. So Christine Piper, she was an alumni of UTS and she won the, many of you will know that the Australian Vogel's Literary Award is the best first novel by a young author. It used to be under 35, I think it's maybe under 40 now.

And so, yes, so Christine wrote a beautiful novel, After Darkness, that won that award and she ended up coming back and being a Writer-in-Residence. And Vivian Pham had astonishing success. I think she published her first novel at 21, Coconut Children.

So, and the Writers-in-Residence, you know, come and this is a great project where we have a copyright agency sponsorship and, you know, we contribute to the writing community in that way, in that we host a writer with an office and, you know, university resources to work on that notoriously difficult second or third book. And at the same time, they, part of their contract is to be available for student consultations and to come in and make guest visits to classes as well. So we are hoping that that, we've been funded every year, so we're hoping that that continues again.

But yeah, and Nadi Simpson's book that she wrote, Bell Bird, has just, you know, has just come out and she's had, you know, blinding success as an author, you know, in the year that she was with us and also since, you know, and this new novel, Bell Bird, I think is going to be very big as well. And the UTS staff. So here we are.

Graeme Egghurst's, you know, he sits across CAKE, which is the Centre for Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges and Writing, and his young adult novel has just, he's been, he's been to, you know, disappearing to various writers' festivals as a very popular guest all over the country. He's about to go to Singapore with this novel, which is why a, meets fantasy, meets what he calls Indigenous realism, you know, meets, you know, critique of fracking. And so it's a wild ride.

It's a fantastic novel. Sarah is a widely published poet. As I said, Claire's, you know, on retreat at the moment.

She's been very successful. She's on study leave, coming back next year, and is a board member of Aruna, the Writers' House, which is a residential writers' centre in Katoomba, New South Wales, which runs a huge number of programs for younger writers as well. So we have that lovely connection there.

Graeme's also on the board of Aruna. There's me, and there's Andrew, and we've spoken about our work as well. Enough, I think, for tonight.

Some recently published student works. Yes. So am I speaking to this one, or are you? You can speak to this one.

So the Calibre Essay Prize is the biggest essay prize in Australia. In fact, people enter internationally. It's run by the Australian Book Review.

I think they have something like 800 entries. It's huge. And Tracey Ellis, who's a graduate, began her essay, and I said, I think this is one for the Calibre Essay Prize.

I think you should enter it at some point. And then a couple of years later, she entered it and won. She also took out the Australian Book Review Calibre Short Story Prize in the last few years as well, which is the biggest short story prize in Australia.

Cameron Stewart's novel, White Horses Run, has just come out. Who's the publisher of that one, Andrew? Alan and Andrew. I remember seeing the early chapters of that novel in a class at UTS.

Sydney Khoo's novel, Sydney also started their novel Spider and Her Demons here. That just won the Queensland Literary Awards YA category. And Nadine Cohen's book Everyone and Everything, which she also began in the degree, which is set at the MacLeivers Women's Baths, was Booktopia's, so our major online booksellers, book of the year of fiction or non-fiction debut of the year.

And Brendan Atkins' book, The Naturalist, was a history of the very charismatic and very interesting man who used to head the Australian Museum, was published by New South Press. So, you know, fiction and non-fiction successes. And, you know, there'd probably be, you know, maybe two to three books that come out a year as well as out of the programs, as well as, you know, sort of the many shorter pieces that students have been publishing.

So, we're very, very proud of our students here. Admission requirements. So, the application deadlines for Commonwealth supported places.

The first round is Sunday, 24th of November, and round two, Sunday, 12th of January next year. So, applicants must have completed a UTS recognised bachelor's degree or an equivalent higher qualification or above. If you don't have a higher education qualification, you can still apply with verifiable professional creative experience in the field, an updated CV, a personal statement, and a writing portfolio of no more than 3,000 words.

And those are the fees. Thank you so much for that detailed overview of the subjects. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but the UTS anthology has gone for 40 years now, which, if my maths is correct, is older than the university itself.

So, there's really been such a rich and long history of talented writers coming in and out to the universities over the past 44 decades, really. So, thank you to all our guest speakers for sharing their insights with us so far. We're going to open the session now for the audience Q&A.

So, and also for all the online attendees, please send your questions through the Q&A function and we'll start taking questions now. What interested me the most is the feedback from people like you. So, will I be writing and you will be, and people, experts will be checking that writing and giving feedback? You would be bringing work in, you would be doing writing exercises in class and getting feedback on those.

You would be bringing work in for workshops for the process that Amanda's explained. So, you know, sometimes that can just be a few lines and sometimes that's, you know, that's more substantial work. And you would be getting feedback from your classmates as well as from your teacher.

And that's really important because part of the writing process is critiquing others' work is actually, you know, sometimes the most, you know, the most effective way of learning how to write yourself. So, and then you would, each of these subjects has two assignments and you'd be getting the teacher's feedback on the assignment as well. Now, question from our online audience.

Given the, my impression is that there is going to be a lot of change over the next couple of years in the publishing and writing industry. What are some of the emerging skills do you think will be essential for graduates in writing, editing and publishing? That's a hard question. We're definitely, I mean, we're seeing changes across all aspects of the publishing industry.

And it's a little bit hard to predict where some of those changes are going to take us. I mean, obviously at the moment, everybody is talking about AI and what the impact of that might be on the industry. I don't personally think we're at a stage where AI is good enough to make fundamental changes to the industry, but who knows in 18 months, you know.

I think, you know, publicity always changes. It's constantly changing. That's probably the most rapidly changing part of the industry because there are always new platforms.

There are always new ways to reach an audience. Apart from, I mean, some of the skills stay the same, you know, like the fundamental, I mean, we use different technologies for editing, but the fundamentals of good editing haven't really changed. You know, styles change and what the readership has an appetite for changes.

And obviously editing then has to change in response to that. But the techniques of the editor are more or less a constant. So, I think the main thing is just to be learning all the time if you want to work in the industry.

And it's hard to predict. Do you know that the area of publishing that boomed during COVID was audio books? I recorded my book with a small producer during lockdown and they said they could not keep up with the demand. So, you know, the thing is to be, to have that industry interface where you are, you know, in the mix, where you're flexible and you are connected to industry.

So, you can kind of, you know, you can be, you know, you can understand changes and be on top of those changes as they come along. The other thing I'd say as a writer is that it's not going to change that writers need to be able to articulate what we do, you know, increasingly well, whether that is, you know, a large, a significant part of writers incomes these days is actually talking at writers festivals or children's authors, you know, often make a really large part of their living by, you know, visiting schools and so on. So, you know, and we need to advocate for ourselves as writers as well within the business.

So, having the ability, part of what the workshopping process does and the learning experience here and the classroom experience is that you have to, you know, be able to respond to feedback, to be able to articulate what your vision of your work is and to be able to talk about yourself and about work and others work within the industry. That is probably the most fundamental skill that I think you can take out into the industry. That's such a good point about audiobooks, because some estimates say they're now 15% of the market, which is phenomenal, you know.

And, you know, there's work producing audiobooks. You know, my producer was fantastic. I thought that's actually a really, that's a really interesting job I hadn't even thought of in the publishing industry.

In terms of like going into industry, potentially in more publishing editorial side of things straight after the course or kind of as a graduate, what roles are people looking at? Like editorial assistant roles? Is production a big thing in Australia? I mean, like physical book production. And as you were saying at the beginning, with the kind of job market in Australian publishing and the number of graduates kind of thing, I feel like maybe that's a concern coming out. So, I just wondered if you had any advice or insight into kind of approaching that? Yes, I do volunteer, volunteer and volunteer.

So, we have had some of our students who've been successful going into industry have volunteered for the Sydney Writers Festival. They've volunteered for the Rose Scott Women's Writers Festival, which we have good connections with. And those sort of, those making sure that they are, you know, they're volunteered for or become part of the editorial collective for Voiceworks, which is the magazine for writers under 25.

And all, so it's, they're the graduates that I have to say are the ones who most get the foothold or they've become really good at, you know, sort of other skills like spreadsheets or, you know, design. So, because the publishers that we spoke to said, look, you know, the more multi-skilled someone is, so don't, you know, the more interesting they are to us and we really value their writing and reading skills. But I think that the more you can get yourself out there, you know, even be communicating, be part of the conversation on social media, all those things are the things that are giving people a step up and, yeah, where we're seeing people, you know, succeed most.

I would agree with everything Delia just said, but also think about related jobs, like working in a bookshop. If you work in a bookshop, you get a really good sense of what readers buy and why they buy it. And that's an incredibly useful bit of knowledge to bring into a publishing house.

Got a question over here. It wasn't really a question, it was going to be a comment, because I'm also a student who's about to finish, but I did want to say that Delia and the staff are really good at letting students know when there are opportunities to volunteer. So, that's something to keep in mind as well, because it's not just them saying you should do this, but they actually help you with opportunities.

Well, after the whole discussion, I think what I gathered is practical things are very, kind of, taken care of in the course. But I would like to ask somebody who has done an undergraduation in English literature, how will this course be still, you know, useful to that person if she's really thinking of, you know, going forward with her writing, or it'll be some kind of a necessary, or it will add on to somebody in the course, because she's already done the course, she's already been exposed to various literature and, you know, writing. So, how this is going to be adding on to her thing and help her as an author? We, look, I think that generally I would say about education is that we're always learning.

And, you know, the sort of, the more I have studied and, you know, I have a PhD in cultural studies, the more I know that I don't know. And knowing what you don't know is actually, and unlearning some things you think you know, are big parts of, you know, I think the central core, fundamental aspects of education. But the connections, again, the connections that you would make with other students who love writing and love talking about writing, a lot of our students, you know, continue to have writing groups that extend beyond the university.

And also, I suppose the thing that we didn't say is very much is that we read a lot as well. So, and that's fundamental to, you know, to writing. And, you know, we encourage students to read part of our, you know, part of each week would be responding to, you know, the, we try to give students diversity in terms of authors and in terms of subject matter and generic approaches.

But we also try to give students as much as we can a sort of a depth, a historical depth. So, that's the aim with the sort of the reading we teach you. And the idea is that, you know, that we model that and then students can take again that understanding of, there's always something more to learn, there's always something more to read, but to be able to understand what that is and set yourself, you know, sort of to set goals for yourself and to keep learning is actually what we hope you go away with.

Sometimes every new piece of writing requires new skills as well. As Delia says, you're always learning as a writer. It's perhaps there's some level of mastery that you reach after, you know, eight, nine, ten books.

But as a student writer, you know, you really, there's a lot to learn about making a character come alive, managing time in a piece of narrative. I've got another online question and this one's for Amanda actually. I think something that we might all be curious about before entering is what is the workload like and how do you manage the balance between work and study? Well, I think the workload is what you would expect it to be going into a university degree.

So yeah, it's a lot of work and I struggled a little bit in my first semester. It had been 10 years since I'd been at uni. I think the best thing that I did that I had to learn over the first couple of semesters was start early.

Start earlier than you think you need to start and then maybe even a little bit earlier than that. The thing about the course and I guess life in general is you get out what you put in and I don't mean just with time, but like the attention and care that you put into what you're doing. And so I think Andrew and Delia were just talking about the weekly readings.

So it's very easy to, you know, if you get inundated and you're running behind on work, you can quite easily skip those. But I would say that would be, that's to your detriment because that's where you learn the most and you bring your own insights and you listen to the insights of others. And if you haven't read the reading, then you don't know what's going on.

So yeah, I think just like start early and just really pour yourself into it. We have a question from our online crowd. Again, I'll follow up to the last one.

Give a ballpark answer. How much time would you dedicate to the degree each week for your studies? Yeah, that's a really hard question to answer. I think I tend to be a slower writer.

I've had many days where I've looked at a screen and my word count's gone down after three hours. If I had to pick a number off the top of my head, it could be like 15 hours in total maybe. Again, it really depends on how much time you want to spend writing or reading because it's not really, there's no clear end point a lot of the time.

You decide that. So I think it's pretty flexible as well. Fantastic.

We're onto our last question. We've already discussed the most significant transformations currently occurring in writing, editing and publishing in Australia. Do you guys have one final advice and keep it in one sentence? Keep going.

Keep reading and support Australian books. I was going to say read too because whether you want to be a writer or a publisher, you've got to be a reader. But I would also say be a good literary citizen, whether you want to be a writer or a publisher.

Behave decently with other people. Read other people's work. Support other people's work.

If you can't afford to buy books, borrow them from the library. If you're on social media, talk about other people's writing as well as your own and you will be rejected. Everybody is.

Take that gracefully. One sentence. Don't rush.

Writing is a long game. Footnote. Publishing is a great industry.

Thank you so much for that. That actually comes to the conclusion of tonight's event. Thank you so much to our guest speakers for coming in, the time out and giving us your insights.

It's honestly truly been such an insightful event tonight. And thank you to everyone here that came out as well. I'm sure this is something that you're all very passionate about.

And so I actually welcome you all to stay behind to partake with the complimentary refreshments and to network a little bit with our guests as well. For everyone on the online, sorry, unfortunately you can't join us today, but thank you again for attending with us. And again, I just want to remind everyone that the applications are open for the graduate certificate program for this February 17th intake.

You can also get more information through the QR code if I can get it up. And we'd also like to get your feedback as well. Sorry, the submissions are through the UTS student portal.

So if you're a current student as well, you can also have a one-on-one consultation as well. That's all through the QR code. So thank you again for coming and we hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.

Thank you so much.

Deanne Weir, Film Producer (Harrow, Run Rabbit Run, The Wolves Only Come At Night): Storytelling is such a powerful way of waking people up.

Sam Lang, Film Director and Screenwriter (Australian Director's Guild, UTS Alumna): I chose UTS because it has always struck me as a place that is full of innovation.

Samantha Jennings, Film Producer, UTS Alumna (Talk To Me, The Nightingale, The Babadook): When I was a kid and had that feeling of being transported and changed. And if we get to make things that give other people that experience, that's everything.