CHILDLESS

A STORY OF FREEDOM AND LONGING

‘Childless is shot through with life, joy and the willingness to face the present with a powerful and unflinching gaze. A wonderful book’

– Lucy Treloar 

writing courses

Shape, refine and polish your writing projects with online group courses, writing workshops, mentoring and private tuition.

  • WRITING COURSES & WORKSHOPS

    Drawing on her many years of experience as a journalist and a published author, Sian creates warm and welcoming learning environments where her students can acquire new skills, meet other aspiring writers, receive encouragement and feedback, and explore their story-telling interests.

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  • WRITER MENTORING

    Whether you are focussed on shorter pieces such as essays, columns and feature articles, or longer projects such as memoirs or autobiographies, Sian can help you to find the ‘story’ behind the ‘situation’ you’re describing, develop the best writing voice for your project, and pitch it to a potential publisher.

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  • MEDIA TRAINING FOR AUTHORS

    So much of a book's success depends on how you sell your own work to the media. These tailored sessions will help you to make the most of your interviews for print, TV, radio, podcasts and writers festivals.

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  • MC AND MODERATOR

    Sian has hosted and moderated events for many of Australia’s leading cultural organisations, including the Australia Council for the Arts, the Wheeler Centre, the State Library of Victoria and Heide Museum of Contemporary Art.

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creative communicator

Sian has a multi-faceted career in the arts, education and media. For the last three decades she has been a writer and broadcaster, working in radio, television, print and online.

She is best-known for her work as a radio presenter on ABC RN, ABC Classic and ABC Melbourne and as a regular columnist for The Age/Sydney Morning Herald. She is the published author of two books, and her essays have been published in magazines and literary journals and her short fiction in a range of anthologies.

  • This year, for the first time, I thought I would try some Victorian Writers Centre workshops. I would like to pass on to you directly how excellent your workshop was, and what a model of clarity and focus it was.

    — Peter

  • I really enjoyed the workshop on Saturday and I’m looking forward to actually doing some of the writing now. It will be great to have the goal of getting it done by a particular date – there is nothing like a deadline.

    — Julie

  • I want to thank you again for a brilliant year. You have helped me so much in developing my writing and I have really loved all the workshopping opportunities. Thank you so much.

    — Alison

  • What a fantastic and inspiring class that was, thank you so much for all your feedback and investment of time and energy in my project’s development over the year.

    — Crystal

  • Thanks again – a million thanks – for the inspiration and encouragement you gave me over the two years of RMIT Journalism and Non Fiction.

    — Carole

articles

Featured
Running, jumping and Flying
Running, jumping and Flying

When I was a child, our dad constructed a high jump bar out of scrap wood in the back yard. The risk of copping a splinter on the way over definitely helped you to leap higher. He dragged an old mattress on to the grass for my brother and I to fall on to. When that bar was raised half an inch and you scissored over the top without knocking it flying, you felt like an astronaut who’d finally made it to the moon.

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First It Was Andy
Columns
First It Was Andy
Columns

Inside the tram it smelt like wet sheep. The floor was smeared with a cocktail of Coke, coffee and winter rain. We’d all had enough and were heading home. No one looked more debilitated by the working day than the man sitting opposite me. His face was a picture of misery. I looked away then looked back again. The shape of the face, the colour of the eyes. Something familiar from a time when all faces were new and therefore unlike any others. Those faces can stick in your memory for decades.

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Columns
The Secret Science of Shyness
Columns
The Secret Science of Shyness
Columns

The word shy has a number of different meanings, none of which are flattering. To ‘shy away from’ something implies avoidance. ‘To shy’ can also mean to move suddenly in fright. To ‘be shy of’ something can mean to come up short, or be insufficient. And to be a shy person in our extrovert-worshipping age can be seen as being inadequate for the task of relentlessly positive self-presentation.

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Columns
Remembering Balibo
Essays
Remembering Balibo
Essays

Their eyes stare straight out at you from five grainy black-and-white photos on the wall. Such young faces, framed by luxuriant waves of hair in various stages of bouffant rebellion. The hair is unmistakably from the seventies, but those eyes could be staring at you from any decade. The men’s facial expressions seem to cover the spectrum of human emotions. Malcolm Rennie is grinning, Brian Peters has a half-smile, and there’s a faint wry twist to Gary Cunningham’s lips. But Greg Shackleton is furrow-browed and there is something haunted in Tony Stewart’s serious, wide-eyed gaze.

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Essays