Varuna Conversations

As part of your residency, Varuna offers the opportunity for you to have a one-on-one consultation with Dr Carol Major, Tegan Bennett Daylight or Mary Anne Butler, all experienced writing mentors.

Please note that consultations with Mary Anne Butler are by Zoom. Tegan Bennett Daylight will conduct consultations in person at Varuna during residencies only. Carol Major is currently unavailable for more than one consultation a week, so her availability is extremely limited.

A Varuna Conversation can be useful if you have become tangled in content, lost confidence in your project, or you are feeling doubtful about your ability to realise your vision. The process can also be useful if you are in the early stages of exploring a concept, or as an adjunct to other Varuna programs.

It can also be used to discuss the development of a pitch, a synopsis or other aspects of preparing a manuscript for publication.

For writers while in residence at Varuna, the fee for a one-hour Varuna conversation is $125. (Please note that this fee may be waived if you are a current recipient of a Varuna Residential Fellowship or other Fellowship program.) For writers not currently in residence at Varuna, the fee is $200.

You can choose to submit up to 10 pages of your work in advance, or you may choose to talk without referring to a sample of work.

To book your Varuna Conversation either as part of your residency, please email varuna@varuna.com.au

About Dr Carol Major

Carol Major has been a professional writer for over thirty years and works with writers across all narrative forms. Her skill is in drawing out the writer’s vision and matching it with crafting tools. She is originally from Scotland, later educated in Canada and now lives in the Blue mountains of Australia, a location she feels holds the ingredients of all three landscapes in one place. It follows that depicting place is one of her passions, and the subject of her Master of Creative Arts Degree.

Narrative voice is also a passion: who is telling this story to whom about what, and most importantly, why? What is the motive to tell? Motive was the subject of her Doctor of Creative Arts Degree. She believes it is a key ingredient in creating an authentic narrative voice.

Carol’s short stories, social commentary articles and essays have been published in Australian and Canadian journals and anthologies. She has completed three novels, and also works as a commercial writer with a particular focus on creating narratives to inform urban design. More about Carol can be found at advancednarrative.com

ABOUT MARY ANNE BUTLER

Mary Anne’s deep listening and active questioning skills support writers to articulate the core, or heart of their writing – helping them to move forward with confidence and clarity of vision. She specifically works with writers to hone in on the central question of their work, offering relevant craft tools as required to help guide the work and writer forward.

As a mentor and teacher, Mary Anne is an experienced dramaturg with a Masters in Arts Education and a Masters in Creative Writing. She has taught at University, TAFE and High School levels, and has for the last decade, mentored across a range of genres including prose, poetry, plays, screenwriting, memoir, non-fiction and academic writing.

As a writer, Mary Anne’s plays have received the Victorian Prize for Literature, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama, Shane and Cathryn Brennan Prize for Playwriting, a stage AWGIE and two NT Chief Minister’s Book of the Year Awards. She is a Sidney Myer Creative Fellow, Winston Churchill Fellow, Regional Arts Fellow and an Asialink Fellow. She lives in Naarm – Melbourne.

Mary Anne jolts together the connections in a work that are waiting to happen. It feels like a revelation, the joining of cords to a power grid. She achieves this with a mode of deep listening and inquiry that is generous and precise. In one conversation, she gave me the courage and clarity I needed to move towards my novel’s completion. 

- Courtney Collins - Author, The Burial. Courtney is a Sidney Myer Creative Fellow and Vogel shortlisted author. 

I always appreciate the time Mary Anne has spent working on my writing. Her close reading and insights into my poetry have helped to bring clarity and tightness to my work. Mary Anne is a brilliant teacher and I always learn so much about the craft of writing from her.

- Dr Leni Shilton, author of narrative novels Walking with Camels and Malcolm. Recipient Varuna Dorothy Hewett Fellowship for poetry. Shortlist Canberra Poetry Prize. Reader for the Stella Prize.

Mary Anne brings a unique blend of teaching, dramaturgy and writing experience to consultations. Her keen eye and deep sense of story structure, and a vibrant understanding of character and dialogue spur the writer on with new insights and clarity.

 - Karen Manton, Novelist and short story writer. The Curlew's Eye (Allen & Unwin 2021); five times winner of Northern Territory Literary Awards; Arts NT–Varuna Residential Fellowship recipient; Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship recipient

ABOUT TEGAN BENNETT DAYLIGHT

Tegan Bennett Daylight is a writer, teacher and critic, and has worked as a manuscript assessor and mentor, both privately and through publishers, for more than thirty years. Her books include the novels Bombora, What Falls Away and Safety, the short story collection Six Bedrooms, essay collection The Details: On Love, Death and Reading and Royals, a YA novel about six teenagers (and a baby) trapped in a parallel universe - in a Westfield. She's widely connected in the Australian publishing and writing community, having been in print as a writer since 1989, and lecturing in Creative Writing in universities across New South Wales. She has an intimate understanding of the technical, financial and personal business of being a writer, and believes strongly in the power of community for artists of all kinds. She was once a new writer and loves being able to use her long experience to help others. In brief, talking to writers is one of her favourite things to do!

You can find out more about Tegan here: https://teganbennettdaylight.com/ and here: https://www.instagram.com/tigswrites/