Kickstart Your Writing Project
This six-session intensive course is for writers at all career stages. Delivered by one of our most experienced facilitators across two months, this masterclass will help you get started on a new writing project or breathe life into a project you have abandoned or are struggling with.
Dates: 6:00-8:00pm (AEDT), 19 August - 21 October
Delivery: Online.
Fees: $795 or $745 for Varuna Alumni. Payment terms are negotiable if you cannot pay the whole fee upfront.
Applications close: 5pm (AEDT) 13 July 2026.
Places: 8 participants will be selected (small group)
See Program Outline below for the dates of all sessions in this program.
“Kickstart your Writing was the course I didn’t know I needed to keep me going, to keep me kind to myself, to give me hope and to let me understand that I am not alone, even when I am writing on my own. Ashley was a wonderful host/guru/open heart and hands and I am grateful for her care and the care of my cohort. Thank you Ashley and thank you Varuna. ”
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Kickstart Your Writing is an exercise-driven program for writers working in any genre. It will explore new solutions to old problems and start a productive conversation between you and your work. Each writer will be encouraged to produce their own work to share with the class. Short writing prompts and exercises will be set, inspired by weekly readings, and each writer will have in-class opportunities for feedback from Ashley and the group.
Each writer will also have a 40-minute one-on-one feedback session with Ashley Hay on their work in progress.
The masterclass will comprise six sessions to keep up writers’ momentum and focus. Prompts will be provided weekly throughout the class break.
This is a small group program for 8 participants.
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Week 1: Intention setting - Wednesday 19 August
This is the groundwork week: starting out, or starting again, we’ll explore the kind of writer you’d like to be, and the kind of work you hope to do to bring your story into the world. Digging deep into how you work and how you’d like to work – in the community of class, and in your own time – this session helps you set yourself up for success throughout the program, and gives you back-ups and supports for when things (like life!) inevitably intervene.
Week 2: Inspiration- Wednesday 26 August
Where did your story come from – and what more can you find out to help to make it whole? This session explores the possibilities of tools spanning both research and reflection to keep your story, your characters, your line of enquiry, your narrative arc growing and expanding. From lateral reading to the strange reliabilities of serendipity, how can you feed your imagination and your work?
Week 3: Feedback and forward planning - Week beginning 31 August
All participants will have a 40 minute one-on-one consultation with Ashley Hay this week.
Note that there is no group Zoom session this week.
Week 4: Countering writer’s block - Wednesday 9 September
There are always hard days, and there are always obstacles. This week provides a toolkit of practical interventions to knock down the walls that spring up, sneak around the unexpected roadblocks, or step away from the desk to come back and start again. Applicable for any genre or form, this list will help you navigate ways to keep moving and stay with the page.
Week 5: Just Keep Swimming - Wednesday 16 September
As we finish this main block of the course, this week checks back to your intentions from the first week: what can you reshape, recast – or maybe even throw away – that will help to keep you on track and on the page? This week’s program will help you to strengthen and refine your work beyond the end of this block of group sessions and leading you into the next phase of your project.
Week 6: Revision and Resolution - Wednesday 21 October
Five weeks later, this final instalment of the masterclass will focus on revision strategies – refining, deepening, discovering – and your writing resolutions at the top of a new year.
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Dr Ashley Hay has published three novels and four books of narrative non-fiction. From 2018 to 2022 she was the editor of Griffith Review, the second in its history, curating, commissioning and collaborating with more than five hundred emerging and established writers across all genres. She draws on more than thirty years’ experience in the world of words in her work as a writer, editor, mentor and facilitator, and in her design and delivery of bespoke workshops, coaching sessions and other writing opportunities for individuals and groups.
Ashley Hay’s work has appeared in anthologies and journals including the Griffith Review, The Monthly, Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Short Stories and Best Australian Science Writing. Her books include Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and Their Champions (2021) and the novels The Railwayman’s Wife (2014) and A Hundred Small Lessons (2017). Her work across the genres of fiction, science, journalism and essays has received and been shortlisted for prizes including the Australian Literary Studies’ Colin Roderick Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Nita B. Kibble Award and the UNSW Press/Bragg Prize for Science Writing. -
“It was tragic. My story was flat lining along with my desire to write. And then there was Ashley Hay and Varuna’s Online Masterclass. Now, my story’s heart is beating strong and I cannot wait to get to my desk each day. I didn’t see her use a defibrillator but somehow Ash brought my project - and my writing self - back to life.”
— Gabbie Stroud, 2024“This masterclass helped shift me from a state of chronic, paralysing indecision about a project I could neither commit to nor let go. I came away feeling reconnected with my writing self and with a renewed faith in the the inherent importance of writing as an act of service and/or grace. Ashley Hay is everything you’d want in a mentor: highly skilled, warm, astute and enabling in the best way. It was great sharing the process with other writers and recognising our mutual dilemmas and intriguing differences. ”
— Kate Cole-Adams, 2024 -
Entry to this course is by application. Writers will be selected based on the creative potential of their work, commitment to craft, openness to collaborating with your peers, and the balance in the group.
Course fees are $795 or $745 for Varuna alumni. Payment terms are negotiable if you cannot pay the whole fee upfront.
One 40 minute consultation is included in the course fee. An optional second 1-hour consultation with Ashley is available to all participants following the program at a cost of $130.
Applications close at 5pm (AEDT) on 28 January 2026.
All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their submission by 13 February.
Please refer to Varuna’s general submission guidelines for any questions on formatting your work.
Feel free to call 02 4782 5674 or email amy@varuna.com.au to discuss your application.
UPCOMING COURSES, FELLOWSHIPS AND EVENTS
