At the root of all forms of journalism is the desire to convey a story and a wish to tell it accurately. While news reporting remains the staple of contemporary journalism, increasingly opportunities are opening up for feature writers and even those who aspire to longer forms of journalism and creative non-fiction.

Using a step-by-step description of styles and techniques this book will show students how to research, structure and write stories, how to navigate legal and ethical issues, and how to market their work: while learning how to tackle different styles of writing, from profiles, to issue-based stories, to columns, to biographies and advertising copy. Along the way they will be introduced to some of Australia’s best-known journalists and writers and the hard lessons they have learned from their experience of writing, helping students forge their path to publishing and a career in feature writing.

• Case studies and practitioner interviews – how a story was written from the writer’s perspective – will be linked with examples as the writers discuss particular stories they have written and the obstacles they encountered.
  
• Plenty of examples of various writing styles and forms for students to help discern what works and what doesn’t.
  
• Wide ranging topics – interviews, obituaries, reviews, political commentary, sports scandals etc…
  
  

Stephen Tanner – Professor, Head of the School of Journalism and Creative Writing, University of Wollongong

Dr Molly Kasinger – Assistant Professor in Journalism and Film and Television at Bond University on the Gold Coast. Dr Kasinger teaches an array of subjects including feature writing, creative non-fiction and screenwriting. This teaching follows from Dr Blair’s professional experience.  She has worked as a newspaper journalist and sub-editor and written freelance features for magazines. She has also worked on TV series and feature films as an assistant director, story researcher and script editor.

In 2008 Dr Kasinger published an article in the Australian Pacific Media Educator and presented a paper at the Australian National Creative Non-fiction Conference on her research into creative non-fiction in the journalism curriculum. This follows her completion of her PhD on the topic in 2007 and previous academic papers on creative non-fiction at the 2005 and 2006 Journalism Education Association conferences. Dr Kasinger won the 2004 Journalism Education Award for Early Career Academics, was Bond’s Valedictorian in 2003 and won the Australian Press Council research award in 2002.

Nick Richardson – Group News Editor, Leader Newspapers