Student Successes: MiNDFOOD, body+soul, Essential Kids and more!

We love seeing our graduates out and about in the world, being published in all manner of ways. People like Sharlene Zeederberg on SApeople.com, striking a note on what it means to be South African in Australia.  At the same time, Elly Michelle Clough proved that topical stories work by celebrating World Gin Day with a piece on Australia’s fast growing boutique distilleries – in The Guardian.

Thuy Yau has been blogging up a storm as a regular on HuffPost UK, along with articles in Essential Kids – covering topics such as motherly love and teaching empathy.

Being published for the first time is especially sweet. One of our first Perth graduates, Tania Connolly, was thrilled to see her “Twice the Trauma” piece published in Offspring magazine, and Michael Carland adapted his Creative Writing Stage 1 assignment piece into a short story that was published in the Stringybark anthology “Behind the Wattles” last year. And Kym Campradt was published for the first time on Essential Kids for her piece on parenting when your partner works away. The first of many for you all!

Libby Hakim is no stranger to seeing her name in print, but was still thrilled to see her story on “earthing” last month grace the cover of body+soul magazine – one of her “dream” publications for getting a story in, let alone the cover. And if that wasn’t enough, she landed herself in her #1 fave, MiNDFOOD, with her story on cooking enhancing mental wellbeing. Well done Libby!

Justine Hyde has been busy since completing the Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1, exploring rare book theft for Wheeler Centre digital pieces on Tablo and Zines in The Age/Sydney Morning Herald.

Meanwhile, Sarah McKay is a great example of using your “day job” to make yourself an expert voice – in her case, with regular neuroscience contributions on ABC's Active Memory site and posts on Cure Brain Cancer. And experience helped Ambra Sancin with her series on the NRMA site “Living Well Navigator“.

Stephen Denham took our ebook course back in late 2011, and has since got in touch to tell us the awesome platform it provided for setting himself up as an Amazon author and self-publishing his sonnets, other poetry and writings. Nice work Stephen and all the best with your sonnets and travels!

Lucille Wong did the Travel Writing course last year and this month has a story on cycling in Hong Kong in Tiger Tales Asia, and (following the “write about your hometown” mantra) Northcote Melbourne in Tiger Tales Australia. She has also hit pay-dirt with Daily Life and Big Issue.

And Claudine Tinellis was a graduate of our Creative Writing Stage 1 course, but applied many of the principles learnt to compile and publish “Coastal Chef: Culinary Art of Seaweed and Algae in the 21st Century” on the NSW South Coast. Wow!

And yes, that’s only getting started! We KNOW there are more, with chatter of commissions and “famils” on the grapevine.

Have you found your voice and been published in some way? If so, let us know via our Graduate Success Stories page.

Happy writing everyone!