Year of the Novella receives a Special Visit from author Debra Oswald
28 Mar 2025
With a new year comes new opportunities. Here at Story Factory, a new cohort of more than 20 exceptional young people have been gathering each week at our Parramatta centre to write their own book — our Year of the Novella students.
Term 1 of our Year of the Novella program has been all about planning. The young people have spent the term learning about their chosen writing form, developing ideas for their books, and giving and receiving feedback from their peers.
To cap off the term, our novella students received a visit from author, playwright and screenwriter Debra Oswald, to help them in the planning phase of their writing journeys.
In her extensive career, Debra has written four plays for young audiences; Dags, Skate, Stories in the Dark and House on Fire. Debra has also written three Aussie Bite books for kids and six children’s novels, including The Redback Leftovers and Getting Air, placing her in a unique position to work with and guide young writers.
Sitting together at a big communal table, Debra spoke to our students about how to set yourself up for success as a writer, how to do your story research, and gave advice on different ways to step back and get a bird’s eye view of what you’re writing.
Jerry, one of the Storytellers leading the cohort of young writers through Year of the Novella, said, ‘It gave the young people a real glimpse into the world of a working author; what that actually looks like and means. All the students took notes throughout the conversation, focusing on parts of the discussion that were relevant for them. At the end of the session, each of them had something concrete that they could take away and see themselves using in their own writing.’
‘I loved talking with YON writers,’ said Deb. ‘Such a clever, thoughtful, funny bunch. It’s thrilling to see young people taking the plunge into a creative life with courage, camaraderie and full hearts.’
Marcus, assistant Storyteller in Year of the Novella, added, ‘Deb spoke a student language. She described practical tools in detail, and with humour—and wasn’t afraid to be truthful about her experiences of a challenging but rewarding career journey. And the students responded with a genuine range of considered questions. That is empowerment.’
With lots of insightful questions and discussions, it might have been our favourite Year of the Novella workshop of the year so far. We finished the afternoon with this fantastic piece of advice from Debra when summarising her own writing process:
‘A lot of it is just bum on chair. And going for walks.’