About Lorraine Marwood

I’ve always wanted to write and of course always loved to read.  

As an eight year old I knew that writing was what I wanted to do, but never knew the steps to publication other than to write and to read and to dream. 

As a teenager I was briefly published in some great hippie magazines.  Poetry was my first publication and still this genre continues today.

I wish I’d journaled more as a teenager but am grateful that I now have shelves of notebooks and also a modest shelf of published books.  

I am always looking for writing opportunities and a great way to begin publication is by entering competitions.  If you are looking to get writing join organisations like CBCA and the Writers’ centre in your state.

Get along to conferences, meetings, networks.  Immerse yourself in all things writing and reading.

Facts About Me

• I have always wanted to write ever since I was 8 years old, I knew that my heart’s calling was to become an author.

• I have six grown up children.

• I grew up on a small poultry farm and we always had cats.

• I began to have poems published as a teenager in some hippy magazines.

• I love crafting, I love gardening, I love history, I love reading.

• I have three sisters.

• I didn’t have a school library at primary school but once I went to high school I borrowed books and would often read a book in a night- even one on such a topic as Egypt!

• My father read to me of a night when I was younger and I loved fairy tales.

• It’s hard work to muster up courage and send your poems and stories out to publishers.

• It’s hard work to get a letter or email that says ‘ sorry but we are unable to offer you publication.’  In other words rejection of your writing is part of the road to publication.

• I try to be persistent, to remember I have a passion for writing.

• I keep notebooks and date a draft of writing or an idea or a poem and often go back years and trawl my notebooks for ideas or beginning of stories that can be re-worked.

• I often find it hard to plan out a story.

• I was a headmaster of a rural school when I was twenty.

• I love helping people to be creative and write.

Here are some questions I was asked recently

• What does it mean to be creative?

  Take risks, write down the world the way you see it.  Use your hands, your mind, your dreams, your imagination to create something uniquely ‘you’.

• What do you do besides write?

  Dream, read, housework, cook, catch up with family and friends, walk my dog, find exciting things to craft on pinterest, visit an op shop, read a blog, read a book, garden, dream and wish and pray some more.

• Have you ever been unsure of your writing?

  Certainly, that’s part and parcel of being a writer and it’s hard sometimes to let other people read what is in your innermost thoughts.

• What’s the weirdest poem you’ve written?

  Ah that would be a poem with one word to every line.

• What topics do you write about?

  I write about the goldfields, country life, a tiny moment in time, families, animals, mystery, a longing for something, fantasy…

• How many drafts might you do?

  Never just one draft, I have written up to 13 drafts of a small chapter book.  Sometimes the one story undergoes many changes, twists and evolves into something else.  That is both the pleasure and pain of writing.

• How long does it take to write a poem?

  That depends up on the topic and if I find an entry point for the poem or the right tone.  Some poems come as gifts and others I have to do many drafts.  a good way to tackle a poem is to write down some details and then leave it for a day or two and then see if some lines come to grow the poem.  Often having a rest of time between drafts helps overcome ‘writer’s block.’