Literature & Ideas 3 - Spark Prize: Ideas & Research

Art, Design, Media

How do writers come up with their nonfiction ideas? And what role does research play in the writing process? Join writers and publishers, Ronnie Scott, Arwen Summers and Emily Clements, in this illuminating and insightful discussion about how emerging writers find ideas, how to know when an idea is a good one, how peers can help you develop your ideas, and the role of research in narrative nonfiction.

Thanks to our guests:

Ronnie Scott is an award-winning author and academic. He is a senior lecturer in the writing and publishing discipline at RMIT University and program manager for the Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing). He's a lead researcher on Folio: The Story of Australian Comics 1980-2020. His novel The Adversary (2020) was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Award and the ALS Gold Medal.

Arwen Summers is Hardie Grant Books' nonfiction publisher. She has over 13 years' experience in publishing and has a particular interest in narrative nonfiction. She's published authors, both established and debut, including Alanna Hill, Malcolm Turnbull, Emily Clements, Clive Hamilton and Ginger Gorman. Discovering and nurturing fantastic emerging writers of narrative nonfiction is one of the highlights of her job.

RMIT alumni, author and editor Emily Clements published her memoir, The Lotus Eaters, in 2020. Her nonfiction has been shortlisted for the Feminazi Memoir Prize, the Ada Cambridge Prize and highly recommended for the Scribe Nonfiction Prize. Her fiction has been twice shortlisted for the Rachel Funari Prize and earned the Melbourne Young Writers Award.

Host: Callie Beuermann

Producers: Callie Beuermann, Joel Humphries, Sophie Newnham and Mia Purvis

Supervising producer: Carly Godden