Ally Burnham is the Creative Producer at Westwords, Western Sydney’s centre for Creative Writing. She completed a Master’s in Writing for Performance at the National Institute of Dramatic Art and won an AWGIE in 2020 for her short film screenplay ‘Metropius’. She is a screenwriter, comic writer and novelist, most well known for her feature film, ‘Unsound’.
She has worked at Westwords for three years, striving to build a sense of community among Western Sydney writers. In an interview with W’SUP News, Burnham has shared her tips and tricks for aspiring writers.
Q.1 What is WestWords?
WestWords is Western Sydney’s Centre for Writing. We are a not-for-profit literature development organisation. In simple terms, we are all about helping create and share the stories of Western Sydney. Which in turn creates and shares the stories of Australia as a whole. Because, with 10% of Australia’s population, and a wealth of diversity, we believe Western Sydney is the voice of contemporary Australia. We aim to deliver most, if not all, of our programs for free, or at a subsidised rate.
The WestWords Academy is our “flagship” emerging writers program each year. Members of the Academy, and the alumni, go on to form the core of our writing community. This program is all about teaching writers how to be professional writing practitioners and bridge the gap between emerging and professional.
We are dedicated to elevating and championing the works of writers from our region or works in conversation with Western Sydney. Often through the Academy, an emerging writer may receive the opportunity for their first short story publication, achieving that first dot-point on their writer’s CV. They may receive their first opportunity to speak on a panel or host a workshop. It’s all about raising their author profile and getting their foot in the door as a working writer. WestWords develops not just the writing of the writer but makes visible the writers themselves to an audience.
Q.2 Is WestWords for all writers?
Absolutely. Our dedication speciality is fictional prose, creative non-fiction, essay and poetry. Academic writing, script and screen, are not so much our focus.
Q.3 What can writers expect from the seminars and Academy Live?
Built into the Academy calendar are monthly seminar and open mic nights, called Academy Live. The seminars are hosted Sunday afternoons via zoom, where we often invite in a special industry guest to speak about a facet of the publishing industry. Emerging writers can ask questions and learn everything from ABN and tax as a writer, to understanding agents and pitching.
The Academy Live is where we invite academy members to the Western Sydney Centre for Writing once a month, to be brave and read excerpts from their works in progress. This simultaneously helps editing (you’ll never edit better than the day before reading a passage out loud in front of people) as well as getting our Academy members up in front of a crowd to talk about their work. Throughout the year, it goes a long way towards squashing imposter syndrome and presenting your work in a way that captivates an audience.
“WestWords helps to support emerging writers by not only holding writing opportunities, seminars and Academy Lives but also championing and showcasing writers’ work” | Photo by Nataša Aster-Stater
Q.4. What about writers who feel inexperienced and haven’t shown their work to anyone before – do you have any advice to help them combat their nerves?
You’ve got to take that leap of faith, whether that be by joining a program or a writing group. I’m a big believer that writing doesn’t improve in isolation, nor do writers thrive in silos. Our own minds can become echo chambers, and even if we can sense something in our writing needs to be improved, it’s almost impossible to spot. We develop blind spots. Emerging writers often don’t know what they don’t know but come to us when they’re ready to be pushed to that next step.
Also, everyone’s first draft is crap. Don’t be bashful about showing your work. Don’t worry, we’ve seen it all. But we are here to help create a community where it is safe and supportive to show your first draft, because we understand how vulnerable that is for everyone. You’d be surprised how much it effects established writers as well. Once they’ve put something amazing out into the world – how can they ever match that again? That self-talk can be debilitating for the established writer. But time and time again, it’s about taking that leap of faith. That’s what the best writers do well.
Q 5. What’s your advice for emerging writers who are students, and who are unsure how they’ll juggle their time with both their course and WestWords?
In the past students have successfully juggled university commitments with the WestWords Academy, just as others have juggled full time work and being a parent. Many of the Academy commitments are intentionally programmed after hours, such as Friday nights or Sunday afternoons. Typically, we ask no more than 5 hours a month of ‘hard’ committed time.
What the Academy does ask from its writers is a dedicated writing practise across the year. The commitment to work on their long-form project across the year – whether that looks like stealing a few hours on a weekend, or writing early morning, or late at night. Stealing a snatch of writing time is not-unlike how most established writers’ work. You may as well train for it now during your Academy year!
Academy members are expected, to the best of their ability, to show up for the Academy seminars and events. Missing the odd one here and there is fine, we understand life gets busy. But this isn’t an online course to be done in your own time, in isolation. That does go against the core initiative and community building the Academy is designed to do. Likewise, we ask Academy members to ‘say yes’ to as many opportunities as possible. This is their year to put their writing first and say yes to things they otherwise wouldn’t have said yes to in the past.
If a writer feels they can do that, in balance with their life commitments, then the Academy is perfect for them.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where Burnham speaks on WestWords’ opportunities for aspiring writers.
For more information, please go to the WestWords website: https://www.westwords.com.au/
