Can Picture Books be Used for All Year Levels?

Picture books have terrible PR. Ask any librarian: after a certain age, children just aren’t interested in the picture book section anymore. ~ Rebecca Serle ~ Close your eyes for a sec and conjure up an image of a person reading a picture book. What age is this person? Alternatively, if you’re a teacher, visualise … Read more

Big Words

Why can’t we use enormous, whopping, super colossal, monster, humongous, big words in our writing? I will happily admit that title was much too long. In fact, if I was editing this for a client, I’d advocate against strings of adjectives and recommend using one well-chosen word. Depending on the purpose of the writing, I … Read more

WRITING OR EDITING: THREE WAYS A STYLE GUIDE WILL HELP YOU

Writing in Australian English is, at best, a chore and at worst, a complete nightmare from which we feel we will never wake. Our rules are inconsistent, frequently incomprehensible and often downright frustrating. We have multiple spellings and meanings for words. We can’t decide if we want the Oxford comma or not. Capital letters appear … Read more

COPYEDITING – SIX QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK AFTER YOU’VE TRIED TO DO IT YOURSELF (or perhaps before)

You believe you’ve written strong, clear words. You think you’ve spelled and punctuated it all correctly. You’re pretty sure you’ve said what you meant. You’ve had someone check it. You’re ready to publish it. Or are you? Before you go ahead and put your writing out there for the world to see, ask yourself if you are sure about the following things: Was … Read more