Secrets from the Green Room

Irma and Karen make an exciting announcement about the future of the podcast, then discuss a cautionary tale involving a freelance editor and AI.
 Then Karen talks to journalist and feminist author Virginia Haussegger about how she became a TV journalist and was sent to Darwin to make all her mistakes, how working on TV has both changed and not changed for women since the 1980s, the ways that deadlines help her to write, how book ideas strike her like meteorites, why counting her writing hours on an app helps, and the outrage of discovering her latest book, Feminist Fightback, shelved under military history!
About Virginia
Virginia Haussegger AM is an award-winning television journalist, writer and commentator. She has worked in the TV and newsprint media for over 30 years both in Australia and overseas. She’s reported for current affairs programs and anchored the primetime national news in five capital cities, including 15 years in Canberra. She’s a public speaker, a podcaster, an ACT Australian of the Year, and a strong advocate for women.
Show notes
Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 
Freelance Editors’ Network
IPEd
 Find out more about Irma and Karen
Visit Irma Gold’s website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
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Irma and Karen talk about starting your novel with a bang to get readers’ attention.
Then in our new occasional series, Karen talks to debut novelists Sarah Walker and Sam Elliott about the process of getting their first books published, how Sam bounced back from workplace bullying to write fiction, how Sarah got an overseas agent, the ways having an agent or winning an award helps with getting published, what Sam learned through podcasting that helped with publishing, and the news that made Sarah scream at her workplace.
About Sarah and Sam:
SARAH WALKER is a Naarm (Melbourne-based) writer, artist and photographer. Her first book, The First Time I Thought I Was Dying, a collection of non-fiction essays, won the Quentin Bryce Award. Her debut novel is The Water Takes.
SAM ELLIOTT is an author and interviewer. He is the founder and host of The Write Way podcast on which he has interviewed many authors, including both Irma and me. Haze is his debut novel. He lives in Sydney.
Find out more about Irma and Karen
Visit Irma Gold’s website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
Visit Karen Viggers’ website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
Follow Secrets From the Green Room on Instagram and Facebook

Karen and Irma chat about how to decide on the POV(s) for a novel, and how to listen to what the book itself wants to be.
Then Irma talks to Melbourne Writers Festival Director Veronica Sullivan and Sorrento Writers Festival Director Corrie Perkin about their pathways to becoming directors of two of Australia’s biggest festivals, the way they plan their programs, practical advice on what writers and their publishers can do to break into the festival circuit, what writers do wrong when pitching to festivals and how to get it right, the controversy around the Sydney Writers Festival exclusivity clause and the Bendigo and Adelaide festival boycotts, what makes both a good panellist and a good panel, how Corrie’s devastating experience of closing her bookshop led to creating a new festival, and why an event with Behrouz Boochani had a profound impact on Veronica.
About Corrie and Veronica
Corrie began her career as a cadet reporter at the Age and over the next three decades, worked in a variety of editing and writing roles. In 2009, she opened an independent bookstore in Hawksburn that ran that for 12 years. Then in 2023, she founded the Sorrento Writers Festival, which has quickly grown to become Australia’s second-biggest literary festival.
Veronica began as a volunteer at Melbourne Writers Festival, then went on to intern at the Emerging Writers’ Festival. She was a founding board member and then program manager of the Feminist Writers Festival, and then became head of programming at The Wheeler Centre, before assuming her current role as Director of Melbourne Writers Festival.
Show Notes
Melbourne Writers Festival
Sorrento Writers Festival
Find out more about Irma and Karen
Visit Irma Gold’s website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
Visit Karen Viggers’ website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
Follow Secrets From the Green Room on Instagram and Facebook

Karen and Irma chat about structuring a novel, in particular the use of prologues and epilogues.
Then in the first of an occasional series with debut authors, Irma talks to Dominic Amerena and Lisa Moule about the challenging process of writing their first novels, how to trust your writing instincts, their very different paths to finding agents and publishers, the brutal reality of rejection (how it stopped Dominic writing novels for a decade and why one rejection made Lisa cry like a teenage girl), how to best approach agents, how writing short form pieces helped lay the ground for their novels, why Lisa Moule decided not to voice her own audiobook (even though she is a voice actor), and Lisa’s Teams mishap with a psychedelic filter during her first important publishing meeting.
About Lisa and Dominic
Lisa Moule is the author of The Mother of All Calamaties, released in March this year by Allen & Unwin. She is also an actor, voice artist, and presenter of 3CR’s ‘Published or Not’ program. She is based in Naarm/Melbourne.
Dominic Amerena is the author of I Want Everything, which was the first novel published by Summit Books, the new literary imprint of Simon & Schuster, just over a year ago. It has since won or been shortlisted for a number of awards. He lives in Greece, and is coming to us from Athens today.
Find out more about Irma and Karen
Visit Irma Gold’s website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
Visit Karen Viggers’ website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
Follow Secrets From the Green Room on Instagram and Facebook

Irma and Karen answer a listener question about the transition from emerging writer to established, then chat about their latest reading recommendations.
Then Karen talks to poet Robbie Coburn about how discovering Edgar Allan Poe when he was 14 was like being let out of jail, how mimicking great writers can help develop your writing early on, how he connects poems to memories like songs, the best way for poets to get their work out into the world, the value of mentorship for poets, why allowing horses to gallop into his work helped him find himself as a writer, how to persist despite devastating rejection, and how his granny would have been proud of him receiving an award sticker for his verse novel.
About Robbie 
Robbie Coburn is the author of several poetry collections and a young adult verse novel The Foal in the Wire. He has published several chapbooks and zines, and his poems have been published in numerous Australian and international journals. He has run poetry workshops for Headspace – a youth mental health organisation. He grew up on a farm in regional Victoria and now lives in Melbourne.
Find out more about Irma and Karen
Visit Irma Gold’s website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
Visit Karen Viggers’ website, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook
Follow Secrets From the Green Room on Instagram and Facebook