Dear Rach & Soph Sophie Hamley

This is the penultimate episode of the first season of Dear Rach & Soph - Rachael and Sophie both have books to write, so we need to focus on those - but we have a long list of subjects we’d like to cover in future episodes so we will be back! 
In this episode we were very happy to chat to Susannah Begbie, author of The Deed, which won the Richell Prize in 2022. The Richell is a joint project of @hachetteaus and @emergingwriters; entries for the 2024 prize are open now and closing on 7 July. Details at https://emergingwritersfestival.org.au/the-richell-prize-for-emerging-writers/
If you’ve ever thought about entering a literary competition, it’s worth listening to Susannah talk about how and why she did and what it’s meant to her. She’s also all-round interesting!
Susannah Begbie grew up in rural New South Wales on a sheep farm and is now a GP who has worked all over Australia. In 2006, Susannah started a Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing at Canberra University and was awarded the Editor's Pick for her short story 'Fly to Meet You' in the University's First Anthology. She was also awarded the best-written text for her children's book Don't You Dare! in The Get Real Project. The Deed is her first novel.
This episode was recorded as the Sydney Writers Festival was starting so we have a bit of a chat about festival programming, as Sophie anticipates going to see Michael Connelly at his event at Sydney Town Hall.
Speaking of events … Rach will be in Sydney to do an event with Lizzy Dent on Wednesday 3 July at 6 p.m. and Soph will be there too, in the audience. If you’d like to join us go to: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1209662


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

**NB This episode was recorded in April so our intro chat will be out of sync with recent episodes.**
This week we have a wonderful guest: children’s author Ashleigh Barton, who has written several CBCA Notable and Shortlist titles including What Do You Call Your Grandpa? and What Do You Call Your Grandma? (more information below). 
Ashleigh’s latest book is the picture book Dinosaur in My Pocket and on 26 June she’ll release two Freddie Spector, Fact Collector titles: Go for Gold and Space Cadet. 
Ashleigh writes for a range of ages of children and is endlessly creative. We talk to her about where she gets her ideas, how she manages writing while running a household and family, and her path to publication. 
ABOUT ASHLEIGH BARTON
Ashleigh Barton is a children's author and copywriter. Before writing full time, she pursued her love of books (children's books especially) by working in some of Australia's biggest publishing houses, running marketing and publicity campaigns for globally renowned authors and illustrators. Ashleigh has previously published five successful and highly acclaimed picture books and a junior fiction series. She lives in Sydney with her husband, three children and their dog.
For more about Ashleigh: https://www.ashleighbarton.com/
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget
Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rejections are par for the course for all writers, whether they’ve been published or not. Even once you have a publisher they may reject your next idea - or readers may reject your book by not reading it! Both Rachael Johns and Sophie Green have been rejected - multiple times (and both of us by Mills & Boon, which we talk about in this episode).

As a publisher, and when she was an agent, Sophie does some rejecting, and she also sees a lot of submissions, so she has some things to say about where writers go wrong in the submission process. (She made a ten-minute TikTok about how to write a submission letter and that is linked below.)
Therefore, if you are a writer - or engaged in any creative pursuit - and want to here us chat about being rejected, how to deal with rejection, what leads to manuscripts being rejected, and who knows what else we have in there, this is the episode for you. 
How to write a query/submission letter (TikTok video)
https://www.tiktok.com/@sophiegreenbooks/video/7360218814610443538?_t=8mdflLRbf5G&_r=1

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget
Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A little while ago Rachael Johns suggested we do an episode on ‘retirement energy’ after one of her favourites, Elin Hildebrand, announced she was stepping back from her regular writing pace. Writers obviously don’t have the same working structures as those in other careers and the decision to step back or retire can happen for a variety of reasons. Rach also suggested that we chat to fellow Western Australian author Fiona Palmer about her decision not to write novels for the foreseeable future (her last published book is The Wrong Sister from 2022). 
Books mentioned:
Regeneration by Pat Barker
The Tea Ladies by Amanda Hampson
Jackie by Dawn Tripp
Expiration Dates by Rebecca Searle
We are releasing out of our recording sequence so please forgive us for little anomalies like saying Fiona is our third guest when we’ve had some other guests on!
If you have a question for us, please email sophie@sophie-green-author.com and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget
Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Rachael Johns and Sophie Green talk about the parts of writing that we may or may not find tricky: no, not the existential stuff like 'I feel like I'm ripping my soul out of my body' (NB: we don't) but the technical stuff ... showing vs telling, action tags and dialogue tags, keeping track of timelines, whether or not we describe our characters' appearances, and other subjects of that ilk.
We also catch up on our news, which includes Soph writing a Farmer Wants a Wife recap for Rach, and generally enjoy chatting to each other, as always.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget
Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Rach and Soph talk about their Farmer Wants a Wife viewing, Rach asks Soph if she'd ever write a country music novel and we have a special guest: rural fiction author Renae Black. Renae had some questions about literary agents and Sophie used to be one, so we talk about the reasons for having one or not and, if you want one, how you’d choose one.
Rach also asks Soph if she has a tattoo - and she wants to know if any of you have a literary-themed tattoo …
We recorded this one before last week’s episode, so you’ll hear Rach saying it’s her first time introducing the episode … even though she introduced last week’s. This is our prerogative, to change order! 
Visit Renae Black's website: https://renaeblack.com/
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email sophie@sophie-green-author.com and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget
Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.