Bronwyn Birdsall
30 Seconds with
Who are you?
I’m a writer living on Bundjalung Country, in Northern NSW.
What do you write?
Novels, primarily. My first, Time and Tide in Sarajevo was published in 2022. I’m now working on my second and I’m in that very enjoyable phase where it seems to have taken on a life of its own. Very broadly it’s about food, love and family, and it’s set in Sydney, where I grew up. I’m also slowly expanding my practice into scriptwriting and having fun learning a new form.
Why do you write?
I’ve always loved stories, whether that’s a book, a film or just a long afternoon with a friend hearing what’s happening in their lives. I started writing simply to understand my own life, and that gradually became a fiction practice. I think that I write back towards my younger self.
Best writing advice?
The best writing advice I’ve ever received was very simple: tell the truth. Particularly when I’m editing, that’s what I return to, asking myself if I am being as I honest as I can be – both on a sentence level, and in the dynamics or emotional truth of a scene.
How has MARION helped you?
I arrived at HARDCOPY in 2018 with a very rough draft of a manuscript. Through the program, I gained both a writing community and the technical knowledge to keep revising my work. Nigel Featherstone spoke often during the program about approaching publishing with “pragmatic optimism” and that’s a principle that I carry with me to date. Then in 2022, I participated in the year-long HIDDEN NERVE program, hearing from established writers on a new theme each month. Over the course of the year, I was also doing my final edits on Time and Tide in Sarajevo, before it was published in late July. The monthly sessions were particularly grounding and kept me focused on the big picture of writing.
What needs to change in Australian writing (or the Australian writing sector)?
More professional development programs like HARDCOPY that prepare writers for the reality of the Australian publishing industry.
Currently reading?
Maggie MacKellar’s book Graft. I usually read several books at the same time, but once I started I felt like I couldn’t read anything else.
Which living author would you like to champion and why?
The person who is reading this, dreaming of seeing their words in print. Keep going, have fun, tell the truth.
Bronwyn Birdsall is a writer living on Bundjalung Country, in Northern New South Wales. Her first novel Time and Tide in Sarajevo was published in July 2022 by Affirm Press, and has been shortlisted for the 2023 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Her writing centres around contemporary life and finding meaning in the everyday.
