BETWEEN THE LINES 2025
APPLICATIONS EXTENDED TO 27 APRIL 2025
Please note this program has a maximum capacity of 20 participants only
Between the Lines (BTL) is a facilitated reading program for writers with an active practice. Now in its ninth iteration, BTL returns in 2025, continuing its tradition of rich, writer-focused discussion and exchange.
Each session will include ample time for questions, discussion, and peer exchange. Whether you're deep into a manuscript or seeking to refine your reading lens, BTL is designed to sharpen your critical eye and invigorate your writing.
Across six monthly sessions, running from May to October 2025, participants will take part in in-depth conversations about three works of fiction and three of nonfiction, carefully curated by this year’s facilitators—Alice Grundy and Patrick Mullins.
In 2025, BTL offers a combined fiction/nonfiction stream, creating a unique opportunity to explore a broad spectrum of authorial approaches and literary techniques. The focus is on craft, achievement, and literary context, rather than personal preferences about whether a book is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on how each selected work might influence or inform their own creative practice.
Program Details
Facilitators: Alice Grundy & Patrick Mullins
Schedule: Monthly on Saturdays, 10:00AM–12:30PM
Dates: May–October 2025
Format: In-person sessions only
Location: The Salthouse, Haig Park, Henty St, Braddon ACT
What’s Included
For the first time, participants will receive all six books as part of the packaged ticket price—making it easier than ever to dive into each session fully prepared.
Places are strictly limited.
Who is the Program For?
Between the Lines is designed for writers with an active practice. By that we mean writers who can demonstrate a commitment to writing – this might be through a publication track record, and/or attendance in writing workshops, and/or submitting work to competitions. You do not need to be an established writer; you just need to show that you are committed to ongoing development, and to reading deeply in order to progress technique. Places are limited to 20 people to maximise discussion and participants will be expected to attend all sessions in order to get full value out of the program.
Please review all the dates below to ensure you are able to commit to the program.
Program Fees
MARION and FNAWN members: $350 includes all six books
MARION and FNAWN members: $300 without books
General public: $450 (includes all six books)
Application Process
To be part of the BTL program for 2025 click the APPLY HERE button below and complete the application form. Applications have been extended, and will now close at 11:59 PM Sunday 27 April. Submissions will be reviewed promptly and successful applicants will be provided with a payment link to confirm their place. Once accepted, you’ll be able to pay your fees in full or choose to spread the cost over time with Afterpay or Zip. Please note this program has a maximum capacity of 20 participants only.
2025 Reading List
Saudade by Suneeta Peres da Costa
Giramondo Publishing (fiction)
The Peregine by J.A. Baker
Harper Collins (nonfiction)
Personal Score by Ellen Van Neerven
UQP (nonfiction)
Rubik by Elizabeth Tan
Brio (fiction)
Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson
Pan Macmillan (fiction)
My father and other animals by Sam Vincent
Black Inc. (nonfiction)
Meeting and reading schedule
DATE
BOOK
THEME
FACILITATOR
Saturday 10 May
10am–12:30pm
Suneeta Peres da Costa
Saudade
Fiction
Alice Grundy
Saturday 7 June
10am–12:30pm
Ellen Van Neerven
Personal Score
Nonfiction
Patrick Mullins
Saturday 12 July
10am–12:30pm
Jessica Anderson
Tirra Lirra by the River
Fiction
Alice Grundy
Saturday 9 August
10am–12:30pm
J.A. Baker
The Peregine J.A. Baker
Nonfiction
Patrick Mullins
Saturday 13 September
10am–12:30pm
Elizabeth Tan
Rubik
Fiction
Alice Grundy
Saturday 11 October
10am–12:30pm
Sam Vincent
My father and other animals
Nonfiction
Patrick Mullins
Facilitators
Patrick Mullins - nonfiction
Dr Patrick Mullins is a Canberra-based writer. He is the author of five books and writes regularly for Australian Book Review, Inside Story, and other magazines and newspapers. His biography of Billy McMahon, Tiberius with a telephone (2018), won the 2020 National Biography Award and 2020 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction; his account of the demise of literary censorship, The trials of Portnoy (2020), was shortlisted for the 2021 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction and 2021 ACT Book of the Year. He was the Copyright Agency's Non-Fiction fellow for 2024.
Alice Grundy - fiction
Dr Alice Grundy is Managing Editor of Australia Institute Press. She has a PhD in editing and publishing history from ANU which she researched after working as a book editor for over a decade. She has written reviews, essays and articles for the Canberra Times, Sydney Review of Books and Australian Literary Studies and the first half of her PhD was published by Cambridge University Press as a mini-book: Editing Fiction, Three case studies from postwar Australia.
For more information
Contact creative@marion.ink
Access to the Between the Lines Facebook page:
All participants will be given access to the Between the Lines Facebook page, where past and present participants share their thoughts. The page is self-administered.