There’s more to writing than just books. Every day, words are used to communicate ideas and information in an engaging way.
As a writer, you could work as an editor, publisher, author, freelance writer or researcher in all types of industries, including media, advertising, technology and business.
You’ll spend time researching, interviewing and writing. You could produce a range of creative work including novels, scripts, children’s books or poetry. You could follow a path into academia and use your writing skills to publish articles and conduct life-changing research. You could dive into the media world and become a features writer, news journalist or podcaster.
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11%
Authors and book and script editors
* National Skills Commission, 2021 Employment projections for the five years to 2026
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7.1%
Journalists and other writers
* National Skills Commission, 2021 Employment projections for the five years to 2026
Creative Writing, and Writing and Publishing are industry-focused degrees that prepare you for employment in a variety of positions in a highly dynamic and diverse international industry.
Studying creative writing and publishing can lead to a variety of jobs. These include freelance writer, publishing assistant, copywriter, editorial assistant, researcher, journalist and content producer.
Whether you are looking for local, interstate or international employment, your skills will be highly sought after by newspapers, magazines, television stations and other media production companies.
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You will benefit from our strong connections to industry leaders that will provide you with practical skills, and you'll have the opportunity to connect with them through bespoke guest lectures and workshops. Our students have worked with:
Hannah Kent’s debut novel, Burial Rites, has taken the literary world by storm. Winning several awards and landing on shortlists for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Guardian First Book Award, it has been translated into over 20 languages and is being adapted into a feature film. Hannah is also the co-founder of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings.
Celeste Ryan, Bachelor of Tourism and Events
Our incredible teaching and research staff within the creative writing and publishing sector are experts in their professions and well-connected to industry.
“Fiction in all its glory! I write commercial fiction under the name Tess LeSue with Penguin Random House USA. Publisher’s Weekly calls my work ‘witty and memorable’; RT Book Reviews praised it for being ‘a delightful rollercoaster ride’; Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews gave my latest book five stars and All About Romance summed it up as ‘funny, romantic and appealingly entertaining, [while] unflinchingly portraying the ugly underbelly of the old west’.”
An award-winning novelist, Dr Amy Matthews is the Chair of Writers SA and a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Flinders University. Amy’s academic and teaching skills have also been recognised in multiple honours and awards.
As Tess LeSue, Amy’s romance fiction novels have seen her stamp her mark on an industry worth over $1 billion and accounting for over 50% of all paperbacks sold.
Amy is a highly skilled, engaging lecturer in touch with both the scholarly and commercial aspects of Creative Writing.
Dr Sean Williams is one of Australia’s most-awarded speculative fiction writers. With over forty novels and one hundred and twenty short stories for adults, young adults and children, the #1 New York Times-bestselling author certainly ‘walks the walk’ as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Flinders.
“My work has been nominated thirty times for the Aurealis Award, in the categories of Science Fiction Novel and Short Story, YA Novel, Children’s Novel, Fantasy Novel, Horror Short Story, and Collection. Also, for the Ditmar Award my work has been nominated seventeen times in the categories of Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Collection, and Professional Achievement. In 1999, I received the “SA Great” Award for Literature.”
Sean’s literary achievements are incredible, ranging from speculative fiction to realism, resulting in him being named the “King of Chameleons” by Australian Book Review for the diversity of his published output.
"As author Lisa L. Hannett, most of Dr Lisa Bennett's works are categorised as 'Dark Fantasy' or 'Horror', which is hilarious considering all versions of Lisa are afraid of the dark."
Lisa Bennett teaches undergraduate and Honours classes in Creative Writing and English, and she is a specialist in Old-Norse Icelandic literature, the Viking Age, genre fiction, and creative practice. She is the author of Writing Bestsellers: Love, Money and Creative Practice (with Kim Wilkins; Cambridge University Press, 2021). Lisa regularly writes reviews for the ABR and is a frequent guest on ABC Radio's 'Book of the Week' segment.
Under her pen name, Lisa L. Hannett, she is an internationally recognised, multiple award-winning writer of five short story collections, a novel, and over 80 speculative fiction short stories (fantasy, science fiction, horror, and historical fiction). Lisa's recent book, Viking Women: Life and Lore (Thames & Hudson, 2023) combines her research expertise and her skills as a storyteller, presenting speculative biographies of Viking women from all ages and social strata (slaves, housewives, mothers, far-travellers, young girls, old widows, and anchoresses) alongside engaging historical context.
Creating a stage show that appeals to both a Japanese and an Australian audience is a challenge few would take on, but Flinders University Lecturer in Drama Critical Studies, Dr Alex Vickery-Howe not only took on the challenge, he created a sell-out success.
Alex’s Once Upon a Midnight, a bilingual, bicultural horror rock musical, opened in Okinawa, Japan, before selling out again at the Adelaide OzAsia Festival. For Alex, the biggest issue was developing a script that worked with two completely different senses of humour.
"Sarcasm is lost. I offended a lot of people just being myself... it's that Australian thing of saying 'I hate you' but really meaning 'I like you' which is taken literally."
A passionate, witty lecturer, Alex has written for the stage in partnership with several theatre companies, has written and directed a number of short films and recently completed an internship with StudioCanal in Sydney working in screen assessment/development.
Living and studying overseas presents you with the unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the local culture while continuing your tertiary study at one of Flinders University’s 70+ overseas partner universities.
Why wait until you graduate to see the world? Let our program offer you the educational adventure of a lifetime.
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