Getting the words for the write stuff!
If you’ve seen the billboards around town featuring the Queensland Writers Centre – and want to be a writer – you know what to do.
Let me start by saying that with more than 2000 members, Queensland Writers Centre is the largest writers’ centre in the country.
As Trent Dalton says about us, Queenslanders punch above their weight. Over the summer, we’re aiming even higher with our #writeratheart billboard campaign.
Have you seen it yet? As the picture shows, the team got excited and headed straight out for the campaign’s first day in Fortitude Valley, where we discovered how hard it is to get a photo with a revolving billboard.
Emojis seem like a fun, visual way to pose the question: Are you a writer at heart? The response is the assurance that “QWC loves writers”. Seeing the QWC emoji messages from the street was incredibly exciting. As you’d imagine, billboards aren’t our usual thing, but GOA made it so easy for our small organisation to dip our toe in the advertising waters.
We want to let people know that QWC is for anyone who has a desire to write, whatever stage they are at. There’s an assumption that writers’ centres are for professionals or writers aiming for publication. The reality is that we’re a centre for anyone interested in writing in any form.
Our members are amateur writers, published authors, emerging writers, children’s authors and illustrators, screenwriters, journalists, editors, agents, publishers, poets, storytellers, playwrights, cultural producers, freelance writers, teachers, academics and critics.
We strive to support every member and provide them with opportunities to write, publish and create. Our growing membership is something I’m extremely proud of, as it reflects the past seven years of building this amazing community with my team.
But I know there are still writers out there who either don’t know about the centre or think they’re “not good enough” yet.
I like to make the analogy that if you were interested in sport at school, there’s a pathway to get support and follow that through to adult life, whether as a professional or an amateur player. Yet if you were the writer at school, you’re usually the only one and are expected to become Hemingway on your own.
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Most people only find their way back to writing when they’re older. That means an enormous loss of diverse voices that might never be heard.
#writeratheart is a wakeup call for anyone with an unrealised writing dream. Become a member. Make 2025 the year of your writing renaissance and we will be there every step of the way. If you’re a writer at heart, then QWC is for you.
Lori-Jay Ellis is CEO of Queensland Writers Centre; queenslandwriters.org.au