For the past ten years, I’ve not only judged the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature, but I’ve written a judge’s report to advise emerging writers how they can improve their writing for next time. I’ve then published that advice on my blog each year (apart from the first year):

Character Domination! MYAL 2017
Tips for Young Writers for Literary Awards @mosmanlibrary #MYAL 2018
5 Tips for Young Writers 2019
Winning Tips @mosmanlibrary #MYAL 2020
2021 @MosmanLibrary Literary Awards Judge’s Report #MYAL
What Matters In A Writing Competition #MYAL 2022
The Value of the Teenage Mind! #MYAL 2023
Exploratory Advice For Emerging Writers! #MYAL 2024 @MosmanLibrary

Since that’s a lot of writing guidance, this year I decided to take the opportunity to share with emerging writers how I frequently reflect on my life as an author through the concept of Ikigai.

I’ve mentioned ikigai on my blog before (here and here) – it’s a Japanese concept that suggests you consider your sense of purpose, or reason for being, through asking yourself four questions: (1) what do you love, (2) what are you good at, (3) what can you be paid for, and (4) what does the world need.

How you answer these questions can help bring joy, fulfilment, and meaning into your life.

For me, since launching my latest book, When Dark Waters Burn, I can definitely say that (1) I love writing (especially my science fantasy books!), and (2) I’m good at it – I’ve been called a ‘master of immersive worlds’, writing emotional reads that ‘don’t let go’, ‘timely epic futuristic quests, fast paced and absorbing, with slow burn romances that leave readers wanting more’. I’ve won a multitude of national writing awards myself, with both my speculative and contemporary fiction.

This means that – along with mentoring and editing other writers, teaching creative writing at festivals, in libraries and for schools, and giving author talks – I can indeed (3) be paid for my writing.

But what about (4) what the world needs?

Now, you might say that the world always needs more books. But does it?

–> There are millions of books in the world, and each new book that’s published has to compete with all the other books being launched that month, that year, as well as all the bestselling books still on the bookshelves from the previous months and years, which readers are still enjoying.

–> It’s the same for emerging writers when they write a story for publication, for a competition or an anthology, or even for school or university, there are plenty of other writers also entering or submitting stories. Good stories too.

Swarmed by so many MYAL writers (I’m at the back)! Dashing around the front to get a snap of all these proud parents – with Linda Lokhee, judge for the primary section.

So, why should I write another book? And what should I write if I do? And why should any emerging writer write another story? And what should they write if they do?

–> For me, some would say that, since the Big 5 commercial publishers ultimately determine what sells well or becomes a bestseller, I should write what they want to publish.

–> For emerging writers, some would say that, since judges, editors, and teachers ultimately determine what gets good marks or wins, they should write what judges, editors and teachers want to read?

My senior prose winners: Alicia Sparks, Georgina Denly, and Isabella Jurdeczka. Congratulations to all the shortlisted MYAL writers!

Well, I’ve been in the publishing industry for almost 30 years now, judging the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature for ten years, and teaching creative writing since I was in high school myself in the 1990s, and from all that experience, I can tell you that my answer to what the world needs from both emerging writers and myself is actually the same.

To be authentic.

As the years go by, the world is becoming more and more fake, more templated, more forced into defined boxes of how we should live, what and how we should create, who we should be.

But the stories that speak to me the most as a reader and a judge, and the stories that inspire me enough to write them, are the ones that resonate deeply within me. And there’s only one way to write stories that resonate, and that’s to be authentic to life and to yourself.

So over the years ahead, as any emerging writers out there continue to write and hone their craft, I hope they endeavour to be authentic to themselves whenever they put pen to paper.

That’s what I intend to do with my next book and I hope they do the same. Because the world doesn’t need what it already has, it needs what it doesn’t even know it’s yet to have.