Mawunyo Gbogbo’s memoir Hip Hop and Hymns has been described by Richard Glover as "A new voice that is uninhibited, distinctive and gripping - Mawunyo's memoir is full of love, joy, defiance and humour." As a journalist, Mawunyo knew what to include, what to omit and how to have a birds eye view of shared experiences. Just because a person is interesting to you, doesn't mean they'll be interesting to the reader unless you allow them to get to know the character the way you do.

If you want to craft compelling, striking, and believable characters in your non-fiction writing, this session is for you.

Join us to learn how to:

• put together a character dossier for each of the real-life characters in your book
• know your character well enough that you know what to include and what to omit
• make characters actions believable - just because it happened, doesn't mean people will believe it
• re-create dialogue from memory or diary entries
• recreate action scenes
• describe appearances: Story expert Michael Hague puts it best - what a person wears reveals far more about her than her height, build and age. Imagine reading about a woman whose Salvation army dress was crisply ironed, and whose perfectly polished shoes hid the holes in her soles. Not only would you be able to picture the character, you would immediately know that she was desperate to hide the fact that she had fallen on hard times
• define a character so they are easy for readers to care about

There will be time for questions so don’t miss this opportunity to improve your non-fiction writing.

A private link of the session recording will be provided to enrolled participants only and available for a limited period of 10 days. Once the viewing period has expired the recording will no longer be available to view.

Handouts and slides will be provided to all registered participants if used in the session.

Mawunyo Gbogbo is the Author of Hip Hop & Hymns, a memoir of loving hard, falling apart and fighting back, set to an unrivalled playlist. Published by Penguin Random House, Hip Hop & Hymns is described by Books+Publishing as ‘a beautiful and heart-wrenching memoir’. Mawunyo writes about growing up in the sleepy coal mining town of Muswellbrook NSW, with her love of storytelling and budding journalism career taking her to The City That Never Sleeps: New York City, where she interns at the Bible of hip hop – The Source Magazine. Mawunyo has worked in the media industry for a couple of decades and is currently a journalist for ABC News specialising in popular culture. She’s also worked as a segment producer for the Today Show on Channel Nine and as an associate producer for Insight on SBS TV, where she won a UN Media Peace Prize. Mawunyo was also part of the ABC Regional and Local team who together with ABC News won a Walkley Award in 2020 for the ABC’s Bushfire Coverage.

To register for the course, please use the booking function below.

ASA members, please log in to receive the member price.

Zoom details will be emailed after booking.