Writing & Society Research Centre seminar series

Author, critic and editor Tegan Bennett Daylight has been a professional manuscript assessor for more than twenty years. She reads for Australian publishers and also works privately as first reader for many leading Australian writers, including Charlotte Wood and Peggy Frew. Her practice includes the work of mid-career and emerging writers. In ‘The Art of Reading’, Tegan hosts one of her most recent mentees, Sydney-based non-fiction writer Adèle Dumont, for a wide-ranging discussion on the manuscript assessment process. Editorial guidance and literary mentoring are often invisible labours in publishing economies. At their most constructive and collaborative, critical readings can nurture and guide early and mid-career authors in formative ways. But recognising potential hazards can help authors to set good boundaries around editorial conversations. This seminar asks a series of questions about the practices – and practicalities – of editorial assessment. Is it a good investment to pay for an experienced reader before submitting a book to agents and publishers? What practical advice can a reader give, and how should she give it? What possible pitfalls are there in hearing and incorporating the advice of another writer? How do mentor and mentee navigate the tricky territory of the personal? What are the ‘limits’ of useful criticism and how much advice should a mentee take? Adèle Dumont is the author of No Man Is An Island, an account of her time spent teaching English to asylum seekers in the Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia. Her work has appeared in Griffith Review, Meanjin, Australian Book Review and the Sydney Review of Books. She’s currently at work on her second book, a collection of personal essays exploring mental illness. Tegan Bennett Daylight is an author, reader, teacher and critic. Her latest book is the essay collection The Details: On Love, Death and Reading (Scribner, 2020) and her collection of short stories Six Bedrooms was shortlisted for a range of awards including the ALS Gold Medal and the Stella Prize. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Western Sydney University. RSVP here for Zoom details: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/194092524967