Hidden Nerve - Isobelle Carmody

THE LIVING ARC with Isobelle Carmody

6pm Wednesday 4 November, via Zoom

Join us for the final session of 2026. MARION is opening our normally closed HIDDEN NERVE development program to the wider writing community.

A rare opportunity to step inside Hidden Nerve with Isobelle Carmody.

Join acclaimed author Isobelle Carmody for a special 90-minute presentation and Q&A exploring how dialogue, character and setting work together to create atmosphere, and how narrative structure can strengthen a story. Discover the importance of cause and effect in storytelling, and how to shape a compelling narrative arc from beginning to end. Available as a one-off public booking.

MARION's year-long HIDDEN NERVE series offers writers the opportunity to learn from some of the most exciting Australian writers working today. Exploring the art and craft of prose, sessions cover everything from word choice and the mechanics of sentences to creating compelling characters, building dramatic tension through gesture, and more.

HIDDEN NERVE is usually reserved exclusively for its selected cohort, making this a rare opportunity to experience the program while supporting MARION and our work with writers.

Online | 90 minutes | Limited places

Isobelle Carmody is one of Australia's most highly acclaimed authors of fantasy. At fourteen, she began Obernewtyn, the first book in her much-loved Obernewtyn Chronicles, and has since written many works in this genre. Her novel The Gathering was joint winner of the 1993 Children's Literature Peace Prize and the 1994 CBCA Book of the Year Award, and Greylands was joint winner of the 1997 Aurealis Award for Excellence in Speculative Fiction (Young Adult category), and was named a White Raven at the 1998 Bologna Children's Book Fair.

Isobelle's work for younger readers includes her two series, The Legend of Little Fur, and The Kingdom of the Lost, the first book of which, The Red Wind, won the CBCA Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers in 2011. She has also written several picture books as well as collections of short stories for children, young adults and adults.

Recently she completed a PhD at the University of Queensland and currently divides her time between her home on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria and Brisbane.

We’re delighted to welcome Beejay Silcox, who will facilitate the session and conduct an accompanying interview with Isobelle, to be published in the MARION Journal.

Tickets

• General tickets

  $65

• MARION members

  $50