Get the tools and support you need to complete the first draft of your novel, in this express version of Queensland Writers Centre's flagship program (online!).

Express Year of the Novel is here to help you finally reach your novel-writing goals. Attend 8 three-hour online workshops, each detailing the steps you need to take when writing the first draft of your novel. Hosted by acclaimed author Balli Jaswal, in this course you’ll receive practical advice and inspiration so you can maintain your writing pace and finally write 'the end'.

You’ll also receive written feedback on 10 pages (up to 3,000 words) of your work-in-progress at a scheduled time during this course.

Learning outcomes

You will hone your writing skillset and work to draft a full-length novel through practical exercises, group discussions, critique sessions, and homework in the key areas listed below:

Develop your personal skills in the craft of narrative writing.
Learn techniques to pre-draft and generate ideas.
Structure your narrative on a macro and micro level.
Craft characters with goals and flaws.
Build your novel's world and setting.
Find your author voice and writing style.
Develop an appreciation for the business of writing and publishing.

Course dates

10:30am – 1:30pm (AEST Brisbane), Saturday 29 August 2026
10:30am – 1:30pm (AEST Brisbane), Saturday 12 September 2026
10:30am – 1:30pm (AEST Brisbane), Saturday 26 September 2026
10:30am – 1:30pm (AEST Brisbane), Saturday 10 October 2026
10:30am – 1:30pm (AEST Brisbane), Saturday 24 October 2026
10:30am – 1:30pm (AEST Brisbane), Saturday 7 November 2026
10:30am – 1:30pm (AEST Brisbane), Saturday 21 November 2026
10:30am – 1:30pm (AEST Brisbane), Saturday 5 December 2026

Supplementary materials and 7-day access Replay recordings are available for any missed sessions.

Format

This is an intensive and collaborative eight-part course with a focus on craft; it will be held online via Zoom. It is a course designed for emerging writers but is suitable for dedicated writers of all levels and writing backgrounds to attend. Each session will combine explicit teaching of skills and techniques with interactive discussion and writing exercises. You are expecting to be working on the first draft of a new novel throughout this course — if you have already completed a draft, consider instead The Next Draft.

Flexible payment plans are available for this course. Please contact Queensland Writers Centre at admin@qldwriters.org.au or call (07) 3842 9922.

About Balli

Balli Jaswal is the author of Inheritance, which won the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelist Award in 2014 and was adapted into a film at the Singapore International Festival of the Arts in 2017. Her second novel Sugarbread was a finalist for the 2015 inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize and the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize.

Her internationally acclaimed novel Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows was a selection of Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club and has been optioned for a feature film. She is also the author of The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters (2019) and Now You See Us (2023). Jaswal's novels have been translated into fifteen languages. Her short fiction and non-fiction writing have appeared in the UK Sunday Express, Cosmopolitan Magazine, The New York Times, Harpers Bazaar, Conde Nast Traveller and Best Australian Short Stories, among other publications and periodicals.

Jaswal works with writers on developing their manuscripts through the Australian Writers Mentoring Program. She has traveled widely to appear in international writers’ festivals to conduct workshops and lectures on creative writing, pursuing an artistic career, the power of storytelling, global citizenship and social justice advocacy through literature. A former writing fellow at the University of East Anglia, Jaswal has taught creative writing at Yale-NUS College, University of Melbourne, and Nanyang Technological University where she completed her Ph.D. in South Asian diaspora writing.

For more information about Queensland Writers Centre’s Program of Events and answers to FAQs, please visit: www.queenslandwriters.org.au/program-info

Contact the host of Online Express Year of the Novel with Balli Jaswal