Your first book

Geoffrey Gates, a Masters in Creative Writing student at Macquarie University, has just published his first novel, A Ticket for Perpetual Locomotion. How’s your first book going?

Every year the Queensland-based publisher Interactive Press holds a competition, receiving manuscripts from all over Australia. Gates’ manuscript was not only selected for publication, but also won the IP Picks award for the best work of fiction submitted.

Now the book has been launched, there have been readings from it, and it is in bookshops in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

Writing and work

Gates says his novel is both a mystery and a different sort of travel book.

“It is about the anxiety of being young and leaving your family and friends when you go overseas indefinitely,” Gates says. “The ticket of the title gives you access to all forms of transport, but you can only move in one direction, and you can’t return home.”

He began writing it when he was living in Germany. Early work was supported by an informal writers’ group which met in a Hamburg pub.

He now works full-time as a high school teacher, supervising senior students working on their own writing projects for the HSC. He has also started a creative writing group at the school.

Creative writing at Macquarie

Gates enrolled in the course because he thought it would provide the same support as the German writers’ group, “a chance to workshop your ideas”. In his class are around 10 “very diverse” people, he says, all with their own writing projects.

“Over time, you get to know each other,” says Gates. “It’s helpful to writers starting out. Writing is a solitary occupation. It’s good to have others around you, for support.”

On alternate weeks, each student brings in part of a work-in-progress. Others read it, and offer constructive and positive criticism.

Experienced guest writers have also been brought in to talk to the students. They have included Malcolm Knox, Literary Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, and Kate Jennings, who has published internationally and who was available to meet the student writers over two weeks. Gates finds such people excellent for ideas and feedback.

The Master of Arts in Creative Writing is by coursework, and students are expected to produce a major piece of work of 30,000 words.

Writing as a career

Gates is now working on his craft without plunging straight into another large project. He writes for several hours a week, and is now producing short stories.

Writing has to be taken seriously as a career, he believes. If being creative is enjoyable, the hard work comes in finishing the manuscript and finding a publisher. And then the book must be promoted and marketed.

“It doesn’t happen by just thinking about it,” he says.

For further information, contact Geoffrey Gates at perpetual_locomotion@hotmail.com

The Department of English website is at www.engl.mq.edu.au/ A Ticket for Perpetual Locomotion is available from the Interactive Press at www.ipoz.biz/titles/tpl.htm

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