Finding Your Voice

Writing for school and then tertiary institutions can be reductive: you’re pushed into a formal, distanced voice. It’s taken me years to undo that training, so that when I need to, I can sound more like myself on the page.

I’ve worked it out for myself (with a little help from my husband sometimes telling me to ‘Stop using my teacher voice’!) It’s been hard work though.

A few years ago, I worked with a P.E. teacher who wrote exactly as he spoke. I used to love getting his newsletters – even his reports were interesting. Some people are blessed with this ability. It’s rarer than you might think – it’s much more common to sit down to write and default to a formal tone because that’s what you’re used to; what you’ve been taught.

In fact, one of the most challenging things a writer faces is finding their voice on the page, and then learning how to adapt that voice for different purposes and readers. And really, the only way to find that voice is by experimenting; reading, listening, talking, watching, and then trying different ways of doing things.

One of the goals at our exciting new student conference Write Now 2022 is to expose you to a variety of writing styles and genres. In selecting our speaker line-up, we’ve looked for writers who work outside the world of secondary school writing. We want to give our delegates the chance to experiment and explore in a safe environment, where they can have fun and  be free to express themselves.

Find out more about Write Now, and register, here.

EVENT UPDATE: Balancing school life for students has become a bit of a mountain during these difficult times, so we have made the decision to postpone our inaugural Write Now Student Conference until 2023.

Please read the blogs and do register your interest for next year’s event now so we can keep you in the loop.