NZSA Webworkshops – a series of webinars to enable ongoing professional development

Featuring writers and industry professionals offering virtual workshops on topics such as self-publishing, romance writing, poetry, structure, short stories, pitching, contract advice, dystopian writing and the business of writing.

All Webworkshops are hosted on Zoom. Zoom is free to download

Learn more about what to expect in a Webworkshop in this article from the NZ Author magazine – Spring 2020

Webworkshops – 2024 season

TikTok – What is it and how could it benefit your writing career?

10am – 12pm, Wednesday 18 September

Don’t let anyone tell you TikTok is just for kids when it’s the fastest-growing social media platform in history!

If you want to know how TikTok can be used to grow presence online, then sign up to this Webworkshop. Seth Zorn from The Classroom will provide an overview of how authors could use TikTok and some guidance for getting started. Please bring your questions!

Seth Zorn has been running a digital marketing agency Tailgunner Digital, for nearly 15 years and during that time has helped numerous businesses and organisations achieve more online. For the last couple of years, he’s been focusing on education and sharing his knowledge and expertise to teach people how to get better at running their own marketing. When he’s not working, he’s hanging out with any number of his five kids, trail running or trying not to burn things on his bbq.

Fee: NZSA Members – $35. (Non-members – $65)

The Short Story: character, setting, voice – with Catherine Chidgey

10am-12:30pm, Wednesday 23 October

This workshop guides you through a range of bespoke writing exercises in order to generate the raw material for a short story. First you will identify a character and begin to flesh them out through consideration of a central desire as well as a problem or obstacle they must face. You will then create a three-dimensional setting in which to place your character. Finally, you will be encouraged to find your character’s authentic voice by placing them in a dialogue.

Catherine Chidgey is a multiple award-winner whose novels have achieved international acclaim. The Axeman’s Carnival and Pet were number one bestsellers. Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her debut, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at both the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (South-East Asia and South Pacific region). It also won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times Book Review and a Best Book in the LA Times. The Axeman’s Carnival and The Wish Child both won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction – New Zealand’s most prestigious literary award. Other honours include the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and the Nielsen Independent New Zealand Bestseller award. Catherine Chidgey lives in Ngāruawāhia and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato. Her new novel, The Book of Guilt, is due out in May 2025.