Advice

Viewing guide

Before

Many people have ideas about how to write or how to improve writing skills. What advice has worked for you?
Describe a situation where the advice has not worked for you or it didn’t work in the way you expected it to.

During

During the video, think about these questions:

What advice does Alice give aspiring writers?
How does Alice see herself as a role model for young writers?
Alice says her book isn't really a manual on how to make it. How does she describe her book?

After

Alice advises someone wanting to be a writer to 'just do it'. What do you think? Why does she give this advice?
Describe your view of Alice’s advice to aspiring writers?

Transcript

Interviewer, Christine McGuigan: What advice would you give to someone who wanted to be a writer?

Alice Pung: What advice would I gi ...? Just to tell them to do it. I think I was at the Byron Bay festival last year and someone told a story about Aldous Huxley and he was giving a seminar about writing. You know the gentleman who wrote 'Brave New World'. And two hundred people were seated there and they wanted to know what it was that got him writing. And he walked on stage and he said 'So, who here wants to be a writer?' and everyone put their hands up. And he said 'Well, just bloody go home and do it then!' and he just walked off stage. And that's probably how you go about doing it. You just have to do it.

Christine: Alice, do you see yourself as a role model for young readers who may identify with your story?

Alice: When my book was being launched, a lot of Southeast Asian families bought the book for their children and I was so touched and honoured because $25 is a lot for a working class family to spend on a book. And I was wondering why until I realised on the back it says ‘Alice Pung is a Melbourne writer and lawyer’. And even though the parents couldn't speak or read English ,they thought, ‘She's a lawyer. This must be a manual on how to make it!’ And it isn't really. It's a manual on how to not do ... how to be good-natured and good-humoured about failings in life. It's the complete opposite of a book about success. It is a book about failures in life, large and small, and how to get back up again, stoically and gracefully, and just to find the humour in things. If someone had taught me that at 17, I think I would have had an easier time at school and at home.

Christine: Thank you for your time today, Alice.

Alice: Thank you.