Brave Pen, Bold Stories is a four-session creative writing course designed to support you to write and share personal stories, particularly those that involve difficult or transformative experiences.
Facilitated by local author and midwife Oceane Campbell
Key Information
When: Fortnightly, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm, Wednesday 18 June; 2 July, 16 July, 30 July
Venue: Joy Cummings Centre, 63 Scott Street, Newcastle NSW 2300
Cost:
Full Price: $300
Member: $260
Member concession / youth: $220
Non-member concession / youth: $260
* Hunter Writers’ Centre defines youth as someone aged 25 years or under.
About the Course
Join local author and midwife Oceane Campbell (The Silence Between Us, 2021; Labour of Love, 2025) for a powerful four-part writing series dedicated to helping you turn real-life experiences into impactful stories.
Through a mix of theory, discussion, examples from published works, and practical exercises, Brave Pen, Bold Stories offers a safe and practical space to wield a brave pen and share your bold stories.
This course supports you to:
- Begin (or re-begin) and stay motivated in your writing practice
- Find and sustain your unique voice and learn how to express it effectively through techniques like description, dialogue, and narrative arc.
- Exploring what it means to be brave in your storytelling
- Shape lived experience into powerful, structured stories
- Build confidence in your work and share your voice with care
Course Structure
Week 1: Who Gets to be Brave?
Discussion Text: Bri Lee (author of Eggshell Skull, Beauty, Who Gets to be Smart, The Work)
What does it mean to be brave in writing? What compels us to write and share our stories? What are the benefits of writing—for you and for others? In this session we explore fiction, auto-fiction and the emotional realities of telling tough stories. We’ll talk about self-care, healthy and safe boundaries, what to do if you feel overwhelmed, and where to find support. We’ll also look at the benefits of writing—for you and for others.
Week 2: How do we get the tough words out?
Discussion text: Oceane Campbell with Cecile Barral (The Silence Between Us), Jessie Cole (Desire)
How do you find (and keep) your distinct voice? This session focuses on how to begin, return to, or stay with your writing, and when or where to stop. We’ll explore different writing techniques to get the tough words out including sensory detail, description and dialogue.
Week 3: When do our words become stories?
Discussion text: Nadine Cohen (Everyone and Everything), Kaya Wilson (As Beautiful as Any Other)
In what ways can you shape your writing in a clear narrative arc that creates cohesion, momentum, and meaning? We explore how different memoirs are structured, look at chronology vs theme and explore practical ways to organise your ideas. We’ll explore tools like timelines, mind maps, and theme-based clustering to help you find your story’s shape. Exercises include linking moments from different life stages and creating sharp character snapshots through short, descriptive writing.
Week 4: What Do we do with our Brave Pens and Bold Stories next?
Discussion text: Mimi Kwa (House of Kwa), Oceane Campbell (Labour of Love)
In this final session, we begin by focusing on balance—light and intense moments, emotional depth, and knowing when to offer detail and when to leave space. And we ask: where do you want to take your work? We’ll look at how to shape and edit your writing, how to share and promote it, and how to honour what you’ve created. Write an elevator pitch to an agent or write a letter to a loved one (or yourself) about why this writing matters to you.
Accessibility
Joy Cummings Centre has one disability parking at the front of the building on Pacific St and a wheelchair ramp access on Pacific St. There is one accessible bathroom.
Please let us know if you have specific access requirement when you are booking your workshop. Please email Bastian at programs@hunterwriterscentre.org or call Katherine on 0435 858 145 to discuss specific access requirements.
Getting There
Light Rail: The Newcastle Light Rail runs between Newcastle Interchange and Newcastle Beach, stopping at key locations including Civic and Queens Wharf.
Bus Services: Several bus routes service the Newcastle area. For specific routes and timetables, refer to Newcastle Transport’s official website. Newcastle Transport
By Car: There is limited parking on the street. Find nearby city carparks here.
About Oceane Campbell
Oceane Campbell is a proud and passionate midwife and writer working, living and mothering her three children on the unceded lands of the Awabakal nation. In her latest book, “Labour of Love”, Oceane shares birth stories with illuminating insights into the issues of consent, risk and autonomy that exist in our maternity care system. In “Labour of Love”, Oceane takes as through her own experiences of IVF, miscarriage and birth as she makes mistakes, learns weird and wonderful things about the pregnant body, and every day witnesses the most transformative moment of a person’s life. Oceane’s first book The Silence Between Us: A Mother and Daughter’s Conversation Through Suicide and into Life (2021), is a raw and original double memoir tracing mother and daughter as they try to understand and rebuild their relationship after Oceane’s suicide attempt as a teenager.
Before becoming a midwife, Oceane completed a psychology degree with honours. In 2022, she was named Newcastle Woman of the Year for her advocacy work in mental health and improving LGBTQI+ families accessing maternity care. Oceane has pubished a number of articles for midwifery journals, magazines and The Guardian.