Rosi Ngwenya is a Swazi-born Author and Children’s Dental Therapist who lives on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. BrilliANT (published by Riveted Press to be released in July 2024) is her debut book. In her spare time Rosi is an unofficial collector of sunrises, pens and short course certificates.
WHAT CYA CONFERENCE DID FOR ME
I'm always writing and sharing silly stories with my little patients while they are in the dental chair. So I knew that I loved story-telling, but had never seriously thought about writing children’s books until I enrolled in a short course run by the Australian Writers Centre in 2019. The upcoming CYA conference a couple of months later was touted as a must-attend event for all of us aspiring authors.
Determined to take full advantage of the experience, I also signed up for a manuscript assessment and picked just one session with the magnificent Rowena Beresford from Yellow Brick Books (now Riveted Press) - they were after quirky, adventurous, and fun; all adjectives that described the style of stories I like to write.
I went into that session nervous and never expecting more than feedback.
So imagine when I saw Rowena's big smile, felt her excited energy, and then heard her when she introduced me to her assistant as the “Author” of BrilliANT. I remember it was the first time anyone had called me that…
Even more surprising was when she said they loved it and were interested in publishing it! Fast forward a few years, throw in a pandemic, a 6-month move to Northern Ireland and then moving back to Australia again, 'BrilliANT' is now about to be released into the wild. I’m so proud to have achieved something that just started as a small seed of thought and grew into focused ambition.
I can now say "I’ve done it" and I'm just itching to create more.
CYA was such a fantastic event and an opportunity to meet with like-minded writers, receive real-world feedback from an Editor, and leave with bucket-loads of inspiration was more valuable than words can describe.
