Author Emma Pignatiello wondered why romance novels didn’t have more murders in them – so she wrote her own! In this episode, she discusses her book Last Shot, the inspiration behind it and the Australian Writers' Centre course that helped her get there.
00:00 Introduction 02:57 Writing tip: Follow the guidelines 10:33 WIN! Headcases by John McMahon 12:30 Word of the week: ‘Redolent’ 15:43 Writer in Residence: Emma Pignatiello 17:20 Emma’s inspiration for the story 24:20 Mapping out the plot points and character arcs 25:49 The writing process 29:42 Balancing her day job and parenting with writing 32:11 The publishing journey 40:51 Two amazing things happen in one day 41:40 Receiving the “yes” from her agent 44:53 Pitching two books to publishers 50:25 Future projects 52:32 How the Australian Writers' Centre Romance Writing course helped her 55:41 Top tips on finding publishing success 1:00:51 Final thoughts
Emma Pignatiello wrote her debut romantic suspense novel, Last Shot, because not enough people were being murdered in the romance books she was reading. She lives by the coast in Western Australia near Walyalup (Fremantle) on the land of the Whadjuk Noongar people. In disguise at her day job, she attempts to make teenagers care more about writing than about how many days she’s worn her cringe millennial shoes in a row. Emma is dedicated to making her stories authentic – she frequented many wineries in the name of research for the Blood Wine Dynasty series but has not (yet) committed any murders.
Last Shot won the CYA 2022 Conference Competition in the ‘adult genre’ category and was long-listed for the 2024 Adaptable Program. Emma was selected as a the ‘Upcoming’ Writer in Residence at the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writers’ Centre for 2025. Her YA fantasy novel The Bone Painter won the 2020 Varuna/ Affirm Press Mentorship Award and her adult crime novel If One of Us is Dead was selected for the Four Centres Emerging Writers Program (2021-2023). Her work has been published in the Three Can Keep a Secret Anthology by Night Parrot Press and also in many long-winded birthday cards that she forces upon her friends every year.
Besides writing, her hobbies include defending Taylor Swift to all non-believers, painting characters from her favourite books and eating Nutella straight from the jar.
