Story by Daniel Everett

Photo by Ryan Low

Jack Heath has taken his time to reveal the secrets behind his writing. He has provided his knowledge and tips with a year 10 class. Jack is an Australian author with a lifetime of experience in writing books, receiving dozens of awards.  

He grew up in Canberra and attended Lyneham High School, which is where Jack found his love for reading and writing. At 13, Jack wrote his first book, and it wasn’t until he was 18 that the book was published. The book – “The Lab” – was a mixture of Sci-Fi and Adventure Fiction.   The success of the book meant he was in demand and people wanted him to write further books.   

Unfortunately, this proved to be a mistake as not every book was loved or even published. After his breakthrough success Jack now found himself working at a bookshop.  

He had gone from writing books to selling other people’s works.  Jack described this as the ultimate setback but it also became a lightbulb moment, a moment of realisation that books were more than a piece of text.  

This changed his perspective on writing and it wasn’t long before he was big again. He explained the idea of perseverance and how he constantly believed.  

After this bumpy experience, Jack wrote another book on Adventure Fiction, this time it was bigger and better which turned into a successful series.  

 This first book ‘300 Minutes of Danger’ was translated into ten different languages. This was career changing for Jack and life couldn’t have gotten better, so he thought. He ventured into other genres such as crime, comedy and horror. 

 This is when a few of his books were recognised in the ‘Top 100 of Australian Books’. He went on to win ACT Young Australian of the Year in 2009.  

He has continued to write books and learn along his journey, even taking part in a writing competition. 

 This writing competition (NaNoWriMo) encouraged him to spend less time writing and more time editing. He emphasised this to the class and asked them to take part in a creative writing task.  

This task was designed to get the mind flowing in drafting pieces of writing and editing. The boys thoroughly cross-checked and edited the work of their peers. In doing this, he explained no first draft is perfect and the same with the final draft.  

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” Jack said.  

When quizzed on his favourite piece of work he replied; “Kill your Husband” because of his love for scary stories.  
His final message of the day was to have as much input from others when editing work.