Shastra graduated in 2015 and is currently working as a poet and freelance editor with her first collection being published by UQ Press in 2017.
Shastra said UQ’s BA major in writing strikes a delicate balance between creative and professional writing, and sparked her interest in both poetry and editing, and she went on to complete her Honours in Writing at UQ.
The poetry manuscript Shastra wrote as part of her dissertation won the 2016 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, and was published in UQP in 2017.
Her degree has also given her the opportunity to work for Queensland Writers Centre and the QAGOMA Research Library.
“Good writers are good readers — treat your favourite books as instructions for writing the story that only you can write,” she said.
“My biggest challenge is that I'm always discovering more and more things I do not know –particularly while freelancing.”
Shastra is currently enrolled in a Master of Arts in Writing, Editing, and Publishing and is consistently surprised by the new things she’s learning.
UQ Graduate, Shastra Deo, explains the value of her Writing, Editing and Publishing Masters Degree along with what she is doing now.