Amy Lovat, Frensham’s First Writer in Residence on writing, resilience and being your own biggest fan.
On a crisp winter morning, Frensham’s Writer-in-Residence Amy Lovat stood before the school community to reflect on what it means to believe in your own potential, even when the spotlight fades.
Amy, who has spent the term living at Sturt and working alongside students, opened her Morning Prayers with warmth and humility. “If we haven’t met yet, I’m Amy, and I’ve spent this term sitting over there at Sturt hunched over my laptop trying to write another book… and coming over here to talk to you about books and writing—which, to be honest, is much more fun than writing the words themselves.”
As the School’s first-ever Writer-in-Residence, Amy has supported Frensham’s Year 12 Extension 2 English students on their major works and shared her own creative practice through workshops and conversations. But her message at Morning Prayers moved beyond technique. She shared a personal story about writing, rejection and the courage it takes to back yourself.
Amy’s debut novel, Mistakes and Other Lovers, was eleven years in the making. “Eleven years of writing, re-writing, sending it out, getting rejected, giving up, and starting again,” she said. “The only reason I didn’t stop trying was because of a tiny flicker of a voice inside me that said, ‘I really believe this might happen one day.’ That flicker was my inner confidence.”
When the book was finally published, the experience was surreal. “I got taken out for a fancy lunch in Darling Harbour, signed 500 copies, saw my book in the window at Dymocks on George Street. It was amazing. It felt like people believed in me, just like I had for all those years.”
But her second book, Big Feelings, due out in two weeks, has come with very different emotions. “No fanfare this time. No window displays. No book signing. And I started to doubt myself—deeply,” she shared. “On my anxious days, I convinced myself I had written the worst book in the history of publishing.”
Talking with fellow authors revealed a common pattern: second-book syndrome, a phenomenon Amy likened to middle-child syndrome. The debut book draws attention, hype and hope. The second? Often, not so much. “The industry just doesn’t care as much,” she said. “Which left me asking—what about me? What about this book I spent years writing?”
In that space of uncertainty, Amy rediscovered the lesson she thought she had already learned: that confidence must come from within.
“With the first book, I could ride the wave of other people’s excitement. But this time, it’s up to me. I need to believe in this book just as I believed in the first one. I need to be my own biggest fan.”
She paused to explain what that meant. “Being your own biggest fan isn’t about arrogance. It’s about believing in yourself, even when no one else is clapping yet. It’s a skill you can learn. Something you can build, practise and grow.”
Amy reminded students that confidence is not about having all the answers but about backing yourself, even in uncertainty. “You might not know how something will turn out, and that’s okay. What matters is that you choose to be proud of the effort. You choose to keep going.”
Amy has been so inspired by her time at Frensham, and the warmth and dedication of the students, that she has enrolled in a Master of Teaching.