Writing ++

I have been freelancing since 2011, providing research, marketing and editorial pieces to a number of industry and parenting publications, both print and online. I have been featured on national and international sites such as Mazda Australia, Underground Writers, ScaryMommy, The Fundraising Directory, Mamamia, The West Australian, iVillage and Tripzilla.

Awards and other things I am proud of:

Finalist in the inaugural Best Australian Yarn competition, Top 10 stories out of 4,700 entries Australia-wide for Kevin and Dave, November 2022.

Longlisted in the 2022 Hungerford Award, Fremantle Press for The Carrington Effect.

‘Telling the Bees‘ and ‘The Funeral‘ published in Three Can Keep a Secret, Night Parrot Press, October 2022.  Read the full Westerly Magazine review here.

Recipient, 2022 Fellowship at the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writers’ Centre for my current work-in-progress, The Carrington Effect. Read my post here.

‘Telling the Bees‘ Shortlisted, Writing WA/Night Parrot Press Love to Read Local Short Fiction Award, published on the Raine Square Short Edition short story dispenser, June 2021.

‘The Mothers’ Group’  Published in Underground Writers, Issue 33, February 2021 Issue 33: Historical Fiction – Underground Writers (underground-writers.org)

‘A Stitch In Time,’ Top 3/Highly Commended, Serenity Press Open Award, published in Connection City of Rockingham Short Fiction Anthology, December 2020

‘Charlie Cake‘, Highly Commended, Stringybark Publishing Times Past Award, Published in Golah Sing, ed David Vernon, Stringybark Publishing, November 2020

Recipient, Fremantle Press/Four Centres Emerging Writers’ Program 2020

Recipient, Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, First Edition Retreat with Dr Laurie Steed, October 2019

‘The House of Women’ First Prize, City of Subiaco History Awards May 2015

‘The Long Day Before Christmas‘ First Prize, Summer Agenda Writing Competition 2010The West Australian Published January 22^nd, 2011

Four short stories published in Beyond the Diaper Bag (2011) Edited by Megan Bekkedahl and Melaina Lausen ISBN 978-1-257-04638-6

Kelley’s Place Finalist, Summer Agenda Competition 2011, The West Australian Published December 31st, 2011

‘The Brutal Truth About the Third Child III: The First Birthday Party’ Prize winner annual short story competition Parenting Express  Published December 2013

Short Stories 

The Mothers’ Group, Underground Writers, Issue 33, February 2021. Issue 33: Historical Fiction – Underground Writers (underground-writers.org)

The House of Women, 1st Prize Tom Stannard Prize, Subiaco History Awards 2015 (available on request)

Memories of Markets, 2nd prize Christobel Bennett Personal reminiscence prize, Subiaco History Awards 2017 (available on request)

Four short stories published in Beyond the Diaper Bag (2011), Created by Megan Bekkedahl and Melaina Lausen (ISBN 978-1-257-04638-6)

The Long Day Before Christmas, 1st Prize Summer Agenda Writing Competition 2010, The West Australian, Published January 22^nd, 2011

Kelley’s Place, Finalist Summer Agenda Competition 2011, The West Australian, Published December 31^st, 2011

Industry Publications:

School News, print and digital articles, since April 2022 including ‘Dear Teacher’ an exclusive interview with 2024-25 Children’s Laureate Sally Rippin (Print, Term 1 2024)

Mazda Australia, Dune and Dusted, A snowboarding on sand adventure in the Mazda CX-30, Mazda News, September 2023

The Dental Quarter: Welcome to Hollywood, published in Australasian Dental Practice, Vol 24, No.1, January/February 2013

Perth Central Dental Centre Builds For the Future, published in Australasian Dental Practice, Vol 23, No. 5, September/October 2012, page 198

Living Room Luxury at Specialist Practice, published in Australasian Dental Practice, Vol 23, No. 4, July/August 2012

Parenting Publications:

Men and Miscarriage, published in My Child Magazine, Issue 27, Summer 2012/2013

Diary of a Caesar, published in Offspring Magazine, Autumn 2013

Teaching Our Kids the Value of Giving, published in Small Steps Parenting Magazine, December/January 2014

Valentine’s Day with the Kids, published in Small Steps Parenting Magazine, February 2015

Blogs and other digital content 

On  July 1st, 2015, I launched Fundraising Mums:  a national website providing fundraising ideas for parents at schools, sporting clubs, playgroups and other community groups. It subsequently became Australia’s most comprehensive and widely read fundraising website, with over 250 articles covering:

• reviews of new and unique fundraising products and events
• behind-the-scenes interviews with experts
• practical ideas and inspirational suggestions for DIY fundraisers
• and much more.

My goal for the site was to help other fundraising parents ‘save time & make money’.

In September 2020, I sold the site to leading Australian fundraising expert Mandy Weidmann at The Fundraising Directory.

Says Mandy: ‘I’ve admired Shannon’s writing since the beginning. Sometimes she would publish an article and I’d say ‘I wish I’d have written that! When I heard that she was focussing on other writing, I reached out to see whether there was an opportunity to incorporate her content into our site.’

‘This is a win for our readers and for Australia’s school and club volunteers more generally’, said Mandy.

Relentless is a personal blog I started in 2010, capturing all the mundane moments of motherhood that make you laugh and occasionally cry. It is where my viral post The Brutal Truth About the Third Child can be found, but more recently I have been writing about my youngest daughter’s journey since being diagnosed with severe dyslexia.

WeekendNotes is an online review site which spans almost forty countries worldwide, with the primary focus on Australia, the UK and the US.

As one of Perth’s highest-ranked writers, with over 955,000 readers and a global ranking in the Top 15 writers, my work at WeekendNotes has been a fun part of my writing life. Click to go to my profile page at WeekendNotes to read my 660+ articles.

I have also been published on the following sites:

Find my articles at: Scary Mommy

Find my articles at: Mouths of Mums  

Travel sites:

Glamping in the Australian Bush, published on Tripzilla, September 7, 2016.

Guest Blogs:

Things to do in Pemberton with Kids, published on Zizazag Travel Blog (Jo Castro), October 2, 2014

‘Writers in the Attic’ series, Louise Allen, blog, October 2016

http://louise-allan.com/2016/10/10/writers-in-the-attic-11-shannon-meyerkort/

‘A Letter to my Future [Published] Self’, Monique Mulligan, August 15, 2020

https://moniquemulligan.com/2020/08/15/on-writing-what-i-want-my-future-self-to-know/

eBook:

‘The Brutal Truth About The Third Child’ was a post I wrote for my blog Relentless in early 2012,  a few weeks before my third baby was due to arrive. I wrote it as a humorous – and flippant – comparison between the first, second and third pregnancies. It was never intended as anything more.

But just as I was heading into hospital to actually have the third child, the post was going viral. I had never experienced anything like it. It has since been republished with permission in the UK and the US as well as in Australia (and without permission in many more countries). When it was published on ScaryMommy, it was read and shared over a million times in the first week.

I can’t have a writer’s website without mentioning The Brutal Truth. It showed me that writing can make a real impact. I received so much mail about this one blog, it really resonated with readers – and it was so much fun to write.

DID YOU KNOW: The Brutal Truth About the Third Child is now available on Amazon for less than the price of a $1 scratchie and much less than a cup of coffee .

Words of praise for The Brutal Truth About the Third Child

“No one has ever better captured the experience of having three children. Period. If you have three kids, are one of three kids, or entertain the thought of someday having three kids, this is an absolute must read.”
Jill Smokler, New York Times bestselling author of ‘Confessions of a Scary Mommy.’