Eco northerly jan2014

northerly january - february, 2014

The Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre Magazine

Inside:

writer profiles • Lionel Shriver • mentors • ASA conference

in this issue ...

02

Noticeboard

03

A word from the Director

04

NRWC Christmas Party photos

05

Short Story Slam winner

06

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Kathleen Steele Writer Profile: Sarah Armstrong

northerly is the bi-monthly magazine of the Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre. The Writers’ Centre is a resource and information base for writers and readers in the Northern Rivers region. We offer a year-round program of readings, workshops and writer visits as well as the annual production of the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival.

The Centre is a non-profit, incorporated organisation receiving its core funding from Arts NSW.

LOCATION Level 1 28 Jonson Street, Byron Bay Lisa Walker POSTAL ADDRESS Big Brother: a modern day malaise PO Box 1846 Byron Bay NSW 2481 PHONE 02 6685 5115 FAX 02 6685 5166 Paula McDougall EMAIL info@nrwc.org.au Freelance journalism WEB www.nrwc.org.au

Anneli Knight

NRWC COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON Chris Hanley VICE CHAIRPERSON Lynda Dean Lisa Walker SECRETARY Russell Eldridge 10 Writer Profile: Anita Heiss TREASURER Cheryl Bourne

Lisa Walker MEMBERS Jesse Blackadder, Fay Burstin, Marele Day, Robert Hanson, Lynda Hawryluk, Brenda Shero, Adam 11 Path to publication van Kempen Claire Dunn LIFE MEMBERS: Jean Bedford, Jeni Caffin, Gayle Cue, Robert Drewe, Jill Eddington, Chris Hanley, 12 Introducing...Jesse Brand John Hertzberg, Fay Knight, Irene O’Brien, Jennifer 13 Never waste a crisis

Regan, Cherrie Sheldrick, Heather Wearne

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14

Writers in residence

Jacqueline Breen NRWC mentorships

Lisa Walker 16

SCU Page

17

Book review

18

Kids’ page

Tristan Bancks 19

From the reading chair

Laurel Cohn

20

News & Workshops

22

Opportunities & Competitions

24

Writers’ groups and member discounts

CONTACT EMAIL: northerly@nrwc.org.au PRINTING: Quality Plus Printers Ballina MAIL OUT DATES: Magazines are sent in JANUARY, MARCH, MAY, JULY, SEPTEMBER and NOVEMBER ADVERTISING: We welcome advertising by members and relevant organisations. A range of ad sizes are available. The ad booking deadline for each issue is the first week of the month prior. Email northerly@nrwc.org.au.

The Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre presents northerly in good faith and accepts no responsibility for any misinformation or problems arising from any misinformation. The views expressed by contributors and advertisers are not necessarily the views of the management committee or staff. We reserve the right to edit articles with regard to length. Copyright of the contributed articles is maintained by the named author and northerly.

Cover: photos by Greg Saunders

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Noticeboard Member Survey 2013 For your chance to win a 3 Day Pass to this year’s BBWF please complete the NRWC Member Survey at: www.nrwc.org.au We are always grateful for your feedback which helps us improve our services.

The survey will be open until 28 February and the prize will be drawn on 7 March.

Introducing the new Writer Development Manager

Penny Leonard The ebb and flow of life is what comes to mind when I think about my new position at NRWC. Like all of us, I am sad that Lisa is leaving the Centre and I wish her happy adventuring in 2014. Lisa has created an excellent platform from which I can continue the role and I am thrilled to have this opportunity to work with words and the people who love words.

I will also be coordinating the Volunteers and School Days for the BBWF this year and I look forward to working with many of you again.

For those I’m yet to meet, I hope you consider being involved in the Festival or drop into the Writer’s Centre and introduce yourself.

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~

Members N ews

~

Angela Kirin is the creat or of the ‘D Superhero octor Elbow Trilogy. The s’ fi rs t novel in th Diamond o e series, ‘Th f Yunxi’ was e re le ased in Aust 2013. See w ralia at Chri ww.doctore stmas lbows.com

Goodbye for now...

Dear writers, It is with a smidgen of sadness that I am leaving my role as Writer Development Manager here at the Centre. It has been an action-packed year and I have enjoyed getting to know more local writers and seeing your projects develop.

Next year promises lots of writerly treats in store so I’m sure I will run into some of you at an event before too long. Work-wise, I will be busy writing as I have a new novel contracted for early 2015. I am also returning to my part-time job with national parks so maybe see you out in the bush sometime. I know that the job is left in excellent hands with the lovely Penny taking the reins.

Lisa Walker

A word (well several) from the Director

Dear members, A month into my role at the NRWC and I am delighted by the enthusiasm I see for books and writing everywhere I go. I have visited numerous publishers and bookshops and in my temporary office in Sydney, my desk is overflowing with piles of books tempting me with their stories to discover. As a house of books builds around me, the themes and ideas begin to take shape for this year’s Festival. It is an exciting time.

A highlight of the past month was seeing Frank Moorhouse’s acceptance speech (and indeed Sophie Cunningham’s tribute to him) for his Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature 2013. He regaled us with stories as a cadet journalist on The Wagga Wagga Advertiser where he became known as the young Hemingway when he had a piece of writing published in Southerly. His heartfelt and emotional acknowledgment of those in the room, including the Australia Council, who had allowed him to be a writer, was very moving. In his words ‘thank you for having given me the greatest privilege: to allow me to be

a writer and to do the best I could’. It made me reflect on how fortunate we are to have organisations such as the Australia Council and Arts NSW support us as a writers’ centre; may it long continue.

I love nothing more than reading to my five-year-old son – he too has growing mountains of books in his bedroom and it’s a challenge to keep the nightly reading list under ten books. Right now we are on a Dr Seuss revival and it made me remember the genesis of my lifelong love of authors when I met Dr Seuss back when I too was about five. He was visiting Sydney, staying with his publisher, my friend’s neighbour, in Northwood. As evening fell, my best friend and I were led up the pathway to the front door, clutching our favourite Dr Seuss books. The door opened, and shyness gripped us as the master took our books and signed them. My abiding memory is of his dark trousers as I was too in awe to look up at his face, (my mother is now searching through old boxes trying to find those signed books!).

As I watch my son devour books I

am reminded how the joy of reading and love of books and their authors absolutely has its foundations in childhood.

I hope as the new year unfolds you all find time to cherish your books, new and old, and the memories associated with them. Here’s to a year of reading that inspires!

Edwina Johnson

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! y t ar

sP a m 3 t s i 1 r 0 h 2 C

Photos courtesy of Greg Saunders 6 - northerly magazine | january - february 2014

&Stones

Sticks Short Story Slam winner

By Kathleen Steele ‘Bloody Johnny-Come-Latelies! Telling me how to do my job!” Ralph shook the letter at Miriam.

She kept her eyes on her coffee cup, blowing softly into the steam.

Ralph started. She knew he would. His words rushed together as he shifted up a gear, ‘I was in the army in Baghdad before that little bastard was swimming in his Dad’s bag! I won’t take crap from him!’

Miriam held her coffee in her mouth until it cooled. She’d read once, about a monk who carried a stone in his mouth for three years to master the power of silence.

Ralph glared at her, ‘Can you believe the nerve of it?’

She glanced away from the spittle on his lips and kept her own firmly closed.

Before she had discovered that her words were not worth the same as Ralph’s she used to let go sometimes; used to really let him have it. But she always missed the mark. After he left for work, she’d find

Photo: Cristina Smith

the words he refused to acknowledge scattered amongst the crumbs on the table, or strewn carelessly across the floors. And when she came across whole sentences in the daytime silence of the house, she would turn over what she had really meant to say until it dazzled. But by the time Ralph returned her words had lost their brilliance. He’d stare blindly at his lamb and three veg, and fork food into his mouth with a pained expression, as if her misshapen ideals had tainted the mint dressing.

Ralph jabbed a finger at the letter, ‘Official warning it says! Apparently some of the pooftas at the Plant don’t like the way I speak.’ His face turned a deeper shade of red, ‘Don’t like the way I speak? Where’s the harm in a few bloody words I ask you?

Miriam lifted her cup again, slowly with two hands. She could show that monk a thing or two. She’d been holding her stone of silence for over twenty years.

Lately it felt like it might slip from her mouth without her noticing. The thought made her smile.

‘What are you grinning at woman?’ Ralph jumped up, ‘You never bloody listen! You never bloody think! That’s why you’ve got nothing to say!’ He leant on his fists, the table creaking beneath his weight, ‘Not that anything you said would ever make a blind bit of difference anyway.’

‘Oh, drop dead.’

Ralph snorted. He pointed a shaking finger at Miriam and said, ‘Ack!’ before slumping into his chair.

She stared at him and reached for his unmoving hand, giving it a small questioning tug.

She leant back and drained the last of her coffee, holding it in her mouth until it cooled, allowing herself a guilty moment of celebratory glee.

After all of these years, Ralph had finally listened.

Thank you to those who entered our Short Story Slam.

Thank you to our lovely judges Sarah Armstrong, Laurel Cohn and Lynda Hawryluk, also to Mic Deacon for his impressive audio and bar skills. A a giant thank you to Lisa Walker and Penny Leonard for all of their amazing help.

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Writer Profile: Sarah Armstrong

By Lisa Walker Sarah Armstrong is a Mullumbimbybased writer, writing teacher and manuscript assessor. Her first novel Salt Rain (Allen & Unwin) – set in the Northern Rivers – was shortlisted for the 2005 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award and the Dobbie Award. Sarah was formerly a journalist at the ABC where she won a Walkley Award.

She has just completed her second novel.

I talked to Sarah about her writing life.

Why do you write?

The simplest answer to that is that it makes me happy. But as soon as I say that, I think, hmmm… actually sometimes writing is hard; you know, when I am trying to solve a problem with plot or when doubt creeps in (as it inevitably does, usually around the middle of the second draft).

All I know is that when I am not writing, I don’t feel as fulfilled. I think there is something about the writing process that meets some deep need – maybe a need for expression and a need to understand myself and others better. There’s nothing like really trying to get inside a character and understand why they do what do (especially if it’s not entirely likeable and most of my characters do something unlikeable at some stage) to develop a greater sense of connection with and compassion for myself and others.

Do you have a routine for writing?

Oh I wish I did. I wish I could sit at my desk from 9am until 1pm each day.

Since having a baby I haven’t struggled with procrastination at all, instead I’ve struggled with finding time to write. My desire to get to my writing sits just below the surface lots of the time. Especially at the moment as I am working on the early stages of a first draft, that blissful stage before all the plot and character problems bob to the surface and must be solved. Luckily my years as a journalist taught me to write in quick snatches of time, so I can take 15 minutes here and 10 minutes there and somehow have the ability to drop down into the story within seconds. This is a skill my partner, the

writer, Alan Close really envies. He needs a whole day (or ten) to get into his project.

How has writing your second novel been different to writing your first?

It’s taken a lot longer! I started His Other House just after I finished Salt Rain in 2004 but then life really got in the way: divorce, moving house, paying a mortgage single-handedly, meeting Alan, IVF, miscarriage, a pregnancy and a baby. So it’s been very stop-start except for the last year when I worked steadily.

It’s been a harder book to write because I set myself the challenge of writing a protagonist who behaves in an unlikeable way. And it was a real challenge to write him in such a way that the reader cared

Where’s the narrative tension here?

What’s the reader waiting for? What does my character want? This novel is coming out very fast. In about a month I’ve written about 20 thousand words of a quite polished (for me) first draft.

What are some common mistakes you see among emerging novel writers?

Not being willing to rewrite many, many times. It’s such an appealing idea, isn’t it? To whack off a publishable first draft.

But it just doesn’t happen that I know of, especially not for first-time novelists.

Some new writers get very attached to their first draft and I encourage them to maintain a really flexible approach and be willing to let go of favourite lines or twists in the plot or characters. I wrote a recent blog post on our website about killing off a character and while it was painful at the time, and took some working up to, it was very liberating.

What do you find rewarding about teaching writing?

It’s always great to be with people who love books and love words and love story, because I love those things too. It’s very rewarding to think that I might support people in pursuing their passion and getting their stories out into the world.

enough about him to keep reading.

Do your novels change a lot between first draft and later drafts?

Oh yes. Oh. Yes. My first drafts have tended to be very rough, almost streamof-consciousness notes-to-self. Barely comprehensible to someone else. At first-draft stage I use freewriting and am happy for really quite nutty ideas to emerge. I have a bit of a brainstorming approach and will experiment with different plot directions. I have to say, though, that now that I am on my third novel (fourth actually, Alan and I tried to write one together but that’s in a drawer somewhere and will probably never see the light of day) I am planning much more than I used to. Right from the start I am thinking about a three-act structure and know how it’s going to end and every page I ask myself – even in wacky first-draft territory – the key questions:

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Who are some writers you admire?

I love Helen Garner’s subtle brevity. She conveys so much with so few words.

Sharon Old’s poetry moves me as does Michael Ondaatje’s. Cate Kennedy’s short stories. Tim Winton, especially his short stories. Looking at that list I see that I appreciate implicit meaning and subtlety and a certain leanness of expression.

It’s certainly what I aim for in my work.

If there was one piece of advice you could give to someone about to embark on writing a novel, what would it be?

Learn how to free-write and allow it to disengage your writing critic and unearth the unexpected stories in you.

Sarah will be teaching ‘Building Blocks of the Novel’ on 15 February. See page 21. Find out more about Sarah at: www.sarah-armstrong.com

Big Brother: A Modern-Day Malaise

By Paula McDougall

Contemporary American novelist Lionel Shriver writes about how we cope with life’s apparent unfairness. Her characters’ struggles with rejection and not ‘fitting in’ with social norms – be it talent, beauty or identity – are a recurring thread throughout her narratives.

We Need To Talk About Kevin was the book that won the Orange Prize in 2005 and brought her literary fame. Thirty publishers had rejected the novel until Serpent’s Tail, a small indie British firm, paid Shriver two thousand pounds for the manuscript in 2003.

The book is the unsettling account of a school mass murderer, told through beautifully written letters by the boy’s mother to her dead husband. A bereft and guilt-ridden Eva Khatchadourian tries to come to grips with the horror of Kevin’s actions and their grisly aftermath.

Her attempts to extrapolate why her son became a killer sent a shiver through many thousands of people (parents in particular) who read the book.

We Need To Talk About Kevin was published at a time when school shootings in the US were becoming more prevalent and her new novel, Big Brother, is a story about obesity in an era when we are bombarded by a plethora of food and dieting books. As obesity issues are now so prominent in the media, it’s a timely theme.

Big Brother focuses on the raft of assumptions of a smug and judgmental society that are unfairly projected upon those who are overweight.

In an interview this year with The New York Times Shriver says: “A lot of hostility aimed at fat people is considered justified

because they’re costing our health system all this extra money. But underneath it all is a visceral physical disgust, and I’m very sympathetic with overweight people’s frustrations at that.”

Big Brother is about a sister helping her brother to lose weight and is narrated by Pandora, a middle-aged entrepreneur who leads a quiet life in the country. She lives with her stepchildren and husband Fletcher, a not so successful furniture maker and “nutrition Nazi” – this is how he controls the family.

“Every time I open the refrigerator I feel like I’m staring into a library of self-help books with air-conditioning,” laments Pandora.

“Every time I open the

refrigerator I feel like I’m staring into a library of self-help books with airconditioning

”

The novel explores our anxiety about and our obsession with food and weight.

The family’s quiet, organic and calorificaly controlled world is up-ended when Pandora’s adored older brother Edison comes to visit; a footloose, hard-living New York jazz pianist who is down on his luck.

He is the antithesis of Fletcher, who is not happy about having to compete with Edison for Pandora’s attention.

Pandora hasn’t seen Edison for four years and as she waits for him at the airport she overhears people complaining about

the large, pungent man on the plane. She scans the crowd looking for her handsome brother – a “Jeff Bridges double” – and is mortified to see him, now weighing over 170 kilos, being pushed in a wheelchair by airline staff.

“I had never felt so sorry for my brother, and the pity was horrible,” she says. After Edison has over-stayed his welcome Fletcher gives Pandora an ultimatum: It’s either him or me.

She chooses to live with her brother and help him lose weight.

In an article for Stella magazine earlier this year Shriver says she is painfully acquainted with the potential consequences of poor diet. She lost her older brother in 2009 due to complications caused by obesity.

Shriver lauds her brother as an accomplished sound engineer with a genius-level IQ. “He was politically astute, technologically brilliant and often very funny,” she says. “But once he got big, all strangers saw was some fat guy.”

Shriver says the obsession with dieting has led us to over-think food and not always in a positive and enjoyable way. “We impute far too much significance sociologically, psychologically and morally, to how much people weigh,” says Shriver.

“Worst of all,” she says, “we impute too much significance to how much we weigh ourselves.”

She likens dieting to a new form of slavery in that we devote so much time and energy in not feeding ourselves.

We have arrived at the sad point, says Shriver, where “righteous calls for calorific moderation … urge us to consider what we eat and what we weigh as a verdict on our worth and decency as human beings.”

Lionel Shriver talks about Big Brother when: Saturday 1 March at 5.00pm where: St Finbarr’s Hall, Broken Head Rd, Byron Bay cost: $20 booking: www.nrwc.org.au or call 02 6685 5115

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Freelance Journalism & Feature Writing workshop

From October to December, seven students came together every Wednesday afternoon at the Writers’ Centre headquarters for the Freelance Journalism and Feature Writing workshop, facilitated by journalist and writer Anneli Knight. A number of the stories created during the course are being pitched for publication in magazines and newspapers in 2014. Here’s a sample of two of the fantastic stories that were written.

Dumbed Down WA, Story by Amy Gray

The Western Australian Mining Boom. Yes, it ploughs hundreds of billions of dollars into the Australian economy every year.

Yes, Western Australia sees itself as keeping the whole country afloat and resents it. Yes, the wider Aboriginal community watch mining giants like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto reap the rewards of their sacred land, and resent it. Yes, as an outsider, you can land in Perth and walk into any pub and proceed to have your ear chewed off by someone that earns $120,000 a year driving a dump truck and will repeatedly reinforce the fact that they are ‘living the dream’. And you will probably resent it.

The mining industry in Western Australia provides employment to almost a quarter of the people that live there. FIFO– flyin-fly-out, or fit-in-or-fuck-off as the bearded locals like to rumble through eroded larynxes – is an intrinsic part of Perth community life. In a group of five young male friends, two (if not more) of them will be on the mines, earning what may seem like crazy amounts of money to complete what can sound like menial tasks.

Working on the mines can be a vicious cycle. Sticking it out for another two months to save enough cash for a trip, a car, a jet ski, a house… is tempered by a strong desire to get out of the brutal shiftwork rotation. The attrition rates in mining towns are testament to this. But when one extra month can mean $10,000, quitting is hard.

Young people in WA are well aware of the pot of gold waiting in the North Western reaches of Australia. Is education becoming more irrelevant in a state where you don’t need intelligence or a pre-defined skill set to bank a small fortune? The talent shortage in WA can be lamentably visible in some areas. Is this generation driving innovation and entrepreneurial flair into the ground that they mine with impunity?

Steve Russell has worked on the mines in North Western Australia on and off for more than eight years. It all began as a means to finance a trip to South America, and carried on when he realised that no other job would give him the kind of disposable income that mining did. “When I was younger I never thought I’d end up working up North – it was the furthest thing from my mind…I have always seen it as a short-term thing,” he says. “…though suddenly I’m 29 and I’ve been doing it forever.”

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Feeling locked into an endless wheel of punishment and reward is common fodder for Steve and his fellow FIFOers. “A lot of mates are mortgaged to the hilt with two house loans and a car loan and are trapped working away for the next ten years to make their repayments. Currently I’m loan and debt free, but I’m an exception.”

When asked whether he actually felt that his level of intelligence was adversely impacted by working away in the mining industry, Steve says: “Absolutely, I feel ‘stupider’ every time!

Seriously though, you don’t stimulate your brain with repetitive tasks ... On the whole it’s a mind-numbing job.”

And what happens when the mining boom fizzles down to a death rattle? Will Perth’s mining fraternity have the skills and transferable knowledge to keep up with those loan repayments?

When quizzed, Steve tells me that the skill set he has developed over the past eight years has enabled him to ‘work hard and take orders.’ Perhaps when the golden age of ore is over, we will see a spike in drafts into the Australian military?!

The Art of Chaos and Creativity Story by Jessica Jane

The key to liberating the artistic process, as tried and suggested by award-winning, mixed media artist Lucja Ray, is to ‘switch off’ the left side of her brain. Lucja discusses how freeing her creativity in this way, and allowing instinct and intuition to guide her art practice, brings her inner artist to life and adds meaning and authenticity to her unique visual voice.

“My creative process begins with a conscious decision to ‘switch off’ the left side of my brain to allow the right side of my brain to flow freely through me and into my work without the filters of reason, logic or judgement.”

Cognitive neuroscience lends theoretical weight to this concept explaining that creativity draws on both the left and right hemispheres of the brain as a complete neural network process but each side may also function independently, and at different times, in the creative process. It also suggests that it is possible to increase access to the creative, imaginative right side of the brain by actively ‘switching off’ the rational and analytical left side allowing the mind to roam free, imagine new possibilities and silence the inner critic.

Writers in Residence by Lisa Walker Brush up your first forty pages and whip that one-page synopsis into shape, applications for the 2014 Residential Mentorship open in February.

All writers living within the NRWC catchment, which is north to Tweed, south to Taree and west to Kyogle, who are current members, are eligible to apply. The Mentorship is suitable for writers of fiction and creative non-fiction with a well developed manuscript. The 2014 Residential Mentorship will be held 5 – 9 May. This is an outstanding opportunity to participate in a writing experience that has already proved to be a launch pad for regional writers. The program is fourteen years old this year and the roll call of past participants who are now published authors includes: Jesse Blackadder, Susanna Freymark, Daniel Ducrou, Sarah Armstrong, Jessie Cole, Leigh Redhead, Emma Hardman, Oren Siedler, Matt Webber and myself. The most recent success story is Claire Dunn, a 2012 Mentorship participant whose story is on page 11.

and will be taking this role again in 2014. Marele is the author of four crime novels – The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender; The Case of the Chinese Boxes; The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado and The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi as well as a collection of crime-comedy stories, Mavis Levack, PI. Other novels include the bestselling Lambs of God, which was published to international acclaim with film rights optioned by Twentieth Century Fox; Mrs Cook: The Real and Imagined Life of the Captain’s Wife; and most recently The Sea Bed. She is a highly experienced speaker, teacher and mentor, and has won several awards, including the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

The Mentorship provides five days in a glorious rural location with accommodation and meals provided, one-on-one mentorship with Marele Day and the company of three other committed writers. It’s an experience that many have described as life-changing, a time to forge lasting friendships and discover what lies at the heart of your work.

Marele Day has been the mentor for the program for the past twelve years

In her studio, tucked away in the hills of the Southern Highlands of NSW, Lucja validates this theory and describes how this cognitive process is essential to her creative art practice.

“The next step in my preparation is to let go of whatever limiting beliefs I have regarding my abilities or expectations as an artist or what I want to create or what my work might look like or what anybody else might think … I let go of all that mental baggage and focus myself wholly in the moment, in this space and this time, allowing nothing other than my intuition, curiosity and emotions to guide me,” Lucja says.

TIPS FROM MARELE DAY WHEN PREPARING YOUR APPLICATION FOR THE 2014 RESIDENTIAL MENTORSHIP ~ First of all, it’s the manuscript that is chosen rather than the writer. It’s competitive, there are 25 to 30 entries a year and only four places. We’re looking for manuscripts that are distinctive, that have the X-factor – something that jumps up and carries you, that you want to stay involved with. ~ The best submissions are from those who demonstrate an understanding of story; of narrative structure. Many memoirs are submitted but relatively few are chosen.

Frequently these manuscripts seem like a list of the events in a person’s life, or a particular aspect of their life journey. They fail to find the story in the life and to make their personal drama part of the big human drama. Fiction manuscripts are generally more successful because the writer is able to take that imaginative leap and make a story. ~ A well written one-page synopsis will enhance your application. If you need help with this see Laurel Cohn’s ‘Writing a Synopsis’ in the workshop section.

An infinite amount of creative possibility and artistic potential becomes available when the right brain is given free reign.

On paint-splattered trestle tables large sheets of heavy paper are laden with an eclectic assortment of everyday objects and materials from plastic bottle top lids, to buttons and fabric, to the netting bags the oranges come in – anything and everything that can be glued down – has been. So, where to from here?

“For me, ‘art’ is a doing word. It means ‘get busy’ creating anything at all without thinking about what I’m doing or how or why,” she says.

“I sit quietly with my work for quite a while, reviewing my efforts from up close and from a distance … Consciously I switch my analytical left brain back on and consider some basic principles of composition, colour, tone, balance, scale, and work on it some more … This part of the process can take some time but every piece has something to say and I just have to wait, or work on it some more and watch for a sign.

“It engages all of my physical, mental, spiritual and emotional energies and absorbs me to such an extent that time ceases to exist. I cease to exist except as a conduit for this outpouring of creative energy. I call this part of the process ‘the chaos’ and it is thrilling to step back, when my passion is spent, and behold all the crazy, colourful, confusing or whimsical fruits of this frenzied and fabulous labour.”

“When the work does reveal itself, it truly is a magical moment … and when this heady sensation of enlightenment settles down I realise that I have made some ‘unconscious’ aspect of my inner-self visible to myself and to others and it is only through this liberating creative art process, where my left and right brain have worked separately and together, that my truest inner artist, reveals herself.”

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Writer Profile: Anita Heiss

By Lisa Walker Dr Anita Heiss is the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction, poetry, social commentary and travel articles. She is the bestselling author of Not Meeting Mr Right, Avoiding Mr Right, Paris Dreaming and Manhattan Dreaming. Her new novel, Tiddas comes out in March. Chick lit, chock lit, you name it, she does it – so what’s Anita’s secret?

I managed to catch Anita between engagements and chat about her writing.

Anita, I’ve followed your activity on Facebook and I can’t for the life of me figure out when you find the time to write. Do you have a routine?

Firstly, in my normal daily life I am very scheduled, anally routine-based and organised. I’m sure I annoy my friends, but I am planned from the minute I get up to twelve months ahead. I can rattle off my diary to you for the next six months. I have to be organised because I am usually juggling a number of commitments. It’s a task to coordinate everything so routine is something I cherish.

When working on a book, I am completely focused on that one project.

For around eight weeks solid I will have a daily routine starting with early morning exercise (gym, class, run, walk). On a writing day I aim to be in my office, which is a ten-minute drive from my home and at the desk and computer by 9am. Then I write – usually with distractions from Facebook, Twitter and emails. It’s near impossible for me to ban myself from these things, and I have a terribly short attention span, so I allow myself a checkin regularly.

Usually I’ll aim for a minimum of 2000 words per day when in my writing phase. A 2500 word day isn’t too shabby.

Upwards of 3000 words I am very happy with myself. 4000 plus words and I’ll do the happy dance and let myself have a treat that night. To be honest in the writing phase I have a lot of treats: caffeine and chocolate are my best friend.

You’ve had four successful chick-lit novels published and your fifth, Tiddas comes out soon. You have also been published in a number of other literary

styles, so why chick lit? What draws you to this genre?

In short, I wanted to reach an audience of women who may never have engaged with Aboriginal women or what’s important to us before. I wanted readers 18–45 years of age who read about relationships, who are interested in women’s stories and our shared experiences, and to help them understand that as women we have a lot in common. Regardless of cultural heritage, geography or socioeconomics we as women fall in love, we fall out of love, we fear rejection, and we feel all the same emotions: heartache, pain, loss, sympathy, empathy, the joy of love and infatuation. We do this because we are women, we are human.

Can you tell us a little bit about Tiddas and where the story came from?

I originally had the seed of an idea when I was in Mudgee in 2010 for the Mudgee Readers Festival. I then spent some time working in Brisbane and fell more and more in love with West End, the river, and the sense of peace it gave me. I had previously set novels in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra so it made sense to write about a city that in recent years has become my second home.

Even before I started writing Tiddas I knew it was going to be a departure from the chick lit novels. I had done four and was ready for a new challenge, and a new audience. I need to grow and change in my writing, just as my characters do over their stories. I am 45 years old now, and I wanted to be writing about women in my age group and the issues and challenges that are facing us as career women, as mothers and daughters, as friends and lovers, as women desperate for children as opposed to those who have made decisions not to have them.

I value my friendships. I work hard at being a good friend. Sometimes I do it well, sometimes I fail, and sometimes my worldviews are different to those I hold dearest to me. In writing Tiddas and spending even more time in Brisbane, I came to better understand the strengths and weaknesses in my own friendships – the new and the old, and that was an

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insight into life that I hadn’t really found in writing my previous novels. Perhaps it’s because chick lit is really about women in their 30s, and as I’ve learned, you don’t really feel a sense of control over your life and an appreciation for letting go what isn’t important, until you reach your 40s.

Expectations on yourself and from others change, including those of your closest friends, your tiddas. In short, Tiddas is the story about what it means to be a friend.

What would you like readers to take away after reading one of your novels?

I want readers to see themselves in my characters, for good and bad, because my characters reflect the average human experience and that includes being flawed.

I hope readers walk away thinking about their own preconceived ideas about what it means to be an Aboriginal women or personal generally in the 21st century.

And I hope that readers are inspired by some of the fabulous arts and cultural information included in my novels.

Most importantly, I just hope my novels speak to each reader and that the journey of my characters adds something to their own personal journey.

What can participants in your workshop expect?

Participants should expect to have fun while working hard! I expect them to leave the workshop with a synopsis for their book – the synopsis often being harder to nail than the novel itself.

Everyone should expect to write using their senses, to unpack at least one of their characters and create a new one, and leave clear about what sets their story apart from those already in the marketplace. I will talk about the editing, publishing and marketing side of the industry, particularly in this genre, and we will try and come to a clear definition of what defines chick lit.

Anita is presenting ‘Girl Talk: Discovering the Essentials of Chick Lit’ on 15 March (bookings www.nrwc. org.au) and will be in conversation at the Byron Bay Library on 14 March (bookings 02 6685 8540).

P

ath to

Publication

At the start of 2011 I had a great idea.

I’d just left a primitive thatched hut after a year of wilderness survival skills and introspection. It was an archetypal story – a woman-on-a-mission-ofself-discovery-in-the-wilds.

There were ecstatic heights and existential lows, dangers and challenges, difficult relationships.

I’d write a book.

I did some research. According to Stephen King, if I pounded out 1000 words a day, in three months I’d have a draft. A friend from uni concurred, completing her successful travel memoir in about as much time. ‘Just do it’ she advised. A friend of a friend ran a small progressive publishing company. Great, they replied to my proposal. Send us the polished manuscript and we’ll take a look. How hard could it be? I knew the story. All I had to do was get it down.

I rented a cabin on the edge of the rainforest near Bellingen and dragged a desk to the window.

Six months later I’m slumped in the corner of a marquee at the Byron Bay Writer’s Festival in my baggy volunteer T-shirt. I don’t know anyone. There are Successful Writers. And me. Nothing had gone to plan, my tales shriveling up like chip packets in the fire every time I tried to give them words. Instead of inspired creation, I would emerge from my timed four hours of writing hagged and cowering.

–

my year by Claire Dunn

I listened to the Successful Writers. The Book was not always The Book, they said. It was for many years an unwieldy capricious beast that oftentimes pinned them to the ground screaming. Writing is hard, they said. You learn by writing.

Keep going.

The following day I opened a new document. ‘Chapter 1’, I typed. And began.

Following Successful Writer’s advice, I sought help. Tucked up in the Byron hills, Laurel Cohn’s editorial advice was invaluable. It’s good, she said. It’s hard.

You’re learning. Keep going.

I was selected for the 2012 NRWC Residential Mentoriship program. Holed up with three other writers under the excellent tutorship of Marele Day, I felt my words take on a new lightness, a flexibility. It’s good, they said. It’s hard.

You’re learning. Keep going. It was the first time I allowed myself to call myself a writer.

I scrubbed up the first few chapters and submitted them to a publisher. It took me weeks to look at the (in hindsight, spoton) feedback without feeling nauseous, and even longer to start over.

I kept going. It was hard, bar occasional flashes of brilliance when words would knit together in magical union, expressing something I didn’t know I knew. I was learning.

Offered a two-week Varuna Fellowship, I spear-tackled a rewrite with all the validation my cosy writer’s studio gave

me. At the next BBWF I discreetly copied the email addresses of the publishers I escorted from the green room.

In early 2013 I stalled. The Book had stolen two years of my life, and more blood, sweat and tears than I imagined possible. I moved to the city. I got busy with other things. I threw it into the lap of the gods, applying for the 2013 BBWF Pitch Perfect competition. On stage I felt the story come alive again, words on the page leaping up like flames from a fire wanting to be read. I won. The fire spread.

Suddenly I had an agent, publishers waiting. I rewrote the first few chapters yet again. I bit my nails. They loved it. They wanted to publish it. I pinched myself. I celebrated. I pinched myself again.

When I came down from my cloud and got back to the page The Truth was there waiting for me. It’s good. It’s hard. You’re learning. Keep going.

If I were to look at the manuscript’s progress as waves on a heart monitor it would look like this – slow descents of faith and productivity rescued by sudden spikes of energy. Without these injections of connection, mentoring and encouragement the project may well have flatlined.

Many thanks to the NRWC for providing many of these opportunities.

My Year Without Matches: The Memoir of a Woman in the Wild, will be published by Black Inc. in June 2014.

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Introducing Jesse Brand What was your experience at the Australian Poetry Slam?

APS is unlike anything I’ve ever done. I’ve played in bands and done a little bit of acting, but standing in front of people and performing your own poetry is nakedness. And unless you’re Miley Cyrus or that guy from ‘Invisible Children Inc.’ that went insane and started streaking in public, most people think nobody wants to see them naked.

The whole experience was incredibly rewarding though. I conquered a lot of performance anxiety and got to speak openly about things that I’d kept inside for a long time. I don’t know what it is about slam poetry that makes people want to listen, but it’s incredibly cathartic. And while it’s a competition there was hardly any competitive nature to it, in fact, my biggest support at nationals was from other competitors and members of staff. It was like, to quote the most important film of the modern era (High School Musical), “We’re all in this together”. I made a lot of amazing friends through slam.

When did you start writing and performing poetry?

I started writing poetry around the time I started listening to Bob Dylan and reading Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis, so around the age of 14 or 15. I’d been writing songs in punk bands before that.

It’s funny, I guess the first ever ‘slam’ poem I did was when I took a class speech assignment and made it into a satirical performance poem. I ended up getting suspended for it, but it was still a lot of fun. Apart from that, the first time I ever really performed poetry was at the regional tryouts for Australian Poetry Slam, which I’d found out about online. I had no idea I was going to place, let alone get as far as I did.

What is your biggest influence?

Bob Dylan is probably my biggest influence, but also Allen Ginsberg and Saul Williams are both pretty up there. My parents were both artists though. My mum was a principal ballerina in different companies, and my dad toured playing guitar in bands his whole life, so they inspired me a lot too. In fact, I’m the third person in my immediate family to perform at the Opera House after my mum and sister. My brother writes too so we’re all pretty creative.

Joshua When my little brother was in high school, he was taken to hospital, sick.

The teachers called him dumb. His mind was a basilisk.

They took him to a place where they don’t allow musical implements because their strings could be woven into nooses by the patients.

In the houses of the mad and maddening, the jargon carbon copies prescribing lightning to the temples as if human beings were batteries.

My brother’s future died in a click, bang, hiss.

And the hiss was that basilisk closing its lips.

They said he was dumb. Dumb because his tongue found distaste in the commonplace. Didn’t they hear what he’d done?

He reached his mind’s luminous dendrites into the abyss and he brought back infinity.

He looked deep into the minds of his teachers and stirred madness within the cortex machinery. Arterial artillery in the conniption cerebral.

He spoke like a tempest tapping gently against a window, thoughts so ethereal that they hummed the perennial.

He found a forest of dead birds whose wings galvanized in flight, wove the earth into a tornado that swallowed the sky alive.

Please explain to me how that’s possible unless you hold the universe inside.

Let me tell you, what he’d done.

He thundered wolves through the Empyrean where oblivion runs.

He summoned gravity to the Elysium with iridial lungs.

Screaming: I’ll see you in Hell when in infinity comes.

And the stars won’t dwell when infinity comes.

And the nebula bled ellipses, eclipsing the sun.

Sung by the oneiric onyx, mnemonic, These are the words he spoke through the barrel of a gun.

This is the hurricane of flames that he conjured in his lungs.

He resurrected phantoms from Rorschach pages and ignited motion through the thrum, His thoughts tore down those asylum walls.

Joshua’s cerebral dragon’s jaws Fashioned daylight out of nightmares when he engulfed the sun.

And they called him dumb.

They called him dumb.

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Never waste a crisis

by Jacqueline Breen Half a century ago now, a handful of writers, poets, illustrators and journalists united to work together in support of Australian authorship. Five decades later the Australian Society of Authors has grown to a membership of over 3000, and hundreds converged in October 2013 for the first National Writers’ Congress; in the same spirit as their forebears, but a different era.

The congress aimed to help Australian authors meet the challenges of the digital revolution and encourage them to embrace the opportunities. To that end, the society gathered 28 panellists to share insights and expertise.

The bulk of events were held at Darling Habour’s National Maritime Musuem, and the Congress was officially launched with the Colin Simpson Memorial Lecture, powerfully delivered by author Melissa Lucashenko. Melissa presented an astute and arresting assessment of the portrayal of Indigenous characters in contemporary Australian fiction and film, illustrating the archetypal character tropes found most commonly on our pages and screens.

Ignorance and simplification are damaging and Australian authors have a responsibility, first and foremost, she argued, to “do no harm”. We need, Melissa said, to represent Aboriginal people in all their humanity, with all their flaws and virtues.

The discussions in the seven Congress panel sessions are most usefully divided into two rough piles: ‘challenges’ and opportunities’.

ASA Executive Director Angelo Loukakis introduced the panel discussions with a galvanising reminder: “the thing about a crisis,” he said, “is that you should never waste it.”

FALLING INCOMES Inadequate renumeration is an enduring concern. Writers need time and space to do their vital work, began author Anna Funder in her keynote address, and money

to buy those conditions. Author and ASA councillor Rosie Scott agreed, noting that mean creative incomes plummeted 52% from $23,000 in 2001 to $11,100 in 2008.

Multinational e-book retailers are driving the price of publisher-delivered work down – while raising the volume of self-published titles. Contemporary publishers have not responded well to the onslaught of the internet, Funder added. To get published, writers today are pressured to do more work for less pay. Funder called on publishers to step up and be bold, promising that in return “powerful forces will come to your aid”.

CORROSION OF COPYRIGHT The corrosion of copyright is another volatile shift in the digital age as material is disseminated online with ever increasing speed and ease, according to other panellists. Angelo Loukakis called it “the chief tool for creators to mediate exchange”, to control the distribution of their creations.

Copyright is a human right and a foundation of freedom of expression, argued lawyer and UTS professor Michael Fraser AM, explaining that authors must engage in developing the institutional framework for the new IT society. He offered ten proposals for consideration.

Pivoting to the ‘opportunities’ category, Trish Hepworth from the Australian Digital Alliance used examples to illustrate several clumsy aspects of copyright law in its current form. Trish welcomed potential copyright reform as a chance to deliver meaningful protection to authors while capitalising on methods of fair and democratic distribution to users online.

MORE AUTHORS AND READERS Other panellists were already revelling in the opportunities afforded to them by new platforms. “There have never been more authors, or more readers,” said journalist and editor Anthony Loewenstein, warning

against rose-tinted historical revisionism.

Traditional publisher Sandy Grant encouraged authors to widen their focus to capitalise on the international Englishspeaking market, suddenly accessible through internet sales. Bookseller Jon Page said the quality of printed material has greatly improved, as it becomes clearer which texts are best suited to what mediums: children’s books and beautifully designed, collectible stories flourish in print, while genre fiction enjoys better e-book success.

EBOOK BENEFITS Indeed, the ebook format allows unprecedented back catalogue sales, says author and broadcaster Richard Glover, while romance writer Ally Blake shared her success story and tips to reach readers and maximise discoverability through social media. ASA Chair Sophie Masson reflected on the connection between Australian authors and the education system, and shared insights on the ways in which it could be improved. Journalist and author Steven Lewis shared insights from his detailed survey of self-publishers, explaining that although money matters to most authors, many find meaning and satisfaction through publication alone.

AN OPPORTUNITY TO FLOURISH “A chance to do our best” is all that most writers ask of society, writes Frank Moorhouse in his introduction to Status and Sugar, Stephany Steggall’s history of the ASA that was launched during the Congress. That chance only exists if writers organise and fight for it. At the ASA Congress authors came together to identify the conditions needed to take that chance today, and to concentrate on producing their best work yet.

A more detailed recount of the Congress will be featured in the June edition of Australian Author magazine.

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Our Writing Mentors Have you thought of finding a mentor?

NRWC Mentorships are an opportunity for emerging writers to work closely and in-depth with a professional mentor, to develop their work and improve their publishing opportunities.

Firsthand Feedback sessions are a valuable and affordable first step for writers who would like an initial appraisal of their manuscript and up-front advice regarding its development. The cost of the 2-hour Firsthand Feedback is $175.

Firsthand Feedback sessions are suitable for writers who are at the crossroads and who are seeking: • face-to-face discussion and advice • inspiration and direction • to know whether they are on track with their writing goal • to know whether their idea has publishing possibilities • to know where to go from here and what to do next.

Mentorships are available in blocks of 5, 10 or 15 hours (including reading time, email correspondence and face-to-face).

A NRWC mentorship would be of benefit to writers who have: • a well developed manuscript and are seeking professional feedback • a long term commitment to writing and the development of their craft Mentorship charges are as follows: 5 hours $395.00 10 hours $740.00 15 hours $1035.00

NRWC Mentors Sarah Armstrong Genre: novel, memoir Sarah’s first novel Salt Rain (Allen & Unwin) - set in the Northern Rivers - was shortlisted for the 2005 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award and the Dobbie Award.

John Bailey Genre: non-fiction John Bailey has six books to his credit.

Bailey’s approach to writing has been to create a strong narrative against the background of an exotic or remote

location. His latest book is a biography of the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt.

Tristan Bancks Genre: children’s and young adult literature Tristan is a children’s and teen author with a background in acting and filmmaking.

His books include My Life & Other Stuff I Made Up, Mac Slater Coolhunter, Galactic Adventures First Kids in Space and the Nit Boy series.

Inez Baranay Genre: fiction Inez Baranay is the author of eleven critically acclaimed books. In 2012 Transit Lounge republished her 1992 novel The Edge of Bali and in 2011 her novels Always Hungry and Surrealistic Pillow were published.

Jesse Blackadder Genre: historical fiction, junior fiction Jesse writes novels and junior fiction, and is also a freelance journalist. Her first novel After the Party made the Australian Book Review list of favourite Australian novels in 2010 and has been optioned for television.

Edna Carew Genre: biography, history, health, travel Edna’s many books include the bestselling Fast Money and Language of Money series, Paul Keating, Prime Minister and Westpac, the bank that broke the bank.

Alan Close Genre: fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction, feature writing.

Over a thirty-year career, Alan Close has published books of fiction, memoir and creative non-fiction. His most recent book is Before You Met Me: A Memoir Of One Man’s Troubled Search For Love.

Laurel Cohn Genre: fiction, children’s books, narrative non-fiction and illustrated non-fiction Laurel Cohn has been working with writers since the late 1980s, including five years with one of Australia’s top literary agents and four years as Consultant Editor to the NSW Writers’ Centre.

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Jessie Cole Genre: general fiction, literary fiction Jessie’s first novel Darkness on the Edge of Town was shortlisted for the 2013 ALS Gold Medal and longlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award. Her work has also appeared in Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Island Magazine, Big Issue, Daily Life and the Guardian.

Marele Day Genres: crime, fiction Marele Day is the author of four crime novels as well as a collection of crimecomedy stories. Other novels include best-selling Lambs of God, Mrs Cook: The Real and Imagined Life of the Captain’s Wife; and most recently The Sea Bed. Garry Disher Genre: children’s writing, young adult, crime, fiction Garry Disher is one of Australia’s bestknown authors.

A full-time writer since 1988, he’s published over 40 books: general/literary novels, crime thrillers, story collections, fiction for children and teenagers, anthologies (as editor), creative writing handbooks and Australian History textbooks.

Marian Edmonds Genre: fiction, journalism, non-fiction Marian has more than 25 years’experience in writing, editing and journalism. Marian has worked on books and website copy, feature articles, reports, websites and architectural narratives. She is an experienced editor, and a teacher and mentor of writing and journalism Russell Eldridge Genre: Journalism, feature writing, media training, proof reading Russell Eldridge is a retired newspaper editor. He now writes fiction and freelance articles, trains journalists, conducts corporate media training, and acts as a media consultant.

Kim Falconer Genres: Speculative Fiction (Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Dystopia, YA Fantasy, Self-help.

Kim Falconer is a speculative fiction author writing epic science fantasy,

Our Writing Mentors paranormal romance, urban fantasy, dystopia and YA novels and novellas published by HarperCollins.

Lady, The Web, Sprite Downberry and The Innocents (which is currently being developed for film).

Melaina Faranda Genre: children’s, young adult and general fiction Melaina Faranda is the author of 35 Young Adult and Children’s books, published nationally and internationally

by Random House, Allen & Unwin, Pan Macmillan, Omnibus Scholastic, Pearson, Heinemann, Macmillan Ed, and Rigby etc.

Katherine Howell Genre: Crime writing, writing for suspense, editing Katherine’s first novel, Frantic, was published in 2007 by Pan Macmillan and won the 2008 Davitt award for best crime fiction. Her sixth book Web of Deceit was released in 2013.

Akkadia Ford Genre: urban gothic, historical nonfiction and fiction, queer film and literature Akkadia Ford is an internationally published non-fiction writer; a trained Egyptologist, screenwriter and filmmaker, with a passion for ancestral traditions, philosophies of nature and alternative culture.

Selena Hanet-Hutchins Genre: structural and developmental editing copyediting, digital development, memoir/biography, graphic novels, fiction, children’s writing Selena Hanet-Hutchins runs texture, a broad‐scope freelance editing business trusted by a range of clients in publishing and other industries. She has worked in trade publishing for the past ten years.

Jim Hearn Genre: Life writing, fiction Jim’s memoir High Season – a Memoir of Heroin and Hospitality was published by Allen & Unwin in 2012. His novella, River Street, was also published as part of the Griffith REVIEW Novella Project.

Cathy Henkel Genres: documentary, producing/ directing Cathy Henkel is the founding director of Virgo Productions, an award-winning, boutique screen industries company. The strength of the company lies in telling inspiring, positive, global stories with cross-platform delivery.

Nette Hilton Genre: fiction, children’s and young adult Nette Hilton is a multi-award winning author of many short-listed and translated books, including Proper Little

Zacharey Jane Genres: fiction, childrens’ picture books, literary fiction Zacharey Jane is the author of the acclaimed novel The Lifeboat (UQP), published internationally and shortlisted for the Barbara Jeffris Award, and the children’s picture book Tobias Blow which is included on the Premier’s Reading List.

Shelley Kenigsberg Genre: General non-fiction; fiction; educational and vocational (primary, secondary, tertiary); reports (corporate and government bodies); PR materials.

Educational (including ESL), general non-fiction, fiction, social sciences, philosophy, travel, popular culture.

Shelley Kenigsberg is a prominent freelance editor, writer and trainer who works with writers, publishing houses and organisations. Shelley has worked in publishing for 23 years.

Anneli Knight Genre: Freelance journalism, non-fiction, marketing.

Anneli Knight is a contributing feature writer to the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers and has written for travel magazines including Australian Geographic Outdoor, Conde NasteTraveler and online at Holiday Goddess.

Michael Lill Genre: playwriting, fiction Michael is an award-winning playwright and short story writer. He currently works as a freelance writer and as a Script Assessor for the Short+Sweet Festivals.

Michael also runs writing workshops for High School students.

Melissa Lucashenko Genre: fiction, young adult fiction Melissa Lucashenko is an award-winning novelist who lives between Brisbane and the Bundjalung nation. Her writing explores the stories and passions of ordinary Australians with particular reference to Aboriginal people and others living around the margins of the First World.

Peter Matheson Genre: fiction, screen writing, children’s writing Peter Matheson is a freelance dramaturg and script assessor living on the north coast of NSW. Peter came to dramaturgy through playwrighting; having had fourteen plays produced.

Claire Scobie Genre: creative non-fiction and fiction Claire Scobie is an award-winning journalist. Her first book, Last Seen in Lhasa won the Dolman Best Travel Book Award in 2007. Penguin published her first novel, The Pagoda Tree, in mid-2013.

Laura Shore Genre: poetry Laura Shore has taught composition, literature and poetry at several colleges.

Her young adult novel, The Sacred Moon Tree, Bradbury Press, NY, 1986, was nominated for the Washington Irving Children’s Book Award. Her poetry has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies.

Inga Simpson Genre: fiction, nature writing.

Inga is the author of Mr Wigg (Hachette, 2013). She is the winner of the 2012 Eric Rolls Nature Writing Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2009 Queensland Premier’s Award for best emerging author.

Lisa Walker Genres: women’s fiction, general fiction, romantic comedy Lisa is the author of the romantic comedies Sex, Lies and Bonsai and Liar Bird and the ABC Radio National play, Baddest Backpackers. Her third novel will be published by Random House in 2015.

For a more detailed biography of these mentors go to www.nrwc.org.au

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SCU Page A showcase of SCU student work, compiled by Dr Lynda Hawryluk

Sounds of Summer

by Elyssa McGinley The sky quivered with the scorching heat of noon, everything still as man and beast hid in the cooler shade and waited. Cats licked their paws with dry tongues, dogs panted heavily, and people pursed their dried and cracked lips. TVs whined with the weather report, reporters promising rain that never came. Fans whirred and twirled in steady circles, spray bottles being employed as water misters, the air sticky with wet.

An earth coloured toe made swirly patterns in the dust in front of the shady porch, its owner sighing as she pulled her sweat-dampened singlet off her stomach to wring out. The dust where the sweat droplets land quickly lightens; nothing keeps its drink.

A boy much older than the girl lay in a blow up pool, arms and legs dangling free of the edge, head propped up with a towel. The girl glanced over at him as his chest rose and fell in even undulations with his breath. He had been asleep for almost an hour. The girl worried he might catch a cold even though it was so hot - he wouldn’t be happy if she woke him for that reason. He grunted from deep within his chest, his nose twitching. Most of the water in the pool had evaporated, leaving something to be desired.

From inside the house the sound of the refrigerator door unsticking from itself as it opened came, the strangely satisfying squealch echoing in the stillness. The boy grumbled as he stood in search of the hose. The fridge thwhack-ed shut and a bellowing yawn reverberated through the floorboards. The girl uncurled across

the veranda, stretching her fingers toward the fly-screen door still ajar from when she had come outside.

The aching building creaked, the cicadas chirped, the power lines sagged. She thought of the way feet swell too large for their shoes in the heat.

The boy trudged around from the side of the house, hose in hand, as the girl pulled her soaked singlet over her head and revealed a hotpink sports bra. She strteched the singlet out again and laid it on the sunny edge of the porch. The girl smiled as the boy walked over to the pool. He dropped the hose and sat, the water left lapping at the plastic.

“Can we go down to the creek?” The girl asked, leaning on her elbows. Her hair dangled in sweaty locks, most of it caked to her back. She now had only underwear on, her orange briefs damp, distracting the boy. He agreed and scratched his neck as the girl went inside.

Inside the house was grotto-like; the curtains drawn, fans whirred at the couch where the mister was being misted. The girl poked him and asked about the creek. The shape groaned and nodded, mumbling profanities.

The girl plodded down the long hallway, picking up a length of white cloth and two broad hats. The door hinges creaked as the girl threw the door open, banging it against the wall, a shallow dent etched into the wood, yellow paint chipping to reveal green undercoat.

The girl handed one of the hats to the boy and wrapped the cloth around her shoulders. They kicked rocks out of the way as they walked the half

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kilometre to the fork in the road and past, down the path gated by two towering eucalypts. Bottlebrush and jacaranda dotted the path, some choking with lantana and others with morning-glory. The boy picked up a stick and hacked through the weeds growing over the path, helping the girl over a fallen tree.

Then a gleam and they were at the creek, the waterfall plonking water into the swimming hole below, the rest speeding up as it headed toward the rapids. The girl climbed to a flat rock near the base of the waterfall in direct sunlight. She laid her shawl and hat on the rock and jumped into the water.

The boy watched her stroke through the water and dive below the surface. The boy had disappeared when her head popped back up.

The water rippled past her as the boy sharked his way towards her.

His head ducked below the surface as he crashed into her. She yelled, the boy’s chin tucking against her shoulder, his throat to her neck. She wrapped her arms around his waist, blowing bubbles against his skin.

The air quivered with heat, the sky an endless blanket of blue, hemmed with trees and embroidered with clouds. Cats sat in front of the fan, dogs leapt in to pools and people stuck their heads in the freezer.

Billabongs are near empty in the outback, mostly because they’re so hard to find, but they are put to good use by teenagers on holiday, doing things they shouldn’t but enjoy so much.

Book Review

By Lian Hearn Reviewed by Lisa Walker Lian Hearn is the author of the best-selling Tales of the Otori series, which sold over four million copies worldwide. Her latest book, The Storyteller and his Three Daughters, is also set in Japan. The date is 1884 and the storyteller of the title is Sei, a master of the art.

While Sei is renowned for his storytelling, he is starting to feel that times are changing and his old way of telling stories is no longer enough.

People in these modern times are craving more excitement, more drama, and more passion. Can he reinvent himself? Sei wonders.

Luckily, or unluckily for Sei, he has three daughters who bring plenty of problems into his life. Two of his

daughters leave their husbands. One wants to become an author while the other thinks her husband is love with his young male assistant. His third daughter is married to a Kabuki theatre manager who is struggling to keep his show running in the face of rivalries and romance between his players.

The history of the time also provides an added layer of interest. Tensions between Japan and Korea escalateas Japan comes out of its period of isolation andembraces European ways. An English storyteller, Jack Green, gathers a wide audience while Sei ponders how painful those trouser things must be. Hearn’s own passion for Japan is evident as she immerses us in this fascinating culture.

The Storyteller and his Three Daughters is told as a story within a story. It is a

reflection on the process of finding stories and telling them and how truth turns into fiction. Lian Hearn has talked about how she found this story. She had a number of the characters in her head – a former samurai, a female medical student, a Korean boy and a Japanese man who loves France – but it was only when Sei, the storyteller started to speak to her that she saw how they could all fit together.

This is a light hearted and in some ways whimsical book with many humorous moments. Lian Hearn is so clearly in charge of her own storytelling that she can take liberties that perhaps a lesser writer would not get away with.

Witty, romantic, suspenseful and thought provoking – what more could you ask for from a story?

PARUKU: THE DESERT BRUMBY Award-winning author Jesse Blackadder’s latest book for children is based on the true story of an Australian brumby.

When Dubai racing manager Ali Mohammed Al Mohairi told The Sydney Morning Herald of his first encounter with wild brumbies in the Northern Territory, he described it as ‘something amazing’.

The article caught the eye of author Jesse Blackadder, who found herself drawn to the story of a brumby called Paruku. Born in the Kimberley and captured in Western Australia, Paruku was picked by Al Mohairi to start a new life in the racing stables of Sheik Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

‘I was compelled to tell the story of those majestic horses and their extraordinary journey,’ says Blackadder, who travelled to both WA and Dubai

as part of her research.

With a moving blend of truth and fiction that balances the beauty of wild horses with hints of their effect on the environment; Paruku is the perfect story for animal lovers of all ages.

Twelve-year-old Rachel is fast outgrowing her first pony. When her father, a horse vet, is offered the job of capturing wild brumbies for the stables of one of Dubai’s Sheiks, she travels with him to the remote desert landscape of the Kimberley. Captivated by the wild power of a young stallion called Paruku, Rachel is conflicted by the prospect of taking away the brumbies’ freedom. Is there a chance she could keep Paruku for herself?

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Kids’ page Family Work-Travel-Writing-Photography-Homeschooling Adventure ‘Travelling with children is not really a holiday.

It’s just surviving in a different place for a period of time.’ – Unknown You have to be slightly mad to spend six months travelling the world with your kids while trying to write a book. But, also, slightly mad not to.

We (my wife, two boys aged 8 & 10 and I) are half-way through our dream six-month work-travel-writingphotography-homeschooling adventure across Europe, the UK and South-East Asia.In the UK we saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream from the yard of The Globe Theatre, Arsenal beating Stoke City on home turf, Matilda on the West End, the Roald Dahl Museum andthe Harry Potter Studios Tour. We’ve stayed in a clocktower, a gypsy caravan and a Paris loft and it all sounds extremely civilised. But, of course, it is not.

We have discovered that life in Berlin or Prague or Copenhagen is just as mayhem-filled as everyday family life. Only there are more late nights, strange foods, expectations, hungry humans, epic meltdowns (the kids have had a couple, too) and, in the middle of it all, my wife and I trying to equate this rather more expensive, busy and nerve-jangling form of travel with its spontaneous, distant relative of eighteen years ago. But, somehow, it kind of works.

I’m writing a new children’s book as we travel and the words are emerging. Constant movement frees up wordflow for me. Even at home, I like to walk and write, to shift locations and physically wrestle the ideas out of my gut and onto the page, so writing on the road with fresh inspiration every day works well. Now, instead of shoes off at Belongil, it’s scarf and jacket on along the freezing Seine with thumbs so stiff they can barely tap the iPhone keys.

It is sometimes a feat to carve out time to write but by the time I make it to the page or screen I am so excited to have peace, so filled with fragments of inspiration, that the words come more easily than the straining and wringing and procrastination that goes on at home.

Here, life seems to be physically happening to me, sweeping me out of my head and into the world while, at home, the Web is the only thing flowing and I dip my toe into its stream far too many times a day in a desperate attempt to feel alive. Children, too, keep it lifey. They are so excited about everything they see that it brings you

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back to ‘beginner’s mind’, a good thing for both travel and creativity.

Now, before you consider an adventure like this, I highly recommend that you marry someone extremely patient and understanding, Saint-like if you will, who is prepared to homeschool the children four or five hours a day while you write. Also, try to put aside about nine months of late nights and weekends before the trip to budget, book everything and to read every travel book held by the Richmond-Tweed Regional Library service while whittling your possessions down to two suitcases and four small backpacks.

Long-term family travel is pure madness, but everyday life with kids is crazy anyway, so you might as well be in Paris.

Tristan Bancks is a Children’s and Young Adult author with a new book Two Wolves out in March. www.tristanbancks.com

From the reading chair Fertilising your writing Editor Laurel Cohn looks at the importance of reading.

Previously in this column I have suggested writers think about the reading experience as they craft their work. But more valuable than thinking about reading, is doing it.

BEING INFLUENCED BY OTHERS “But won’t reading the work of other writers influence my own writing?” Well, the short answer is, yes. Is that a bad thing? No. Not at all. All good writers read. They read for the same reasons as everyone reads – to be entertained, to learn something new, to escape, to experience something different. And they read to absorb language, to know their genre, to understand how stories work, to be aware of what else is being published, and because they love the act of reading. It would be ridiculous to imagine a musician who doesn’t listen to music, an artist who doesn’t go to galleries, a film-maker who avoids the cinema. And it is just as absurd to think of a writer who doesn’t read.

If you are writing a crime novel, steep yourself in crime fiction – learn the conventions, reflect on what works for you and what doesn’t, and simply enjoy a genre that you are obviously drawn to. If you are writing a memoir, read lots of other life stories. If you are writing a children’s book, borrow widely from the library. Reading the work of others is like fertilising the seed of your own writing, enriching the environment in which your story will grow. When you read, you unconsciously absorb language structures and frameworks for ideas. These nourish your own writing in ways that can be profound.

When you first write you may echo the style of your favourite authors. With experience and practice your writing won’t sound like anyone else’s, you will find your own voice.

WHAT TO READ? Read anything and everything that catches your fancy, and more besides.

Keep a list of books recommended by friends and acquaintances. Jot down the names of authors who sound

interesting to you, either those you have heard interviewed or those referred to by others. Peruse your local bookshop to see what’s out. Talk with your friends about what they’re reading. Check out the new acquisitions shelf at the local library. I do all of those things.

Don’t confine yourself to books.

Read blogs, journals, magazines, newspapers. Read short stories, essays and poetry. Read reviews. Not only do reviews give you a sense of what is being published and how it is being received, good reviews will place the text within a wider literary context and explore the strengths and weaknesses of the publication.

Read for pleasure, but also have a reading aim. For example, if you are trying to get your first novel across the line, it would be good to have some first novels by new authors on your reading pile. If you are working on a book about business strategy, be aware of what is on the bestseller list in that genre, and work your way through some of those titles.

Sure, if you are writing a novel set in a small Australian country town about a boy who is struggling with his sense of identity, you may want to avoid that new book that’s just come out, set in a small Australian country town about a boy who is struggling with his sense of identity. That’s exactly the scenario I came across at this year’s Byron Bay writers’ festival. I was chatting to an author who was telling me about her work-in-progress, and I commented on the similarity of setting and character to the work of one of the authors I had just heard speak. She very quickly decided she’d avoid that title as she didn’t want to get into the space of comparing her own approach to someone else’s. Fair enough. But the conversation took place in the festival bookshop; she was, after all, there to find a good read.

the wish list. I’ve become one of those readers that has several things on the go at one time – a novel, a non-fiction piece, a magazine, a journal – but that’s not for everyone. What’s important is to just keep reading. You will fertilise not only your own writing, but your mind, body and soul!

LAUREL COHN is an editor and mentor passionate about communication and the power of narrative to engage, inspire and challenge. She is an avid reader for work and pleasure and has been keeping a log of books read since 1990. Since the late 1980s she has been helping writers develop their stories and prepare their work for publication. www.laurelcohn.com.au

TOO MANY BOOKS, NOT ENOUGH TIME Yes, yes. I know. There are not enough hours in the day to get through the books on the bedside table, let alone

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NEWS NEWS

TO SEA IN A SAILING SHIP Memoirs and photographs of a feisty young girl sailor who sailed – theonly female on board – two of the last of the tall masted sailing ships carrying wheat to England in the 1930s.

Mungo MacCallum launched Sue Vader’s book To Sea in a Sailing Ship at the Byron Bay Writers Festival last year, the book is now available in a new edition soft cover.

Anyone interested in that golden Age of Sail – as seen through the eyes and typewriter of the writer’s aunt, Mary Lang, in 1935-1936 – can now get a copy of the book by contacting Sue: svader@bigpond.net.au

CAPTAIN HONEY PUBLISHING OPENS IN THE NORTHERN RIVERS Captain Honey is the Northern Rivers’ newest book publishing company. Based in Bangalow, they have recently released thier first title. The 50 Book: Women Celebrate Life is a gorgeous 304-page, fullcolour hardback which celebrates fiftysomething women in stunning photographs, inspirational quotes and thoughftul essays. Captain Honey specialise in illustrated gift books. Keep an eye out for more interesting titles from them in 2014! (to find out more, visit www. captainhoney.com.au).

THE MAGIC OF NOW fable & drawings by Catherine Somers The Magic of Now is a story about believing in our unique selves, together.

Catherine Somers has written and illustrated this magical children’s story over some years. The book will be available in March 2014.

If you believe in being unique, together, buy the story here: http://www.pozible.com/themagicofnow And join the facebook page here: www.facebook.com/TheMagicofNow

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WORKSHOPS WORKSHOPS The Great Story Scavenger Hunt with Melaina Faranda

Building Blocks of the Novel with Sarah Armstrong

Writing a Synopsis with Laurel Cohn

Who: for young writers 9-13 years When: Friday 24 January, 10am – 4pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: $40 NRWC Family members, $50 others

When: Saturday 15 February,10am – 4pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: $75 members, $95 non-members

When: Wednesday 26 February , 6pm – 9pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: $45 members, $55 non-members

Explore the building blocks of the novel: scene, summary, reflection and exposition. Sarah will offer examples from other writers’ work and will guide you in writing your own. Find out how scene can bring your writing alive and engage the reader. Consider how to balance the internal and the external worlds of your characters and how to give necessary background information.

During this very practical workshop, you can work on a project already underway or come with a clean slate and nothing but a desire to write. Expect to go home with lots of writing and new tools for your writing toolkit.

Writers often moan and groan about synopses, but there’s no escape – if you want a literary agent to represent you or a commercial publisher to consider your manuscript, you can’t avoid it. Even self-publishers need to know how to encapsulate their book to grab a potential reader’s attention. A good synopsis can be the key to publishing success.

Many writers find tackling a 500 word synopsis more daunting than an 80,000 word manuscript. This workshop explores the role of the synopsis and offers practical tips and tools to help you work out what you need to put in, and what you need to leave out. We will look at synopses that have been successful for first-time Australian authors and hone synopsis-writing skills through practical exercises.

Spot a woman with a butterfly tattoo, count how many things you can smell between the bakery and the gelateria, describe the colour of the sea without using the word blue, spy on passersby and write their possible secrets…

Welcome to the Great Story Scavenger Hunt! Come embark on a crazy adventure with children’s author, Melaina Faranda, as she leads you on a young writers’ excursion into Byron. Equipped with pens, clipboards and a checklist for what to look out for, you and your fellow story scavengers will be hunting down images, ideas, characters, sense impressions, settings, and descriptions to bring back to the workshop room and weave into your own fantastic story with Melaina’s expert guidance.

Melaina Faranda is the international author of twenty-nine books for children and young adults. Melaina infuses her teaching with a vitality, generosity, acuity and unfailing sense of fun that consistently garners rave feedback from course participants.

She conducts creative writing workshops and masterclasses throughout Australia.

Sarah Armstrong is a Mullumbimbybased writer, writing teacher and manuscript assessor. Her first novel Salt Rain (Allen & Unwin) - set in the Northern Rivers - was shortlisted for the 2005 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award and the Dobbie Award. Sarah was formerly a journalist at the ABC where she won a Walkley Award.

She has just completed her second novel.

Laurel Cohn has been helping writers develop their stories and prepare their work for publication for over fifteen years. She spent five years with one of Australia’s top literary agents and four years as Consultant Editor to the NSW Writers’ Centre. She now works with writers, publishers, businesses and community organisations.

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Opportunities Festival of Voices Calling writers, artists, performers and theatre-makers in Tasmania. This is an exclusive opportunity for you. The Festival of Voices and Blue Cow Theatre present HANDMADE: an exciting opportunity to showcase the voices of local artists.

Handmade is a series of intimate, personal, beautifully crafted, small-scale pieces which support and celebrate new voices, great talent, local content, writers, performers and producers.

The series will be part of the Festival of Voices 2014 program, July 4-13. Artistic Curator of Handmade, Robert Jarman, is currently seeking expressions of interest. for submission details.

Email: info@festivalofvoices.com black&write!

Indigenous writing fellowships. The State Library of Queensland is offering two fellowships for indigenous writers.

Enter with your novel, short story collection, poetry collection or children’s book. Winners receive $10,000 in prize money, manuscript development and publication with Magabala Books.

Black&write also offers Indigenous Editing Mentorships and the Indigenous Onscreen Trainee Editors Program.

For details and entry forms: http://w w w.slq.qld.gov.au/whatson/awards/black write/fellowships Closing date: 31 January

Griffith REVIEW Novella Project 2 Submissions for the Griffith REVIEW Novella Project 2 are now open, once again supported by the Copyright Agency. The competition is open to citizens and residents of Australia and New Zealand.

A one-page outline or summary of the proposed Novella, along with a sample of writing, must be emailed (in Microsoft Word format) to griffithreview@griffith. edu.au no later than 31 January 2014.

Griffith REVIEW 46: Novella Project 2: Forgotten Stories will explore in fiction forgotten stories with an historical dimension, delving beyond the handful of iconic tales that have grown threadbare.

The massive migration of the past generation is not only changing Australia but reviving the need to find new ways

to tell forgotten stories that are part of a shared but often overlooked cultural heritage of this country. Forgotten Stories will redefine what it means to be Australian in the twenty-first century.

Authors must initially submit a project outline and evidence of prior writing no later than 31 January, 2014. The entry fee ($50, or $35 for current Griffith REVIEW subscribers) will be used to cover the administrative costs of conducting this competition. The complete Terms & Conditions of entry can be found here: http://griffithreview.com/ Closing date: 31 January Australian Book Review Ian Potter Foundation Fellowship – Visual Arts Australian Book Review Ian Potter Foundation Fellowship - Visual Arts (worth $5000) ABR seeks proposals for a cogent piece of journalism on any aspect of the visual arts. Any Australian writer with a significant publication record (books, creative writing, essays, or journalism) is eligible to apply. The Fellow’s article will appear in the print magazine and ABR Online.

Full details about how to apply and eligibility can be found on the ABR website at: www.australianbookreview. com.au/programs Closing date: 3 February Society of Women Writers NSW Literary Lunch and Workshop Our first meeting of the year will be held on Wed. February 12th in the Members’ Room, Mitchell Wing, State Library of NSW, Macquarie St., Sydney.

Workshop 10 a.m. ‘Preparing your mss for publication’ with Margaret Szalay.

Cost $20/30, no need to book. Special guest Prof. Di Yerbury will launch a new ‘writers residency in the UK’ for SWW NSW members over the age of 55: a wonderful opportunity for quiet writing time in a beautiful part of England; check our website for more details: www. womenwritersnsw.org. Literary lunch 12 noon. Guest speaker Mary Cunnane will talk about ‘How to impress a literary agent and how they should impress you.’ $50/55. Booking essential by Friday, 7th February. Email: swwlunchbooking@ gmail.com

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Opportunities Busybird Publishing Forum Busybird have opened their very own message forums, entitled the Busybird Nests. Here, you can discuss writing, editing, illustration and photography, or Busybird books. Feedback is welcome if there’s anything else you’d like to see.

Registration is free, easy and immediate.

The Busybird Nests can be found at http://www.busybird.com.au/nests/ Wombat Books A traditional independent publisher, is currently open to children’s picture book and early reader submissions and have just updated their submission call in their blog. http://www.wombatbooks. com.au/blog/entry/call-for-early-readersubmissions Dimension6 magazine Open from 12 January - 22 February 2014 - is looking for strong, original speculative fiction stories, up to 4,500 words (though novellas will also be considered).

Dimension6 is a new electronic magazine distributed free and be collected in an end of year ebook sold for $0.49. Full submission details available. https://plus.google. com/+CoeurdelionAu/about Momentum Monday Momentum, Australia’s first major digital imprint, is open to submissions.

Momentum accepts submissions weekly on Mondays between 12.00 midnight and 11.59 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time via email only. Momentum is open to publishing fiction and non-fiction in most traditional and non-traditional genres. This includes new and previously published shorter length stories, essays and journalism between 15,000 to 50,000 words, genre novels and nonfiction between 50,000 to 100,000 words and longer and complex narratives of over 100,000 words. Writers can be based anywhere in the world. http://momentumbooks.com.au/ submissions/ Literary Agents Kimberly Cameron & Associates A US agency currently accepting submissions. All writers are welcome to send their work, though the agency has

Competitions

a particular focus on commercial and women’s fiction, mysteries and thrillers, and narrative non-fiction. http://www.kimberleycameron.com/ submission-guidelines.php The Wednesday Post HarperCollins Publishers ANZ has an online unsolicited submission program, The Wednesday Post. Their goal is to uncover, develop and promote the most outstanding voices writing today. The new portal can be accessed at www. wednesdaypost.com.au and will also link from the HarperCollins homepage (in Australia and New Zealand). Submissions are accepted every week on Wednesday only. Aspiring authors will be asked to present synopses of their work and the first 50 pages of a manuscript.

HarperCollins are looking for writers at every stage of their career, from closet scribes to those who have a history of publication. Adult and YA books are the focus for this initiative, and they will be accepting manuscripts in both fiction and non fiction genres, particularly exceptional contemporary women’s fiction. The Wednesday Post will respond to authors within three weeks. All submissions will be considered for print and e-book publication as well as digitalonly publication. www.wednesdaypost.com.au Uneven Floor An independent online poetry magazine in blog form, is looking for readers, social media supporters, and well-written poems with soul. Previously published poems are more than welcome. Read it and find details for submission here: http://unevenfloorpoetry.blogspot.com. au/

The My Child/Parenting Express A writing competition for an 850-word story for publication in the My Life section of My Child and online. All entries must be unpublished, creative nonfiction (no poetry) with a theme relating to pregnancy, birth or the first five years of raising a child, and aim to move the reader emotionally, whether to laughter or to tears. Prize pack includes feature writing course and baby products. http://www.parentingexpress.com/ Closing date: 18 January

Competitions

Stringybark Short Story Award For a short story up to 1500 words on any theme – though your story must have some link to Australia. Total prize pool of $810. http://www.stringybarkstories. net/The_Stringybark_Short_Stor y_ Award/Home.html Closing date: 19 January Forty South Publishing’s Tasmanian Writers’ Prize 2014 A short story competition promoting island living, for an original story up to 3,000 words having an island, or islandresonant, theme. First prize of $500 and publication in Tasmania 40˚ South. http://www.fortysouth.com.au/ Closing date: 31 January Griffith University Josephine Ulrich: Literature Prize For a short story of up to 3000 words.

First prize $10,000.

Poetry Prize For a poem up to 100 lines. First Prize $10,000. Entry Forms and details here: http://www.griffith.edu.au/humanitieslanguages/school-humanities/newsand-events/josephine-ulrick-prizes Closing date: 31 January G O’Donnell Copyright Essay offers a first prize of $3,500 to the author of an essay displaying original thinking on a topic of the author’s choice regarding copyright and the protection of the interests of authors. Full details here: http://www.copyright.org.au/ Closing date: 31 January Carnival of Flowers One-Act Playwriting Aspiring palywrights are invited to submit unpublished play scripts. http:// www.toowoombarepertorytheatre.com. au/html/2014_one-act_playwriting_ competition.html Closing date: 31 January Eyre Writers Literary Awards Four separate categories, including NonRhyming Poetry Award. Open theme, not exceeding 50 lines. First prize each section $200 plus trophy. http://w w w.eyrewriters.com/ Competitions/competitions.html Closing date: 31 January

EPIC A national poetry competition for primary and secondary school students, presented by The Footpath Library.

Addressing the theme of COURAGE, students are invited to submit poems that may be traditional verse, a visual or graphic representation of a poem or performance poetry such as rap rhyme or song. Two categories - primary and secondary. Prizes include a laptop, camera and iPod. Full details and entry forms available here: http://footpathlibrary.org/ Closing date: 3 February Laura Literary Awards The annual Laura Literary awards, coordinated by the Rocky River ‘Riters are run in conjunction with the Laura Folk Fair. Categories from Adult through to Junior Primary for The C.J.Dennis Poetry Awards. Conditions of entry and entry form are available here: ht t p :/ / ro c k y r i ver r i ter s.web s.com/ competitions.htm Closing date: 14 February The [untitled] short story competition 5,000 word limit, no genre specs. Prizes are 1st wins $500, 2nd wins $250, 3rd wins $125, and two highly commended.

All five will be published in [untitled] issue 7, due out next year. Details and entry here: http://www.busybird.com. au/?page_id=892 Closing date: 15 February The Ginosko Flash Fiction Award Is for an unpublished work of flash fiction. $250 Award, $5 entry fee. Submit up to 2 pieces, 800 words maximum each piece. See here for details: http://ginoskoliterar yjournal.com/ contest.htm Closing date: 1 March Ethel Webb Blundell Literary Awards Poetry and Short Story For a poem in any style up to 100 lines on any theme. First prize $500.

For a short story up to 4,000 words on any theme. First prize $500. Details and entry forms from the Society of Women Writers WA here. http://www.swwofwa.com/competitionnow-open.html Closing date: 31 March

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WRITERS’ GROUPS

Alstonville Plateau Writers Group Meets 2nd Tuesday of the Month. 10am to 12pm. All genres welcome. Contact Christine 66288364 or Kerry 66285662.

Ballina/Byron U3A Creative Writing Contact ph. Jan 0404 007 586. Meets at 12.00pm every second Wednesday, Fripp Oval Ballina.

Bangalow Writers Group Contact Alexandra Williams williams.alexandra@ymail. com. Meets 9.45am- 12.00pm, first Thursday of the month, Scout Hall, Bangalow.

Bellingen Writers Group Contact David Breaden (president) on 02 6699 3888 or email davidmb@wirefree.net.au. Meets at Bellingen Golf Club on the fourth Monday of the month at 2.00pm. All welcome.

Baywrite Theatre Inc. Contact Udo Moerig on 02 6680 9698 or go to www. baywrite.com. Reading and comment on new scripts 1st Saturday each month.

Workshopping of selected scripts 4th Tuesday each month.

Casino Writers Group Contact Brian Costin 02 6624 2636 or email briancostin129@ hotmail.com. Meets 3rd Thursday of the month 4pm at the Casino Library.

Cloudcatchers Contact Quendryth Young on 02 6628 3753 or email quendrythyoung@bigpond.com. For haiku enthusiasts, a ginko (haiku walk) is undertaken according to group agreement.

Coffs Harbour Writers Group Contact Lorraine Mouafi on 02 6653 3256 or email lmproject@bigpond.com . Meets 1st and 3rd Thursday of month, 10.30am–12.30pm. www.coffsharbourwriters.wordpress.com Coffs Harbour Memoir Writers Group Share your memoir writing for critiquing.

Monthly meetings. 0409 824 803. Email coastalmermaid@gmail.com Cru3a River Poets Contact Pauline Powell 02 6645 8715.

Meets every Thursday at 10.30am, venue varies, mainly in Yamba. Email kitesway@ westnet.com.au.

Dangerously Poetic writing circle Meets second Thursday of every month 12.302.30pm, at the Brunswick Heads RSL Hall, Fawcett St. Contact Laura – 6680 1967 or visit www.dangerouslypoetic.com Dorrigo Writers Group Contact Iris Curteis on 6657 5274, email an_lomall@ bigpond.com or Nell Hunter on 6657 4089. Meet every second Wednesday from 12.00pm - 4.00 pm Dunoon Writers Group Writers on the Block Contact Helga on 02 6620 2994 (w) or email: /heg.j@telstra.com/. Meets 2nd Tuesday of month, 6.30pm–8pm, at the Dunoon Sports Club.

Federal Writers Group Contact Vicki Peterson on 02 6684 0093 or email ganden1@ gmail.com. Meets 3rd Saturday of month in Federal.

FAW Port Macquarie–Hastings Regional Contact Bill Turner (President) on 02 6584 5342 or email wjturner@aapt.net.au. Meets 1pm on last Saturday of month, Historic Museum, Clarence Street, Port Macquarie.

Gold Coast Writers Association Contact 0431 443 385 or email info@goldcoastwriters.org.au. Meets 3rd Saturday of month, 1.30pm for a 2.00pm start, at Fradgley Hall, Burleigh Heads Library, Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads, Qld. Kempsey Writers Group Contact Carma Eckersley on 02 6562 5227. Meets 1st Sunday of month at the Railway Hotel.

Kyogle Writers Group Contact Brian Costin 02 6624 2636 or email briancostin129@ hotmail.com, meets 1st Tuesday of the month 10:30am at the Kyogle Bowling Club.

Lower Clarence Arts & Crafts Ferry Park Writers Group Contact Di Wood on 02 6645 8969 or email diwood43@bigpond.com. Meets 1st Thursday of month,10.00am–12.00pm.

Memoir Writing Group Contact Diana Burstall on 02 6685 5387 or email diana. burstall@gmail.com. Meets every month at Sunrise Beach, Byron Bay. Mullum Writing Group Contact Louise McCabe on 0401 568 540 or email louisepmccabe@gmail.com. Meets fortnightly on Tuesdays, 7.30pm.

Nambucca Valley Writers Group Contact 02 6568 9648, or nambuccawriters@ gmail.com . Meets 4th Saturday of month, 1.30pm, Nambucca.

Poets and Writers on the Tweed Meet weekly in the Tweed Heads Library, Tuesdays 1.30pm to 3.00pm. Poets, novelists, playwrights, short story writers all welcome. Fun group meets for discussion, support and constructive criticism. Free membership.

Phone Lorraine 07 55909395 or Ken 02 66742898.

Taree–Manning River Scribblers Contact Bob Winston on 02 6553 2829 or email rrw1939@hotmail.com. Meets 2nd Wednesday of month, 9.00am–11.30am in Taree.

Call first to check venue.

UKI Writers meet last Sunday of most months to share and encourage our literary endeavours. Contact Elspeth on 0266797029 or email windelwood@bigpond.com WordsFlow Writing Group Contact Rosemary Nissen-Wade 02 6676 0874, Pam Moore 02 6676 1417. Meets Fridays in school term, 1.00pm–3.30 pm, Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre, 12a Elizabeth St, Pottsville Beach. Visit http://wordsflowwriters.blogspot.com

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NORTHERN RIVERS WRITERS’ CENTRE 2013 MEMBERSHIP DISCOUNTS BOOK WAREHOUSE 107-109 Keen Street Lismore 02 6621 4204 BOOK WAREHOUSE 26 Harbour Drive Coffs Harbour 02 6651 9077 BOOK WAREHOUSE Shop 6 Ballina Fair Ballina 02 6686 0917 BOOK WAREHOUSE 70 Prince Street Grafton 02 6642 6355 BOOK WAREHOUSE Settlement City Port Macquarie 02 6584 9788 BOOK WAREHOUSE Yamba Fair, Treelands Drive Yamba 02 6646 8662 BYRON BAY LONGBOARDS 1/89 Jonson Street Byron Bay 02 6685 5244 CLIX COMPUTER CENTRE 3/3 Marvel Street Byron Bay 02 6680 9166 COLLINS BOOK SELLERS Unit 3. 9 Lawson Street Byron Bay 02 6685 7820 CO-OP BOOKSHOP Southern Cross University Lismore 02 6621 4484 CO-OP BOOKSHOP Coffs Harbour Education Campus, Hogbin Drive Coffs Harbour 02 6659 3225 DOLPHIN OFFICE CHOICE www.officechoice.com.au Cnr Fletcher & Marvel Streets Byron Bay 02 6685 7097 DRAGONWICK PUBLISHING www.dragonwick.com 02 6624 1933 EARTH CAR RENTALS 18 Fletcher Street Byron Bay 02 6685 7472 EBOOKS NEED EDITORS www.ebooksneededitors.com 15% discount to NRWC members Call 02 6689 5897 for further details HUMBLE PIES Pacific Highway Billinudgel 02 6680 1082 KEEN STREET COMMUNICATIONS www.keenstreet.com.au 50 Bulmers Rd Hogarth Range 02 6664 7361 MARY RYAN’S BOOKSTORE Shop 5, 21 -25 Fletcher Street Byron Bay 02 6685 8183 NORPA www.norpa.org.au PO Box 225 Lismore 02 6621 5600 PAGES BOOKSHOP Park Beach Plaza Coffs Harbour 02 6652 2588 THE BOOKSHOP MULLUMBIMBY 39 Burringbar Street Mullumbimby 02 6684 1413 THERE’S ALWAYS MORE HAIRDRESSING Shop 5, 14 Middleton Byron Bay 02 6680 7922

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Please send with your payment to: Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre, PO Box 1846 Byron Bay NSW 2481 or call us on 02 6685 5115 or apply and pay online at www.nrwc.org.au

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