northerly march april 2014

northerly march - april, 2014

The Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre Magazine

Inside:

the animal issue • Mark Dapin speaks • room to read • Mudmap

in this issue ...

02

Noticeboard

03

A word from the Director

04

Why Istanbul

05

Inez Baranay Obituary for a brown dog

Robert Drewe

06

The nature of war

Mark Dapin

07

Birds

Pip Morrissey

08

The cat lady of Ubud

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 POSTAL ADDRESS PO Box 1846 Byron Bay NSW 2481 PHONE 02 6685 5115 FAX 02 6685 5166 EMAIL info@nrwc.org.au WEB www.nrwc.org.au

Jeni Caffin & Elizabeth Henzell

NRWC COMMITTEE 10 Grassroots weekend CHAIRPERSON Chris Hanley VICE CHAIRPERSON Lynda Dean Iris Curteis SECRETARY Russell Eldridge 11 MudMap TREASURER Cheryl Bourne MEMBERS Jesse Blackadder, Fay Burstin, Marele Day, Emma Ashmere Lynda Hawryluk, Brenda Shero, Adam van Kempen 12 Back to my first love- animals LIFE MEMBERS: Jean Bedford, Jeni Caffin, Gayle Cue, Robert Drewe, Jill Eddington, Chris Hanley, Jesse Blackadder John Hertzberg, Fay Knight, Irene O’Brien, Jennifer 13 Inside Ms Makwela’s classroom

Regan, Cherrie Sheldrick, Heather Wearne

Mihiri Udabage

14

SCU page

15

Book reviews

Lisa Walker 16

A Byron healing

Penny Leonard 17

An afternoon of letters

Steve Bisley 18

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

Kids’ page

Tristan Bancks 19

From the reading chair

Laurel Cohn

20

News & Workshops

22

Opportunities & Competitions

24

Writers’ groups and member discounts

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: photo courtesy of Villa Kitty in Ubud, Bali

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 3

Noticeboard The Residential Mentorship application opens on Monday 3 March and closes 2pm on Wednesday 26 March. The application and guidelines will be available on our website: www.nrwc.org.au or call 02 6685 5115 if you would like one posted to you.

The NRWC AGM will be held on Tuesday 11 March from 6.30pm at Level 1, 28 Jonson St, Byron Bay (above Witchery) All current financial members are welcome to attend.

YUGAL Writers’ Retreat AN IDYLLIC PLACE TO CREATE http://philipmclaren.wix.com/ writers-retreat# YUGAL is situated on a ridge at the cusp of the massive Wollombi caldera near Byron Bay in the village of Federal.

It’s a rustic retreat featuring three bedrooms each bedroom has a private work station. There are common areas - library, lounge, dining, kitchen, laundry, covered back deck and front terrace - all on five acres.

There is a maximum of three writers in residence at any one time at YUGAL. Sorry no couples, no visitors and no pets are permitted. This is a retreat. You may bring your own music for use with headsets only. Writers must bring their own computers and USB sticks. Mobile phone use is not permitted in the house.

Priority is given to Indigenous writers.

Byron Bay Friends of the Library presents: “Life, Love and Laughs” - an evening with Dr Anita Heiss Friday 4 March, 5.30pm at the Byron Bay Library Lisa Walker will be in conversation with Anita.

A copy of Anita’s new book Tiddas will be given away on the night.

Gold Coin donation, RSVP on 6685 8540 or byronbayfol@gmail.com 4 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

A Warm Welcome The weeks are flicking past as I settle into my new role at NRWC. My diary is full with upcoming workshops, the Residential Mentorship and of course Festival planning is bubbling away. I am arranging to increase our already excellent reference library and I encourage members to pop in and use the resources available.

Once the Byron summer scorchers have passed and our office has returned to its normal breezy coolness, I’d like to restart the ‘Hour of Power’. If you would like to join the small core of committed writers who put everything aside for an hour a week to concentrate on their writing, please email me your interest and I’ll advise a day and time that suits most members.

Lastly, a thank you to everyone who has given me a warm welcome, I am feeling very supported.

Penny Leonard penny@nrwc.org.au Writer Development Manager In the office Wednesday and Thursday

A word (well several) from the Director

Dear members,

Finally – I am writing to you from the NRWC office. Hooray for that! It was a long road to Byron since Chris Hanley’s call back in August last year, but we are here and it is so good to be here: both in Byron and in the office.

We found a home on top of a hill that looks out across the gentle blue hills of the hinterland and from there we watch the sun set every night. We have walked to the lighthouse and seen the dolphins leap at the bottom of the cliffs and run in and out of the waves letting Byron wash over us.

Yes, I am the envy of everyone I know back in Sydney and indeed around the world. It’s not hard to convince writers to add a Byron stop to their book tours.

Speaking of Byron author tours have you bought your tickets to see Lionel Shriver yet? The Orange Prizewinning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin will be in conversation with Matt Condon on Saturday 1 March for the NRWC. Her new book, Big Brother, kept me awake long after closing the book on the last page.

Shriver tells the confronting story of a sister who risks her marriage to save her morbidly obese brother and tackles a constellation of issues surrounding obesity. Please come – I would love to meet you there.

As I write, Perth and Adelaide are about to begin their celebrations of the written word and as our own Festival team begins to gather, so too the energy is building for August when we will all gather at North Byron Events. There are some treats in store. Planning is also underway for a writers’ road-trip throughout the Northern Rivers region to take place in the lead up to BBWF: 5 Writers, 5 Towns, 5 Days. Thanks go to the Australia Council for this initiative to promote mid-list and indigenous writers. We’ll be bringing you more detail closer to the time but I can tell you it is going to be a lot of fun.

Three of us in the NRWC office moved house over Christmas – here is our tip: pretend you are moving at least once a year to clear accumulated junk – it feels so good to clear that space and open your life to newness. And

yes, even clear out your books – give them to libraries or friends. Hold onto the ones that are your lifelong friends.

But allow books their purpose: which is to be read. And now a confession – I spent the weekend watching HBO’s Rome which prompted me to recall Cicero’s wisdom: ‘If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.’ Let us be grateful for that!

Edwina Johnson

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 5

Why

by Inez Baranay

S

Istanbul?

o, why Istanbul? The question recurs, coming from Turkish friends and from other expats, many of whom have lived here for decades. I might one day look back on my own decades here; Istanbul is the kind of city where many long-time residents first came only for a short visit.

I love being able truthfully to reply “I first came here when one of my novels was translated into Turkish” and tell the story of meeting Ayşe Kulin, Turkey’s bestselling writer (which I did not know then) at a writers’ retreat in upstate New York in 2008; after getting to know each other and each other’s work a little —Ayşe’s historical novels are often based on her family and life — she said “I will get one of your novels translated” and eventually it came to pass that I was invited to the Istanbul Book Fair in November 2011 for the publication of Kaplanla Yan-Yana, the Turkish version of my novel With The Tiger. I couldn’t have afforded a quick trip but, with no permanent home base and moving around in short-term sub-lets, why not stay in Istanbul a while?

On my second evening, Ayşe impulsively led me aboard a ferry leaving Beşiktaş to cross the sparkling, magical Bosporus sea strait in the silvery end-ofday light, and I fell in love with the city then and there. Here! I could live here!

Though this city can be tough, really tough, to live in (world’s worst traffic, untrammelled ugly new construction, all the ills of a megalopolis and as for politics…), a ferry on the Bosporus or a waterside tea garden will always uplift the spirit, way up. This is Byzantium, this is Constantinople, this is Istanbul! The hills rise up from the Bosporus shores, the famous skyline of domes and minarets now crowded with masses of new towers.

A city of incomparable fascination and vitality, I keep calling it. Immense intense crowds are found in all seasons in its everyday streets and at its historical treasures and evocative ruins.

I live in the historical area near the Galata Tower, built in 1348, where dozens 6 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

of people go daily to view the panorama from its ancient ramparts. I love my view of the street corner, a steep narrow cobblestone road rising alongside the old Crimea Church, where schoolchildren, covered women and bare-shouldered tourists pass each other. Amidst the rapid gentrification (boutiques, apart-hotels), head-scarved women let down their baskets on ropes from high windows so the grocer can run over with bread and cigarettes, and down the road the men, who all seem old when they’re no longer boys, inhabit the men-only teahouses, drinking endless tiny tulip-shaped cups of rosy Turkish tea, smoking and playing backgammon, keeping an eye on the street life and airing a view of the world that I cannot quite completely imagine.

And then there are, of course, the street cats, which in this city inhabit every alley and corner. They are regularly fed in every neighbourhood, no doubt doing their part to keep their areas free of rodents, and they adorably and photogenetically lie about atop motorbike seats, windowsills and piles of goods for sale.

Whatever the status of animal care might be in the rest of Turkey, the people of Istanbul are quietly proud of their good care of the city’s cats and dogs.

At the start of 2013 I moved into an empty, dirty, dark, decrepit apartment and soon enough it was a mended, painted, furnished, clean well-lighted place in which to start a new life. I finished a new novel there, one that although set in Berlin, became tinged with my Istanbul experience; I did some freelance editing and online teaching while waiting for the bureaucracy to allow my appointment to a Turkish university; I got to know new friends a little better and occasionally had the pleasure of the company old friends visiting from Australia and elsewhere.

It feels like the centre of the world here sometimes.

As a visitor to Istanbul, you can go to any number of cooking classes, walking tours and guided inspections of special mosques and museums but my friends

pointed out a lack it was up to me to fill. Of course any number of people are writing about their Istanbul experience, whether they’re on vacation or living here, whether they are professional writers, aspirants or people who like to keep journals. I’ve created the Writing Istanbul Workshop for travellers and residents to spend a day focussing on observations and expressions in an intimate group of like-minded people.

My kind of writer’s life means a seemingly endless swing between the happy immersion in full-time writing and the necessary periods of other employment.

The Workshop is a chance to spend the day immersed in the experience of Istanbul and the delightful task of finding words for a place that seems too complex to be captured in language. http://www.writingistanbulworkshop.com/

pictured: Inez Baranay above Inez: Istanbul feline on a shopping spree

Obituary for a Brown Dog Robert Drewe

H

ave I told you about Ella? In her youth one of Australia’s most idiosyncratic dogs, Ella grew to combine the proud demeanour of the pure German short-haired pointer and the blasé attitude of a Las Vegas showgirl. In a long, eventful life she attracted wide notice, even notoriety, for various occurrences including gatecrashing the reception for Pope John Paul II at Randwick Racecourse, eating dead pelicans, and managing to speak and repeat an actual human word – the name Owen. This was all the more remarkable since there was no one in her household or neighbourhood called Owen.

As noted in her biography, Walking Ella, she was a voracious eater, exceptional even for her breed of enthusiastic feeders. Her first year was noted for her consumption, with no ill-effects, of two dead pelicans and an Indian picnic for eight in Centennial Park, a deceased fox, a baby’s nappy, a packet of snail pellets, kitty-litter, several hundred sea-monkeys, miscellaneous roadkilled cats and possums, washed-up cormorants, stolen Thai takeaway, and the contents of a David Jones’ delicatessen’s shopping bag, as well as the bag, whose familiar check pattern made a startling appearance a day later.

As her biographer wrote, “She’ll eat anything that isn’t strictly classified as mineral.”

As both a cosmopolitan and a regionalist (Ella spent her life in inner-Sydney and on the NSW farnorth coast), she was testimony to the inadequacy of such academic notions that to be regionalist is to be communitarian, while to be a cosmopolitan is to seek the empty non-places of the city.

She shunned country friendships

-- regarding farmers, cows and sheep as boring and incomprehensible -- while enjoying entering random inner-city houses and hotels, climbing into foreign bedrooms and snuggling under the bedclothes, or following total strangers with packets of chips onto trains.

While preferring her family to outsiders, she would adopt any stranger with a Chiko roll. She knew no fear -- except of umbrellas, fireworks, balloons, people wearing hats, men outside pubs, female power-walkers with rustling thighs, and cats.

Early in her career she laid down the rules. She would defy her breed’s raison d’etre and neither come nor fetch. A beckoning whistle brought a toss of the head and her rapid disappearance in the opposite direction. A two-week stint in the strict Dog and Master Training School brought no change in her behaviour but did break up the relationship of the married couple running the school.

Ostensibly a gun dog, bred to point at, and retrieve, game from water, she was frightened of the smallest popping sound (balloons, whoopee cushions, paper bags), braved swimming only once in her life, and refused to drink running fresh water.

Paradoxically, she attempted to drink sea water on every beach walk, and was always unpleasantly surprised at the taste. Once she assumed the point position at a mudhen until it stared her down.

Making up for lifelong deficiencies in sight and hearing, her sense of smell was remarkable. Tired of her becoming lost on her daily beach walk, her frustrated “master” would have to run upwind of her, remove his shirt and wave it in the breeze.

She could detect and differentiate his body odour at about 500 metres. He wasn’t sure how proud he should be of this talent.

Her most remarkable attribute, however, was her affectionate nature, which enabled her to patiently suffer the indignities heaped on her over the years: hauling a sled and a skateboard and playing many roles (shark, lion, wolf, witch, pirate), mostly in costume.

She never lost her huge appetite.

When she couldn’t stand any longer she lay down to eat. Twice, the vet suggested her meter had expired, but she rallied for another six months. Her last year was spent tottering around the house in her green jacket, like an old showgirl in stilettos, occasionally calling for the phantom Owen and venturing outside every day at 5pm to bark at ghosts until nightfall.

She ran the household for 17 years.

Despite my distaste for sentimental animal stories it seemed ignoble to let her death go unrecorded. She was a character, our brown dog, and we’re still sad.

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 7

The Nature of War

by Mark Dapin

W

hen people ask how I came to be the editor of From the Trenches: The Best ANZAC Writing of World War One (Penguin Australia, $39.99), I tell them the publisher used to be my workexperience boy on the Australian Financial Review Magazine.

It’s true - but it’s not the answer they want. They hope to hear about my spiritual understanding of the suffering of the ANZACs. Well, I haven’t got one. Or, at least, I didn’t have, until I began working on the anthology.

In fact, I’d decided never to read or write about war again. A couple of years ago, I edited The Penguin Book of Australian War Writing, a collective of first-person accounts of conflicts ranging for the European invasion of Aboriginal land to the war in the Afghanistan. I also completed my second novel, Spirit House, a story of life and death on the Burma Railway.

I finished my research for both these books in a state of despair that people – okay, let’s call them “men” – make the same mistakes over and over again, that fathers lie to their sons about the reality of war, and both conspire to hide the truth from their wives and mothers. But more than that, I was saddened to realise that, while part of that truth was, of course, that war can be hell, the other side of the story is it can be fun. Men enjoy killing other people. Women probably would too, if they were given more of a chance. To some degree, it’s wasn’t the bloodshed and carnage that the infantryman despised, but the long periods of boredom and discomfort in between battles. As a society, we find it hard to face this fact, although I suspect it was more commonly understood in less civilised times.

There’s not much consolation to be found in reading about World War One. More than sixteen million people were killed, and the lasting legacy of their sacrifice was an unjust 8 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

peace which contributed to the causes of World War Two. The men of the First AIF died so the men of the Second AIF might die also.

But I agreed to edit the book nonetheless. In fact, I was so useless at avoiding the study of war, I enrolled myself in PhD at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

I can’t entirely explain what was behind either decision, but I can say that the emotional effect of reading soldiers memoirs has lessened for me. I am more critical and less credulous, more able to see them as relics of their time, more like derelict buildings then the empty shells of men. In part, I suspect, this is simply the consequence of prolonged exposure to the material. I hope – and believe – it made me a better judge of material to select for the anthology.

I was looking for the best writing, not the most important accounts, or stories of most historically significant battles. Most of the cream came from Gallipoli and the majority of the finest work was prose.

I hadn’t realised it before I started work on the anthology, but most Australian World War One poetry is pretty awful: if it weren’t for Leon Gellert and Frederick Manning, there wouldn’t be much verse of any significance.

In fact, for me, the saddest poetry comes close to the end of the book, in a section of epitaphs collected from tombstones in the war cemeteries of the Western Front.

GONE AND THE LIGHT OF ALL OUR LIFE GONE WITH HIM I cried when I found this in a library book, and again when I transcribed it into the manuscript, and even when I read the proofs. It seemed to epitomise the bottomless loss left behind when a parent buries their child.

Others are almost as devastating: IF I COULD HAVE CLASPED HIS DYING HAND AND HEARD HIS LAST FAREWELL Or WOULD GOD THAT I HAD DIED FOR THEE MY SON, MY SON The epitaphs put to shame all the bush ballads and rhyming verse, and put into context the bloodlust and jingoism. They taught me something more about the nature of war and for that, I guess, I have to thank my work-experience boy.

Mark Dapin moved to Australia in the late 1980s. He is the author of Spirit House, Strange Country and King of the Cross, has been editor in chief of ACP’s men’s magazines, and a hugely popular columnist. He lives in Sydney with his partner and two children.

Birds

by Pip Morrissey

I’ve always had a deep fascination for birds, not just their colourful plumage and extraordinary variety, but their nest building skills and seemingly tireless dedication to raising their young. I wasn’t allowed to keep birds when I was growing up. Dad said they’d attract rats and mice which would in turn attract cats, to which my mother was allergic. He hated cats for this reason, and the only cat we ever had spent its entire life on the roof suffering from sunburn, sadly, as it was an albino. But that’s another story.

I grew up in a leafy suburb in a house surrounded by a rambling garden full of birds. I spent a lot of time watching, and occasionally catching them in a box trap, just to have a closer look before letting them go. My cousins lived nearby on a huge bushland property populated by a totally different spectrum of birdlife. My cousins were allowed to keep birds and had a big aviary housing a flock of budgies, full of breeding boxes, full of baby birds. We lived near the Zoo and Dad was a member of the Society entitling us to walk through the grounds to the ferry for the city and school. Cool quiet mornings before hot summer days began with a stroll through the unpeopled Zoo when all the animals and birds were waking up. The cacophony of early morning sounds, the chorus of birds mixed with the chatter of monkeys, the roar of lions and many other strange wild sounds, was magical.

I took up birdwatching in my twenties and was rarely without binoculars hanging round my neck. I travelled across Australia, always on the lookout for something new and Photo: Cristina Smith

counted my bird sightings as I went like a checklist of achievements. It’s an obsession I share with thousands of amateur ornithologists all over the world, an addiction that both fascinates and informs.

I joined WIRES because eighty percent of rescues are birds, the perfect opportunity to learn a lot more about them, but also how little most of us know about our native birds and the lives they lead. Before the establishment of the WIRES network, rescued baby birds would commonly be fed by householders on bread and milk, a diet which would kill most of them. When was the last time you saw a bird drinking from a cow’s teat or harvesting and milling its own flour? It seems obvious when you think about it, but fortunately WIRES training prepares you to know exactly what, how much and when to feed baby birds, among lots of other things, like rehabilitation and avoiding domestication of wild fledglings.

I’ve raised a lot of different birds and released them back where they came from. Tawny Frogmouths are probably the most challenging as, being nocturnal hunters, they have to be encouraged to catch their own food, not an easy task for a human to convey. My family were very tolerant, not only of the frozen mice in the freezer, but also the demands of a very large, big yellow-eyed, gaping mouthed juvenile Frogmouth swooping onto the back porch looking for a handout until he learned to hunt for himself. The amazing thing about birds is that they know how to find their own food and are gradually weaned off handfeeding as they find their own sustenance.

Three galahs were brought to me one day, all rolled over by the turbulence of a passing truck. They were all young, looked much the same and were visited by the local wild flock almost daily until they were strong enough to fly away with them, except for one. His wing had begun to droop and was clearly broken and unfixable.

I’d become attached to this little guy, called him ‘Buddy’ and decided to keep him as he’d become quite attached to me too. Three and a half years later, he’s still here, despite a couple of close calls in attacks from predator birds. He spends most of his time in a tree above his outside cage, grazing around the house and causing a nuisance now and then by entering the house and removing the tabs on keyboards or chewing my husband’s shoes. He’s a one person bird who is very loyal to me, knows his competitors and attacks my husband. He knows when I’m talking to him, goes into his cage when I tell him to and has taught me that birds are not just clever but affectionate too. Galahs can live up to 50 years, so he’s my second life partner and just might outlive my husband and me. Of course, if I came back, it would be as a bird, probably a galah.

WIRES Northe rn Rive Emerg rs ency H otline for fur 0 2 66281 her info 898 rmatio http:// n go to www.w : iresnr.o rg/

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 9

The Cat Lady Jeni Caffin & Elizabeth Henzell

H

ello, Jeni Caffin dropping by to say hello, and to introduce my stellar friend, the benefactor and saviour of the street cats of Ubud, Bali, Elizabeth Henzell.

You know that I have a love of Indonesia and for the constantly changing Island of the Gods, Bali. I am blessed in the many friends I have made there, both Indonesian and expat, and perhaps the most enduring friendship is that with Elizabeth and her furry cohorts. I am dotty about cats. All cats, and I am in good company. In the words of Mark Twain "If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.” In the words of Elizabeth Henzell, "Obviously Mr Twain never met a Bali cat".

How did this witty, sophisticated woman, creator and manager of the INTERACT Language Centre at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, tango enthusiast, wearer of kitten (!) heels and glamorous LBDs, come to immerse herself in the abandoned, the broken, the unwanted mothers, the heartbreaking scraps of fur one finds every day in the paddies, the drains, the rubbish heaps and roadways of

10 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

Ubud? Here's Elizabeth's story: Villa Kitty Bali wasn’t planned. It just happened. One day I was happily working as PA to Janet DeNeefe, founder of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival and owner of a Balinese business empire that encompassed restaurants, cocktail bar, guesthouses and an emporium, and the next I was CEO of a cat house. Whatever sent me in this direction has serious answers to come up with because it wasn’t in my plans when I built my new life in Bali! I do remember seeing a ‘lady’ in Maleny in 1995, just after my divorce. The cost was $70. She told me I would end up in a “caring” role. A what, I asked? Oh like an ambulance driver or paramedic, she said. Wrong, so wrong! I smiled, paid and left. At home that night with my three beautiful children I felt guilty about spending so much money on a useless bit of information.

Fast forward nearly twenty years and you could say she was right. I am definitely in a “caring” role. As I type this, I am grateful there is no mirror in my bedroom/office. There is no room, because of the quantity of cats in their individual accommodations.

I have averaged five hours of broken sleep every night for the past two weeks because, not only do I live on site at Villa Kitty Bali, here in

Lodtunduh, just ten minutes south of beautiful Ubud, but I foster our “diff” cats, those with chronic illnesses or those who are so timid they take months to get over their traumas even though their wounds are healed.

Yet Villa Kitty is a place of joy: even on our sad days you can find something little and furry that touches your heart and marvel at our 23 staff who smile even though they are cleaning 130 pongy kitty litter trays daily.

Villa Kitty was officially established on Thursday 17 March 2011, having relocated from our original 2009 location. We had outgrown the space and the need for something more purpose built for cats and kittens was urgent. Word spread fast and we were accepting more cats and kittens than we were adopting out.

In 2009 we had arrived with 18 cats but by August 2011 we had over 50.

Aaaaargh!

The design of our new home I copied from the cat section at the Sunshine Coast Animal Refuge Society, SCARS, in Queensland. We had always known a separate quarantine building was necessary to stop the spread of airborne viruses but initially the finances weren’t available. A hospital with two wings, respiratory and gastro intestinal was needed too.

Then, with the help of some amazing

of Ubud friends, Villa Kitty Phase II happened.

And still the cats arriving outweighed the cats leaving through adoptions.

How could we keep this up? It isn't purely a matter of finances, as any animal welfare organization will tell you; it is a matter of changing attitudes, of education. On an island that is predominantly Hindu, how can people so callously rip babies from their mothers and toss them into rice fields or on to the roadside?

How can they walk past a sick or maimed cat and not do the “Good Samaritan” thing? Didn’t Mahatma Gandhi say “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”?

Yes, but the Hindu religion here on Bali is not the same as in India and in fact it doesn’t have a lot to do with religion, a young Balinese friend, Agra, explained. “It’s not religion, it’s cultural and, even though this is bad, it is very hard to change. Children are exposed to a way of thinking from birth that they see as acceptable. To change would make them different and that isn’t something they like to do because it brings attention to themselves. Balinese like to fit in, to be the same as their friends.”

How do we change these attitudes?

How do we break this cycle of noncaring? Children brought up caring for animals are much kinder adults.

Hence the idea to place our kittens, fully vaccinated and sterilized, with children who through finances or situation, couldn’t manage a companion animal in their home.

I discovered SOS Children’s Village in Tabanan, an hour’s drive from Villa Kitty. The children’s village has twelve homes, with twelve foster mothers and in each house on the six hectares of land there are up to ten children. We visited in April 2013 and asked if we could give each house two fully vaccinated, sterilized kittens and provide ongoing vet care and food. The director agreed to ten cats.

This small project has been amazing.

It has shown us, that there is a way to break through. We desperately need sponsorship so that we can continue to provide food and so that our vets can visit once a month.

The most exciting news to date at Villa Kitty is the introduction of two young women educators, Agra and Ina, who will start our “English language with a difference” classes free to children in our local Lodtunduh community.

This is another opportunity to break habits, getting the children through our doors to do “something different”.

We are a work in progress, always looking for funding but eagerly

welcoming visitors too, simply to ‘hang’ with our feline family in our Villa Kitty Adoption Centre, where the fully vaccinated and sterilized cats will play and purr and cuddle all day long.

Oh the reason for my red eyes today is a tiny cat called Abby Rose, who hasn’t stopped crying due to her ‘inflammatory bowel disease’. Slowly she is improving but she needs love, often and during the night. She is worth it. They all are.

To find out more about Villa Kitty, and to help, visit www.villakittybali.com or find them on Facebook. And if you are in Ubud, contact Elizabeth and visit her feline charges (ask about the magnificent Sunday lunch.)

Jalan

Ambarawati

Banjar

Tengah,

LODTUNDUH Bali.

Email: info@villakittybali.com phone +6285857584131 or +62361 981651

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 11

INAUGURAL GRASSROOTS WRITERS WEEKEND DORRIGO, 25 – 27 APRIL 2014 PROGRAM Come to a weekend of writing, inspiration and networking in the pristine surrounds of Dorrigo. Our presenters are keen to share their expertise at a companionable, practical, grass-roots level. Hone your skills in writing, feedback, editing and rewriting. Explore what drives you to write, discover a new genre or three and find different ways to get your work ‘out there’.

On Friday evening, we invite you to introduce yourself or your writers group, your projects, festivals and launches. Please keep ‘Introductions’ to around 3-5 minutes and send a written copy to Zachary Jane via email for collation (and inclusion in a post-Weekend Journal). zachareyjane@yahoo.com.au Friday 25th April: 3.00 – 5.00 Session: Melissa Beit, The Art Of Dialogue 5.30 – 6.00 Key Note Address: Marele Day, Growing the Story: Mentoring Yourself and Others 6.00 – 9.30 Opening Dinner & Writers and Writers Groups introduce themselves Saturday 26th April: 9.00 – 11.00 Marele Day, Beyond The First Draft 11.30 – 12.30 Conversation Groups (multiple streams) Dee Beech Travel Writing Carol Deane Interviewing as Research for Creative Writing Siđsel BakerJournal Writing 1.30 – 3.30 Sessions Wendy Laharnar, Researching And Writing Historical Fiction.

Zacharey Jane, How To Get To The Kernel Of The Idea 4.00 – 6.00 Sessions Alexandra J. Cornwell, Drabble (100-Word Fiction), A Creative Starter Workshop Beryl Peake, Poetry Pilgrimage 7.30 – 10.00 Dinner and a Reading of Works (Open to the public)

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Sunday 27th April: 9.00 – 11.00 Sessions Lisa Milner, Exploring Character Leonie Henschke, Getting Your Story Started – Writing The First Words 11.30 – 1.30 Sessions Rosalie Skinner, Writing Fantasy Iris Curteis, Magic Realism – Writing Between The Magical And The Mundane 2.30 – 4.30 Wrap-up Forming a Feedback Group: a meta-group of writers who offer constructive feedback to writers throughout the region; outcomes and ideas for the next GWW; passing the baton.

For further inquiries and a full Program with presenter bio’s please contact: Iris Curteis 6657 5274 or email: an_lomall@bigpond.com Carol Deane 6657 4005 email: deane.carol@gmail.com Dee Beech 6657 5149 email: deebeech@gmail.com For Registration please contact: Hamish Mackay 66575270 or 0412862823; email: hamishmackay@biodynamics2014.com.au This event is supported by: Arts Council of the Dorrigo; Biodynamics2024; Dorrigo High School; Dorrigo Chamber of Commerce; Food Angel Café; Lyn Tarleton; Northern Rivers Writers Centre; School of Arts & Social Sciences, Southern Cross University; University of New England, Dorrigo Writers Group and Arts NSW’s Country Arts Support Program,a devolved funding program administered by Regional Arts NSW and Arts Mid North Coast on behalf of the NSW Government

New paths through the literary terrain

Mud Map

Australian women’s experimental writing

by Emma Ashmere

H

ow are some Australian women writers pushing at the boundaries of language, form and narrative now?

A few years ago four writers and academics Moya Costello, Barbara Brooks, Anna Gibbs and Rosslyn Prosser set out to survey the terrain. A collection of women’s experimental writing hadn’t been seen here since the 1980s. It was time, they said, to publish an anthology fit for the 21st century. Out went the call for submissions.

The result is Mud Map, a diverse accumulation of ideas and styles with surprising pathways heading here and there. Published in 2013 as a special edition in TEXT online journal, readers can click into thirty three pieces of new poetry, prose, plus a handful of images. Themes include the architecture of words and space, religion, art, madness, the many faces of capitalism, anxiety and shopping, the volatility of love and sexuality, displacement and travel, the desert and the sea. The foreword is offered as a ‘rough guide’ and sets out the rich history of experimental writing in Australia and beyond, including glimpses of modernist novelist Christina Stead, contemporary poet Ania Walwicz, and the 1960s avantgarde Oulipo group.* Some might claim all writing is experimental, that when we sit down at the desk we can’t predict the results. (Although apparently some writers plan so meticulously, they can probably say they do.) For me it’s about seeing what happens when

I try to stretch language, structure, style and grammar within the constraints of the short story form.

One writer might opt for repetition (think of Gertrude Stein’s infamous line ‘a rose is a rose is a rose...’ penned a hundred years ago). Others embrace unorthodox formatting such as dot points, lists, and insertions of nonfiction texts. Some play with a variety of fonts and spacing, while others disorient the reader by doing away with traditional punctuation.

My own contribution to the anthology is the footnoted short story, Portrait or landscape. I was interested in how a person constructs themselves through memory, and footnotes offered a way of highlighting the narrator’s reliability while simultaneously undermining it. Footnotes are usually found gathered in serious herds at the nether reaches of academic and nonfiction texts, adding weight and gravitas (ie this statement must be true. It’s footnoted). But

they have also peppered fiction for years, bedevilling and delighting generations of editors, typesetters, proofreaders and readers alike.

Forced to live a big life in small print, footnotes can pack a pinpointed punch when you least expect it.

So if you’re interested in finding out more about how thirty three writers have been working with language in all its many elastic, elusive and endlessly evolving forms, check out the new paths they’ve forged in Mud Map: http://www.textjournal.com. au/speciss/issue17/content.htm.

It may lead you to see what else is out there. You might even take a literary leap. *Georges Perec wrote his 1969 novel La disparition (The Void) without using the letter ‘e’.

Emma Ashmere’s short stories have appeared in Griffith REVIEW, Sleepers Almanac, Etchings and The Age.

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 13

Back to my first love–

animals

By Jesse Blackadder Jesse Blackadder has been writing fiction for adults for years, with her third adult novel Chasing the Light published in 2013. So what made her decide to write animal stories for junior readers?

It was a life-sized fibreglass Labrador that changed the course of my writing life. You know the ones you see sitting in supermarkets and shops, collecting money for guide dogs?

Stay is a collection dog. She was kidnapped from the streets of Hobart back in 1991 by a group of Antarctic expeditioners heading south and went on an adventure to Antarctica.

The plan, so the story goes, was that she would be returned the following year full of money for Royal Guide Dogs Tasmania.

But Stay’s trip coincided with the permanent removal of huskies from Australian Antarctic stations – bringing the end of an era in Antarctica. Australian Antarcticans weren’t going to take the loss of their canine friends lying down – so when it came time for Stay to go home, she went mysteriously missing.

It was a pattern played out every year since then – the dognapping of Stay and her transport – by plane, sledge, Hagglunds, quad bike or ship – to her next adventure. She has her own Facebook page and passport. She’s been all over Antarctica and almost to the North Pole too. In January this year she made international news when she was among the 52 passengers rescued from the icebound ship Akademik Shokalskiy.

I met Stay while travelling to Antarctica to research the first women who landed on the continent. I was inadvertently caught up in a Stay dognapping within a couple of hours of landing, and Stay became my companion on a three-day field trip. Once I heard more about her adventures, I realised she was a true 14 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

Antarctic heroine. As a character, she wouldn’t leave me alone.

I approached my publisher, HarperCollins, with the idea of writing about Stay’s adventures. Children’s publisher Cristina Capelluto suggested I try writing Stay as junior fiction. I was so unfamiliar with the workings of children’s literature, I wasn’t even aware of junior fiction as a category.

But when I sat down and started writing Stay, something clicked. I was in that 8+ age group myself when my passion for reading got into full swing, and it was

closely linked to my passion for animals.

I had decided by a young age that I was going to be a vet, and I started voluntary work cleaning out kennels in the local veterinary clinic by age 10. Words and animals were the two things that made my blood fizz.

Writing Stay reconnected me with that time – and because of that, the voice seemed to come naturally. I didn’t feel the same subconscious pressure to be clever and erudite that comes with writing for adults. I found the process of writing playful and clearer.

I loved dogs as a child, but the animals closest to my heart were horses. The second book in the series grew from a newspaper clipping I’d kept, about a group of brumbies from the East Kimberley who were captured and sent

to Dubai to become endurance horses for one of the Sheiks. As part of my research, I travelled to the Kimberley to see the wild brumbies first hand, and managed to visit the Sheik’s endurance training stable in Dubai before I wrote the novel.

Paruku The Desert Brumby took me further on the journey back into my childhood.

My love of horses and the times I’d spent riding out in the bush flooded back to me vividly as I wrote the story of 12-yearold Rachel accompanying her veterinary father to the desert to catch the brumbies, and how she fell in love with Paruku.

Stay was published in July 2013, Paraku in January 2014 and I have just finished writing Dexter The Drop Bear for publication on 1 January 2015.

The complexities of human-animal relationships continue to fascinate me and I’m grateful for the chance of revisiting to this childhood passion with some adult understanding.

It’s like returning to my heartland.

Inside Ms Makwela’s Classroom This teacher is steering her young students in South Africa away from poverty and towards a literate life.

Ms Makwela’s 1st grade classroom blushes with colour. Brightly coloured posters, lists fat with words, and over-sized flashcards line up expectantly, waiting for their chance to be introduced to the gaggle of young students who tumble through the door. Only after finishing the song and story that begins each lesson doesshe carefully select her cards for the day, matching letters with words. Today’s first letter is proudly introduced as ‘h’, handsome and crisp against a white card. Listento the sound, the children are told. Can you hear it in leho (ladle), lehono (today) and lehodu (thief )? The children nod and repeat: h, leho, lehono, lehodu, h.

Ms Makwela’s classroom is energetic and fun; the children explore a reading corner, nature corner, and use dance and storytelling to reinforce the day’s literacy lesson. But it didn’t use to be this way.

“Before, I didn’t really know how to facilitate my lessons effectively. My old lessons were not as explicit, because I never learned the proper sequence for teaching reading and writing skills.” Even as a student herself, she had trouble learning to read. “This made most subjects difficult for me—especially in high school.”

When Ms Makwela joined Room to Read’s Reading and Writing Instruction program for teachers in 2012, she learned how to transform her classroom from an intimidating place of rote memorization to the interactive, print-rich environment it is today. Her young Sepedi-speaking students now engage in peer-to-peer learning, group activities, and singing and dancing, much like you would expect to see on walking into any modern Grade 1 classroom. “Now I plan my lessons to incorporate all the skills children need, and plan activities so that they, too, are participating in the lessons.”

Room to Read’s Chief Program Officer, Dr Cory Heyman, says the global education organisation is focussed on developing literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children. He says a strong foundation begins with early literacy skills like reading and writing familiar words, getting familiar with the concept of books, comprehension, and expression. “While learning to speak is ‘hardwired’ in children as they develop, learning to read is not.

The science of how children learn to read is complex, and both parents and educators must engage youth in activities that encourage progress.”

In Ms Makwela’s primary school, one in four children are orphaned by AIDS, and the surrounding community is enveloped by poverty, unemployment and high illiteracy.

Here,students rely on their teachers and learning environment to provide what, in many cases, their parents cannot.

Erin Ganju, Room to Read’s CEO and cofounder, reports the new teacher trainings, along with Room to Read libraries filled with engaging, age-appropriate reading materials in local languages, are inspiring enhanced levels of learning in classrooms across Asia and Africa. With these integrated forms of support, children are learning to read and write faster and with higher levels of mastery than ever before.

Room to Read invests heavily in research, monitoring and evaluation to critically assess the impact of their work. An Endof-Grade-1 Assessment conducted in 2013 in South Africa revealed that students in schools with Room to Read’s Reading & Writing Instruction (RWI) interventions are reading significantly better than peers at schools without these interventions. By the end of Grade 1, students at RWI schools could read 18 more letters per minute and 2

more words per minute than their peers at non-RWI school.

Cory Heyman is confident that even without the requisite of literate parents, these students can achieve lifelong learning and success through supportive role models who prioritize education and encourage reading at home. Room to Read works in partnership with schools and governments, engaging families and communities to banish illiteracy from their children’s lives.

To date, Room to Read’s Literacy programs have served nearly nine million children.

With 250 million of the world’s primary school age children unable to read and a disproportionately high dropout rate for girls in secondary school, the need for impactful, evidence and research-based educational programming has never been more important.

And Room to Read is making progress— one teacher, one child, at a time.

Malebo is eight years old, the owner of a mischievous smile, andone of Ms Makwela’s Grade 1 students. She says: “Ms Makwela is very good to us. She teaches us, dances with us and gives us food to eat. When I answer a question she says ‘good girl!’ and I feel on top of the moon.”

Australians wishing to get involved in Room to Read’s work can contact their local volunteer-run chapter or the national office: contact Janelle Prescottat australia@ roomtoread.org Follow Room to Read Australia on Facebook or Roomtoread_oz on Twitter Invest with confidence. Room to Read has received Charity Navigator’s highest 4-star rating for financial accountability and transparency for eight consecutive years — an honour that only 1% of their rated charities can claim. www.roomtoread.org northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 15

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

Stevi-Lee Alver Crisp Valleys Louise Crisp says: she grew up in hard country meaning, she was free to wander. I say: I grew up in soft country meaning, I was free to wonder. The rainforest mountains sheltering me with nurturing undulation. A tanned kelpie followed my scent upstream. We ate from tropical fruit trees with abundant exoticness. Swelling rivers often left gullies

SUMMER IN BYRON BAY The season is a damp dollar sign. A sign that the humidity is bearable but the traffic is not. A sign that the mould is barely tolerable and the mozzies won’t stop. When rivers swell and roads vanish beneath puddles—puddles so deep, if ducks landed they’d be relabeled ponds—when unrelenting nor-easterlies push carnivals of wind all summer long. When sandy beaches are blemished by bluebottles and floating

full of water. The music was as consistent as the rain.

Even the cicadas had rhythmic purpose. In creek corners we hunted crystals. The canopy was my home, and was anything but silent. With nothing but harmonies, even in the pitch black dark, I never felt alone. How else can I explain rainforest-dwelling?

trumpets embellish our footpaths, all mauve and miniature. When ripening papayas nourish and brush turkeys flourish in yesterday’s rubbish. When clouds of bats tarnish dragon fruit sunsets. When early down town is still quiet and stylish, and in the street a boozy scent mingles with that of espresso, when the aromas are all singedand overpriced and as heavy as damp dollar signs.

Cumulus fractus by Lucy Turner

Written in Melaina Faranda’s recent NRWC workshop for ages 9 - 13.

T

he sky begins to shift. The colours drain away until nothing is left but a greyscale of milky clouds. Further in the distance, a vast expanse of ink takes flight, drifting towards the cliffs, where the swallows shriek and dart away into their nests.

They can sense the storm.

The figure on the hill can sense it too. She lifts her head from her hands, looks upwards and curses under her breath. Thunder rumbles in the distance. She glares at the sky and gulps slowly. Lightning fizzles along the horizon, a sharp flash of stark white against the lifeless sky, as striking as the flaming-red tendrils of hair curling around the girl’s arms.

The cloud is overhead now. The girl ducks her head and blinks, trying to stop renegade tears spilling onto the pale skin of her arm. The sky lights up again, and this time, the rain falls. The ocean, hundreds 16 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

of metres below, churns violently, spraying the side of the cliffs with pale mist.

The water turns her hair blood red.

She swipes it out of her eyes, salt mingling with the fresh rain sliding ungracefully down her cheeks.

The wind picks up, sending a spray of dead leaves in her direction.

The gale swirls around her, moving almost rhythmically with the uneven gasps of breath that she takes.

She hugs her knees to her chest and huddles closer to the ground.

Insects caught in the storm cry out shrilly, a deafening roar mixing with the rumble of dying thunder and the sleet of rain against the grass.

She can taste blood. It is metallic and cool, and the flesh on the inside of her cheek is now ragged and stringy. Her body is racked with fierce sobs. The rain becomes heavier, pounding at the cliffs in short bursts.

Her skin feels almost rubbery to the touch. It is so sleek with rain that the fine hairs on her arms are no longer visible. The water runs in rivets down her thin jacket, pooling near her feet. She takes a deep breath, blinking through salty rain and tears. She stands on unsteady feet and closes her eyes.

A delicious sense of calm seeps through the girl’s body as she notices the presence of another, sloshing unceremoniously to greet her at the edge of the cliff.

“Are you alright?” he asks tentatively, though he’s known the answer as long as he’s known her.

She shakes her head.

“That’s okay. I’ll listen.”

She turns and sinks into his familiar and comforting embrace. The rain begins to slow, the thunder merely background music. She smiles wanly. She is wanted. The storm is dying.

Book Review

Tiddas

The Goldfinch

Reviewed

By Lisa Walker

I jumped at the chance to read Tiddas, because while I have read Anita’s memoir, Am I Black Enough for You? I had not yet read any of her women’s fiction. Anita, a proud Wiradjuri woman,has created a whole new genre in fiction — Koori chicklit. Her novels are about smart, urban, Aboriginal women who like to shop, but are also socially aware and deeply rooted in their culture.

With Tiddas, she departs from her four previous novels about footloose singles by introducing us to a group of women on the cusp of forty. The title of the book means ‘friends’ and the story revolves around five tiddas who grew up together in Mudgee, but have found their way to Brisbane.

The action in the story takes place over about a year and uses the device of a monthly book group meeting as a marker for the changing seasons and lives of the five. The nature and value of female friendship is the thematic backdrop to the way each tidda deals with the central issues in her life.

There were so many things I enjoyed about this book. Having grown up in Brisbane, I loved the setting — the river,

the joggers at Kangaroo Point and the gorgeous jacarandas that feature on the cover.

The tiddas, Izzy, Veronica, Xanthe, Nadine and Ellen are well-rounded and despite, or maybe because of, their faults they are all likeable and fun to be around. On one level this is astudy of issues relevant to all woman of this age — sex, fertility, career and relationships. But the book also gives an insight, through the tiddas, into Aboriginal culture and politics. Izzy, for example, aspires to be Australia’s Oprah, while Xanthe is a cultural awareness trainer and Ellen a funeral celebrant. I found the tiddas’ journeys realistic — their friendship waxes, wanes and sometimes falters.As in life, not everyone gets tied up with a ‘happily ever after’.

Tiddas is a warm-hearted book, which delves gently into both personal and social issues in a way that feels intrinsic to the story. I became involved in the lives

By Donna Tartt Reviewed by Lisa Walker Donna Tartt sprang to notice in 1992 with the bestselling The Secret History. Her second book, The Little Friend came out in 2002 and now, her eagerly awaited third novel, The Goldfinch is here. That’s a long time between drinks, but it’s a novel worth waiting for.

The Goldfinch is the story of Theo, a boy whose life is ripped apart at the age of thirteen when his mother dies in an art museum bombing. Theo escapes from the building clutching his mother’s favourite painting. The Goldfinch — which is a real 17th century painting — is a priceless work of art. He also has a ring, given to him by a dying man with instructions on where to deliver it.

Despite his best intentions, Theo never quite manages to confess his theft. As time goes on — though still wracked with guilt — he becomes more and more attached to the painting. While he is initially taken in by the wealthy family of a friend, the painting goes with him to Las Vegas when his missing father arrives to claim him. His father – a professional gambler – lives in a sprawl of abandoned mansions on the edge of the desert.

In Vegas, Theo becomes close friends with Boris, a Russian immigrant, and the two neglected boys learn to fend for themselves.

The habits of drugs and theft that the boys fall into are hard to escape. Wherever Theo goes in his life, The Goldfinch casts a shadow, drawing him into the dark underbelly of the art world. This and his unrequited

Anita Heiss

of the tiddas and read the book quickly, finishing it with a sense of having been enriched by some lively and intelligent company.

love for Pippa, a girl who also survived the museum bombing, creates a sadness and tension that he is unable to assuage.

The Goldfinch is a big book at almost 800 pages, but it never flags. Tartt is a gifted author who provides that rare combination — an elegant turn of phrase and a cracking plot. Theo, Boris, Pippa and other secondary characters such as Theo’s father and his fiancée, Kitsey are all compelling and believable individuals. Tartt has cited Charles Dickens as a literary influence and her story has the same rollicking quality and deeply flawed characters.

The Goldfinch is a coming of age story, a reflection on the effects of early trauma and a wild ride. I found it deeply satisfying and hard to put down.

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 17

Book Launch Come along on Thursday 17 April and celebrate with local children’s author Tristan Bancks at the launch of his two new books Two Wolves and My Life & Other Stuff That Went Wrong (Random House).Two Wolves is a mysteryadventure novel for 10+ year-olds and My Life & Other Stuff That Went Wrong is a book of weird-funny-gross short stories for ages 7+.

It’ll be a fast, funny session for kids and adults with giveaways and snacks provided and an opportunity to buy and have books signed afterwards. Don’t miss it! 1:15pm-2:15pm SCU Room, Byron Community Centre, Thursday 17 April 2014.

Rosie Project Graeme Simsion event

Friends of the Library, Byron Shire invites you to Graeme Simsion in Conversation @ Byron Bay Library Hear how the Rosie Project is being made into a movie and find out which Hollywood actor Graeme would like to star in the movie.

Friday 4 April, 5.30pm for a 6pm start $5.00 entry gives you a chance to win a signed copy of The Rosie Project rsvp: 66855460 or byronbayfol@gmail.com

A Byron Healing

By Penny Leonard

A

n inadvertent energy healing and spontaneous dog reiki, both received in the same week.

This shouldn’t surprise me because I live in the esoteric epicentre of Australia – Byron Bay. I’m used to walking past llama’s on leashes or shopping with barefooted bikini nymphs as I drop snacks for school lunches in my shopping trolley.

The energy healing came as the osteopath worked on my son.” Your pattern is holding him back so I’ve worked on you too.”

I’d been sitting across the room on a couch

18 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

and confess that my first thought was disbelief - How? Next thought was to wonder if this was going to cost extra. Time spent here melts your Melbourne cynicism but I still find a few things that catch on my old beliefs.

But random acts of reiki, on a dog, without a witness, I would think I’d dreamt it.

Returning from a beautiful Saturday morning walk I caught up to my neighbour as I reached the crest of the last hill. A canary yellow car with a long bare waving arm stopped next to us. “Is this the way to the

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Boomerang Festival?” The foreign- accented owner asked as she leaned out the window.

“No, you’ll need to turn …”

“What’s your dog’s name?” Cathy’s lumbering old rescue boxer, George, had joined us and poked his head into the window.

“Can I give him a treatment?”

As way of agreeing, Cathy moved aside to allow the willowy blonde to unfold herself from her overstuffed nest of a car;- camping gear and a mattress pushing on the capacity of the vehicle’s interior.

With the car still running and parked askew, she bent to face George on the road and ran the heel of her hand over his chest. Her coughing and vigorous throat clearing had Cathy and I raising our eyebrows at each other in wonderment. A few deep exhalations, violent spits and a kiss for George and our bird woman had disappeared, her arm waving as she twisted away through the tree tunnel. Her words - “He’ll be fine, now” - hanging in the air.

Our mouths in little “O” shapes we turned into our street. No words between us as we contemplated what had just hap-

pened.

Focusing ahead we noticed the prancing and a nervous giggle escaped from both of us simultaneously;- George’s bandy old legs were trotting home like an excited puppy. “Do you think she works on humans?” asked Cathy, verbalising my thoughts.

I love that after five years, Byron can still pull something out of the box to remind me not to take its uniqueness for granted.

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 19

Kids’ page Stuck in Head. Forget You Have Body.

‘All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.’

- Friedrich Nietzsche A few years ago, on a stopover in Singapore, I had reflexology on the fourth floor of a haphazard shopping mall on Orchard Road. The man charged with the unfortunate task of reviving my crusty, travel-worn hooves asked, ‘What your job?’ I replied, ‘Writer.’ He clicked his tongue several times as he continued to punish my feet. I eventually asked why he was so disappointed by my occupation and he said, ‘Tch,’ again. ‘Stuck in head.

Forget you have body.’

I wasn’t overjoyed with this, but the feet don’t lie.

Indeed, much of the time, I am stuck in head, forget I have body. I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who said that he looks at his body exclusively as a vehicle for transporting his head around and, once upon a time, I agreed but, apparently, this approach is a killer. Australia’s recently released Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines link inactivity with heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and obesity. Not great news for writers. (Especially the bit about doing 300 minutes of physical activity each week.)

Ernest Hemingway, famously, wrote standing up. So, too, did Lewis Carroll, Nabokov and Thomas Wolfe (although he died at age 37. Sadly, standing up is not a cure for tuberculosis.) And, since that fateful reflexology session I have tried to inject more activity into my writing process.

Most of my latest book Two Wolves was written outdoors. It’s a crime-mystery story about two kids who are kidnapped by their own parents and taken out on the run to a woodsy cabin. Connection with Nature was an important part of the story and over the five years of writing the book I spent many weeks on the beach in Byron, jotting Notes on my iPhone or capturing ideas in Voice Memo. Something about being grounded, shoes off, breeze on skin, with the white-noise roar of the ocean, allowedthe words to flow more freely and honestly. In the space of four hours I could write 2500 words – far more productive than my indoor, desk-bound efforts. And writing on the beach has the added advantage of not feeling like real work. An iPhone Note doesn’t look like an ‘official’ manuscript page, which relaxes the inner critic and allows you to get on with the business of sketching 20 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

a draft (while simultaneously staving off cancer, obesity and depression, it seems.)

Like many writers, I still sit for too long most days, I still get trapped on the Web, but I believe in the mental, creative and physical benefits of activity, whether it’s beach-walking or yoga, a treadmill desk or simply setting an alarm every hour as a reminder to stand up and walk to the fridge. I like to think that my best work is ahead of me and it would be nice to be alive in order to write it.

As I type these words I’m in a restaurant with durian fruit, bananas and chickens hanging all around.

I’m on another short stop in Singapore, and I have a good mind to track down that smarmy reflexologist guy with the clicking tongue, and thank him for potentially adding years to my life.

Tristan Bancks is a children’s and young adult author.

Two Wolves is released in March 2014 by Random House Australia. www.tristanbancks.com

From the reading chair Cooking up a synopsis Editor Laurel Cohn returns to the topic of how to write a synopsis.

A year ago I wrote a column about writing a synopsis, suggesting tips and strategies. (see www.laurelcohn.com.au/Writing a synopsis). I’d like to return to the topic and offer a recipe.

KEY INGREDIENTS There are certain things that need to be in a synopsis: title (use ‘working title’ if necessary); word count (an approximation is okay if the manuscript is incomplete); genre (don’t assume this is obvious from the synopsis – it usually isn’t); essence sentence (what the story is about), story outline (what happens in the story), central characters.

You may also want to align your work with published books already in the marketplace.

One approach is to start by summarising the story line, like a chapter outline, then trimming sentences, subplots and perhaps characters along the way to fit the required word length. That’s an okay approach, and perhaps part of the process of getting to the final synopsis, but I would suggest trying it the other way around. Start with the essence sentence and build the synopsis from there, adding just enough to entice, engage and explain to the reader the scope of the project.

Step 1: Your essence sentence expresses what the story is about. For example, ‘This is a story of a young man’s search for belonging in a violent world’. You can think of ‘essence’ as theme or unifying idea. Your essence sentence is a good foundation to start with.

Step 2: Think about how you might answer the casual question ‘What are you writing?’

In one to three sentences, introduce the main character/s, and the central dramatic question, the problem or conflict that needs to be resolved. Try a few versions and reshape them for a synopsis audience.

Step 3: Where does your story begin? Engage the reader with how you set up the plot.

Aside from noting what happens in the opening chapters, include a sense of place, reveal character (not just by name, but by personality), and set the tone. Make it one paragraph.

Step 4: Summarise the main story line with reference to key events, key characters and the ending. You may need to list things to cover ground in few words. If you have a work structured in clear parts, you could write a paragraph on each (if no more than five parts).

METHOD Most people wrestle with how they are going to compress the whole story into a few hundred words. How do you get across the wonderful complexity, the subtle nuances, the artistry of your work, in such a small number of words? You can’t. And that’s not what you should be trying to do. That’s what your sample chapters are for.

Remember your synopsis is an overview.

Step 5: Refine the mix of ingredients and paragraphs for readability and flow, and working out what to put where for greatest effect (essence sentence at beginning or end, for example). You may want to add, if appropriate, some comment on how your manuscript fits into the market. Keep it simple and clear, avoiding adjectives such as ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘original’. Trim away

WHAT IS A SYNOPSIS? Lets get clear on the terminology first of all. A synopsis is is an overview of your manuscript that encapsulates the intent and scope of the endeavour, usually 250–500 words. It accompanies a submission, which is likely to include a cover (query) letter and sample chapters of the manuscript.

You might be asked for a synopsis by a publisher, agent, ms development program, mentorship program, funding body.

The most common confusion is between a synopsis and blurb. The main difference between them is the audience they are written for. You are writing a synopsis for a someone who is making a decision about whether to support the development of your work, or to represent you, or to publish your work. You are writing a blurb for someone who is making a decision about whether to read or buy the work. Whereas you don’t want to give the ending away to a potential buyer, an agent/publisher/editor/ assessor will want to have a sense of the story line from beginning to end.

all extraneous words, such as adverbs. And don’t, under any circumstances, write how wonderful the book is.

SERVE IT UP! Like any new recipe, it may take more than one attempt to get it right. Your synopsis may undergo more drafts than the manuscript itself. That’s okay. The process of thinking about your work required for synopsis writing is valuable at any stage of your project. Savour it!

LAUREL COHN is an editor and mentor passionate about communication and the power of narrative to engage, inspire and challenge. More tips about writing and developing your work can be found at www. laurelcohn.com.au.

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 21

WORKSHOPS WORKSHOPS

Girl Talk: Discovering the Essentials of Chick Lit

with Anita Heiss When: March 15, 10am – 4pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: $75 members, $95 nonmembers Throw out any preconceived notions of chick lit you may already have as Anita Heiss guides you through the key ingredients of the genre.

Discover how to write a novel that speaks to your readers, as you learn how to craft believable characters and authentic settings.

Develop storylines and plot points that will take your readers on an emotional and evolutionary journey.

Learn the importance of research, the value of dialogue, and find your own voice through humour and heartbreak.

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 is published in March 2014.

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Getting Published - Towards Professional Authorship presented by the Australian Society of Authors

What Novelists Can Learn from Screenwriting

with Sheryl Gwyther

with Graeme Simsion When: April 5, 10am – 4pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: $75 members, $95 nonmembers

You’ve finished the manuscript but what now? You’re about to enter a business that may be totally foreign to you and negotiating your way around it can be confusing and difficult. How do you know to whom you send your material, and how long should you have to wait? How do you negotiate a contract or find an agent? Set yourself up as a professional who is capable of representing your own interests with knowledge and confidence. This two-hour session presents the basics for new authors and illustrators.

Graeme Simsion originally studied screenwriting and wrote The Rosie Project as a screenplay before reimagining it as a novel. Screenwriting gave him tools in areas that new novelists often struggle with: story structure, momentum, dialogue.

Screenwriting theory also offered an alternative “take” on character development, comedy and the creative process.

In this workshop, he will explain the key screenwriting techniques that he found relevant, and help you apply them to your own project.

Graeme is a highly-experienced teacher and facilitator: expect to find this workshop stimulating and entertaining, and to take away ideas that you can use immediately.

When: March 22, 2pm – 4pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: All participants $15

SHERYL GWYTHER is a children’s author whose published works include the adventure novel, Secrets of Eromanga, and chapter books, Princess Clown, Charlie and the Red Hot Chilli Pepper. Her writing awards include two Australian Society of Authors Mentorships, and a May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust Fellowship. Sheryl is the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) Assistant Regional Advisor for Queensland.

She also serves on the current 2013 ASA Board of Directors.

GRAEME SIMSION was born in Auckland and is a Melbourne-based business consultant and writer of short stories, plays, screenplays and two nonfiction books. The Rosie Project began life as a screenplay, winning the Australian Writers Guild/Inscription Award for Best Romantic Comedy before being adapted into a novel. It went on to win the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript and has since been sold around the world to over forty countries. Sony Pictures have optioned the film rights with Graeme contracted to write the script.

WORKSHOPS WORKSHOPS

Your Life and Other Stuff You Made Up with Tristan Bancks For: Young Writers 9-13 years When: April 17, 10am – 1pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: $30 NRWC Family members, $40 others

How can you use all the odd, boring, funny stuff that happens to you and turn it into excellent stories? Author Tristan Bancks used bits from his life to inspire his short story collection My Life and Other Stuff I Made Up. Like the time his sister made him eat Vegemite off her toe and the time he had his appendix removed just to get out of school detention. Learn how to mine your own life for cool, weird, funny stories that your friends will love.

TRISTAN BANCKS tells stories for the page and screen. His background is in acting and filmmaking.

His books include My Life & Other Stuff I Made Up (Random House), Mac Slater Coolhunter (Australia & US), Galactic Adventures First Kids in Space and the Nit Boy series (about a kid with the worst case of head lice in world history). Tristan’s Young Adult novel, it’s yr life was co-written via email between Byron Bay and L.A. with actress / author, Tempany Deckert. His eBook short story Kids Stink (June 2013) features Tom Weekly star of his April 2014 book of weird, funny, gross short stories, www.tristanbancks.com

Writing across Time and Culture

with Lian Hearn (Gillian Rubenstein) When: 12 April, 10am – 4pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: $75 members, $95 nonmembers There are many pitfalls in writing about another culture, but increasingly Australians are setting works of fiction in foreign countries, and not just in the innocent abroad genre.

Lian Hearn describes how she was obsessed with the idea of writing fantasy based on Japanese history and mythology, how AsiaLink gave her a fellowship to go to Japan, and how the obsession turned into Tales of the Otori, a five volume epic that has sold over four million copies in forty languages.

The workshop will discuss building a past world, creating characters that reflect the period yet are accessible to modern readers, ways to research, and using knowledge of foreign languages to create a unique and convincing style.

LIAN HEARN is the pen name used

by Gillian Rubinstein for a number of novels set in Japan. Tales of the Otori is a five book series beginning with the world-wide bestseller, Across the Nightingale Floor, published in 2002.

In 2010 she published Blossoms and Shadows and her latest novel is The Storyteller and his Three Daughters, which takes place in Tokyo in 18841895.

Navigating the maze – marketing and promotion in the digital world with Simon Groth from if:book When: May 17, 10am – 1pm Where: SCU Room, Byron Community Centre Cost: $35 members, $45 nonmembers

Ever felt that pressure to understand technology and publishing from the inside out and engage with every fledgling social media network and writing platform ever conceived because it’s just something you suddenly have to do? What’s it all for? And will you ever be able to just write?

This seminar-style presentation explores and unpacks the issues and challenges of writing in a networked world faced by all writers, from aspiring to mid-career. Rather than a hands-on tech-oriented session, the seminar focuses on broad knowledge and skills with plenty of tips and pointers for acquiring any tech knowhow in your own time.

SIMON GROTH’S stories can go anywhere, from tangled relationships and virtual writers to rock music and sleep disorders. His first two novels were shortlisted in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and his short fiction has been published in Australia and the US. Simon was co-editor with Sean Sennett of Off The Record: 25 Years of Music Street Press, published by UQP. As director of if:book Australia at the Queensland Writers Centre, Simon writes regularly on the future of the book and took the role of lead writer for the 24-Hour Book.

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 23

Member News Congratulations to: Lorraine Pascoe is the author of a series of seven children’s books.

They are about eight dogs who live on ‘Neat Street’ .

To purchase a copy contact: 07 5590 9395 or email pascoele@gmail.com

Yosipa has written Share My Soul is a collection of more than 50 poems that reflect the author’s journey through a difficult childhood, discovering spirituality and other life experiences.

Available at bookstore.balboapress. com, amazon.com, barnesandnoble. com

Society of Women Writers NSW Literary Lunch and Workshop Everyone is most welcome to attend our meeting on Wednesday, March 12th in the Dixson Room, State Library, Sydney.

Workshop 10 a.m. with Cat Sparks on The Art of Short Story Writing. Lunch 12 noon. Launch of the Rosalind Sharbanee Meyer Encouragement Award for an unpublished mss ($1000 prize.) Guest speaker Gabrielle Lord will talk about the writing of her new book Dishonour, an adult crime novel that explores violence against women. Workshop: $20/30; Lunch $50/55 or $65 for lunch + workshop. Bookings essential before 10 a.m. on Monday, March 12th. Email: swwlunchbooking@gmail.com or text 0403 177 208 with name, date and number of guests. General enquiries: 0490 363 778.

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 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

24 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

Opportunities have just updated their submission call in their blog. http://www.wombatbooks. com.au/blog/entry/call-for-early-readersubmissions 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 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

Competitions

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/ WA Margery Allingham Short Story Competition.

On top of the £1,000 prize already announced (kindly sponsored by the Margery Allingham Society) we are pleased to announce another prize for the winner.

The CWA Margery Allingham Short Story Competition is open to anyone over the age of 18, no matter where they live.

Stories must be in English, previously unpublished and no more than 3,500 words. The story may be on any theme but must have an element of mystery.

The CWA Margery Allingham Short Story competition is open to previously published and unpublished writers.

There is a £10 fee to cover administration costs: www.thecwa.co.uk/shortstory Closing date: 16 March

2014 The Joanne Burns Award : FLASHING THE SQUARE competition We are looking for screen-sized literature (up to 200 words in no more than two paragraphs). Open theme and in micofiction/prose poem form.

First prize will be $300. All entries will be considered for publication in the anthology Flashing the Square. Selected entries will go on to be produced as videos to be screened at Federation Square during the Melbourne Writers Festival (August 21-31).

Flash us your best short writing. Open theme, 200 words max. Prize $300. For more details and competition guidelines

http://shortaustralianstories.com.au/ submissions/prose-poetrymicrofiction Closing date: 31 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 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing Awarded annually to the best manuscript written for young adults and children, the Text Prize has unearthed extraordinary, multi-award-winning novels and launched international publishing careers.

The winner receives $10,000 and a publishing contract with Text Publishing. http://textpublishing.com.au/abouttext/the-text-prize Closing date: 4 April Banjo Paterson Writing Awards Calling for entries in the annual Banjo Paterson Writing Awards to help celebrate his 150th anniversary from Monday 17th February – (Banjo’s birthday!). There is a section for Short Stories, Bush Poetry, Contemporary Poetry and Children’s Writing Awards for children aged under 16 years to write stories or poems. Entries close on Friday 18th April and winners announced on Monday 23rd June. For guidelines, entry costs and details, download form www. cwl.nsw.gov.au Since established in 1991 these awards aim to honour Banjo Paterson, a great Australian writer and favourite son of Orange.

Closing date: 18 April The Melaleuca Blue Life Writing competition This competition ran for the first time last year and resulted in the publication of a book titled, “What I couldn’t tell my mother- an anthology,” which is soon to

Competitions be available on AMazon, but is currently circulating in some independent bookstores in Victoria as well as being available for purchase from our website.

This year we are seeking food related tales for a book to be published with the title of: “You’ll eat worse than that before you die- an anthology of family, friendship and food.”

The competition is in honour of Jo Peirce and Bridie O’Gorman www.lifewriting.info Closing date: 14 May The SecondBite Poetry Competition: Anne M Carson is the proud founder and organiser of The SecondBite Poetry Competition, run in partnership with Australian Poetry and SecondBite (food rescue and redistribution charity).

Maximum 40 lines on the issue of ‘food’.

First prize $5,000 plus two runners up $500. $15 per poem entry fee (donated to SecondBite).

For more information, guidelines and entry form go to: http://www.australianpoetry.org/ http://secondbite.org/ www.annemcarson.com Closing date: 30 May The Future Justice Prize The Prize is awarded to Australian individuals or organizations for leadership and initiative in the advancement of future justice. Future justice is concerned with what those living today leave behind for future generations.

The Future Justice Prize is awarded for research, publications, projects or programs in various categories. These include: Human Rights, Indigenous, Health, Environment, Climate Change, Population & Intergenerational Debt.

Attached is information about the Prize and nomination form. Further details and previous winners are at: http://www. futurejustice.com.au/ Closing date: 1 July

northerly magazine | march – april 2014- 25

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 Joie Black on 02 6584 3520 or email Bessie Jennings on befrank@tsn.cc. Meets 1pm on last Saturday of month, Maritime Museum, 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 567 540 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 26 - northerly magazine | march – april 2014

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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