Northerly Nov Dec 2014

Inside:

Christmas issue • Hugh Mackay interview • poetry slams

in this issue ...

02

Noticeboard

03

A Word From the Director

04 Literary dinner guests 04

Arkie’s Pilgrimage launch

Lisa Walker 05

The Art of Belonging

Edna Carew 06

Summer: a 1950s recollection

Russell Eldridge 08

09

The Youth Training Station

Nino Haggith

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

Christmas wishlist

Gabrielle Calder 10

Writers’ groups: a personal take

Alexandra Williams 11

Poetry slams

Finnola Wennekes 12

14

15

People of the Northern Rivers

Ian Browne Journey into the Wild

Holly Scobie Poetry Page

Jan Gracie Mulcahy & Beverly Sweeney 16

Screenworks

17

Can writing be taught?

Marian Edmunds 18

SCU Page

19

Book reviews

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.

Russell Eldridge 20

Kid’s page

Tristan Bancks

21

From the reading chair

Emma Ashmere

22

Workshop, Opportunities & Competitions

24

Writers’ Groups and Member Discounts

NRWC COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON Chris Hanley VICE CHAIRPERSON Lynda Dean SECRETARY Russell Eldridge TREASURER Cheryl Bourne MEMBERS Jesse Blackadder, Fay Burstin, Marele Day, Lynda Hawryluk, Anneli Knight, Cathy Tobin, Adam van Kempen, Teresa Walters LIFE MEMBERS: Jean Bedford, Jeni Caffin, Gayle Cue, Robert Drewe, Jill Eddington, Chris Hanley, John Hertzberg, Fay Knight, Irene O’Brien, Jennifer Regan, Cherrie Sheldrick, Brenda Shero, Heather Wearne 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 artwork: - photo courtesy of David Hancock

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 3

Noticeboard Rob Drewe in conversation with Russell Eldridge Supported by Collins Booksellers.

Friday 21 November @ 6pm NRWC Office, Level 1 - 28 Jonson St, Byron Bay Bookings Essential, please email: info@nrwc.org.au

NRWC Christmas Party Searching for a Researcher NRWC is commencing an interesting qualitative research project and we would like to invite an experienced qualitative researcher to work with us.

The role is voluntary, part time and will be directed by a well respected social researcher.

If you are interested, please call Penny or Sarah to discuss: 02 6685 5115

When:

Thursday 18 December at 5.30pm

Where: NRWC office, Level 1 -

28 Jonson St, Byron Bay RSVP:

info@nrwc.org.au or call 02 6685 5115.

Please note that this event is exclusively for NRWC members.

Members News Best-selling romance author Jennifer St George will launched her fifth novel - Tempted by the Billionaire Tycoon - on 21 October.

The ebook is the second instalment of Jennifer’s Billionaire Romance series and is available via Amazon, iTunes, Google and other online book retailers.

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Holidays – 500 word short story slam Do you have special holiday story? Or perhaps a holiday that has gone wrong?

Send in your short stories of up to 500 words with a theme of ‘holiday’ for our Christmas Party short story slam.

Thursday 27 November. The three selected will be notified by email on 28 November. The competition is only open for members.

You must be available to attend the Christmas Party and read your work out loud. Three entries will be read on the night and a winner will be picked based on performance and story. Book pack prizes for winner and runner up!

Email your short story to:

Entries must be received by 2pm

penny@nrwc.org.au Or post to: NRWC PO Box 1846 Byron Bay NSW, 2481

A word (well several) from the Director

Dear members,

It’s holiday season and I have just returned from a few weeks away and am reminded how important it is to take time out of our busy, daily lives for reflection and stillness – it heightens the senses so much and allows space for imagining. A friend who is a former dancer says that in dance it is the space between movements that is so important. This has always stayed with me – the temptation to rush straight into the next thing has to be constantly kept in check.

I met with Byron Bay favourite, author Nury Vittachi while I was in Hong Kong and he took me to see the demonstrations. It was an impressive sight and what struck me was how very calm and polite everyone was. A personal reminder too of how much we take for granted with the freedoms we enjoy. It was fascinating too to hear Nury talk about the evolution of the narrative course he teaches at University in Hong Kong; ten years ago the students were predominantly novelists, then screenwriters and now gamers.

Just before going on holidays I spent 24 hours at the wonderful Brisbane Writers Festival where everyone was buzzing about Ellen van Neerven’s new short story collection Heat and Light and Dave Eggers inspired us and made us laugh in his Opening Address with stories of

his creative writing space for kids in San Francisco: 826 Valencia. Cath Keenen, former literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, has set up a similar space in Redfern, Sydney called Sydney Story Factory – their mission is ‘Igniting the spark of creativity in every child, one story at a time.’ The work these organisations do with kids is powerful and I urge you to check it out on-line if you’re not familiar with it.

When M.L. Stedman was here for the Festival in August we discovered a shared love of audio books - she told me she listens to them constantly at home in London. In our home we are currently devouring children’s audio books with Andy Griffiths and Roald Dahl’s words brought to life at breakfast, in the bath, in the car, during playtime... Earlier in the year we spent months in the world of Enid Blyton, magically interpreted

by Kate Winslet. My kindergarten son found imaginary friends in Moon-face and Saucepan Man and his lexicon was filled for a time with Blyton’s favourite words: ‘I am longing for the weekend’ he used to tell me. I miss The Faraway Tree series and The Enchanted Wood but now we are having lots of fun in Andy’s Treehouse. Stig Wemyss, Australia’s most loved narrator of audio books for children and young adults, is a genius in his interpretation of Andy and Terry’s work. It is such a joy to listen to. The Richmond Tweed libraries have a good

selection if you are keen to fill your driving hours or lazy Sunday afternoons with spoken literature.

Last but by no means least, amidst the holiday festivities the cycle of festival preparation begins again! I have recently met with colleagues from Newcastle and Sydney Writers’ Festivals who are busily sending out their invitations and crafting their programs for March and May. We are at the early stages here of allowing our vision to take shape as I consult with all the publishers and other stakeholders. It’s an exciting time.

On my next holiday wishlist is the Jaipur Literature Festival . Numerous people cite it as one of their favourites, so if you find yourself in India in January try and get along – most events are free.

Wishing you all calm and joy over the holiday season,

Edwina Johnson

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 5

We asked the committee and staff of the NRWC...

Which Literary Figure

would you invite to Christmas dinner?

M

arele day: in the drowsy aftermath of Christmas dinner what better way to continue the indulgence than with Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses? It is like a box of chocolates - each chapter is delectable and will have you wanting to try them all. The Chicago Tribune describes it as ‘an aphrodisiac for the sense receptors. Read a chapter then step outside. The sky is a deeper blue, the birds sing a sweeter song. How could the world seem otherwise after feasting on such voluptuous prose?’

Lynda Dean: I had a hard time reading Vernon Godlittle when it won the Booker prize. The subject matter was a stretch for me and the language was obscure.

Then in 2013 I was charmed and surprised to meet DBC Pierre at the BBWF. Pierre is a erudite and hilarious raconteur, with a fascinating childhood and youth of adventure and dissipation, from rural Australia to Mexico City, to an Australian gaol then an Irish village.

Drug dealer turned academic.

His real life stories are stranger and more intriguing than the fiction, told

with warmth and genuine interest in other people. Having shared a table with him at the Macquarie lunch, I would walk over broken glass for another post prandial conversation with this fine proponent of the art.

Chris Hanley: I would invite Jane Austen and Sebastian Barry. Austen because she made simple boy/girl tales into magnificent passionate narratives and Sebastian because you cannot have a literary dinner party without an Irish writer and because the novel A Long Long Way is the best work of fiction about the love between a father and son and World War One ever written.

Sebastian could also entertain us after dinner as he can sing and dance.

Monique Hartman: I want to spend a Christmas dinner in conversation with Clive James. I imagine this dinner will involve him rhapsodising with the youthful glimmer in his eye that he seems to have retained even into his twilight years, speaking resplendently as he does, and me eating and gushing.

I cannot read anything Clive James has

authored without a dictionary in easy reach. And I rarely go through a page of his memoirs without laughing, or at the very least breaking a smirk. I love the company and conversation of our wise elders, and people whom bring laughter and information to the conversation will always we be welcome in my life; through books, or for Christmas dinner.

Sarah Ma: My dream guest would be Tom Robbins. His books are incredibly funny, excentric and full of bizarre researched facts. I learnt the basics of fragrance making whilst reading Jitterbug Perfume.

I think he’d make a truly hilarious addition to Christmas dinner.

Jennifer St George: As Christmas can be a little stressful with all the relatives descending, I’d invite someone who can provide a few good laughs. My top pick would be Bridget Jones as she wouldn’t mind that I can’t cook, she loves a chardonnay (yes I never made it out of the eighties with my wine choice) and she might just invite Colin Firth to join her.

Arkie’s Pilgrimage to the Next Big Thing

I

watch the highway go by and ponder my situation. I am on the run from my husband’s divorce

lawyer, my mojo is still missing in action and my demon ex-lover is lurking . . . But, all things considered, my pilgrimage is going well . . .’

Arkie used to be a trendspotter, running a successful business advising companies on ‘the next big thing’. Until she lost her marriage and her mojo along with it. Her eccentric new friend Haruko suggests a pilgrimage in Japan. But funds are tight, so instead Arkie’s going on a very Australian trip, to all the ‘Big Things’.

With Haruko as her guide, magic is everywhere. A Buddha appears next to the Big Redback, the Big Macadamia rises from the jungle like a lost temple and inside the Big

6 - northerly magazine | november - december 2014

Shell she can hear a tinkling voice, reminding her of the child she never had.

As her improbable adventure unfolds, realisation dawns: could it be that, despite her celebrated foresight, Arkie’s been missing what was right before her eyes?

A delightfully funny and inspiring novel about a very modern pilgrimage, and one woman’s chance to rediscover what she’s lost.

Arkie’s Pilgrimage to the Next Big Thing will be launched at the Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre on Friday January 30 at 6pm. RSVPs to info@nrwc.org.au

The Art of Belonging

by Hugh Mackay, published by Pan Macmillan Australia Hugh Mackay talks to local author Edna Carew EC: You’ve been researching and writing about social issues for decades – what led you to write The Art of Belonging?

HM: In the last few years of my active research career I was struck by how many people would say ‘my neighbourhood doesn’t work the way it used to – mostly I don’t know my neighbours and I feel like a stranger in my own street’. That’s sad.

Because we are social creatures, utterly dependent on communities to sustain us.

We need to feel we do belong. And it’s not hard to understand why neighbourhoods have changed – higher divorce rates result in families fragmenting, lower birth rates produce fewer children to act as social lubricants, people move house on average every six years, car ownership reduces walking – we can identify the car but not the person – the rise of single households and the technological revolution which brings an illusion of connection.

EC: You draw on your life’s work in this book – but were there revelations nonetheless?

HM: A couple stand out. First, when exploring people’s way of life, examining why we live where we live and why we do the job we do, it is illuminating how often it is accidental rather than planned that we arrive in a certain area and work at a particular job. A second feature that struck me was how strongly attached people often are to a neighbourhood that, to an outsider, might appear dull and unattractive. But residents are enthusiastic because they live in a community where kids all know each other, where people have a real sense of belonging, of physical safety and emotional security. That’s a good formula for life.

EC: Every vibrant community, however small or large, has a hub – a library, coffee shops, pub and, perhaps, church.

What does this tell us about our needs as pack animals?

HM: Such hubs are essential because

it is harder for people to get to know their neighbours, there are fewer opportunities for natural contact. Not everyone is willing to walk up to a new neighbour’s front door. We drive everywhere rather than walk so when possible, being social creatures, we gravitate to the local coffee shop or pub, or sports ground, or the library. Some new housing estates have been called wastelands because they lack such hubs; an enlightened developer would include a coffee shop, sports ground, hairdresser.

EC: The world is ever-changing, friends are the new family, we can have virtual villages using technology - do you believe that?

HM: Technology is a boon and a curse.

It’s a boon for extended families who can keep in touch using, say, Skype. But technology is so terrific, so convenient and clever, that it is easy to delude ourselves that this is communication. If, however, you are spending more time in front of a screen than in making human contact, that should sound a warning bell. Because technology strips out facial expressions, nuances of speech and language. Virtual villages and online communities have their place, eg, a professional support network for, say, health professionals scattered widely in

rural areas, but where physical contact is possible, face-to-face is definitely better.

EC: No- one wants war and strife but it is acknowledged that a common foe or a crisis binds people together. Did you find such bonds endured?

HM: Traumas and crises bring out the best in a neighbourhood but the tragedy is that we so often have to wait for such to occur before the connection is made.

Those who have experienced a bush fire or a flood confirm that the relationships do endure, underpinned by a sense of having done one’s duty as a good neighbour. Alternatively, an initiative such as a street party can bring people together. That’s not to say we should expect neighbours to be our friends.

Friendship is different; friends share interests. Neighbourliness is based on shared ground.

EC: Finally – based on what you have learned, what advice might you offer to someone thinking of retiring to a seaside town or a rural village where he or she knows no-one but the surroundings appeal?

HM: Don’t! People often initially report a buzz, like being on permanent holiday, but after a while they realise that it’s an artificial existence. They miss their friends.

People need to live where they feel they belong, where they know the culture and the people. A permanent holiday is no holiday at all.

Hugh Mackay is a social researcher and writer. He is the author of fifteen books, including Reinventing Australia, Why Don’t People Listen?, Generations, What Makes Us Tick? and the 2013 bestseller, The Good Life. His sixth novel, Infidelity, was also published in 2013.

In recognition of his pioneering work in social research, Hugh has been elected a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and awarded honorary doctorates by Charles Sturt, Macquarie, NSW and Western Sydney universities.

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 7

SUMMER | a 1950s recollection

By Russell Eldridge

S

ummer brought a kind of truce between my father and my elder brother, allowing the whole family to exhale. It was as if the tense routine of expectation and disappointment was swept away by the warm weather; exams were over and we all escaped to the beach where we could get out of each other’s hair and all my father expected of us was not to drown and to take little orange pills called Sylvasun to protect us from sunburn.

My dad was always planning new ventures and so one year he came home towing what looked like a suppository for an elephant. It was a tiny homemade caravan he’d bought through the classifieds.

So off we went to find a place to park it. My dad insisted on being in the bush away from crowds; my mother equally firm about toilets and showers. We found a great compromise - an overgrown bush clearing near a caravan park on the sultry North Coast of Natal, South Africa.

It turned out the park owner also owned the surrounding land and over a glass of whisky in the shade of a tree, they struck a rental deal whereby we could leave the van there permanently.

We came back a week later to tame the jungle, armed with sickles, machetes, lawnmowers and a big red tin containing a snakebite treatment kit.

We kids were fascinated by the snakebite kit. We shuddered over the razor blades, tourniquets, vials of oily yellow antivenene, condy’s crystals, and descriptions of Africa’s most dangerous snakes and how to identify their bite patterns on your arm or foot.

If we got bitten, we knew the person on the other end of the snakebite kit would be my dad. This was the man who had told us that if any of we kids choked on our food, he’d punch a hole in our throat with a biro so we could breathe through the tube. We ate very carefully. And after he came home with the snakebite kit, we thrashed at the bush with sticks

Russell with the family dog, Tinkles wherever we went.

The park owner sent up a Zulu handyman to help us, and Enoch and my father enjoyed an instant rapport, each recognising the restless warrior spirit in the other.

They became a formidable team and once when a deadly boomslang snake wandered into their territory, they despatched it with the combined firepower of a slug gun and a Zulu fighting stick.

The place became our idyll. We’d pack the station wagon to overflowing and my brother, younger sister and I would crawl into the space between the luggage and the roof and away we’d fly.

8 - northerly magazine | november - december 2014

We’d drop my gran - Ma - and her dog Judy off with relatives on the way. Ma believed in giving Judy a good feed of chopped liver before we went, and Judy repaid her kindness by farting pungently while we screamed “phhhwooooaaaw!” and kicked the roof until my dad yelled to shut up or he’d stop the car and wring our bloody necks.

Ma’s Durban rels were a cheerful household of genteel poor women with names like Daisy, Ruth, Edna and Louise who sat in a darkened room, and under each chair was an impossibly fat small dog which would roll out and wheeze ferociously at us before retreating between the varicose-vein-bandaged

legs of its owner.

After escaping suffocation in the bosoms of our great-aunts, we’d wend our way northwards through coastal bush dotted with the villages of Indian families who had been brought out in the 1800s as indentured labourers for the new sugar fields.

Many of the tiny villages sported red or white pennants on the end of long bamboo poles, signifying the marital status of the girls in the family.

We’d invariably stop somewhere to stock up on samoosas, curry pies and other spicy goodies, then there’d be mayhem again when we spotted a tall concrete post on the roadside, topped off with the bust of a Zulu warrior. It was the turn-off to Chaka’s Rock named after the mighty king who forged the Zulu nation nearly 200 years ago. Among Chaka’s disciplinary measures, legend tells it, was having those who displeased him flung to their death from the high rock beetling over the sea.

On arrival at the caravan, I’d fall happily out of the car, covered in spit and bruises from my brother, who would then largely ignore me for the next month.

The late 1950s were good times, and when I recall our days at Chaka’s Rock, almost every image is framed by golden light.

It was all tidal pools, crashing surf, snorkelling, ping pong and movies at the hotel, chasing each other screaming through the bush, hunting chickens belonging to the Zulu and Indian villagers. It was baby boom time and every morning there was a riot of children tumbling out of tents, popping their Sylvasun tablets and disappearing for the day wearing only swimming togs.

And if there’d been a paedophile in sight, our fathers would have wrung his bloody neck.

It was also the time of polio and thalidomide, and I recall children clambering around in calipers, and one child without limbs being tended by bewildered-looking parents.

We tolerated the adults, as long as

Photo: Cristina Smith

they fed us. We scorned their slow, selfimportant ways and we shrieked and rolled on the grass the time when redheaded Mr McAllister was regaling a circle of campers at sundowner time, and one of his big gingery testicles popped out of his bathers, to the sounds of women choking on gin and tonic.

The main focus of course was the sea, which I loved but which frightened me because a minor physical disability made it difficult to stand in the waves and almost impossible to walk out without a wave gleefully pouncing and rolling me up the beach, sand stuffed in every orifice like a culinary treat for the crabs.

But there was a darker side to the ocean.

Shark attacks had become increasingly frequent along the Natal coast - in one summer there had been about five fatal attacks on popular beaches.

I worried about this, particularly with a brother given to swimming half a mile under water just to wrench viciously at your leg - and then I’d worry that urine would attract sharks.

There’d been no attacks along our stretch of unguarded coastline, but I always felt a sense of relief when swimming was over for the day.

I worried endlessly about my brother; he of the Elvis smile, who, when not showing off to girls around the ping pong table, or showing off to girls in beach wrestling matches, or diving to fetch their lost jewellery in the tidal pool, was showing off to girls by swimming out beyond the breakers.

As well as disproportionate lust, he was born without a sense of personal safety, and God or the devil had given me that responsibility. So I would sit and fret while he floated to Madagascar, or I would mildly urge caution when he and his deranged friends would visit the Durban aquarium and try to push each other into the shark tank.

One day, tired of swimming, I sat on the beach watching over my brother who was floating beyond the breakers in a tractor tube with half a dozen girls.

Like a faithful dog, I keened on the beach

as the sun slipped away and cold, grey clouds swept in.

Eventually, the group came in and we went back to the caravan.

A couple of hours later, word came through there’d been a shark attack, and people swarmed to the beach.

A girl of about 18 had been attacked by a Zambezi River shark (Australia’s bull shark) while swimming with a couple of friends.

She was brought in and when we arrived there was a screen of blankets around her, although I saw a couple of men lift their children high to have a look.

She was taken to hospital in Durban.

Despite losing a hand and foot, she survived and years later went on to become a doctor.

But something had changed at Chaka’s Rock.

The weather stayed bad for days, and signs banning swimming were hammered into the sand. Our holiday was almost over, anyway.

I know memory warps, but it seemed that the following summer there was an emptiness when we ran down to the beach. Familiar families and friends were missing. We all seemed older and more self-conscious.

The caravan park owner became greedy and squeezed another four vans into our clearing.

We sold the caravan and there weren’t too many family holidays after that as my father and brother resumed the tense struggle which would continue for nearly another decade.

Chaka’s Rock was a few brief summers, yet it had seemed like forever.

Russell Eldridge is a journalist, fiction writer, media trainer and consultant. He is a founding committee member of the Byron Bay Writers Festival, and regularly chairs festival sessions.

Russell’s

first

novel

will

be

published by Allen & Unwin next July.

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 9

The Youth Training Station

H

ave you ever wondered what it would be like to fly a hot-air balloon over Mount Everest?

Or to travel the world as a mechanic with Velentino Rossi on the Motorcycle Grand Prix circuit? Have you dreamt of becoming a doctor? Or a chef? Or wondered what it would be like to work as one of Australia’s top journalists? If you answered yes to any of these questions and you’re a teenager, then the Youth Training Station is the place for you!

The Mullum Music Festival has deepened its commitment to local youth with the announcement of a newly formed not for profit organization called The Youth Training Station, offering career advice and lifestyle information to teens in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. Building on the strengths and success of the festival’s long running Youth Mentorship Program that supports up-and-coming local musicians, The Youth Training Station covers a range of industries from filmmaking to midwifery.

Two afternoons a week throughout October and November in the lead up to the festival, industry leaders – many local - will present a series of free, inspiring TED-style talks at the iQ Platform, a popup creative community space provided by iQInc at Mullumbimby Railway Station.

“The Byron Shire is blessed with an abundance of arts and music events and the aim of the Youth Training Station is to shine a light on other potential career paths”, says Festival director Glenn Wright. “It’s a bold project that aims to positively affect and support good social outcomes for the community’s youth.

Teenagers will hear inspiring talks by successful and motivated professionals – from people who are passionate about their careers and lives.”

The Youth Training Station talks will be located at the iQ Platform – a pop-up creative community space provided by iQInc at Mullumbimby Railway Station, Prince Street.

4:30 pm – 6:30pm November 2014: Tue 4 Nov: Chris Dewhirst (Adventurer & Balloonist)

Wed 5 Nov: Jessica Simms (Midwife) Tue 11 Nov: Mel Bampton (Radio Announcer & Music Editor) Wed 12 Nov: Micha Lerner (Clinical Psychologist) Mon 17 Nov: Francisco Smoje (Chef - Francisco’s Table) Tue 18 Nov: Alex Briggs (MotoGP Mechanic)

Wed 19 Nov: Viv Fantin–Publicist (Splendour, Big Day Out, APRA awards) The Youth Training Station talks are free but spaces are limited so registration is essential. Registration and further info: www.mullummusicfestival.com

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C

hristmas ishlist

W

by Gabrielle Calder, Collins Booksellers Byron Bay

F

or those of you who like to buckle up for a fast paced fiction read, Michael Connelly is bringing out a new novel, Burning Room and Matthew Reilly is back with The Great Zoo of China.

Literary readers will be better satisfied with Amnesia by Peter Carey or Sonya Hartnett’s novel Golden Boys and Byron Bay Writers Festival favourite Lloyd Jones latest novel, Paint Your Wife, is being published in December.

For people that don’t fit into any of the above categories Strange Library (released in December), by Haruki Murakami (author of Norwegian Wood) might be more appropriate – if you haven’t read him yet, you should! Don’t forget about the The Rosie Effect (sequel to the The Rosie Project) by Graeme Simsion that is currently running off our shelves.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is Sophia Loren’s autobiography. It is available in December and will be a great read for girls and women alike her admire this ageless beauty. The ever entertaining Molly Meldrum’s autobiography The Never Um... Ever Ending Story will be available in November and should be a riveting read. For history buffs, the third instalment of Australians by Thomas Keneally and Gallipoli by Peter FitzSimons will be on the shelves in November. Holidays by William McInnes, is a great buy for non-fiction readers with a passion for Australia and holidays! Don’t forget the political memoirs My Story, Julia Gillard and Optimism, Bob Brown.

Music lovers should grab a copy of My Bon Scott, Irene Thornton’s biography about her marriage to former AC/DC band member.

Cookbooks always make great gifts! Keep your eyes out for Delicious: Love to Eat, Valli Little, Janella’s Super Natural Foods, Janella Purcell, Cantina, Paul Wilson and Whole Pantry, Gibson Belle (November). A great gift book, It Happened in a Holden, Paddy O’Reilly is packed with holden tales from all walks of Australian life and will make the perfect stocking filler. Don’t forget about the bestselling Minecraft titles – Minecraft Block-O-Pedia will be hitting shelves in November.

The younger avid reader is sure to have The 52-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton already scribbled on their Christmas wish list. Libby Gleeson’s Go to Sleep, Jessie! Is the latest picture book by this award winning author and will make mums and children smile. Young adults will relish the long awaited fourth book in Garth Nix’s Abhorsen series Clariel and the increasingly popular Lauren Kate’s Waterfall.

It’s the season for books and the time of year for reading.

See you in store soon!

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 11

WRITERS’ GROUPS –

by Alexandra Williams

M

y introduction to the Banaglow Writers Group (BWG) came by way of a not-quite-New-Year’s resolution I’d made in 2012 to engage in more avenues of getting my poetry “out there”.

Scribbling since primary school and producing two in-house anthologies at Union College, a residential college on the University of Queensland St Lucia campus in the late 1980s, I hadn’t had anything published since living in Perth WA in the early 1990s. Investing in one’s career and motherhood do that!

When Iris Curteis of the Dorrigo Writers Group advertised for poets to nominate for a “Café poet” slot at the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival, the idea of reading my writing out loud to an audience appealed. It sounded like what I was looking for since moving north from the Coffs Coast area a year before. I knew the café from earlier visits, however felt that the relationship with Dorrigo Writers Group was going to be limited by distance. After all I was now about five hours drive away!

As coincidence would have it, the lady who was scheduled on the reading list immediately after me was Maz Arthur. A quick chat and we soon established that I lived on opposite sides of the Brunswick River. Small world! Maz extolled the virtues of not being a formal organization, but more a meeting of people interested in sharing their work and improving their craft in a supportive environment.

If diversity is good for writing, then BWG had a lively mix of poets, playwrights, short story writers, bush balladeers and novelists contributing to meetings. This was going to be interesting!

I became a BWG member and

A personal take

brought poetry and a recent interest in microfiction to the twice monthly meetings and workshops. Diversity in the writing and styles is what keeps it fresh for me, and not long afterwards the body of writers were making comments like “we should put that one in an anthology”. This also sounded interesting as publishing with others was far less daunting than launching one’s own book or volume of poetry.

Established by the late Jean Hammond in 1997, BWG has three published anthologies of short stories, poetry and short scripts: Bus Stop (2003), Now and Then (2006) and Blue Irises (2010) to their credit. The latest anthology The Blind Tattooist is a selection of short stories, poems, memoir and microfiction across a range of genres.

In spite of the flexibility of membership, those who have moved away still participate when visiting and keep in touch via emailed minutes of our monthly meeting and other electronic news. We keep costs to a minimum ($10 annual fee plus $3 per meeting to cover hire of venue), and share the load of chairing, scribing minutes and providing morning tea. Amongst this friendly group are retired teachers, bloggers, film makers, dramatists, farmers, surfers, bee keepers and small business owners, as well as some published who inspire the unpublished to continually write, share and improve.

As a group we also resolved to join the Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre, enabling our members to access the resources of the NRWC office in Byron Bay and the workshops and seminars at member’s rates.

Bangalow also has one of Australia’s biggest writers’

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festivals almost on our doorstep. One member’s family company has been a sponsor at the Byron Bay Writers festival.

In a tangential way that was how I got involved in volunteering at the Festival – but that is another story.

Apart from establishing that my nephew was dating another writer’s granddaughter (two degrees of separation at work again!), I managed to I try out my ideas on microfiction writing which prepared the way for a workshop at the Dorrigo Writers Group’s excellent inaugural Grassroots Writer’s Weekend in late April 2014.

Writers groups I have since realized come in a variety of shapes and formats.

I also attend Shelly MacNamara’s writing workshops in Brunswick Heads on Wednesday mornings (contact Brunswick Heads Writers Group for further information). We have breaks over the main school holidays and whenever Shelly heads the creative writing component of a yoga and writing retreat in Ubud, Bali.

Having returned to the daytime workforce, I am thinking also of starting an evening writers group in Brunswick Heads at The White Buffalo Café on Wednesday evenings. If interested please let me know.

Alexandra is an e-book publisher with Pipi Publishing & Author Services by day, she is also a poet, microfiction author and creative blogger on The Drabble Writers Table www.squeakythongs. wordpress.com.

Alexandra is also part of the editorial team behind the forthcoming publication: The Blind Tattooist: selected works from Bangalow Writers. Email williams.alexandra@ymail. com for details.

Competitive word play

by Finola Wennekes Back in cave days they used to word slam.

Words would spout out of mouths and fly around the communal cave at high speed, sometimes smashing into each other, other times bouncing back off the walls before losing momentum and dropping to the floor. Sometimes the flying words sounded like song, but there was no knowing when things would get ugly. The kids would sit around in puddles of used up words and stare with open ears, occasionally throwing excited verbs up into the air. Usually, though, they just stayed very still, listened hard and waited for the moment when the word hero was chosen through the gauged build of thundering foot stomp.

Of course there is no evidence to suggest that word slams took place back in cave days, but if could have happened. Maybe.

What we do know is that spoken word and competitive poetry are not new art forms.

Although Ancient India and Greece lay claim to some of the world’s earliest poetic masterpieces, early poetic competition is more commonly linked with the Scottish poets of the 15th and 16th centuries who indulged in bouts of flyting, an unbashingly direct and harsh sparring of words.

Zoom forward five centuries and the thirst for verbal sparring still exists, most commonly within the freestyle rap battle arena through the musical genres of rap and hip hop, stereotypically utilised by a younger demographic to express angers, concerns and frustrations about life.

But rap and hip hop aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. So what about all the people with stories to tell and perspectives to share and questions to ask who can’t identify with or access rap and hip hop (or conventional poetry forms, for that matter) but feel a burning need to go beyond the written form and actually speak out?

Performance poetry, an ideal platform to bring new life to existing work or to test out new work by performing in front of an audience, might provide the answer.

And if performance poetry is the solution, then poetry slams are the platform for the solution, a platform to succinctly philosophise, to voice concerns about the

ways of the world, to test hypotheses and digest history and to do so in absolute rage or ironic jest or whichever way best suits the topic matter. To do so in a limited timeframe and in front of an audience, some who will absolutely identify with what you’re saying, some who definitely won’t, is risky. But then what is art if it doesn’t create conversation?

This year the Byron Bay Writers Festival again teamed up with Word Travels to play host to the 2014 Australian Poetry Slam competition. Despite some apparent nerves, brave individuals were more than keen to put themselves forward for the judging. So many, in fact, that considerable numbers were turned away from taking part. The participant list was full. Chocka.

And in the true spirit of Byron Bay, the event was full to the brim with eclecticism. Pain bled out of some of the performances, raw and angry and awkward, at times. Other executions were practised, composed, unflustered. In others participants stood inside actors’ shoes and added colour and drama and courage to their performance.

Courage, yes. Even those literally quaking as they waited for their name to be picked, they had bucketloads of courage.

Because all participants were brave. Brave to stand up there and talk about what was true to them, all within the limitations of a two-minute timeframe. To support the legalisation of marijuana, to challenge delicate immigration issues, to make fun of politicians, to question the way that our children are taught to view the world.

Sam Turnball, self-proclaimed ‘anti-princess mama’, walked away winner of the night with her piece on the gendering of childhood that got the audience talking and the judges unanimously scoring highly. She went on to represent the area at the New South Wales state finals in Sydney.

There is no evidence to suggest that word slams ever took place back in cave days. But it could have happened, maybe.

Poetry slams, on the other hand, definitely do exist and are happening all the over the planet. The brave and passionate wordsmiths among you might just discover it’s the perfect platform of creative expression for you.

HOW IT WORKS All heat contestants are given a microphone, a live audience and just two minutes to impress the judges with their original spoken word, poetry, hip hop, monologues and stories.

Five judges are picked randomly by the MC. After each performance, judges hold up score cards using a 110 scale, with 10 being the highest. Of the five scores for each poet, only the middle three scores are counted.

From australianpoetryslam.com Finola Wennekes BBWF volunteer, blogs at travelola.org @finolatravelola (Twitter) travelola.org

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 13

J

ourney into the

W

ild

Highly commended story from the Susie Warrick Young Writer’s Award

by Holly Scobie The familiar grey platform looked bitter as I stopped my body’s autopilot from robotically turning the corner.

The abandoned rail line, littered with cigarettes smoked twice down to the butt. And stained needles, one of them probably mine, many of them probably infected. Platform 12 was now a high traffic area for people of a different kind – no businessman or school child would dare provoke the indignant, misfit platform.

I have visited this train station countless times, even resided here once. Right now though, I’m lost. I have no idea how the train and I will start our valiant journey.

The rest of the station is unfamiliar to me even though I’ve been here before, most likely in an intense euphoric state.

The people I ask direction from step back as if I’ll infect them, shrug quickly and walk away. I know what they’re thinking, ‘One of the zombies has escaped from their pen again,’ but my lousy appearance is the result of something traumatically wonderful.

Somehow my muscle-aching legs find their way to the correct platform. The place is drenched in a hopeless air of neglect. I stumble into the first seat I come across, fearing my legs will give way any moment. Luckily it’s an almost empty carriage. A wave of fear and relief almost push me off my seat as the train moves.

I’m honestly surprised the conductor let me board, my sweating hands have almost melted the ink on the ticket.

It’s been almost 48 hours since my last dose of opiate painkiller but my stomach cramps don’t seem as intense this time around. I’ve heard it’s easier the second time. When I first gave up heroin I could never tell myself it was forever. But this time I will stay clean because I’m doing it for her.

A sudden jolt sends my stomach into my throat. I have to vomit – now. There’s no bathroom on this train. I can taste

the chemical-like substance clambering across my taste buds. The train stops at the next station but there is no way I could do my business and be back in time. My body is so weak I can’t even sit up; I am one with the chair. Somehow, I ride the waves of nausea by thinking of her.

He can only see my pale, blue-stained face, the only uncovered part of me. He stares into my bloodshot, puffy eyes, searching.

The first thing she ever said to me was, ‘never fall in love with a person with a substance abuse problem, because that drug will always be the other woman.’

It’s been almost 48hours since I held them both in my arms. Nothing in the world could compare to the excruciating thumping in my brain, leaving me blind and numb.

But I already know. I’ve been there before.

I give him an un-toothy grin because I was right. I knew what he was thinking.

The train inspector abruptly pokes me breaking every bone in my body.

‘Last stop,’ he spits in a repellant way.

I somehow find my feet and stand for a minute to allow my splenetic stomach to assimilate. The man stares, looking me up and down three times. I know what he’s thinking. Does he know that beneath these baggy jeans and long sleeve hoodie, I’m just a vulnerable skeleton, beaten and bruised, self-mutilated and endangered by the one I loved? Does he understand that addiction is the ethereal art of forgetting that you are still here? But am still here. He can’t see that this all started because we wanted to remove the emptiness, but in the end, we became it.

We told ourselves we weren’t drug addicts. We were scientists, conducting experiments each day, sending smoke deep down into our lungs like a finishing line, trying to catch the huge fish that gave us that amazing high the first time.

But it never came. So we kept finishing and searching, sending the line deeper and deeper, But every day the fish got smaller until the hook finally got stuck in something it shouldn’t have. I couldn’t retrieve either of them.

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‘It’s across the road, six shops to the left,’ he says, in a tone reserved for disappointed fathers.

I feel ill even thinking about it, but I have to thank her. Right now her death is the only thing standing between me and a hit. It’s been 48 hours – lying awake asking why I made it and she didn’t? ‘I can still feel death pawing its way into you as you vanished inside the needle in your arm while I swayed form the edge of roof.

Neither of us was any more deserving of this life. Now I am swaying in front of a building that will renew my life, not end it.

‘Not saying that when I smell the dope from across the street my mouth won’t water. Not saying there won’t be days where I stare at a pouch of crystals, tempted. Not saying there won’t be days that I bring the pipe to my lips. But I won’t bring myself to inhale because your name is the only thing stuck in my throat.’

I did not imagine 48 hours ago that I’d be here now, locking myself into a rehab for safety, which will be hard seeing as the most dangerous neighourhood is the one in my own head. They say you can never be a recovered junkie, you’ll never be fixed or fully cured. Being ‘sober,’ is the same as going into the jungle. It’s a dangerous place, where everyone is a threat and anything could send you spiraling into your old habits. If you’re not dressed in your finest khaki cargo with an AK42 shotgun you’ll never survive.

So now I am here, with her right beside me beginning my journey into the wild.

Pirouettes & Prayer

D

angerously Poetic Press had a full house on Friday night, September 19th at the Mullumbimby launch of Beverly Sweeney’s poetry collection, Pirouettes and Prayer. This is the 12th publication of the community group, incorporated in 2002 to encourage, publish and promote quality poetry from the Northern Rivers region.

Poetry began arising for Bev about 13 years ago when she was journaling to help herself work through repressed abuse memories. This initiated her interest in poetry and she became a founding member of Dangerously Poetic Press. She has spent the intervening years learning to craft these into public poetry.This has given her the confidence and skill to write and perform her work in the community.

Of this odyssey, Bev says, “It’s time for the shame that accompanies so many people in my situation to be well and truly discarded. My book does not dwell on the bad times – it is more a reflection on family, community, nature, faith and of course . . . dancing.”

New Brighton poet, Max Ryan writes of her collection, “There is a quiet strength in these poems, words forged in the fire of long experience.”

On Friday night, Bev sparkled. She was accompanied in her performance

by Jan Gracie Mulcahy

by singer, songwriter Karl Farren. She stood behind her music stand and Karl seated to her left, held his guitar on his knees. They proceeded to engage with each other and we, in the audience, were mesmerised. Bev introduced each poem and her flow between poems was brief, spontaneous and intimate.

She opened the reading with The Star Ballroom. As her words waltzed to the music, they took us into the heart of being sixteen whirling in the arms of her dancing teacher.

The professional cool was stunning. Bev and Karl interacted whether the guitar was playing or not. He kept watching her, smiling at times and listening to every word. Such stage support must have helped Bev for she was relaxed, funny and never stumbled.

Laura Jan Shore, editor of the book,who launched the collection said in her speech; “A whisper of silk threaded with steel,” is Bev’s description of a ballet dancer which could also describe Bev. She’s courageous enough to be vulnerable on the page. With no sentimentality, she explores family ghosts; the WW1 soldier-grandfather and her father who spent the second WW as a plumber, her grandmother turning a blind eye to abuse, her mother holding in all the

family secrets offering only “snippets”.

Bev dares to invoke memories of abuse with a deft touch that reverberates deeply but at the same time— offers hope and healing…

Through Bev’s clear eyed examination of her experiences, our own lives are more deeply informed. For when we read a poem that resonates and we hear language we might have chosen ourselves, had we but found the words, the poet is giving our lives back to us and we will never know ourselves the same way again.”

The inviting cover is the mixed media art work of Nathalie Verdejo of Ocean Shores.

The highlight of the night was Line Dancing in Beijing accompanied softly until Karl burst into the song Don’t tell my heart, My achy, breaky heart…the last poem and everyone went wild. It was a triumph.

Bev’s book is available at Mullumbimby Book Shop and online at www.dangerouslypoetic.com.

All Dangerously Poetic readings and events are open to everyone. The next reading will be on the theme of Myths and Magic in Poetry. It will be held on Sunday, the 16th of November at Bangalow Heritage House from 3-5 pm.

Swan Lake In the hush of the audience, the quiver of strings, she ripples across the stage, soft as a sigh, pale as ice. Hipless, a wisp in white tulle she raises crossed wrists, glides, en pointe in an ellipse of light to the edges of shadows – a lake, a castle, an absence of stars. Her head is framed in feathers, her eyes lash-rimmed pools. Drawn by the keening of violins she arches her back in a long, slow arabesque, melts to the floor, one cheek resting on elongated arm - a sylph, broken and betrayed.

The call of a lone trumpet, the slow roll of timpani, she rises, her arms billowing like wings draw her up to hover seemingly above the stage. Lights flare. She leaps, feet scissoring the air, circles the perimeter, pirouette, grand jete - a spring uncoiled, explosion of muscle and bone. Centre stage her right leg flicks out, propels her, a wound clock into spin after spin.

The orchestra climbs to its finale. A clash of cymbals, a double pirouette and she sinks to her knees, hands pressed to breast, a whisper of silk

threaded with steel. northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 15

Screenworks will be attending SPAs Screen Forever Conference in Melbourne Nov 16 – 19 to represent our members and attract production to the region.

Screenworks is calling for expressions of interest from members who have concepts in early development and are seeking market interest.

Screenworks will take pitch material for selected concepts to present to relevant producers, distributors and executives at SPAs Screen Forever Conference in Melbourne.

• Screenworks will set up meetings with relevant producers and executives at SPA to pitch members concepts • Screenworks will set up a Concepts Page on our website with participating members short pitches – title, tagline and short synopsis.

• Screenworks will prepare a promotional postcard with a QR code directing recipents to the Concepts Page on our website and promoting the Northern Rivers region as a film location.

• Screenworks will provide the participating members with feedback from the meetings • Screenworks will provide contact details of the relevant producers and executives from the meetings if there is interest in concepts pitched to them.

How to be considered for inclusion: • Provide Screenworks with a 1 page pitch document • Screenworks will select the concepts that are most ready and relevant to the opportunity of seeking market interest through SPA Cost for inclusion $50 for selected concepts Deadline for expressions of interest was 5pm Wednesday Sept 24, however there are still some places available.

About Inside the Writers Room Inside the Writers Room is a professional development program designed to give up to three participants the opportunity to sit with professional writers in a writers room environment, as they work and develop a story into a television script.

This opportunity is most relevant to writers of television content and more specifically to writers of scripted content.

We have an impressive line up of production companies and productions that we will be sending participants to – these include Matchbox Pictures, Channel 7’s Home & Away and Playmaker Media.

There will be an opportunity for the participants to receive advice or a market appraisal of their own television script treatment or concept.

Screenworks will be open for applications to Inside the Writers Room from 9 October 2014 with the deadline for entry 12 November 2014 How to apply To apply for Inside the Writers Room, applicants must meet the following criteria: Applicants must • be a current Screenworks member • be a NSW resident • have a demonstrated writing ability with examples of writing for TV, and more specifically scripted content • demonstrate an ongoing commitment to screen writing Applicants area asked to send in a completed application form, a treatment and extract from their script.

For more information call Screenworks 02 6687 1599

As soon as you roll into the little town of Bangalow, you quickly realise this is no ordinary ruraltown. Nestled in the hills behind Byron Bay, the allure and enchantment of this hinterland village is unmistakable.

It’s a diverse community of people from all walks of life: professionals, creative-types, self-employed, business-owners, local farmers andthose who work from home.

The Bangalow Banquet has been produced to raise much needed funds for the two local schools in Bangalow.The Bangalow Public School provides high quality 21st century education to 275 local children and the Bangalow Community Children’s Centre, set in a tranquil, rainforest area and bordered by a beautiful creek, offers early childhood education for children from birth to age 5.

Bangalow Banquet contains over 150 recipes and many stories of the famers, the families and the history of the area. It is about peoplecoming together to celebrate, support each other, and share in the bounty of the region. It is akin to acountry banquet – a joyous celebration of two simple pleasures in life: good food and good company.

Bangalow Banquet is available in selected Bangalow shops if you wanted to say that. As well, Bay FM radio station are selling it on our behalf in Byron. It retails for $40.00 and can also be ordered via email at bangalow.banquet@gmail.com

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Can Writing Be Taught?: The case for and

against creative writing courses and workshops

C

Sophie Hamley, Robin Hemley, Kathryn Heyman and Carrie Tiffany

an Writing Be Taught? was a session by writers for writers at Byron Bay Writers Festival with a panel of writers who teach writing.

Robin Hemley is Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Writing Program at YaleNUS. His memoir, Nola: A Memoir of Faith, Art, and Madness, has recently been reissued.

Reading is one of the best teachers and for Hemley it started with the books he found at home when he was 19.

Writing can be taught, he said. He has seen many writers who seemed unable to craft things “then something clicked. I have seen too many examples of this happening to say otherwise.”

He teaches workshops but thinks oneon-one teaching is best. It allows him to enter much more deeply into creative relationship with the student. Hemley studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop: “That [workshop] method is only as good as facilitator and the group,” he said.

He taught there too, running the nonfiction workshop until recently. The students learned as much from each other as from him, he said. An internet chat room was particularly helpful, set up so that students could see the comments on their work only after everyone had posted.

“We wanted to avoid everyone piling on,” he said. It meant that the class discussions started at a higher level.

“There are a lot of people who want to be published. Many people will ask about something they have just written, ‘Do

you think this publishable?’ The question annoys him. “Do you play one tune on the piano and ask if you are ready for Carnegie Hall?”

The persistence required is that of feeling the need to write.

Hemley has a set of six questions he asks students to help them work out what they are writing. They are: What is it about? What is it really about? What is it about? What is it really about? What is it about? What is it really about?

Each reply brings a different iteration.

Kathryn Heyman whose latest novel is Floodline, says talent cannot be taught.

Over 25 years of teaching, she has seen many times immensely talented writers not become becoming brilliant writers because of a “lack of work and application”.

“Without wanting to be provokative, the question asked for this panel offends me,” said Heyman. “We do not ask this question about architecture, dancing or art. It seems an insult to the deep and profound work of literature.”

Heyman is not a big fan of workshops, although they have their role, but it is not the same as the teaching of writing, an ancient form of coaching.

“Craft can be taught but you need to choose your coaches and teachers carefully.”

Carrie Tiffany, whose second novel Mateship With Birds won the inaugural Stella Prize, is not sure writing can be taught but it can be supported. “Your craft is the sentence,” she said.

There is a lot of self-sabotage among writers

so it helps to have a sense of someone being there with you, she said.

“It is quite an honour to sit beside someone and read their work.”

Tiffany likes workshops and how they enable people to carve out time for their writing, and how they seed long-term writing groups but recalls her response to a university-based workshop process.

“I wrote my first novel as part of MA in creative writing. I would read it out and it was universally disliked and I would pretend I was listening, and meanwhile writing that what they said was ‘bullshit’.”

At this point, Heyman speaks: “You are a writer of exceptional talent and stubbornness but this an expensive way [to learn], two years to have people who don’t know saying it’s bad.”

Tiffany said she tells her students:. ‘It’s your book, and you are the only one writing it.”

“Writing should not be stopped,” said Tiffany. “There are so many things you can waste your time on, renovating your house or your arse. Sitting in a room quietly can only be good.”

As Sophie Hamley, the literary agent who chaired the session, put it: “Tell the damn story.”

Marian Edmunds is a writer, editor and mentor. She is the official BBWF Blogger.

This article was published on 6 August at: http://byronbaywritersfestival.wordpress. com/

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 17

People of the Northern Rivers This Cultural Voice screaming to be heard Storytelling by Ian Browne The intricacies of life, its unique web of intrigue, this should be hunted down by authors, dragged out from behind glossy shrubs in the steamy heart of our various imagined jungles for all to witness.

We must also stop and look at the environment around us, this important treasure trove of simple pleasures, its kind gestures; the desirous wondering of the everyday, trusted and heard. While completing post-graduate studies in Lismore, working on community radio, and trying to mend from a nasty back injury, I decided it would be a worthwhile venture to compile a set of interviews with people from the Northern River’s diverse community, describing life through their eyes. That was ten years ago. Since then, I moved to Darwin and spent six years working with students from remote indigenous communities from across the top half of our continent.

I also travelled through much of SE Asia researching, documenting, interviewing and photographing people and ecosystems in times of peril, such innocence inflicted upon via industry and political corruption. I write for a

purpose. I have met with machine guns, toothy wildlife, been deprived of energy from tropical ailments, but some things are bigger than that, and these stories need to be told, and from ground zero.

I am an independent journalist with a background in media studies and various eco-cultural academias. I use creative language along with descriptive surrealism and humour to seduce my readers. I have some well-known media personalities and academics lurking within my private readership and they tell me they enjoy my stories, as I not only tell the truth factually, but I communicate this information in a way that allows the reader to feel they are there in the moment, on terra firma, viewing the saga. They can smell the jungle, hear the storm moving in over the village, and gasp at the cry of the father who has seen his family’s livelihood depart to fulfil another’s greed. Of course empathy is my main aim. I am a ‘lefty’, but I practise patient, polite activism. My photos are probably more magnetic than the words I construct, in the end. I use this colourful, reflective device, especially as E Books are a medium which still do not compare to a piece of well-thatched, bleached cellulose, this stayer for all moments. But there is more to cultural

18 - northerly magazine | november - december 2014

sanctity than just confronting politicians and industry, the word from the mind of the every day has its importance too.

I wrote a story on Darwin a couple of years ago called ‘Monsoon Thunder’ and it has travelled the globe. Indigenous culture is very important in the Red Centre and tropical monsoon north of this continent. It is sad that most people from the more globalised urban centres, and temperate agricultural regions of Australia, have not encountered the charms and language of our remote indigenous groups. I worked with young Aboriginal folk from at least 50 different tribes in Darwin. I just wish all Australians could feel the deep love I have for this rich culture and our intensely interesting and dynamic landscapes. Darwin is many things, there is no place like it really, its a true melting pot fragranced by dark shades of exotic skin, and the Ying & Yang of white society where the new age alternative meets bogan-rugged.

Where the wee jungles cuddle up to mangrove forests, stretching endlesslytropical savannas saturated with spidery pandanus and towering termite mounds, and the world’s greatest monsoon storms swallow the steamy harbour town centre to bamboozle all life.

In late 2011, I returned to this great

southern Shangrila, the mountainous calling of the Northern Rivers with its kind folk and gentle townships. I did travel to Burma a year later and I wrote about the social impacts of the dawning political and economic climate, particularly those which are a stark reality for Myanmar’s women. But I knew I wanted to put together this whispering of the past...“Don’t forget the folk of the Northern Rivers; they need to have their say!”

Well, it worked with my Darwin story, the multicultural chapter I set free from the more angst-bulky Monsoon Thunder; it has thrived within the curiosities of American, Asian and European readers.

In 2013, I released two culture-based articles on this NSW region. This was the beginning; I could now get my cameras together and hit the road, find those that fascinate me, those with a voice that would capture imaginations, and enlighten many. So while teaching in Lismore, and organising a NAIDOC Day ceremony, I met with many people from our cosmopolitan village, putting their word to paper, singing their passions, fears and desires to the ether.

‘The Cultural Voice of Northern NSW The folk of the Northern Rivers’ This lengthy set of magazine style articles, photomontages, and snap-shots from-the-street interviews, has been described by one local reader of Chilean ancestry as “A real treasure”. There is a multicultural section which delves into

the lives of those from our community’s various ethnic groups. Not only do they describe the journey that led them to calling this beautiful region home, and the freedoms they enjoy here too, but they share their secrets which have now become our local history. The Bexhill Store Singh family offer the tales of their different generations that moved from Northern India to our shores, and the fruitful relationships they have fostered within the local community. I have tried my best to depict what life is like for the Bundjalung, earthy accounts with a mix of colourful culture and determined protest. And tales of new beginnings, Vitamin Q Byron YUKI, a cult figure in Japan, offered me her second only ever interview in over 20 years! Vitamin Q organises cultural dance festivals in the Northern Rivers, which have proven popular with Japanese visitors. She has actually spawned a new Japanese cultural revolution here in our own backyard, and her enthusiasm for our healthy organic lifestyle is due in part to the horrible environmental and social impacts the tsunami savaged Japan with.

Of course I couldn’t build a story on the north of this state without showing off our blissful natural environment. This is a very important part of our life here, and the section ‘The Children of the Big Scrub’ allows locals to have their say on its importance, and how it should be preserved. Linden Moore does this well.

This section also allows artists like Tony

Nugent to describe his passion for snakes, and respect for life, as do the Nicholsons with their new floral species photo-key computer program. But the journeys of our minds, our life experiences, are areas that need attention, and Marie the Lithuanian Jungle Vegan’s WW2 lament is compelling too. The Cultural Voice of Northern NSW is an important discussion where ‘we’ get to have our say on what life means to us, in this, the most splendid regions of Mother Earth. I hope its message, its history, live on well into the future and enjoyed by many. @Ian Browne Independent Academia .

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 19

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

Urchins

by Victoria Norton

Little Bay of Mine

By Neisha Mulham The afternoon sky is painted with a pink palette, And the sun Dims its brightness.

Surfers dance amongst waves in the horizon And children create castles from the white sand.

Bush Turkey’s pilfer the picnic basket, Fighting each other for the last breadcrumb.

A Kookaburra sits in a nearby tree, Chuckling with its companions.

Crowds gather at the lookout, Eager to photograph the fading moment, So it can live on forever.

It could have been any day of the week. It didn’t matter.

One long sunny day rolled into another. A whirly-whirly picked up the red dust and carried onto the veranda.

We children had the task to wash down the rattly slats with buckets of brown dam water. We saw no sense in this exercise; it seemed the boards were still dirty afterwards. We did however, see an opportunity for play.

First our older brother used his finger to write a word in the dust. Then we girls said it aloud and our brother would wash it away. If he was pleased with our reply we would have another turn. Retribution came when we said the word incorrectly – our brother splashed water in our sunburnt faces. So cool! Soon we were deliberately misreading the words. Weplayed until the bucket was empty. Then fetched another.

Pretty soon we four children were finger-swirling muddy pictures across the shady floor near the front door. Squeals of laughter carried indoors where our mother was working in the kitchen.

Our mother called out: ‘Stop that racket now!’

We ignored her.

‘I’m coming out there!’

She slammed open the door and took one fateful step.

Slap. Bang. She was down. Bottom first in the sticky, slippy red mud. Shocked and a little afraid we tried to help our mother up.

Slap. Bang. We were all down!

Once the laughter started it was impossible to stop. And that’s how we became mother’s grubby little urchins.

But as the sun slowly emerges into the horizon, Everyone is silent.

Their breath is taken from them, And her overpowering beauty Is seen by all.

20 - northerly magazine | november - december 2014

The Coffee House

by Geordie Timmins

In the back corner of the always crowded Mecca Solace is found, Watching the mechanics of the world clunk and grind.

Jet black cloth of the waiters’ gown Moves at sonic speed And customers order in quick succession.

Chatter erupts like a bursting balloon.

Voices squeaking and moaning; A wheel old and rusted.

The gears of life continue to spin, And in the back corner of this crowded coffee house – A cog can’t quite fit.

• Book Reviews •

Anzac’s Long Shadow: The cost of our national obsession Book review by Russell Eldridge

By James Brown Published by Redback It’s about time a book like this came along, as a counterweight to the bronzed Anzac hero-worship culture that engenders a lop-sided, jingoistic view of Australia’s armed forces.

This is not an anti-military book. Far from it. Brown is a former Army officer who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan and he believes in an alert, well-trained and above all, well-informed military that continually re-evaluates itself.

But the original Anzacs have been ‘Disneyfied’, he writes, to the point where those men who scrambled up the slopes of Gallipoli in 1915 would not recognise themselves.

Anzac has been ‘bottled, stamped and sold’ reaching a commercial fever-pitch with next year’s centenary celebrations which will cost Australia close to threequarters of a billion dollars.

And here we come to his point: The Anzac hero status has been batonpassed to anyone who pulls on an Australian uniform. Our armed forces are untouchables, above criticism or selfreflection.

The result is ignorance and a dangerous complacency. Brown says no one one knows how competent our generals are because there is no analysis, no political

interest, and a ‘chasm’ between the military and the public.

The ‘Digger myth’ assumes we’re the best. This has implications for the frontline, too, where soldiers sometimes behave as if they’re bulletproof simply because of their forefathers’ reputation.

On the flipside, many young soldiers feel inadequate because they can’t live up to the legend. The outdated notion of battlefield success is storming positions in the teeth of withering gunfire and leaving the ground littered with enemy dead. But in modern conflict, Brown writes, a succesful day is one without violence.

Part of the problem is a culture of secrecy and control. Australian military personnel are hidebound by regulations that prevent or make it extremely difficult to write about their experiences. Fifteen years after the East Timor conflict, there is still no official history. Nor are there any for the Solomons, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Contrast this with World War I, where Charles Bean’s history came out within three years.

And contrast this with Britain, Canada, and the US, where debate and military writings are encouraged with a view to learning from mistakes of the past.

There’s a lot more in this tightly packed, well-argued book, but it’s our military future that really worries Brown.

He wraps up by arguing that because

politicians, academics and military refuse to debate and study our past and present engagements, we are ill-prepared to plan for possible future conflicts. He goes into some detail, for example, showing how our military hardware purchases reflect outmoded thinking.

Brown acknowledges growing regional uncertainty as Asian powers flex their muscles and reposition themselves, but he decries century-old political and military thinking that doesn’t evaluate strategy, or put simply, what’s worth fighting for and how.

A Unique New Publication: Sustainability for Educators Education needs to be ahead of the curve to be most useful.

Never was there a more pressing time to create the skills and motivation for creating a sustainable future. Now is the time to prepare students for a low-carbon economy.Byron Community College is launching a publication to address this need: “Sustainability for Educators” which is a comprehensive toolkit of learning activities and resources.

This resource has been developed with funding from the Skills for the Carbon Challenge initiative of the Australian Government. It supports the embedding of sustainability into learning programs from secondary, vocational and tertiary level. This comprehensive 246-page hardcopy and e book will

also suit organisations shifting to more sustainable practice.

Co-author Katrina Shields who is a Sustainability Education Coordinator says “We saw an important gap that needed filling.

This book makes it easier for busy educators to communicate principles of sustainability and run empowering learning activities.”

The other author Lisa Hoggard works with business organisations and professional associations and says: “It is important that we make sustainability a ‘less fluffy’ concept and anchor it in real individual and organisational experience.” www.byroncollege.org.au/sustainability-for-educators/ northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 21

• Kid’s Page •

The Writer’s Studio: Jesse Blackadder Jesse Blackadder is the adventurous local author of many adult novels including Chasing the Light and The Raven’s Heart. For children, she has written Stay, The Last Dog in Antarctica and the upcoming Dexter, the Courageous Koala, out January 2015. She has recently earned her Doctorate in Creative Arts from the University of Western Sydney. She also has the best surname of any author ever.

Here, she takes us inside her creative space and process.

Where do you create?

My studio is an old billiards room, so it has a shelf that runs the whole way around the walls just the right height for standing up and leaning against. I use it to store bits and pieces – shells, snakeskins, plants, feathers, rocks, my big year planner, a jar of sand from the Sahara desert and lots of other junk. Outside the door right now there are two big pythons living in the rock garden. When I say outside the door I mean RIGHT outside. Like six steps away. Plus there is a family of water dragons that run up to the glass door and try to attack their reflections. There is a pool out there too. It’s all very interesting just outside the door and sometimes it is hard to stay inside at the desk.

screen. But I did just buy myself a huge velvet patchwork armchair for reading in, or when I’m talking on the phone.

The main thing I do to get a different perspective is going on writing retreats – and I LOVE that. I’ve written on a ship sailing to Antarctica, in the Kimberley desert in a camping chair, in a big old house in the Blue Mountains, and in a tiny wooden boatshed in Alaska with waves lapping underneath.

What time of day are you most creative?

Morning. Definitely. Or when I have a deadline. Definitely. In fact if I have a deadline, I can be creative no matter what time of day it is.

How important to you is the space in which you create?

VERY important. I wish I was the groovy kind of person who liked to write with noise and excitement and music around, but actually I really like to write in total silence, with peace and quiet, and preferably with the room being pretty tidy (though that’s usually not the reality). My favourite place for writing is in bed in my pyjamas with a cup of tea. But most of the real work gets done sitting at the desk.

Do you have a morning ritual? Roald Dahl was said to sharpen pencils. What settles your mind for writing?

Well, I have to have a cup of tea. That’s pretty non-negotiable.

A bit later I have to have a cup of coffee. That’s totally nonnegotiable. I sit at my desk and then I usually find some bit of personal grooming that simply MUST be done immediately – like nail clipping or teeth cleaning. So I get up and do that.

Then I have to check out Facebook, and usually think what a time waster it is, while I waste some time looking at cat videos and signing online petitions. Then I remember that my website urgently needs updating, so I do that. I read back over what I wrote the day before (if I did write the day before) and start deleting it. Eventually I start writing. The water dragons and the snakes outside are all primed to attack me if I haven’t written 1000 words by the time I finish, so fear usually keeps me going.

And I torture myself with thoughts about where I will end up if I don’t get this book written. Just the usual writerly routine I guess. As far as I can see, it’s the same for most of us.

Do you transform your space in any way for each project?

Sometimes I stick up pictures that relate to the book I’m working on, but in the end it comes down to staring at the computer

The Writer’s Studio is part of an ongoing series of interviews with children’s and young adult authors atTristan Bancks’s website www.tristanbancks.com

Jesse’s writing spaces in Alaska, at her home and in the Kimberley 22 - northerly magazine | november - december 2014

• From the reading chair •

On Short Stories Putting the right only words in the right only order Emma Ashmere explores how to make every word count Short story writers are often told to ‘make every word count’. But what does this mean? And how can we identify and winkle out those sluggish words, clichéd ideas, and flaky images that once seemed so vital, original and essential in our own first drafts?

Mark Twain allegedly lamented to a friend he’d wanted to ‘write a shorter letter but didn’t have the time’. If the single defining element of the short story is its brevity, then precision is everything. And like any finelytuned motor skill, precision takes practice and patience. Of course longer forms also depend on exactitude, but there are simply less places for dead ends or missteps to hide in a more concentrated hit of words.

According to Mel Campbell ‘anyone can noodle on for 10,000 words, but it takes creativity and discipline to express oneself within word limits.’

Word count can be both friend and foe.

A 500 word cap challenges the writer to keep on track, but that track still must offer an arresting glimpse of life, relationships, the world etc. On the downside, enforced limits can cramp your style. When a piece balloons over its allotted space, there are probably only two options. Keep it for another occasion when word limit isn’t an issue. Or cut.

Ali Smith talks about needing to find you own ‘balance between instinct and edit’. For some stories less will be more. For others, less really is less. Multiple ideas, extravagant details of setting and mood, the number of characters, or quirks of voice might be the very elements you’d hoped would hook and haunt the reader. Lose those hardwrought surprises and idiosyncrasies, and the story risks diluting into ordinariness. If a story keeps buckling against the word limit, there’s no going wider. So go deeper.

Kurt Vonnegut said every sentence must either ‘advance the plot’ or reveal something compelling about the character. If I think a story is worth redrafting, one of the most

useful questions is: ‘do I need this?’ First lines, last lines, dialogue, heavy-handed or colourless titles, characters’ names, favourite phrases - nothing is safe from the scalpel. Openings must act as irresistible invitations to read on, however Jennifer Mills warns against ‘strong beginnings’ petering out. As for endings, ‘a short story doesn’t have to have a neat ending, but it should turn – it should show readers the moment something changes.’

Priscilla Long suggests making a list of ten things you want to include before you start such as objects, feelings, colours, places, people, events, particular phrases. Even if you haven’t done this, go back and see what’s survived the redrafting knife. Is this still the story you wanted to write?

in the right order’. Later, this was refined slightly. Good writing is about finding ‘the only words’ and putting them ‘in the only order’. No multiple choice. No ‘and/or’.

There’s only one right word, or 500 right words. And it’s every writer’s job to pounce on them and place them where they can chug away, unfettered, at full capacity.

Emma Ashmere’s short stories have appeared in The Age, Griffith REVIEW, and Sleepers Almanac. Her first novel The Floating Garden will be published

by Spinifex Press in 2015.

After fine-combing through several times, the words that kick-started the piece might suddenly seem clunky. Some will be worth refashioning. Others won’t. Check every word is working as hard as the 499 other pistons hopefully chugging away in the engine room keeping the story ticking over.

Even the seemingly insignificant ones such as ‘the’ and ‘and’ must pull their weight.

Reading aloud can help detect stumbles, flat spots, unintended repetitions, clumsy rhythms, clanging notes. Try to imagine you’re sitting on the other side of the editor’s desk, listening in. What would make this story leap straight over the ‘no’ pile and into the ‘yes’?

Some pieces will never amount to more than exercises. But the act of writing is never wasted. Set them aside for awhile, then revisit and try to see what you’d change in them now. Some pithy lines might even be salvageable for recycling elsewhere.

At this year’s Byron Writers Festival, Jeanette Winterson talked about the benefits of having a wood-burning stove in her study.

Apparently she feeds it regularly with paper and ink. She also said that good writing of any length means putting ‘the right words northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 23

Workshops • Opportunities • Competitions Unleash Your Creativity! with Melaina Faranda When: Saturday 22 November, 10am - 4pm Where: Byron Community College, 107 Jonson St, Byron Bay Cost: $75 Members or $95 non-members Book at www.nrwc.org.au Unleash your Creativity and Discover the Genius Writer Within!

Are you an expert procrastinator? Does writing ever feel like a painful, plodding process? Do you easily slide into overwhelm and critical paralysis, even to the extent of not letting yourself write?

Do you ever feel blocked and afraid that nothing you write will be good enough or that you might not have what it takes…

You do have what it takes. We all, without exception, have an extraordinary and unique creative ability waiting to be awakened and unleashed. Inside each of us, inside of you, is a brilliant font of creativity that can be readily and effortlessly tapped into. In this fun, energetic and transformative workshop, you’ll learn how to trick your brain into flow through a variety of powerful tools, techniques and exercises that enable you to instantly access your subconscious creative genius and switch off the inner critic.

You’ll discover how to transcend your fears, overcome blocks, and make the writing process one of joyous selfdiscovery. You will learn techniques to bypass the limitations of your conscious thinking to access a deeper and more powerful writing voice than you may have previously encountered. No matter how blocked you currently feel, prepare to be astonished by the original, striking and prolific writing you will produce during this workshop!

Melaina Faranda is the author of thirtythree YA and Children’s books, with more coming… Turning on that creative tap has led to ten of those books being written in less than two years. Melaina infuses her teaching with a vitality, generosity, acuity and sense of fun that consistently garners rave feedback from course participants. She conducts creative writing workshops and masterclasses throughout Australia.

Highlight Publishing They are a new small independent publishing house that selects manuscripts based on the quality of the story telling, the literary value, and the prospect of sufficient sales to make the publication project financially viable.

Highlight Publishing covers all costs involved in the publication of print and eBooks. We work closely with our authors throughout the publishing process in promotion. Their expertise is derived from experience in the USA publishing industry.

They are currently accepting submissions from authors whose work has been through a rigorous editorial process.

For more information: http://www.highlightpublishing.com. au Creating Australia – CACD 500 – Make your project count!

Register your story here!

CACD 500 is an awareness campaign being undertaken by Creating Australia, launched in Kalgoorlie Boulder last week. Now it’s time to get online and make your project count!

Let’sCreating Australia demonstrate the size, diversity and value of the Community Arts and Cultural Development (CACD) sector by documenting over 500 CACD projects online.

The initiative will send a powerful message about the size and scope of the CACD sector to government, business and the general community.

CACD 500 will also link the sector together – as organisations, artists and practitioners, who are working hard to develop people and their communities through creativity to enrich the lives of all Australians.

This is a quick and easy process. You have until the end of November 2014 – Please jump online, share your story and be counted! http://ntwriters.com.au/creatingaustralia-cacd-500-make-your-projectcount/

24 - northerly magazine | november - december 2014

Commonwealth Short Story Prize The 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize is open for entries.

Entry is free. Each year, we select five winning writers from five different Commonwealth regions who share a total prize money of £15,000.

The overall winner receives £5,000, one of the highest amounts for an international short story prize open to unpublished writers. Regional winners receive £2,500. http://www.commonwealthwriters. org/enter-2015-prize/ Closing Date: 15 November 2014 Museum of Words The Cesar Egido Serrano Foundation’s fourth ‘Museum of Words’ international flash fiction contest is now accepting entries.

The competition is for very short fiction pieces of up to a maximum of 100 words. The winner will receive a prize of $20,000, with three runners-up each receiving $2000.

This contest is open to writers from all countries and entries are accepted in four languages: English, Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew. The slogan for the 2014 contest is ‘Mandela: Words and Concord’ but there are no subject or genre restrictions. All stories entered must be original and unpublished.

With such a generous prize on offer, the contest is extremely competitive.

The last Museum of Words contest attracted 22,571 entries from writers in 119 countries.

The Cesar Egido Serrano Foundation is based in Spain and is a private, notfor-profit foundation. The foundation’s aim is to encourage dialogue between different cultures, ideas, religions and sensibilities. h t t p : / / w w w. a e ro g r a m m e s t u d i o. com/2014/08/11/museum-of-wordsflash-fiction-contest/ Closing Date: 23 November 2014 Ron Pretty Poetry Prize First Prize: $5000 Judge: Ron Pretty The prize is named in honour of the distinguished Australian poet Ron Pretty, who founded Five Islands Press

Competitions • Competitions • Competitions in 1986. As head of Five Islands Press, Ron published over 230 books of poetry

by Australian poets, before retiring in 2007. Since this time, FIP has maintained its commitment to publishing fine Australian poetry, including the work of emerging and established poets.

Ron’s inexhaustible energy and creative vigour have been devoted to poetry for more than 40 years. He won the NSW Premier’s Special Prize for services to literature in 2001 and received an AM for services to Australian literature in 2002.

He has published eight collections, and four chapbooks, of his own poetry; most recently, What the Afternoon Knows (Pitt Street Poetry, 2013).

The prize will be awarded to a single poem of up to 30 lines, and is open to anyone over the age of 18 years, including overseas applicants.

Entry fee is $20 for the first poem and $10 for subsequent poems. Multiple entries are permitted. Online submissions only.

A shortlist of four poems will be posted on the FIP website on 1 February 2015 and the winner will be announced on 15 February 2015.

Closing Date: 30 November 2014 Viva La Novella 3 Once again they are inviting authors from Australia and New Zealand to submit manuscripts of between fifteen and fifty thousand words for the opportunity to win $1000 and a publishing deal with Seizure.

They love the novella more and more every year and this year, being our third year, we are looking for three fine authors to challenge us, amuse us, teach us and stun us with their story craft.

Terms and Conditions: https://seizure. submittable.com/submit/26889 Closing date: 2 December 2014 Hal Porter Short Story Competition East Gippsland Shire Council presents the 2014 Hal Porter Short Story Competition began 21 years ago.

Australian writers are invited to enter a short story, written in any style for the first prize of $1000.

Manuscripts must be original works, in English, and must not have been previously accepted for publication,

which includes websites. Any style of story is acceptable. No entry form is necessary. Shortlisted writers will receive UQP publications. Stories will not be returned. Entry fee: $6 Questions? Please contact Peter Millard on (03) 5152 6731 or by email to pjsmillard@live.com.

Closing date: 12 December 2014 2015 The Joanne Burns Micro-lit Award Length: 200 words max Theme: Out of Place First prize: $300 Entry fee: $7.00 per entry Keen to show off the 200-words-or-less gems at the nations’ major 2015 literary and arts festivals, they have brought the closing date of the next joanne burns Award forward to December, 2014.

They are thrilled to announce that Berkeley-based, Stella Prize co-founder, novelist and micro-lit aficionado, Kirsten Tranter will be the 2015 judge and anthology editor, along with series editor and self-confessed prose poem tragic, Linda Godfrey. http://ntwriters.com.au/2015-the joanne-burns-micr-lit-award/ Closing date: 21 Dec 2014 Nature Writing Prize Calling all nature writers! The Nature Conservancy (TNC) announced today the opening of the third biennial TNC Australia Nature Writing Prize. The $5,000 award is for an essay between 3,000 and 5,000 words in the genre of ‘Writing of Place’ and the winning essay will be published in the Australian Book Review.

The Nature Conservancy Australia Nature Writing Prize was created to promote and celebrate the art of nature writing in Australia as well as to encourage a greater appreciation of Australia’s magnificent landscapes.

The competition’s judges are Jesse Blackadder and Robert Gray, renowned poet, critic, and freelance writer. They will award the prize to an Australian writer whose entry is judged to be of the highest literary merit and which best explores his or her relationship and interaction with some aspect of the Australian landscape.

The prize is open to Australian citizens and permanent residents. Participants will need to pay an entry fee of $40. http://www.natureaustralia.org.au/ nature-writing-prize-2014.xml Closing date: 24 December 2014 Josephine Ulrick Literature & Poerty Prize 2015 Among the richest poetry and short story prizes in the world, the Griffith University Josephine Ulrick prizes in 2015 are worth $30,000 in total prize money.

As a leading educator of creative writing, Griffith University strongly supports the future of Australian poetry and fiction by funding and administering these prestigious prizes, in agreement with the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts.

Short story up to 2000 words First Prize: $10,000 Second Prize: $5,000 Poetry Prize 2015 For a poem up to 100 lines: First Prize: $10,000 Second Prize: $5,000 Key Dates Entries open 1 December 2014 Winners announced on the website: Early May 2015 http://www.griffith.edu.au/humanitieslanguages/school-humanities/newsand-events/josephine-ulrick-prizes Closing date: 13 February 2015

Warning Any competition or magazine that asks for money to read your poetry (beyond a reasonable entry fee – the ASA suggests where a prize is more than $1,000 a $5 entry fee is acceptable) is unlikely to be a reputable one.

For further details on scam competitions visit: http://www.sfwa.org/Beware/ http://windpub.com/literary.scams/ h t t p : / / w w w. w i n n i n g w r i t e r s . c o m / contests/avoid/av_avoid.php

northerly magazine | november - december 2014- 25

WRITERS’ GROUPS

Alstonville Plateau Writers Group Meets 2nd Tuesday of the month. 10am to 12pm. All genres welcome. Contact Christine on 66 288 364 or email gcpioneerina@ hotmail.com Ballina/Byron U3A Creative Writing Meets at 12.00pm every second Wednesday, Fripp Oval Ballina. Contact Jan on 0404 007 586 or janmulchany@bigpond.com Ballina Creative Writers workshops meet 3rd Thursday of month at 10.00am 12.30pm @ Richmond Hill. Focus is on memoir, family history, poetry, personal development and spirituality. Contact janmulcahy@bigpond.com Ph. 0404 007 586 Bangalow Writers Group Meets Thursday at 9:15am at the Bangalow Scout Hall.

Contact Simone on 0407 749 288.

Bellingen Writers Group Meets at Bellingen Golf Club on the 4th Monday of the month at 2:00pm. All welcome. Contact Joanne on 6655 9246 or email jothirsk@ restnet.com.au Casino Writers Group Meets 3rd Thursday of the month 4pm at the Casino Library.

Contact Brian on 02 6628 2636 or email briancostin129@hotmail.com Cloudcatchers For haiku enthusiasts, a ginko (haiku walk) is undertaken according to group agreement. Contact Quendryth on 02 6628 3753 or email quendrythyoung@bigpond.com Coffs Harbour Writers Group Meets 1st and 3rd Thursday of month, 10:30am12pm. Contact Lorraine on 02 6653 3256, email lmproject@bigpond.com or visit www.coffsharbourwriters.com Coffs Harbour Memoir Writers Group Share your memoir writing for critiquing.

Monthly meetings. Contact 0409 824 803 or email costalmermaid@gmail.com Cru3a River Poets Meets every Thursday at 10:30am, venue varies, mainly in Yamba.

Contact Pauline on 02 6645 8715 or email kitesway@westnet.com.au Dangerously Poetic writing circle Meets 2nd Wednesday of month, 2pm-4pm. At the Brunswick Valley Community Centre. Contact on Laura, 6680 1976 or visit www. dangerouslypoetic.com Dorrigo Writers Group Meet every 2nd Wednesday from 10am-2pm. Contact Iris on 6657 5274 or email an_lomall@bigpond.com or contact Nell on 6657 4089.

Dunoon Writers Group Writers on the Block. Meets 2nd Tuesday of month, 6:30pm8pm, at the Dunoon Sports Club. Contact Helga on 02 6620 2994 (W) 0401 405 178 (M) or email heg.j@telstra.com Federal Writers Group Meets 3rd Saturday of month in Federal. Contact Vicki on 02 6684 0093 or email ganden1@gmail.com FAW Port Macquarie–Hastings Regional Meets 1pm on last Saturday of month, Maritime Museum, Port Macquarie. Contact Joie on 02 6584 3520 or email Bessie on befrank@tsn.cc Gold Coast Writers Association Meets 3rd Saturday of month, 1.30pm for a 2.00pm start, at Fradgley Hall, Burleigh Heads Library, Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads, Qld. Contact 0431 443 385 or email info@goldcoast-writers.org.au Kyogle Writers Group Meets 1st Tuesday of the month 10:30am at the Kyogle Bowling Club. Contact Brian 02 6624 2636 or email briancostin129@hotmail.com Memoir Writing Group Meets every month at Sunrise Beach, Byron Bay. Contact Diana on 02 6685 5387 and 0420 282938 or email diana.burstall@gmail.com Ocean Shores Writing Group Meets fortnightly on Tuesdays, 7.00pm. Contact Louise on 0401 567 540 or email louisepm¬ccabe@gmail.com Nambucca Valley Writers Group Meets 4th Saturday of month, 1.30pm, Nambucca.

Contact 02 6568 9648, or nambuccawriters@gmail.com 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 Taree–Manning River Scribblers Meets 2nd Wednesday of month, 9.00am– 11.30am in Taree. Call first to check venue. Contact Bob Winston on 02 6553 2829 or email rrw1939@hotmail.com WordsFlow Writing Group Meets Fridays in school term, 12.30pm–3.00 pm, Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre, 12a Elizabeth St, Pottsville Beach. Contact Cheryl on 0412 455 707 visit http://words-flowwriters.blogspot.com

26 - northerly magazine | november - december 2014

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