northerly may-jun 2017

northerl y By ron Writers Festival Magazine

May-June 2017

BETWEEN THE LINES IN CHILDREN’S BOOKS · THE ART OF BIOGRAPHY · JOURNALISM & FICTION · NEWS & REVIEWS · POETRY

Support northerly in 2017 northerly is the bi-monthly magazine of the Byron Writers Festival.

Published in January, March, May, July, September and November, it is distributed to members, community organisations, libraries, universities, schools, festivals, publishers and bookshops and has a readership in excess of 3,500. Each issue features interviews, reviews, essays and national and international news.

An array of discounts and deals are available for organisations and individuals interested in advertising. To discuss your advertising needs in northerly, contact us on
02 6685 5115 or via email at northerlyeditor@gmail.com

CONTENTS

>> THIS ISSUE

MAYJUN2017 002 Director’s note 003 Double-header preview

Byron Theatre to host international authors Susan Faludi and Ivan Coyote

004 News

3

Meet the Agent details announced, Live & Local sessions and more

006 Members' Book Club

Inaugural book club a huge success as next gathering approaches

007 Poem

From John Bennett's Eos ~ Valla

008 Sugar rush

Extract from Anjali Dutton's award-winning story 'Toffee', plus author Q&A

4

010 Life story

Nola Firth on the unique challenges of turning one's hand to biography

012 Between the lines

Zanni Louise on the importance of what's left unsaid in children's fiction

014 News worthy?

How does a career in journalism help or hinder attempts to write fiction?

8

016 SCU showcase

'Evanescence' by Stevie Wappett

017 What YA Reading?

Young-adult fiction reviews with Polly Jude

018 Book review

Peter Mitchell on Road Series by Hugo Race

020 ADFAS lectures

Architectural innovation and the jewellery of Australia's goldfields

12

021 Workshops 022 Competitions 024 Writers’ groups

18

northerly | 001

>>HELLO

Director’s Note Our hearts go out to all our colleagues and friends across the Northern Rivers who were affected by the recent floods.

It’s times like these that make you realise what a special community we live in and it is comforting to see such widespread generosity.

We sought support from publishers across Australia to help flood-affected schools start to rebuild their libraries and have been immensely heartened by the response so please get in touch if your local primary school has been affected.

Just after the floods hit, I was in Sydney for the Sydney Writers’ Festival program launch – the first under the directorship of the talented Michaela Photo: Angela Kay McGuire. It’s another stellar line-up and we are delighted to be partnering with SWF on several fronts.

Firstly, as a members-only event we will be live-streaming two sessions direct from Walsh Bay on Saturday 27 May, part of SWF’s Live & Local series. We’ll be streaming Libyan writer Hisham Matar, followed by Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb, friends and commentators who will be discussing their reading year.

Then on 31 May we are thrilled to be presenting two events in one evening.

The first sees Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Faludi in conversation with Zacharey Jane. Faludi, fresh from presenting the closing address at Sydney Writers’ Festival will be discussing her astonishing memoir In The Darkroom.

Later the same evening, the exceptional Canadian storyteller Ivan Coyote will regale us. Coyote is the award-winning author of eleven books, the creator of four short films, and has released three albums that combine storytelling with music.

A natural born storyteller, Coyote is 'to Canadian literature what k.d. lang is to country music: a beautifully odd fixture’ (Ottawa Express) and often grapples with the complex and intensely personal issues of gender identity as well as family, class and queer liberation. Pocket Curries will be selling food between the two sessions. We look forward to seeing you there.

By the time you are reading this issue of northerly we will have unveiled our StoryBoard Bus at the special launch with 2017 Children’s Laureate Leigh Hobbs at Byron Bay Public School. StoryBoard is a travelling creative writing program, bringing leading authors and illustrators into Northern Rivers schools to run free workshops. We’re planning more than 100 free school visits each year for the next three years, with authors including Tristan Bancks, Samantha Turnbull, Lucas Proudfoot, Zanni Louise, Sarah Armstrong, Oliver Phommavanh, Jesse Blackadder and others still yet to be announced.

Speaking of Tristan Bancks, during the school holidays, he came into the Festival office to run a writing workshop for children. It was such a joy to see a room full of kids completely inspired by Tristan’s tips for writing. They weren’t in the office long before Tristan had them outside seeking inspiration for their stories. All left with big smiles and heads brimming with tales to write.

In closing, if your head is also bursting with untold tales, there are still a few spots left on Sarah Armstrong’s six-week course Writing a Novel: The Fundamentals. Why not book in!

Until next time,

Edwina Johnson Director, Byron Writers Festival

002 | northerly

northerly northerly is the bi-monthly magazine of Byron Writers Festival.

Byron Writers Festival is a non-profit member organisation presenting workshops and events year-round, including the annual Festival.

LOCATION/CONTACT Level 1 28 Jonson Street, Byron Bay P: 02 6685 5115 F: 02 6685 5166 E: info@byronwritersfestival.com W: www.byronwritersfestival.com POSTAL ADDRESS PO Box 1846 Byron Bay NSW 2481 EDITOR: Barnaby Smith, northerlyeditor@gmail.com CONTRIBUTORS: John Bennett, Emily Brugman, Anjali Dutton, Nola Firth, Louise Heywood, Polly Jude, Zanni Louise, Peter Mitchell, Stevie Wappett BYRON WRITERS FESTIVAL BOARD CHAIRPERSON Jennifer St George VICE CHAIRPERSON Adam van Kempen SECRETARY Russell Eldridge TREASURER Cheryl Bourne MEMBERS Jesse Blackadder, Kate Cameron, Marele Day, Lynda Dean, Lynda Hawryluk, Anneli Knight.

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 MAIL OUT DATES Magazines are sent in JANUARY, MARCH, MAY, JULY, SEPTEMBER and NOVEMBER MAGAZINE DESIGN Finola Renshaw, Kaboo Media PRINTER Quality Plus Printers Ballina 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 northerlyeditor@gmail.com DISCLAIMER The Byron Writers Festival 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.

CONNECT WITH US Visit www.byronwritersfestival.com. Sign up for a membership. Stay updated and join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. http://www.facebook.com/ byronwritersfestival https://twitter.com/bbwritersfest

Cover image: Cleverman (acrylic on canvas) by Adrian Cameron, Widjabul Bundjalung artist

Byron Writers Festival and northerly magazine acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional custodians of this land.

>> NEWS

Smashing the gender binary In a stellar double-bill of pioneering contemporary authors, Byron Writers Festival presents Susan Faludi and Ivan Coyote at Byron Theatre on 31 May. Emily Brugman previews this special event.

In what promises to be an unforgettable evening of conversation, Byron Writers Festival presents two events in one evening, with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Susan Faludi followed by acclaimed author and storyteller Ivan Coyote.

The first event of the evening will see Susan Faludi (pictured above) in conversation with Zacharey Jane about her astonishing memoir In The Darkroom, which was named New York Times Book of the Year and won the prestigious Kirkus Prize for memoir in 2016.

In the Darkroom traverses Faludi’s journey of reacquaintance with her estranged father, who, at seventysix years old, had sex-realignment surgery, notifying her in a surprise email entitled ‘Changes’. Already a wellknown feminist writer, this is Faludi’s most personal foray into the riddle of identity. In her quest to understand the enigma of her father – somebody she remembers as a macho-aggressive man, 'a simultaneously inscrutable and volatile presence, a black box and a detonator' – Faludi comes head-on with one of the biggest questions of our time: Is identity something we choose, or is it the very thing we can't escape?

The Kirkus Prize judges' statement said of Faludi's book, ‘More than memoir, or biography, it’s a detective story with two unforgettable characters at its centre: an authoritarian Hungarian refugee who escapes the Holocaust; and Faludi herself, a feminist icon grappling with an unexpected family revelation. In the Darkroom is a landmark achievement in which Faludi uses her well-honed journalistic talents to tell the most intimate story she could possibly tell, her father’s journey into womanhood.’

For the evening's second session, Ivan Coyote (pictured above) will take to the stage unaccompanied. A natural born storyteller, Ivan comfortably straddles the roles of both writer and performer, and in recent years has become a crowd favourite at events around the world.

Ivan is the award-winning author of eleven books, the creator of four short films, and has released three albums that combine storytelling with music.

A seasoned road dog, Ivan’s career took off in 1996 as cofounder of Taste This, a four-person performance troupe that combined live music, storytelling and performance poetry to create 'a text-driven genre-busting collaborative exchange,' tackling issues surrounding gender identity and sexuality. Ivan’s latest work, Tomboy Survival Guide, is a memoir/stage show made up of stories from her own youth growing up as a tomboy in small town Canada. Ivan often grapples with the complex and intensely personal issues of gender identity, as well as topics such as family, class, social justice and queer liberation.

Ivan’s work resonates with a remarkably varied audience, challenging the traditional gender constructs that many of us live within, perhaps pushing us to question the society we take for granted.

'I love the emails and notes I get from women in their seventies, eighties and even nineties,' says Ivan, 'women who also challenged the gender norms of their times, by wearing pants or having a job or being good at sports, or not getting married or wanting sex or whatever else women did that was seen as unnatural or unladylike at the time.'

Ivan's work is a pursuit for acceptance for 'all gender warriors of every stripe', and we may be surprised at the ghosts Ivan manages to shake within each of us during this unmissable event.

For ticket information go to www.byronwritersfestival.com

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>> FESTIVALNEWS

Meet the Agent opportunity announced for August

This year's Meet the Agent opportunity for members and non-members will take place on Friday 18 August between 9am and 1pm at the Byron Writers Festival office on Jonson Street, Byron Bay. Literary agent Jane Novak will be on hand for thirty-minute sessions with writers.

The closing date for applications for Meet the Agent is Thursday 6 July, with interested writers required to provide a manuscript sample, query letter and application fee ($85 for members and $95 for nonmembers). Further submission guidelines are: •

Byron and Sydney join forces for Live & Local

Byron Writers Festival in conjunction with Sydney Writers Festival will once again be streaming sessions live to regional audiences with Live & Local, which will take place on Saturday 27 May at the SAE Theatre in Byron Bay. This year's two sessions will have you wallowing and then chuckling, as Live & Local steps into two very different worlds.

Hisham Matar: The Return (3pm)

At nineteen, Hisham Matar's Libyan father was kidnapped and held in a secret prison in Libya. Matar never saw his father again. His unflinching memoir, The Return, charts a son's search for his father's fate, and was described by Peter Carey as 'a triumph of art over tyranny'. In this session, Matar talks with Fairfax literary editor Jason Steger about how his search was both an effort to come to terms with his loss, and a harrowing journey into history, politics, art and the brutal legacy of corrupted power.

Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales: Our Reading Year (4:30pm)

Acclaimed journalists by day and keen readers by night, this much-loved double act has charmed Australia with the podcast Chat 10 Looks 3 and the television show When I Get A Minute. Host of 7:30 Leigh Sales (pictured above) and political commentator Annabel Crabb share an unmistakeable chemistry characterised by entertaining quick-witted banter. In this session, the pair looks at a year in reading, sharing the books that moved or amused them, and the ones that put them to sleep.

Live & Local is free for members but RSVP is essential – for details visit www.byronwritersfestival.com/whats-on

Residential Mentorship writers announced

Byron Writers Festival would like to congratulate the four emerging writers selected to spend an intensive week under the mentorship of novelist Marele Day as part of the Residential Mentorship, one of the Festival's key programs. The judges said the field was very strong this year, and praised the finalists for the quality of their work.

The writers will spend 8-12 May at Glenwood Homestead in Yelgun fine-tuning their work. The 2017 mentees and their manuscripts are: Polly Jude – Sherwood Road Simon Webster – In The Bag Megan Wynne-Jones – The Bird A Nest Carmel Warsop – Full Term 004 | northerly

• •

The manuscript sample should be twenty pages long, typed in a 12-point font and double-spaced.

Sample should ideally be continuous and from the beginning of the manuscript Query letter, containing synopsis and bio, should be no longer than one page All manuscripts and query letters must be emailed to info@byronwritersfestival.com

Joan Novak is a literary professional with more than twenty years experience in bookselling and publishing.

She is passionate about Australia's local industry and the creation and promotion of Australian books and writers. She now runs the Jane Novak Literary Agency.

Registration for the Meet the Agent opportunity can be found at www.byronwritersfestival.com

StoryBoard Bus to bring creativity to schools

Late April saw the launch of Byron Writers Festival's StoryBoard Bus at Byron Bay Public School. The bus is a mobile artwork that will bring authors and illustrators to schools in the Northern Rivers to teach creative writing.

The StoryBoard Bus, which was unveiled by special guest, Australian Children's Laureate Leigh Hobbs, has been under wraps during its three-month internal and external makeover. The artwork, which covers the entire bus, is the work of Victorian artist and animator Justine Wallace.

'Three years ago Byron Writers Festival set out on a journey to inspire, nourish and excite our region’s youth – the readers and writers of the future – by developing a free mobile creative writing program bringing leading authors, illustrators and storytellers plus volunteer tutors and helpers direct to schools,' said Byron Writers Festival director Edwina Johnson.

'The launch of the bus means we can expand our reach further out into the Northern Rivers, with tours planned for later in 2017 to visit schools in Yamba, Maclean, Grafton, Kempsey, Port Macquarie, Casino, Tabulum, Bonalbo and Urbenville.'

The StoryBoard program will run more than a hundred free school visits and masterclasses each year for the next three years, with authors including Tristan Bancks, Samantha Turnbull, Lucas Proudfoot, Zanni Louise, Sarah Armstrong, Oliver Phommavanh and Jesse Blackadder. For more information visit www. byronwritersfestival.com/services/storyboard/

Byron Writers Festival 2017 volunteer call-out Applications are now open for anyone interested in volunteering at this year's Byron Writers Festival, 4-6 August. For details and to apply visit www. byronwritersfestival.com/get-involved/volunteer

>> NEWS

Poetry prize details announced

Dangerously Poetic Press and Byron Writers Festival are co-sponsoring a national poetry prize to be awarded at the 2017 Byron Writers Festival on Saturday 5 August at the off-site venue of the Lone Goat Gallery, Byron Bay. Poets are invited to submit poems of up to forty lines on the theme 'Truth and lies'. First prize is $500, a threeday pass to the Festival, publication in northerly and in Dangerously Poetic's forthcoming anthology.

This year's judge is Heather Taylor Johnson, the deadline is May 10, while submission forms can be downloaded from www.dangerouslypoetic.com

Flood fundraising

Among the many initiatives designed to raise funds for the local communities devastated by the recent flooding is the Northern Rivers Arts Flood Fund, set up to help the region's creative industries and practitioners. At time of going to print the crowdfunding drive was slightly short of its goal of $10,000, which will go directly to Arts Northern Rivers. To help them over the line visit www.gofundme. com/vvrcgk-northern-rivers-artists-flood-fund

New writers group launches

A new writers group has been established based at Meerschaum Vale Hall, meeting on the third Wednesday of each month from 10am to 12pm. Dubbed the Meerschaum Vale Community Writers Group, the band of scribes began meeting in August 2016. Current members write novels, short stories and opinion pieces, with all writers welcome to join. For further information contact Danica Birdsall at lynwood.ML33@gmail.com

Crime (and Punishment) pays for lucky book-buyer

A British woman who chanced upon a rare first English edition of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment has found herself £13,500 ($22,300) richer after the book sold at auction.

The Lancashire woman, who chose to remain anonymous, purchased a box of assorted secondhand books for £14 ($23.10), only to be struck by the appearance of the Dostoyevsky novel, leading to her contacting auctioneers for an estimation of its worth.

'I didn’t really take much notice of this box, I didn’t have much time – it was just a box of general books, I didn’t think there was anything particularly exciting,' said the woman. 'I didn’t even spot this book, and even if I had I probably wouldn’t have taken much notice – editions of classic novels turn up all the time, and are generally only worth giving to Oxfam.'

The auction saw the book sell for substantially more than the £10,000 ($16,500) she was hoping for, with Dominic Winter Auctioneers, who oversaw the book's auction, saying that a Russian first edition of Crime and Punishment would most likely sell for £20,000 ($33,000) today.

So with this lucky find in mind…

Mammoth Byron book sale for June

Friends of the Libraries Byron Shire will host its huge annual second-hand book fair on the weekend of 1011 June at Byron Surf Club. All funds raised go to local libraries, with approximately 10,000 books for sale, and prices starting at 50 cents.

IPEd conference for September

The Institute for Professional Editors (IPEd) has announced the first of its speakers for its biennial conference, which will be held in Brisbane on 13-15 September.

The keynote speakers are professor of applied language studies and IPEd patron Roly Sussex, writer and editor Sophie Cunningham and cartoonist Susan Leahy. The conference will also feature a presentation from QUT publishing studies lecturer Sandra Philips on the subject of editing literature with Indigenous cultural content.

The eighth edition of the conference has the theme 'Advancing Our Profession', with early bird registrations ending on 13 July. For more information visit www.ipedconf2017.org.au

QUOTAT ION CORNER

'In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week.'

— Douglas Coupland, Hey Nostradamus! (2003) northerly | 005

>> BOOK CLUB

Members' Book Club gets off to flying start Byron Writers Festival's new initiative, the Members' Book Club, held its inaugural event on 16 March when Marele Day's Lambs of God was the subject of discussion. Attendee Louise Heywood reports on a lively evening of literary conversation.

With places limited to the first ten to sign up, the inaugural Byron Writers Festival Members' Book Club was enjoyed by all who were fortunate enough to secure a place. Not only was there the opportunity to discuss a book with other readers in a traditional book club setting, there was the added bonus of the author being in attendance.

This was such a treat – and the group was expertly facilitated by Festival board member Anneli Knight.

One of the advantages of any book club is the opportunity to get out of one’s reading comfort zone. The book Lambs of God (1997) by Marele Day was not one I had heard of, and like many others, I tend to be drawn to the latest bestseller, when in fact there are so many hidden gems out there that we may have missed. Lambs of God was certainly a bestseller in its day – it was also translated into multiple languages. The novel presents an intriguing story about an enclosed order of nuns living on a remote island. In our initial discussions, the group agreed that the story is beautifully written, with the author’s poetic skill weaving in descriptive images of a small group of nuns living very frugally amongst their flock of sheep, happily self-sufficient and following their strict prayers and rituals. The location is never revealed, enabling us all to conjure up our own images of where it might be – Italy, France or Ireland, perhaps. Even Marele didn’t have a particular place in mind.

Marele Day was lively and engaging, and we were all hungry for more information about how she had developed her story, what had made her deviate from her very successful career as a crime writer and why she had chosen to apparently write about a number of things of which she had no firsthand experience – Catholicism, knitting and shepherding.

The opportunity to ask questions about the book and to gain an understanding of the painstaking research, 006 | northerly

various drafts she undertook and how she developed the plot, proved very enlightening.

Rather like the book, the book club was dominated by women with a single man in attendance, who I am sure was very grateful not to receive the same treatment as the sole man in Lambs of God. In fact, we were able to share what we liked and disliked about the novel and hear from several of the group who had had varying experiences with Catholicism and were impressed at how accurate Marele had depicted it all. Whilst we had a diverse mix of thoughts about the book and, in particular, how she chose to end the story, I think we were all in agreement that we could have listened to Marele for hours. We were extremely grateful for her generosity in coming along to create such an enriching experience. Thank you Marele and Byron Writers Festival.

Members' Book Club welcomes Russell Eldridge The next edition of the Members' Book Club will discuss Russell Eldridge's 2015 novel Harry Mac on Thursday 11 May at the Byron Writers Festival office on Jonson Street, Byron Bay. This members-only free event is a book club with a difference, in that the author joins the forum for the second half of the evening. Discussion of Eldridge's novel will be facilitated by Marele Day. Tickets are free but bookings are essential due to limited space – the book club runs from 6pm to 7:15pm. For further information visit www.byronwritersfestival. com/whats-on/bookclub/

>>POEM

from Eos ~ Valla John Bennett 5.40am, April 4 Chased by tireless onshore winds, grains of rock build dunes as progeny. Sea breath sweeping off the waves, grabs the sand and flings it into air-streams flowing the contours of a beach.

Gravity yanks them back to earth, and as the grains hit the surface, the impact knocks others into the airflow driving the sand further downwind. This ongoing process of ‘saltation’ (from the Latin ‘to dance’) sculpts the dunes.

Leaf and root trap windblown sand and grip until the next storm surge, but it’s early, forget silicon’s rapid revolution, ignore your screen, even imminent sunrise and the coming day breathe the briny air and listen as Earth swings round her star.

John left Sydney seven years ago for the Mid North Coast, though would like a worthier name for this amazing region, Gumbaynggirr Country for example (without reverting to fifties marketing of ‘the Pacific Beautizone’). Until recently he was artistic director of Bellingen Readers and Writers festival. John has been published widely and won the Mattara (now Newcastle) Prize and the David Tribe Prize. His PhD defends a discursive ecopoetry and an Earshot documentary on his work, Poetry at first light, was broadcast on ABC Radio National in February 2016. See photovoltaicpoetry.com.au He now works with video and photography as well, and an exhibition fusing his poetry and images is showing at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery from 9 July and through August.

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>>READ

Extract: 'Toffee'

by Anjali Dutton

Thirteen-year-old Anjali Dutton from Bangalow won the 2014 NSW Pilot Pen short story competition judged by author Andy Griffiths with her story 'Toffee'. This led to local children's author and friend of Byron Writers Festival Tristan Bancks reading the story and becoming so taken with it that he included it in his new collection of stories, My Life and Other Weaponised Muffins. This excerpt is taken from the opening of Dutton's acclaimed story.

I used to believe, until yesterday, that toffee was yummy, fun and delicious – an absolute dee-light to the senses.

Now, I’m not so sure.

Look, I hadn’t eaten a lot of toffee before. My family are clean-living, sugar-avoiding vegetarians. Our idea of a treat is a green smoothie and a tofu-and-goji-berry cookie.

Yummmmmmy!

So, yesterday . . .

It all started innocently enough. There I was at the year five get-together after school. Our teacher, Miss Green, who is perfectly nice and yet the most dreadfully nervous and uptight woman you’ll ever meet, thinks we should ‘get together’ weekly because (as she recites A LOT), ‘Class harmony is assisted by extra-curricular student–parent social interaction.’

Really? Isn’t six hours all day, every day, enough?

Normally our get-togethers are at the park, but it was raining so we were stuck on the classroom veranda. It was noisy – really, really, REALLLLLLY NOISYYYYYYYY! My classmates were generally misbehaving like mad, manic monkeys and sounding like badly tuned violins mixed with squeaky, un-oiled trumpets. Meanwhile, the parents were forced to chat loudly above the noise of this crazy kid orchestra about the behavioural issues of other people’s children and the nutritional quality of other children’s ‘snacks to share’.

Our class has a healthy eating policy but, there, among the fruit kebabs, the dips and crackers, the vegetable crudités and the sugar/dairy/wheat-free kale muffins, was the most yummy and enticing thing ever. It was honey-golden and wildly sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, and glinted temptingly into my eyes, making my mouth water.

The parents were absolutely horrified, wondering who had dared to bring this toffee. One father quivered with rage: ‘Why did I send my child to this school if you feed them such rubbish?’ He flopped onto the wet, bindicovered ground, splattering his organic bamboo yoga clothes with mud. He pounded his hands on the ground, sobbing, ‘This is poison! I made my specialty – a triplesoaked activated almond, brussels sprout, turnip and asparagus cheesecake. I did it all myself. Who made this

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sugary toffee MUCK?’ Tears rolling in torrents down his cheeks, he went to swipe the toffees clean off the table – but he was too late.

I yelled ‘TOFFEE!’ and there was a mad rush. Kids pounced from all sides. I grabbed a piece and ran towards the far corner of the playground. As I scurried across the grass I could hear adults yelling and kids being forced to give back their toffees. NO WAY that was going to happen to me. I tucked in behind a fig tree over near the creek. I slid down and sat, looking at my precious golden treasure glistening in the late afternoon light.

Then . . . I licked it. Yum! I took a tiny bite – a little sticky but still delicious. I loved it so much that I forced the whole piece into my mouth and bit down hard, expecting the toffee to shatter and dissolve on my tongue.

But the toffee did not smash into smithereens; no, my teeth barely made a dent. I tried to open my mouth to chew but I couldn’t. My jaw was jammed. The toffee had turned on me. My teeth were stuck like cement!

I stood and walked quickly back across the playground, feeling embarrassed and finding it slightly difficult to breathe. I climbed onto the veranda and tapped my dad on the shoulder. He was agreeing with Miss Green about the dangers of television on young minds, saying, ‘We threw ours out years ago.’ (Which is totally not true. We watch Family Feud every night, without fail.)

‘Just a moment please, Anjali,’ he continued. ‘I agree entirely. Parents who let their children watch television should be jailed.’

I tapped his shoulder again.

‘Just a moment please, Anjali.’ He was annoyed now.

I jabbed his shoulder harder and he spun around.

‘WHAT is so important that you must interrupt our very important discussion?’

‘Ggggmm! Mgggmam! Lummmmgggg!’ I said, which is toffee-speak for, ‘My mouth is stuck!’

Read the rest of 'Toffee' by Anjali Dutton along with all the other stories in My Life and Other Weaponised Muffins by Tristan Bancks (Penguin, $15.99)

>> READ >>READ

Q&A with Anjali Dutton Where did the ideas come from for your story, 'Toffee'?

Basically, I was in year five when the idea struck. We had a social class gathering at school and my friend’s mum brought in this big plate brimming with shiny, exciting, forbidden toffees. I say ‘forbidden’ because I go to a Steiner school, where many people are sugarfree, gluten-free, vegan, raw, organic-only, fruitarians (well maybe not fruitarians, but you know!).

Toffee is rare for we Steiner kids. I hadn’t seen it or eaten it before, so it was just soooo tempting. All the kids there feasted upon the toffee and went hypercrazy, eating exorbitant amounts of sugar. And the teacher noticed, oh, yes. The next day an email was sent around to the class parents saying that children should not bring sugar in their lunches and nor should parents brings sugar to class socials! So, it was the perfect basis for a short story.

How long have you been writing for and what are your favourite things to write about?

I have been writing for as long as I have been able to, and before that, I told stories for as long I have been able to speak. My parents didn’t allow me to watch television when I was young so I would collect random objects and position them to tell myself a story. It was kind of calming for me – like a meditation. So stories come very naturally to me, I guess.

I love to write about anything that leaves an imprint on my mind. It might be a funny short story like 'Toffee', or maybe a free verse poem about women’s rights. Anything really. When it comes to funny stories, I like to write things that make me laugh out loud.

Or when I read them back some time later, bring a smile to my face or a tear to my eye or a memory to my heart. Otherwise, I love to write about subjects I am passionate about – feminism, animal rights (I am vegan), racism and marriage equality. To be honest, anything that sets my creative brain ticking. I just know it’s going to be a good piece of writing when I get this feeling of fullness. It is very hard to describe, but it’s a feeling of enjoyment and excitement and is so satisfying – it's the reason I love writing.

What key things have you learnt from Tristan Bancks (pictured here with Anjali) about the art of writing?

I have learnt so much from Tristan. I have learnt to have confidence in my writing and just embrace my ideas, to keep pushing myself further and further and just keep making that story the best it can be. He taught me to take the story and the characters to the limit, and then over the top!

What other authors do you particularly admire?

When I was younger, I really enjoyed R.A Spratt’s Nanny Piggins series (still do, to be honest!). I read and reread the series over and over. These days, I enjoy the Brontë sisters, Tolstoy (Anna Karenina) and on a different note, Mary Norris’ Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen.

What ambitions do you hold for your writing in the next few years, and beyond?

At the moment, I am writing a collection of short, funny stories for girls based on my life. I found that when I was aged ten to twelve, there were really not many books to read which was very sad. There was either Saddle Club or dark teen dystopian books. I wasn't into either genre so I took to reading classics.

That was fine for me – however, I believe there should be another option for girls who maybe want to read

funny stories that are girl-centred and girl-written.

So, this book will include my crazy, weird family; hilarious friends; experiences with boys; periods and puberty. There are a lot of changes at this age and they are normal, but yet they are shunned and hushed as an embarrassing topic. I’m not embarrassed! I want girls to be confident about normal changes that occur for them. I want girls to celebrate themselves. We are funny, we are smart, we are strong, and we are equal.

Long term, I would really like to combine social activism with writing fiction in a creative way. I’m not sure how yet, but I’ll figure it out as I go. I want to make a positive change by my writing. northerly | 009

>> FEATURE

Writing a life: The challenges of biography

Setting out to write a biography, particularly if you are a newcomer to the genre, can be a daunting task that can leave a writer wondering where to begin. Nola Firth, author of a new biography of the Anglican priest Barry Marshall, shares her experience of piecing together another person's life, including the acute attention to detail that is required, along with her changing attitudes to Marshall himself.

Perhaps some part of me knew I was going to write a biography. The year before I began I read an excellent book by Nigel Hamilton entitled How to Do Biography: A Primer. But I did not expect to devote the next four years of my life to an all-encompassing an activity.

One day I wrote a poem about a remarkable man, Barry Marshall, who I had met when I was a university student in the late 1960s. In the brief time I knew him, Barry Marshall seemed to be someone who had experience of spiritual depths the like of which I had never previously encountered. At that time I did not know he was also a church-rattler who demanded serious reform, and that he prophetically predicted that if reform did not occur the Christian Church would be irrelevant in a generation.

My poetry group, always honest, told me that the poem I had written was not a poem, it was a minibiography. Okay, I thought, maybe a biographical essay. In the 1960s Barry had been the Anglican chaplain at Trinity College at the University of Melbourne so I dropped by one day to enquire if there was any information about him, maybe a letter or two. I was introduced to the archivist who showed me thirteen archival boxes of material labelled 'Marshall'.

I knew Barry had died tragically in an accident in Oxford in 1970 and that an annual memorial lecture continues to be held in his honour, but I did not know that there had been plans for a memorial book.

These boxes held that material and it even contained memories from those who knew him, including during his youth in the 1920s and 1930s. I realised then that I had found a biographer’s goldmine. I also knew enough about Barry to believe his was an important Australian story that needed to be told – and not just to Christians. As Hugh McKay points out in his recent book, Beyond Belief, many people nowadays are very interested in the spiritual even if they have left organised religion. I also knew that Barry’s life and personality were intrinsically interesting.

Barry Marshall was probably the most well known Anglican priest in Australia at the time of his tragic 010 | northerly Photo: Candid Lane

death in 1970. His total dedication to priestly life, his work as a Bush Brother in outback Australia, and his mixture of erudition, playfulness and lampooning of those who didn’t share his views were legendary.

Australian newspapers and the then-new television frequently featured his perceptive and witty comments.

Responsible for introducing Vatican II-inspired reforms into the Anglican Church in Australia, to the consternation of his bishops, Barry also campaigned against infant baptism. He maintained it was a socially accepted practice rather than a serious commitment to Christianity and as such was a harbinger of the demise of the church. Just weeks before his investiture as the first Australian Principal of Pusey House (an influential Anglican centre in Oxford) he died from a fall while changing a light globe. He was only fortyseven years old. Described by some as a saint, his church-rattling alienated others.

Although I have published in the fields of poetry and academia, I knew that if I was to go ahead with working on this biography it would involve learning a very new writing craft. Another challenge was to find a way to finance the research and publication.

To try to deal with this latter problem I applied for a research grant from the Australian Theological Research Foundation and at the same time asked Trinity College to support the application and the project. I was fortunate that, without desiring any editorial control, the College agreed and happily I also received the grant. Would I have continued without that? Possibly not. Knowing the work would be published kept me going through those difficult days when I was overwhelmed with this new writing craft’s huge demands.

Over the next few years I spent countless hours searching various archives in Melbourne, Bathurst, Dubbo and Oxford. The challenge here was to find the relevant information within the time I had available. I took hundreds of photos on my iPad of documents for later study and realised how much harder it must have been before such aids were available. After some weeks

>> FEATURE

I learned the absolute importance of keeping detailed records of exactly where in the archives I had been working. Sometimes I didn’t realise I had treasure until I accessed another piece of information, and it took hours to re-find the initial discovery, or else I had to go back because I had inadvertently left out a small detail that I needed for accurate referencing. There was also the terror of setting up a reference, of which I had hundreds, and mistakenly using the wrong one or making a computer error that resulted in all the references moving one or more places so that all of them were wrong!

Despite these anxieties I relished the research process, this immersion in a previous time. It was very moving to read letters written long ago that included details of day-to-day life. I realised anew that life for people then was just as real, complicated and beautiful as my own experiences were when I closed the glass door of that room and walked out onto the lawn among the present day students at Trinity College. I had to accept more deeply too that my own experiences will one day also become past history.

Travelling to interview those who had known Barry Marshall was fascinating. In outback Bourke, for example, people still remembered him vividly.

After completing his Oxford doctorate Barry passed up high-status job offers to serve as a Bush Brother priest in the 1950s in the outback town. One person remembered that Barry sent out invitations to Midnight Mass to the Greek cafe owners in Bourke.

To their astonishment, the invitation was written in Greek and contained the assurance there would be an icon in the church so they could conduct their customary devotions. I remember too that while I was there I sometimes had trouble sleeping because the sky I could see from my tent bed at night was so unbelievably clear and star-filled! In Oxford I visited Pusey House archives and saw for myself the stone steps where Barry fell while changing a light globe just weeks before being invested as Principal and where, had he lived, his influence would have been extensive.

Nigel Hamilton, in writing about biography, had warned me that as a biographer you get to know your subject very well and there is no room for idealisation. He mentioned that some people come to dislike their subject or find them boring. I did learn Barry’s complexity and faults and also understood more of what he was doing behind the scenes, most of which I had taken for granted as a young person. I was sometimes disappointed as I found I had indeed idealised him, but I was far from bored and eventually realised his complexity made him the more interesting.

After I had finished the juicy task of collecting this information, the next and equally engaging process began. First I had to find a way to keep track of the huge array of material I had collected and to synthesise it. My job then was to search therein for the essence of Barry Marshall and his life, and choose from the many examples, quotes from those who knew him, and excerpts from his own writings. To ensure the story remained accessible to all and to keep the language alive and flowing, many wonderful but esoteric or repetitive details and incidents had to be left out.

Sometimes there were over twenty drafts of a chapter, each one shorter than the last.

Now, at last it is done. I am satisfied. I can again find time to go for walks and spend time with friends ‌ until the next writing project creeps up and engulfs me.

The Armour of Light: The Life of Reverend Barry Marshall will be launched by Rev. Dr. John Tynam at the Regent Cinema, Murwillumbah on 7 June, for RSVP information visit www. firtharmouroflight.com.au. Launches will also take place at Trinity College, University of Melbourne and Dubbo.

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>> FEATURE

Leaving room: Why children’s books don’t need to spell it out Ahead of the publication of her new picture book Archie and the Bear, local children's author Zanni Louise looks at how the best children's books allow room for interpretation, ensuring that young readers become engaged, absorbed and imaginative as they follow a multi-layered story.

Just because a book is for children doesn’t mean it needs to be childish. Some are, definitely. And I can’t deny my preschooler doesn’t love a romp about the Easter Bunny lost in outer space.

The beauty, in fact, of a picture book is that it is often deeply layered. Parents reading aloud to their child interpret the metaphors offered up. We know that Max from Where The Wild Things Are is on a psychological journey as much as he is on an imagined one. Alison Lester’s The Magic Beach provokes nostalgia, and draws us into a fantasy of a perfect beach holiday and a time of innocence. Even The Very Hungry Caterpillar, in all its simplicity, represents metamorphosis and change, as well as the quest to satisfy desire at all costs.

Picture books often reach classic status because they touch on a human and universal truth. A child’s truth. An adult’s truth.

While most children’s books centre on themes related to human nature and relationships, very rarely is the message spelt out. And if it is, the message most likely undermines the story. Ultimately, the story is king.

As children’s author Edwina Wyatt writes, 'The best stories are those that pose questions but do not answer them. Of little interest are stories that tackle "issues" or include strategic tokenism for the sake of it.'

A picture book, like any story suitable for human consumption, needs to rely then on its characters, and 012 | northerly

their pursuit of something. And quite often, like in stories for adults, this character is flawed. They face obstacles. They require challenges. In fact, if they don’t, they fall flat on the page, and the reader fails to care about their journey.

A character in a picture book should be multidimensional, and unique. Max, from Where The Wild Things Are, needs to assert his wild side, within the safe parameters of home. The Very Hungry Caterpillar doesn’t restrain himself when faced with ample sweet delights. No. He plunges in headfirst, and does what any of us would do in our perfect fantasy when faced with temptation. Consequences aren’t on his mind.

The more unique and complex the character, the more iconic they become.

The picture book text is quite often pared back, ideally less than five hundred words. My own books are much shorter. My most recent contract with Scholastic is for a fifty-word picture book, and much of that is repetition.

The advantage of using a picture book to tell a story is that it has pictures. The illustrator becomes an important collaborator in story creation. When working on a new manuscript, I have to work through every line and ask myself, ‘Can this be told through the pictures?’ And if it can, the line is cut completely.

Words aren’t excessive in a picture book, and nor do they need to be literal. A child, like any human story-

>> FEATURE

lover, is generally capable of reading between the lines.

Humorous books like Mo Willems' Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus treat the child as a co-conspirator, rather than simply a reader. The child is implicit in the story’s action. The bus driver asks the child not to let the pigeon drive the bus. The cheeky and persistent pigeon tries different ways to trick the child into letting him drive the bus. Willems, of course, knows children won’t be outsmarted. Every line the pigeon tries gets him no closer to his goal.

Jon Klassen’s hat trilogy uses a similar pared back humour. In I Want My Hat Back, a bear is looking for his hat. When the bear interviews a rabbit, the rabbit claims not to have seen the hat. Yet it is wearing the hat on his head. Taking the rabbit on his word, the bear ambles on.

Only later, does he make the connection, and realises the rabbit wasn’t telling the truth. He rushes back, eats the rabbit, then proceeds to deny the fact, just as the rabbit had done. Nowhere in the illustrations or the words does Klassen refer to the bear eating the rabbit. The meaning is cleverly implied. And my four-year-old got it immediately.

In my most recent book, Archie and the Bear, I tell the reader than Archie is a bear. The reader can see, quite plainly, that Archie is not a bear. He is a boy, wearing a bear suit. I am not intending to trick the child. I know the child knows Archie is not a bear, only identifies as one.

And I know kids will come on the ride with me.

Both Archie and the Bear’s situation are simultaneously real and not real. But the same is true for children, when they play make-believe. They are playing Harry Potter, and they are Harry Potter, but at the same time, they know they are not Harry Potter.

Humour and irony quite often work in children’s books. Perhaps because humour is an important aspect of cognitive development. Much neuro-activity in babies is devoted to smiling and laughter. A one-year-old will laugh hysterically at a game of peek-a-boo. At this stage of development, the child understands that the person hasn’t disappeared permanently. The anticipation of the surprise reappearance adds to the fun.

Typically, children start developing theory of mind at around eighteen months. Theory of mind is the understanding that your state of mind is distinct from others. It is important to social cognition, and your ability

to get along with other people. A toddler will start to understand that external behaviour is driven by goals and intention. For example, an eighteen-month-old will typically distinguish whether a person intentionally or accidentally manipulates an object.

Theory of mind develops more fully around three and four years of age. Theory of mind develops more fully around four years of age. Research shows that a four-yearold is more likely to expect others to have a different point of view to themselves, than a three-year-old would.

By four, children often test out lies. They will tell you they have washed their hands, even though they have not, because they know you potentially have differing beliefs to them. Preschool lies are rarely malicious. Rather, a lying preschooler is indicative of neuro-typical theory of mind development.

Irony and humour in picture books largely rely on theory of mind. The author assumes the child has the capacity to understand that what is being said is not necessarily concrete.

Humour and irony in picture books allow the child room to assimilate information, and reach their own conclusions. They are activating neural pathways every time they do this, which increases their capacity to engage social cognition. Pared back, metaphorical language in picture books can do the same. You don’t need to spell out a case for the child to understand it.

Writing picture books leaves you room to tell the story through the illustrations. Picture books should also leave room for the reader. Both the child reader and the adult reader will bring their own experience, fantasy, interpretation and imaginings into the story. And the more room there is for this, the more actively the reader engages with the story and the more impact the story will have.

Zanni Louise is a children’s author, based in northern NSW. Her first picture book, Too Busy Sleeping, is a CBCA Notable Book. Her second picture book, Archie and The Bear, is released this May. It is illustrated by the inimitable David Mackintosh, and published by Little Hare. Zanni has been contracted for five other books for children, which will be available in 2018. Visit www.zannilouise.com

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>> FEATURE

Breaking the newsroom shackles: Journalism as a foundation for fiction How does a career in journalism affect a writer when they come to create fiction? Journalist-come-novelist Russell Eldridge offers his take on the question to northerly editor Barnaby Smith.

George Orwell, PG Wodehouse, Graham Greene, Martin Amis, Will Self, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Eliot, Samuel Johnson and of course Ernest Hemingway – here is a tiny fraction of the authors who had a background in journalism before turning their hand to fiction.

The conventional wisdom is that learning the ropes of journalism offers an excellent foundation from which to attempt fiction – even if that fiction is a stylistic or linguistic experiment, and is deliberately a subversion of journalism's tenets of storytelling. Sometimes the rules that are broken are a tribute to those rules.

Journalistic writing can of course teach succinctness and economy, structure, the art of realistic dialogue and indeed the intricacies of grammar and diction. But is journalistic writing – particularly news writing with its strict, compact parameters – always helpful for a fiction writer? I know that on the occasions I have held roles that demand extensive and repetitive news writing that follows the 'who-wherewhen-how-why' model (the 'inverted pyramid' technique), it has been extremely difficult to completely free the mind of this formula for straightforward reportage when attempting writing that requires imagination and a broader stylistic scope. It was as if adherence to those journalistic habits could have a dulling effect on one's, to use a word I loathe, 'creative' faculties.

But surely a balance between the discipline of reportage and a more expansive literary sensibility can be achieved when it comes to journalists attempting fiction. Local novelist and Byron Writers Festival board member Russell Eldridge is expertly placed to comment on this highly subjective question. Eldridge's acclaimed debut novel, Harry Mac, was published in 2015 and was described in a northerly review as 'mixing a great story with timely observations on the human condition'. Eldridge is the former editor of the Northern Star and over the course of a long and illustrious career in journalism has worked on both metropolitan and regional newspapers in Australia and South Africa.

As you were writing Harry Mac, and any other fiction, to what degree did you notice your style taking on certain features of journalistic or news writing?

In my early years of fiction writing, the tendency was to get all the facts in – exposition. Journalism teaches you to tell, not show. As I read and wrote more, I learnt how to develop character journeys, narrative arcs and the art of the slow reveal. By the time I started Harry Mac I'd already written two full-length manuscripts (one remains in draft stages, and one was submitted and rejected). I'd pretty much got journalism out of my writing system, but still dropped in slabs of exposition, which a canny editor jumped on and I cut and rewove the information to much better effect.

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Conversely, is your style in any way a reaction against your journalistic writing?

Not at all. Journalism has always incorporated a variety of forms – courts, crime, social, politics, features, columns.

Each of these places different demands on a journalist's skills, flexibility and creativity. I found my writing voice in journalism. And journalism changes all the time. Writing styles of as recently as twenty or thirty years ago were different to now. Vocabularies of writers and readers are shrinking, and the technical rules we lived and died by now seem quaint.

What, in your opinion, are the positive ways that a background in 'traditional' journalism – particularly news writing where objectivity is prioritised – can influence a fiction author's writing style?

Journalism can be a kind of apprenticeship, learning a variety of research skills, the basics of clear, accurate writing and ethical considerations. The tyranny of deadlines is a wonderful lesson for writers. Along with that, discipline, as in 'Just do it, for God's sake'.

Journalism teaches you not to be precious about your writing. Your work is hacked by the subs every day, it is critiqued by everyone from the cleaner to your peers, bosses and the reading public, and your faults are paraded in the letters columns.

Finding the nub, or truth, of a story. Observation: You learn to note the telling details which inform and enrich a story. Specificity: Write something definite, don't generalise. Tight writing: When it's said, it's said.

Journalism is all about telling a story, no matter how briefly. And people are at the core of every story.

And how might it hinder them?

The daily grind and deadline pressures can make your work formulaic. You don't always get to develop a story as much as you'd like. A sensitivity to authority and the law. Concern about harming people by your stories.

Reacting against journalism and overdoing 'style' and becoming writerly.

Are many journalists just frustrated novelists?

Not really. They're different mindsets. I've known brilliant journalists who had no interest outside their craft. The majority of journalists are hardheaded workaday people.

The worst are newsroom labourers, loading up their barrow with clichés and pouring them into a computer.

Journalists are often approached to be ghostwriters because of their craft, research skills, work ethic and discipline. Some go on to write non-fiction because it's an extension of what they do – biographies, memoir, true crime, politics.

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Vocabularies of writers and readers are shrinking, and the technical rules we lived and died by now seem quaint.

One of the most interesting journalists-come-novelists was Theodore Dreiser, who disliked working as a reporter both because of its reductive, sensationalist nature and because, for him, the rules of 'objectivity' were designed to perpetuate the ruling system and the interests of commercialism and capitalism that, to quote one critic, provides only 'supposedly realistic accounts that deny the individual either autonomy or alternatives' With this in mind, in your experience, does the flexibility of 'literary' style allow you to confront the complexity of certain issues and themes that journalism does not allow?

Absolutely. But remember that newspapers were started by businessmen to make money, not serve some altruistic purpose. There has always been a tension between the 'rough draft of history' and the commercial imperative.

And it's stating the bleeding obvious to say that journalism perpetuates the ruling system – if it didn't, there would be no advertising and no money to pay journalists. A standard-bearer for fearless journalism, the Guardian, lost $112 million last year and is slowly going out of business. And many writers have used newspapers or journalism to launch or support themselves such as Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.

Ernest Hemingway once said that working on a newspaper could be good for a budding novelist 'if they get out of it in time' and that after a point journalism becomes 'a daily self-destruction for a serious writer'.

Can you relate to this at all and did you ever find yourself frustrated by the limitations of journalistic style whilst working on a paper?

Hemingway's self-destruction had more to do with ego than journalism. He used journalism (and his wives' money) to set himself up as a writer. I suspect 'budding novelists' working in journalism are there for the pay packet. The artistic limitations of journalism are largely self-imposed. If you're an interesting enough and skilled enough writer there are plenty of newsroom opportunities to explore your writing – features, columns, and even a well-crafted news story. My earliest influence was the Daily Mail sportswriter Ian Wooldridge back in the 1970s. His humour, observation, irony and human understanding were as acute as any novelist.

Were you writing fiction alongside your career in journalism? If so, how easy was it to switch from to the other?

In the 1990s I started the writing degree at Southern Cross University and was fortunate enough to have Jean Bedford (Sister Kate, Country Girl Again) as tutor and mentor. I wrote an entire first draft of a novel manuscript while holding down one of the toughest jobs in journalism – chief of staff. I had no problem switching between worlds, in fact it was a wonderful outlet. When

I was promoted to editor it all became too much and the manuscript went into the bottom drawer, where it remains. I waited years to start a new manuscript.

Patrick White said he wanted to prove that Australian fiction 'is not necessarily the dreary, dun-coloured offspring of journalistic realism'. To what degree has journalistic style infiltrated the writing of Australian novelists in recent years?

There's an implied put-down of journalism in White's statement. That aside, I don't feel qualified to comment on the specifics of the question. But what I do observe is how all forms of writing – journalism, fiction and so on are influenced by the social and economic times.

Journalism is becoming shrill and sensational in a desperate attempt to win market share as its commercial model is swept away by the tide of social media and other online clickbait. Likewise, book publishing is increasingly market-driven, so your manuscript is assessed for what segment it slots into and how well. And everyone's looking for the next Harry Potter or Fifty Shades of Grey to pay for publishing the other books. Markets are also sensitive to the new conservatism and pressure of identity politics. Writers like Charles Bukowski would be shunned by publishers. The Merchant of Venice would be rejected.

There's a social media army out there quivering with anticipated outrage at the next transgression.

In your reading, are you one for experimentation and idiosyncrasy with style or do you prefer prose that strives for realism, perhaps influenced by journalism?

I read almost anything. Doesn't matter what route the writing takes to move us or reveal truths. I've loved William S. Burroughs' weirdness, Kurt Vonnegut's playfulness, Terry Southern's absurdity, Virginia Woolf 's daring.

Flann O'Brien stills cracks me up. I baulk at overworked imagery: I love Annie Proulx, but occasionally gag on too rich a diet of herringbone sunsets. When I'm writing, I rat through my bookshelves and re-read successful books to see what makes them work, or not. I recently picked up Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms after an absence of forty-odd years. I enjoyed the clean writing, the relentless bluntness of his sentences, the writer's fearlessness in finding and sticking with his voice. But the repetition and an emotional pragmatism repelled me too.

What advice would you give to a young person embarking on a career in journalism today, who sees journalism as possible step on a path to writing fiction one day?

Learn the journalistic basics – they're building blocks for any form of writing. Take a moment every fortnight to genuflect before your paycheque. And do what any aspiring writer should do – read read read and write write write. northerly | 015

>> SCU

A showcase of SCU student work, compiled by Dr. Lynda Hawryluk Evanescence Stevie Wappett

I slump down into the metal framed chair, trying to keep my head from lolling too close to the table – it seemed to gain an extra 10 kilos while I was asleep in the hostel. Events from the night before splatter across the back of my eyelids. Did I really eat a triple cheeseburger? The stain on my jeans says yes as a yellow M burns brightly in my third eye. I open one unwillingly, the other scrunches.

My tongue scrapes the innards of my cheeks that have been castrated by absinthe, which Katie and I have learnt is a delicacy of the Czech Republic. I definitely feel delicate.

The sun breaks through the gilded clouds and prods me straight in the eyeball. Prague is crowded, the narrow cobbled lanes and gothic architecture that was so beautiful yesterday is now nauseating.

Katie goes up to fetch us some frosty beers to prolong the inevitable while I protect our newly proclaimed territory. Katie’s one night stand we named Johnny Depp didn’t look so much like Johnny in the daylight – let’s just say Katie’s drunk goggles were firmly in place last night. He has been loitering around all morning, voluntarily sticking himself to us, like a long piece of sticky tape that folds in on itself just before you are able to stick it to the wrapping paper. I am presented with my golden elixir and take two heady gulps that send liquid fangs down my cheeks. I brashly wipe them away as I lapse for the alcohol to reach my nervous system.

Ah, tranquillity.

All I need now is some nicotine. I shoot my hand into my bag, my cheek pressed to the cool metal, marking diamonds into my skin as I scrape inside for a cigarette. I corner a loose one and pull it through the debris of bus tickets, drink receipts and broken papers.

‘Gotta light?’ I quiz Johnny, the cigarette hanging onto my bottom lip.

‘Yeah, I have some weed too.’ It is one of those moments where you get the top part of the muffin, with all the icing and coconut, and you don’t want to question the other person’s decision just in case they take it back. As an avid weed smoker recently relocated to the other side of the world, I was finding it hard to score. Maybe Johnny wasn’t so useless after all.

‘May I?’ I incline.

My fingers dance through a thoroughly practiced routine, my tongue protrudes, parting my lips, the forgotten cig falls to the ground. I light up. I hear the crunching burn as I inhale, close my eyes and float back to Australia.

I’m in his room. The smell of musk drifts from the bed sheets I’m twisted in. Brad’s back muscles shift as he reaches back for me, yet he doesn’t turn his head.

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My hand fossicks for his fingers, wanting to touch them softly, to trace his veins. Katie catches my hand instead.

The blurs of granite stone and looming towers swamp my vision once again. Johnny’s staring at the joint that slowly burns away, tucked tightly between my fingers. I take a long drag and stare him in the eyes, daring him to say something. I pass the joint back, or what’s left of it. Even the look of contempt on Johnny’s face cannot eradicate the nostalgia ever present in my psyche. I smash the rest of the beer in hopes that it will shade me from the memory of my secret lover, who remains twisted in the sheets.

‘Want another beer, sweets?’ Katie squeezes my hand.

Her lagoon blue eyes search for mine. My eyes skim the bridge of her slight nose flecked with faded freckles on porcelain skin until they find hers. I blush. I pass Johnny the joint, my eyes averting his. ‘Hold the fort, John’ I say.

Katie snatches up her bag and I follow her to the bar.

‘Stevie. We have to shake this guy off ’. I’m snapped out of my trance by the concern scratched into her face.

I’ve been so caught between dreams and reality I haven’t noticed Katie’s gradual distaste for the current situation.

‘You’d think he’d get the hint when we started calling him John’ I said ‘Do you remember his name?’

‘No fucking clue’.

‘Alright’. I waited for a moment. ‘Two jaeger bombs please’.

As the barman with a thick moustache and suede vest concocts our request, Katie flicks her embellished red hair that shines brighter when cast in the light, and studies Johnny over her shoulder.

‘Oh my god, he’s checking his reflection in his phone.’

Katie says. I peer over my shoulder and see his silver aviators dip down his hooked nose as he stares into his phone propped up against the sugar jar, trying to shift the oil from his roots to the frizzy tips of his tar coloured hair. ‘I say we leg it down the back alleyway’. We both have our bags, and I agree. There is a side door suited for a slippery exit just to the right.

‘That will be 80 koruna ladies’. The barman says in a thickly coated Czech accent. I hand the man some scrunched up money, pick up our drinks and thrust one at Katie.

‘To us!’ I exclaim. In perfect synchronicity, we slam the wooden bench with our empty glasses, our faces contorted as the mixture burns our throats and starts to make pathways throughout our bodies. We catch each others glistening eyes and start to laugh. Katie flings her arm over my shoulder and we walk out the exit, not even trying to be inconspicuous. As we head down the ally in search for our next adventure, I think of him.

My memories are slowly receding, like the tide slowly inching backwards from the shore as a crescent moon dangles on the horizon. For now, I let it recede and take my friends hand in mine.

>> BOOK REVIEW

What YA Reading?

Reviews by Polly Jude

THE BOOK OF WHISPERS

BY KIMBERLEY STARR

BEFORE YOU FORGET

The year is 1096. Young knight and heir of the de Falconi empire, Luca, sees demons and dreams that tell of a dangerous future. His father gives him the enchanted Book of Whispers before we follow Luca on an epic journey from Tuscany to Jerusalem where the pilgrims hope to free the Holy Land. The demons have other ideas.

Far away in Cappadocia, Suzan also has dreams.

She sees the young knight with blue eyes coming for her. Raised in a convent, Suzan knows the secret language that will help Luca translate the Book of Whispers and defeat the demons.

Together, Luca and Suzan must overcome the evil priest Ramberti and his plans to become the rich and powerful King of Jerusalem.

Kimberley Starr has captured the brutality of the Middle Ages and combined it with fantasy and romance to create a captivating story. She writes in a way that will make history come alive for YA readers.

The delicate mix of fantasy and history offered here is intense and will appeal to young readers.

Winner of the 2015 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing, The Book of Whispers is about love, loss, demons and adventure.

BY JULIA LAWRINSON Before You Forget is a heart-wrenching story about Year 12 student, Amelia. She should be focussing all her attention on preparing for her final exams and pulling her art portfolio together. Instead, everything is falling apart.

Her life spirals out of control as her dad’s behaviour becomes uncharacteristically abusive and volatile.

When he is finally diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, everything suddenly makes sense but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Now Amelia must say goodbye to the father she loves. She grieves for the dad she’s lost and comes to terms with the man he has become. It’s a devastating journey that brings her closer to her mum and sees her find her own place in the world.

But her dad’s deterioration isn’t the only drama going on in Amelia’s life. Her best friend, Gemma, is losing her battle with anorexia. She’s pushing Amelia away.

Before You Forget is a sentimental look at fathers and the important role they play. This will appeal to mums as much as it will to young adults – maybe even more.

Text / 386pp / RRP $19.99

Penguin Random House / 235pp / RRP $19.99

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>> BOOK REVIEW

Travelling songs ROAD SERIES

BY HUGO RACE Review by Peter Mitchell

With a discography of more than forty albums, dating from 1982 to 2015 (and probably counting), Hugo Race establishes his art as music. Through the prism of Delta blues, Johnny Cash, punk, psychedelic and electronic rock, among other genres, he explores his obsession in Road Series.

Comprising fourteen chapters, ranging from the early 1980s through to 2012, his narrative travels across Europe (Italy, Germany, Czech Republic), Africa (Mali), South America (Brazil) and Australia.

A handsomely produced book, this memoir is unlike many other self-absorbed autobiographies by musicians where the 'I' of the narrative is numero uno. Written in bristling prose as taut as a tightened spring, Race writes of music as a spiritual home. It is this aura of music – 'I love the music,' he writes.

'It's the only thing keeping me together' – that gives him emotional sustenance and subjective wellbeing.

Indeed, he doesn't know how to stop making music: 'After a long while it's second nature, it becomes life, the illusion of life.'

The 'road' of the title invokes a tradition, the road trip genre – fiction and non-fiction describing journeys of exploration, of redemption, of birth and rebirth, a kind of bildungsroman incorporating the education, development and maturing of the protagonist. With Race, it is the tenacity of his touring – playing with a variety of bands in spaces of infinite variety across landscapes of cities, towns and countries – that threads the stories into a coherent whole. Yet, Race writes, 'Life on the road tends to be a cycle of crises separated by long periods of boredom and frequent frustration, slaving to a schedule that demands more than you can handle'.

'The road' is a paradoxical condition, one that is 'addictive', one that brings existential clouds over a musician's life: 'Loved ones tire of your absence and yet you're still drawn to the risk and the fascination of the unknown.'

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The touring begins in the first chapter, 'The Crystal Blitz: Melbourne, 1981'. The second paragraph portents the extensive contours of this non-fictional landscape. It is worth quoting in full: The music inside my skull – I can feel it in the background of everything I do, a galaxy of frequencies shaping my thoughts and electrifying my flesh and blood. The music drills into my nervous system, its bitter dissonance chemical sour in the back of my throat while the world shrieks with mystery.

Here in the red-light district by the bay, the safety catch is off. We are reinventing ourselves in a new image, something we've never seen before reflected in each other's eyes – but the light, the light is very deceptive.

In this evocation of punk and post-punk-era Melbourne, 'Music is … delivered at a volume high enough to drown out the background noise of everyday life.' With striking imagery and metaphorson-steroids, Race writes, 'They laugh like strobe lights, speaking sweet nothings in shrill voices.' He carries the reader into his world of shared houses, consumption of mind-benders, sleepless nights, music in all its nuances and second-hand clothes as fashion statement, where 'an emerging scene is pulsing with transgression and revolt, new bands appearing from nowhere at light speed with names like Whirlywirld, Dresden War Crimes [and] …

Primitive Calculators.' These cultural formations drive his fever on and his embrace of music is given full rein, as references to music and musicians saturate this chapter, as well as the rest of the book.

Chapter four is titled 'Breaking the Ice: Berlin, 1989', in which Race writes, 'The grey Old World museum that is Europe show signs of splitting at the seams.' The Cold War is ending, the Berlin Wall

>> BOOK REVIEW

falling and much of Eastern Europe is in political turmoil. In an article published in Kill Your Darlings in March 2016, 'Music as the Illusion of Life: An Interview with Hugo Race', interviewer Gerard Elson puts to Race 'the amount of socio-political observation [that] you bring to bear on the life of a touring musician.' Race replies that up until the fall of the Wall, his political awareness was negligible, yet with these social changes occurring around him, he acknowledged that 'it was precisely at that moment ‌ that I suddenly became aware of just how important these events are.' Indeed, politics backgrounds his touring schedule for the entirety of the book, and it is this feature that separates Road Series from other rock memoirs.

Race was one of the first musicians to venture into Eastern Europe at this time. His wife, Mary, and two daughters were with him. He performs in dives, clubs and festivals in West Berlin, Prague, Vienna and East Berlin. Life is a perpetual grind and scratch, existential angst replete, nihilism rampant.

Hugo and Mary separate, his family returning to Australia, another casualty of the mania of touring.

Personal relationships are a minor presence in the book; by contrast, a major feature is the plenitude of characters, a revolving door of musician friends and acquaintances. The consequence of relationship break-ups is personal freedom, Race later in his travels observing that 'for the first time in my life, I feel totally and utterly free. I'm cashed up and nothing and nobody is tracking my movements, I have no phone, no way of being contacted.'

In the final chapter, 'The Storm Breaking: Mali, 2012', the narrative moves closer to the present day. Flying into the landlocked nation of Mali, Race, his producer Chris Eckman and videographer John Bosch are recording an album with Malian musicians. In Mali at that time, a jihadi incursion had taken over the northern Tuareg areas of the

country; the nation was in turmoil; religious and tribal tensions were rife. As the album is recorded, there is a communal swell from people on the ground, advocating the communication and resolution of these conflicts through music.

Race quotes Samba Toure, formerly guitarist with Ali Farka Toure, as saying, 'The music ‌ is very, very important. Right now it's all we have.'

These sentiments were highlighted as I listened to bands at Bluesfest 2017 on the Friday night – Oka (Australian), Patti Smith (American) among them.

Race's book and the festival advocate similar values: 'Peace through music' (Road Series) and 'Love through music' (Bluesfest).

This closing chapter's title, 'The Storm Breaking', is deliberately enigmatic, its power lying in what it doesn't say, this incompletion powering the silence, the white spaces. The 'storm' refers to the inevitable showdown between competing political tendencies in Mali as well as the world's contemporary condition, Race writing that 'The storm is breaking in Mali, but the rolling thunder can be heard in the distance, no matter where you are.'

Road Series is a page-turner, the speed-infused language accelerating the narrative forward, the words pedaling as poetry in motion, evoking seared dramatic scenes from the lives of touring bands.

The memoir also hints at an unspoken ethics-ofhis-world and exhibits Race's ability to negotiate a spectrum of cultures and languages through music. Whether innate or developed through lived experience, values of respect, acceptance, openness and empathy are essential for such an inferno of a life journey. Will we see music replace Esperanto as the international way to communicate?

Transit Lounge / 367pp / $29.95

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>> ADFAS Frank Lloyd Wright in 1954.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Architectural Franks and golden years Frankly Speaking: The works of Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry An illustrated lecture by Sandra Mowry, Monday 15 May The two Franks changed the history of architecture by pushing conventional limits and extending the boundaries of architecture with their bold, innovative designs. Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator who developed an organic and distinctly American style. Frank Gehry was a Canadian-born American architect who forged his own distinctive style with complex shapes and non-traditional materials that left a notable impact.

This lecture presented by Sandra Mowry will contrast the very different ways the pair challenged academic standards and will include personal profiles and biographical information with a focus on the influences and inspirations that spawned their creativity and personal styles. Methods, concepts, creative processes and elements of style, form and function will be illustrated with examples from their bodies of works.

Sandra Mowry is an author, historian, traveller and lecturer with an extensive education in world culture.

As a volunteer for the Philadelphia Art Museum she has presented programs on ancient civilisations, artifacts and architecture.

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Dirt, Dust and Discovery: Australian Goldfield Jewellery An illustrated lecture by Charlotte Nattey, Monday 19 June After a shaky start in the new penal colony, the discovery of gold in Australia in the nineteenth century led to great prosperity, wealth and population growth. The distinct and often unique jewels that were created are a fascinating part of our history, and are now highly sought after.

This lecture presented by Charlotte Nattey will look at some of these lovely jewels and talk about the stories that have become part of our Goldfields lore, including Eureka, the Chinese influence and famous nuggets. Were the streets of Kalgoorlie really paved in gold?

Charlotte Nattey was educated in the UK and studied art and music in Florence. She is a graduate of St. Martins School of Art, London in design, majoring in fashion and dress. She has been a designer for London couture fashion houses as well as for major fashion houses in Sydney.

Charlotte has developed and maintains her own business, importing antique jewellery and antique sterling silver between UK and Australia and her interests encompass the fields of decorative and fine arts, antiques, gardens, music and fashion.

Both ADFAS lectures will take place at The A&I Hall, Bangalow.

Members and guests are invited to drinks at 6pm prior to the lecture at 6:30pm, followed by a light supper afterwards. Guests are welcome at $25 per person. For general enquiries contact Anni Abbink on 02 6684 3249 or anne.abbink@yahoo.com.au, or Denise Willis on 02 6687 1724 or denisewillis50@gmail.com

>> WORKSHOPS

Writing a novel: The fundamentals with Sarah Armstrong Each week of this six-week course will focus on a different aspect of writing a novel, whether it be plot, developing character, setting, point of view or rewriting. Sarah will explain how important the difference is between first draft and rewriting, and will have you writing each week.

She’ll offer practical tools, encouragement and insight into the writing process. This course would suit those who have a work in progress or an idea for a novel (or narrative non-fiction such as a memoir).

Sarah Armstrong has written three novels, including the Miles Franklinshortlisted Salt Rain. She was a journalist at the ABC for many years where she won a Walkley Award. She has taught writing for more than ten years and lives in Mullumbimby where she is writing her fourth novel.

When: Saturdays May 6, 13, 20, 27 and June 3, 17, 10am – 12pm Where: Byron Writers Festival Office, Level 1, 28 Jonson St, Byron Bay (office is accessible by stairs only) Tickets: $210 Members or students or $230 non-members To book tickets please go to www.byronwritersfestival.com or call 02 6685 5115

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Competitions

HENRY SAVERY NATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD

The 2017 Henry Savery National Short Story Award is open to writers residing in Australia. With an open theme, stories should be no longer than 2,500 words. There is an entry fee of $5 per story, with a deadline of 30 June. First prize will receive $400, with second prize taking $100. For further entry information log on to fawtas.org.au/competitions

BOREE LOG AWARD FOR BUSH VERSE

The Boree Log Award invites entries of bush verse that are in perfect rhyme and metre, at a maximum of eighty lines and have an Australian bush theme. Entry is $5 per poem (maximum of four per person), with first prize receiving $100 plus a trophy and certificate. Closing date is 31May. For full details go to hillsfaw.files.wordpress. com/2017/02/boree-log-2017.pdf

SHOALHAVEN LITERARY AWARD

This year, the Shoalhaven Literary Award is seeking entries of short stories of up to 3,000 words on an open theme. First prize for the Shoalhaven Literary Award is $1,500 along with a two-week artist residency at Arthur Boyd’s Bundanon on the Shoalhaven River.

There is $250 for second, $150 for third, and $200 for the winning entry from a Shoalhaven resident.

Deadline for submissions is 27 May and there is an entry fee of $12 per story. The judge this year is Laurie Steed. More details at www.fawnswshoalhaven.org.au/ competitions

POETRY D'AMOUR 2017

Submissions of original and unpublished love poems are invited for this competition organised by WA Poets Inc. Poems should not exceed forty lines. Each entry is subject fees, starting at $10 for one 022 | northerly

entry. First prize wins $500, with second prize taking $200. Deadline for entries is 26 May, for full details visit wapoets.wordpress.com

FUTURE LEADERS WRITING PRIZE

The Future Leaders Writing Prize is designed to recognise and reward talented young writers and aims to encourage expressive and creative writing. Year 11 and 12 students in Australian secondary schools are invited to submit a piece of writing of between 800 and 1,000 words. The writing can be fiction or non-fiction and on any topic. The award winner will receive $1,000. Where there is more than one winner the prize money will be shared. The winners of the Future Leaders Writing Prize will also have their work published.

Entry is free, the deadline for entries is 31 May and more information can be found at www.futureleaders.com. au/awards/index.php

UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA VICECHANCELLOR'S INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE This prestigious international poetry competition offers a first prize of $15,000, with the runner up receiving $5,000. Poems must have a maximum of fifty lines, while there is an entry fee of $20 per poem. Head judge for 2017 is Billy Collins. For more information and to enter visit www.canberra. edu.au/about-uc/competitions-andawards/vcpoetryprize. Closing date is 30 June.

BEST OF TIMES SHORT STORY COMPETITION

For this competition, humorous short stories on any subject are invited of up to 2,500 words. Entry fee is $10 with unlimited entries allowed.

First prize will range between $300 and $500 depending on number of entries, with second prize receiving $100. The deadline is 31 May, with more information available at wildthoughts.com.au/comp23.html

PORT WRITERS OPEN LITERARY COMPETITION 2017

The Port Macquarie-based Port Writers Open Literary Competition contains three categories, all of which have an open theme. Short fiction submissions with a word limit of 2,500 are invited, as are non-fiction pieces of the same length. Poems of up to thirty lines are also welcomed. Prize money of $50 applies to each category, with the entry fee $5 per entry, or $12 for three entries. Deadline for entries is 27 May, for further details visit www. portwriters.com.au/?page_id=180

2017 POETICA CHRISTI PRESS ANNUAL POETRY COMPETITION

This year’s Poetica Christi Press competition has the theme 'Wonderment'. As well as a first prize of $300 and a second prize of $100, twenty-five poems will be included in an anthology to be published by Poetica Christi Press. The competition’s theme is designed to lend itself to poems about awe, admiration, amazement, astonishment, surprise, wonder, reverence, veneration, curiosity, interest, fascination, enlightenment, enthrallment, excitement, praise, adoration, mystery, mystique.

Poems should not exceed fifty lines.

There is a $6 reading fee for each poem entered, a deadline of 31 May, and you can find out more at poeticachristi.org.au

THE PETER BLAZEY FELLOWSHIP

The Fellowship is awarded annually to writers in the non-fiction fields of biography, autobiography and life writing and is intended to further a work in progress. Applications will be judged on literary merit, and the winner will be supported in his or her work by a prize of approximately $15,000, and a one-month writer-inresidency at The Australia Centre.

The deadline for applications is 12 June, with more information about submission requirements available

at arts.unimelb.edu.au/scholarships/ prizes-and-scholarships/peterblazey-fellowship

SOCIETY OF WOMEN WRITERS NSW Inc. 2017 WRITING COMPETITIONS

Awards close for submissions on 31 May. For entry details visit www. qldliteraryawards.org.au

The Stuart Hadow Prize is an annual short story competition run by the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA in honour of WA writers Lyndall Hadow and Donald Stuart. On offer is a first prize of $1,000 and a week's residency at Mattie Furphy house in Swanbourne. The competition has an open theme, with a maximum of 3,000 words per story. Entry fees start at $20 for one story, while the deadline is 16 June. For more information go to www.fawwa.org/news

The Society of Women Writers NSW will be running three writing competitions in 2017, open to both members and non-members.

The competitions are: National Poetry (deadline 12 June), National Short Story (10 July) and National Non-Fiction (7 August). There is an open theme, with winners announced on 8 November. There is an entry fee of $25 for members and $35 for non-members, and prize money of $500 on offer for first prize. For full details go to www. womenwritersnsw.org/competitions

ELYNE MITCHELL WRITING AWARDS

SCRIBES WRITERS POETIC LICENCE COMPETITION 2017

THE POST OFFICE HOTEL BRONZE SPUR AWARD 2017

NEWCASTLE POETRY PRIZE

STUART HADOW PRIZE

With two categories – traditional verse and free verse – this competition has an open theme for poems of no more than sixty lines.

First prize takes $200, second prize $100, while there is an entry fee of $7 per poem. Competition closes on 30 June, with further information available at www.scribeswriters.com/ poetry.html

RICHELL PRIZE FOR EMERGING WRITERS

This prize, to be awarded annually, is in memory of Hachette Australia’s former CEO, Matt Richell, who died suddenly in 2014. The prize is open to unpublished writers of adult fiction and adult narrative non-fiction. The winner will receive $10,000 in prize money and one year of mentoring with Hachette Australia. Full details of the new award and submission requirements can be found at www.emergingwritersfestival. org.au/richell-prize-emergingwriters-2017. The deadline for this year’s submissions is 3 July and entry is free.

This competition invites original bush verse of up to 100 lines, on the theme of rural Australia: its people, way of life, animals and values. All poems must be written in traditional bush verse 'in the tradition of the old masters'. Entry fee is $5, with a further $5 payable for a poem critique. First prize wins $300 and a handcrafted bronze spur. Deadline for entries is 12 July, for further information visit www. abpa.org.au/Files/event_2017_ BronzeSpurEntryForm.pdf

DAVID UNAIPON AWARD FOR UNPUBLISHED INDIGENOUS WRITERS

The David Unaipon Award for Unpublished Indigenous Writers is open to all unpublished Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers anywhere in Australia. Manuscripts can be in any literary category including novels, collections of short stories and/or poems, works for children, biographies and memoirs, other non-fiction works, plays and scripts. The winner of the David Unaipon Award receives $10,000 and a publishing contract with University of Queensland Press. The 2017

The theme of this competition is ‘Local stories, people, places and events' and is open to writers of both fiction and non-fiction.

Entries should not be more than 2,500 words in length, while there is an entry fee of $15. First prize takes $1,000, while there is a special $500 prize for entrants local to Towang, Tumbarumba and Indigo Shires in Victoria. Closing date is 24 August. www.elynemitchell.com. au/2017-competition

With a prize pool of more than $22,000, the Newcastle Poetry Prize, one of Australia's foremost poetry competitions, invites entries of up to $200 lines, each of which charges a fee of $34. First prize wins $15,000, while there are prizes for poets local to the Hunter region and poets aged under thirty-five.

Deadline for entries is 30 June, for full entry conditions go to www. hunterwriterscentre.org/newcastlepoetry-prize.html

IPSWICH POETRY FEAST COMPETITION

A key component of the annual Ipswich Poetry Feast, now in its fifteenth year, will be its international poetry competition, which invites poets of all ages to compete for over $7,500 in prize money. A host of categories are available, from ages five up, as well as categories for bush poetry and local poets. Some, though not all, categories have entry fees. Closing date for all entries is 28 July, for complete details of this extensive competition go to www.ipswichpoetryfeast.com.au/ categories.htm

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>> WRITERS’ GROUPS

>> Alstonville Plateau Writers Group

>> FAW Port Macquarie-Hastings Regional

>> Ballina/Byron U3A Creative Writing

>> Gold Coast Writers Association

Meets second Friday of each month, 10am - 12pm. All genres welcome, contact Kerry on 66285662 or email alstonvilleplateauwriters@outlook.com Meets every second Wednesday at 12pm, Fripp Oval, Ballina. Contact Ann Neal on 02 6681 6612.

>> Bangalow Writers Group

Meets Thursdays at 9:15am at Bangalow Scout Hall.

Contact Simone on 0407749288

>> Bellingen Writers Group

Meets at Bellingen Golf Club on the fourth Monday of the month at 2pm. All welcome, contact Joanne on 6655 9246 or email jothirsk@restnet.com.au

Meets 1pm on last Saturday of each month, Maritime Museum, Port Macquarie. Contact Joie on 65843520 or email Bessie on befrank@tsn.cc Meets third Saturday of each month, 1:30pm for 2pm start, at Fradgley Hall, Burleigh Heads Library, Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads. Contact 0431443385 or email info@goldcoast-writers.org.au

>> Kyogle Writers

Meets first Tuesday of each month, 10:30am at Kyogle Bowling Club. Contact Brian on 66242636 or email briancostin129@hotmail.com

>> Lismore Writers Group

Meets monthly at Sunrise Beach, Byron Bay. Contact Diana on 0420 282 938 or diana.burstall@gmail.com

Meets second Tuesday of the month from 7:30pm to 9:30pm at Communities Hub Art Space on Keen Street.

Cost is $5 for Hub members, $7.50 for non-members.

For more details phone 0410832362.

>> Casino Writers Group

>> Meerschaum Vale Community Writers Group

>> Byron Bay Memoir and Fiction Writing Group

Meets every third Thursday of the month at 4pm at Casino Library. Contact Brian on 0266282636 or email briancostin129@hotmail.com

>> Cloudcatchers

For Haiku enthusiasts. A ginko (haiku walk) is undertaken according to group agreement. Contact Quendryth on 66533256 or email quendrythyoung@ bigpond.com

>> Coffs Harbour Writers Group

Meets 1st Wednesday of the month 10.30am to 12.30pm. Contact Lorraine Penn on 66533256 or 0404163136, email: lmproject@bigpond.com. www. coffsharbourwriters.com

>> Coffs Harbour Memoir Writers Group

Share your memoir writing for critique. Monthly meetings, contact 0409824803 or email costalmermaid@ gmail.com

Meets third Wednesday of each month, 10am-12pm at Meerschaum Vale Hall. Contact Danica Birdsall at lynwood.ML33@gmail.com

>> Middle Grade/Young Adult Fiction Writers’ Group

Meets monthly at 2pm on Sundays in Bangalow. Contact Carolyn Bishop at carolyncbishop@gmail.com or 0431161104

>> Nambucca Valley Writers Group

Meets fourth Saturday of each month, 1:30pm, Nambucca. Contact 65689648 or nambuccawriters@ gmail.com

>> Taree-Manning River Scribblers

Meets second Wednesday of the month, 9am-11:30am, Taree. Call first to check venue. Contact Bob Winston on 65532829 or email rrw1939@hotmail.com

>> Tweed Poets and Writers

>> Cru3a River Poets

Meets every Thursday at 10:30am, venue varies, mainly in Yamba. Contact Pauline on 66458715 or email kitesway@westnet.com.au

Meets weekly at the Coolangatta Senior Citizens Centre on Tuesdays from 1:30 to 3:30pm, NSW time.

Poets, novelists, playwrights, short story writers are all welcome. Phone Lorraine 0755248035 or Pauline 0755245062.

>> Dangerously Poetic Writing Circle

>> WordsFlow Writing

Meets second Wednesday of each month, 2pm-4pm at Brunswick Valley Community Centre. Contact Laura on 66801976 or visit www.dangerouslypoetic.com

>> Dorrigo Writers Group

Meets every second Wednesday from 10am-2pm.

Contact Iris on 66575274 or email an_lomall@bigpond. com or contact Nell on 66574089

>> Dunoon Writers Group

Writers on the Block. Meets second Tuesday of each month, 6:30pm – 8:30pm at Dunoon Sports Club.

Contact Helga on 66202994 (W), 0401405178 (M) or email heg.j@telstra.com 024 | northerly

Group meets Fridays during school term, 12:30pm-3pm, Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre, 12a Elizabeth St, Pottsville Beach. Contact Cheryl on 0412455707 or visit www.wordsflowwriters.blogspot.com

Next issue of northerly lands July 2017

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Byron Writers Festival presents

31 MAY DOUBLE BILL Join us for an unforgettable evening of conversation, insight and emotion.

Two events in one evening with bestselling author Susan Faludi followed by acclaimed author and storyteller Ivan Coyote

Susan Faludi (6.00 – 7.15PM) Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Susan Faludi whose astonishing memoir In The Darkroom was named 2016 New York Times Book of The Year. It also won the prestigious Kirkus Prize for memoir in late 2016.

Starting as an investigation into the life of her estranged father, ‘the grievance of a daughter whose parent had absconded from her life’, the feminist writer discovered that her 76-year-old father had undergone sex reassignment surgery

Ivan Coyote (7.45 – 9.00PM) Ivan Coyote is the award-winning author of eleven books, the creator of four short films, and has released three albums that combine storytelling with music. A natural born storyteller, ‘Coyote is to Canadian literature what kd lang is to country music: a beautifully odd fixture’ (Ottawa Express) and often grapples with the complex and intensely personal issues of gender identity as well as family, class and queer liberation.

EVENT DETAILS Wednesday 31 May, 6:00 - 9:00pm Byron Theatre $45 General / $40 Members byronwritersfestival.com