northerly nov-dec 2017

northerly By ron Writers Festival Magazine

November-December 2017

JOHN ASHBERY · KAYLA RAE WHITAKER · EKA KURNIAWAN STEVE MASCORD · POETRY · NEWS & REVIEWS · COMPETITIONS

www.tamarasmith.org.au

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TAMARA SMITH MP YOUR LOCAL MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT Office 1, 7 Moon Street, Ballina NSW 2478 T: (02) 6686 7522 E: ballina@parliament.nsw.gov.au Authorised by Tamara Smith, MP using Parliamentary entitlements.

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CONTENTS

>> THIS ISSUE

NOVDEC2017 002 Director's Note 003 Stories in schools

An update on one of Byron Writers Festival's key initiatives, StoryBoard

004 News

003

New additions to Festival team, storytelling with Jenni Cargill-Strong and more

006 Susie Warrick Young Writers Award

Read the runner-up story, 'How the Moon Met the Stars'

by Izzy Demkin

007 Notes from the Festival

Kayla Rae Whitaker interviewed by Katinka Smit

008 Footy and family

Rugby league journalist Steve Mascord on consuming passions, identity and his new book Touchstones: Rugby League, Rock 'n' Roll, the Road and Me

007

010 Poem

'One Hundred Eyes' by Jacqueline Trott

011 Notes from the Festival

Eka Kuriawan interviewed by Katinka Smit

012 Vale John Ashbery

The late poet interviewed by John Tranter in 1988

008

014 The year that was

Polly Jude selects her YA highlights for 2017

016 SCU showcase Short fiction from Linda Brooks

017 Book review

Chris Black on Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh

018 Learning Curve

Author Natasha Lester on the art of writing a convincing sex scene

011

020 Book review

Colleen O'Brien reviews And Fire Came Down

by Emma Viskic

021 Workshops 022 Competitions 024 Writers’ groups

012

northerly | 001

>>HELLO

Director's Note Spring always brings a sense of renewal. It tends to start slightly early – in the weeks after the Festival as the Byron Writers Festival team takes deep breaths and short breaks.

Then we regroup, spring clean the office, stack piles of books we want to read and prime ourselves to create another inspiring festival in 2018. It will be the twenty-second Byron Writers Festival and already the program is germinating.

Sarah Ma and I attended Brisbane Writers Festival in September and felt so invigorated and privileged to hear so many talented authors weave wonderful impressions. It was quite something to see the cultural precinct of Brisbane transformed by storytelling or ‘the big stories Photo: Angela Kay and little ones in between’ as was director Zoe Pollock’s tagline. Among the standouts was Gordon Hookey’s breathtaking creation of 'Angel’s Palace' to commemorate ten years since the publication of Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria.

Before the year comes to a close the Northern Rivers will host Artstate, a new four-year project from Regional Arts NSW to shine a light on excellence in regional arts practice and to explore the exciting possibilities for arts and cultural development across the state. The project kicks off in Lismore presented in partnership with Arts Northern Rivers with an exciting two-day program exploring the themes of creative practice and creative partnerships, which will include the perspective and experience of Byron Writers Festival. I look forward to sharing the insights and achievements of our vital partner programs.

On 14 November we will be co-presenting a free event at Byron Theatre with long-time Festival Partners Southern Cross University. Their 2017 Greta Bird Lecture will be presented by American Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin on women’s reproductive rights. She will then be in conversation with much-loved ABC Radio National Big Ideas host Paul Barclay. The event is free but bookings are essential via our website.

Teacher, writer and editor Siboney Duff will be running a full-day workshop for Extension 2 English students on 22 November. She’ll discuss literary form and narrative structure, provide students with a four-term ‘plan of action’ for their Major Work, and share tips and hints for how to make the most of their ideas and unique literary skills and talents.

All of us in the Festival office are looking forward to Mullum Music Festival, celebrating their tenth Festival in November this year. Check out their excellent line-up if you haven’t already, with more than ninety acts including Jon Cleary & The Monster Gentlemen, Marlon Williams & The Yarra Benders, All Our Exes Live in Texas and Frazey Ford.

As this is the last issue before the summer break, I would like to wish you and your family and friends a shady spot to kick back and relish books by your latest favourite authors.

Happy holiday reading!

Edwina Johnson Director, Byron Writers Festival

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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: Steve Axford, Mark Bennington, Chris Black, Linda Brooks, Izzy Demkin, Polly Jude, Angela Kay, Gabby le Brun, Natasha Lester, Colleen O'Brien, Katinka Smit, Jacqueline Trott INTERN: Katinka Smit 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 at 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. www.facebook.com/byronwritersfestival www.twitter.com/bbwritersfest

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

Stacks of stories

>> NEWS

StoryBoard, one of Byron Writers Festival's key recent initiatives, has enjoyed a hugely successful year even in the wake of hard times in the region, with children and adults alike enchanted by the magic of storytelling and imagination. StoryBoard Project Manager Gabby le Brun reflects on the achievements of 2017.

'Every one of the young writers had something to say about their experiences – real or fictional. Fear, guilt, inspiration, awe – we went through the gamut of raw emotions,' says Jesse Blackadder, fourth from right.

She woke me up at 6am with the declaration, 'Today's the day!' My seven-year-old daughter was up, dressed and impatient. It was the day that StoryBoard and Zanni Louise were visiting grade one at St Finbarr's in Byron Bay to facilitate creative writing workshops, and she had been looking forward to it for weeks. My family and work collided in one big happy explosion of words and imagination.

For her to be excited about reading and writing is hereditary. I wrote my first book in grade four as part of a story-writing project. The books were bound and included in the real life library collection. Two people actually borrowed it – and one of them wasn’t me!

And now, to be part of StoryBoard and to be able to help create the opportunity for children and young people to spark their creativity and to write stories alongside leading authors and illustrators is a privilege and a joy. I took over the reins in August from the inimitable Coralie Tapper who was instrumental in establishing StoryBoard.

StoryBoard: What is it?

StoryBoard is a free travelling creative writing program aimed at getting children and young people excited about literature, literacy and creativity.

By the end of 2017, StoryBoard will have visited well over 100 schools and libraries across the Northern Rivers, running workshops with authors Zanni Louise, Tristan Bancks, Lucas Proudfoot, Sarah Armstrong, Samantha Turnbull, Alan Close, professional storyteller Jenni Cargill-Strong, and broadcaster Mick O’Regan.

Further afield

The StoryBoard and Byron Writers Festival Road Trip in July took authors Jennifer Down, Sophie Green, Zachary Jane and spoken word artist Miles Merrill west to Casino, Glen Innes and Tenterfield.

StoryBoard’s southern tour heads out to schools and libraries in Grafton, Kempsey and Bellingen in November with authors Oliver Phommavanh and Belinda Murrell.

Volunteer tutors

StoryBoard is supported by a team of very dedicated volunteer tutors who attend the workshops and offer their personal attention to participants, listening to their stories and paying attention to their writing.

Masterclasses

Monthly creative writing masterclasses for young people take place at Lismore Library (on Thursdays from 5pm to 6.30pm) with Jesse Blackadder, and at Ballina Library with various authors (5pm to 6.30pm). While there are a core group of regulars, drop-ins are welcome. We are also about to embark on a collaboration with Future Dreamers in Byron Bay with the launch of Wild Voices, a four-week creative writing project with Carly Lorente.

We are looking to collaborate with more community partners to create further opportunities for children and young people in the Northern Rivers.

Flood stories

StoryBoard came to my attention in April during the aftermath of the Lismore floods while I was both volunteering with Helping Hands Flood Relief and engaged as volunteer co-ordinator for Byron Writers Festival.

Jesse Blackadder, a household name at our place as my ten-year-old daughter loves her books, was starting a young writers group at Lismore Library. Despite the damage and devastation in the town and in the library itself, the masterclass went ahead with fifteen enthusiastic young people.

The participants have now produced a mid-year anthology, Flood of Stories, inspired by their experiences.

To learn more about StoryBoard go to www.byronwritersfestival.com/ services/storyboard

northerly | 003

>> NEWS

New additions to Festival team

Festive fun

Byron Writers Festival's annual Christmas Party will this year take place on Thursday, 14 December at the Festival office at Level 1, 28 Jonson Street, Byron Bay. All members welcome. Festivities kick off at 5:30pm.

Feature writing workshop for February

Editor of northerly and freelance writer Barnaby Smith will be facilitating a Byron Writers Festival workshop on feature writing on Saturday, 24 February at the Festival office on Jonson Street, Byron Bay. Anyone interested in attending should keep an eye on the Byron Writers Festival website, where further details regarding the workshop's content, times and costs will be posted in December. www.byronwritersfestival.com.

Cover story

Byron Writers Festival recently welcomed two new team members to the fold: Gabby le Brun (above left) as Project Manager, Storyboard and Siobhan Foley (above right) as Festival Administrator.

Gabby was previously Volunteers Manager for the 2017 Byron Writers Festival prior to becoming Project Manager for StoryBoard, Byron Writers Festival's travelling creative writing and literacy program for children and young people in the Northern Rivers.

As a professional arts manager with over twenty of years experience in festivals, theatre and events, Gabby has undertaken a broad range of responsibilities including creative production, art direction, social media, marketing, budget management, stage management and administration.

Her event management experience spans multiple contexts including universities, schools, non-profit organisations, local government, peak bodies such as QCAN (Queensland Community Arts Network) and YAQ (Youth Arts Queensland), environmental education centres and large-scale festivals such as Brisbane Festival, the Brisbane Riverfestival and Melbourne Festival.

After graduating from Southern Cross University with majors in Indigenous Studies and English, Siobhan Foley worked in the education industry in Tokyo, Sydney, Byron Bay and Tasmania. She was director of studies at Byron Bay English Language School for ten years.

She took a year and a half off to live in Tasmania, working at the University of Tasmania and spending time with family, before heading back to Byron Bay and working in customer service at Stone & Wood.

She currently lives in the hills of Byron with her nearest neighbours being a herd of Brahman cows.

This issue's cover image, the work of photographer Steve Axford, is of lowland subtropical rainforest. The image is taken from the new book The Big Scrub Rainforest: A Journey Through Time, which explores how the Big Scrub came to be, the ecological value it holds today, what it means to people and what its future might look like. The book is an intimate portrait designed to foster appreciation of, and a sense of place and stewardship for, the Big Scrub rainforest among the people who live and visit this place. Presented by Big Scrub Landcare in partnership with Rous County Council with the generous support of Brookfarm, the book is available at good bookstores across the region. Visit www.bigscrubrainforest.org.au for further information.

004 | northerly

New monthly Mullum story night up and running

Curated by Byron Writers Festival volunteer and local professional storyteller Jenni Cargill-Strong, Stories in the Club: Stories of Place, Stories of Hope is a monthly story night where community members tell their tales in front of an audience.

The event takes place on the second Sunday of each month at Mullumbimby Ex-Services Club from 4pm to 5:30pm, with entry by a suggested donation of $10/$5.

'Good stories can be road maps for a

>> NEWS

life well lived,' says Cargill-Strong (above). 'In these times of rapid change and widespread loneliness, such ancient, simple soul food can be sorely needed. Stories of place deepen our connection to country as well as strengthening the weave of our community. Tales of hope, courage and resilience foster and inspire those qualities in us. Tales will be told orally, that is, except for beginning tellers, they will not be written stories read aloud, but oral stories told by a teller who connects deeply and personally to the story they are telling: whether it is their own personal story, someone else’s true story or a weave of fiction that fits the theme.

'If you live in or near Mullumbimby, love stories and spoken word and listening to heartfelt tales, you may want to join us to sit in community and feast on a rich banquet of Stories of Place and Stories of Hope.'

October's event attracted storytellers Athol Compton, Zenith Virago, Paul Josif, Gabby le Brun and John Imbrogno along with Cargill-Strong. For more information visit www.storytree.com.au/stories-in-the-club

More success for Riwoe

Congratulations to author Mirandi Riwoe, also known as M.J. Tjia, who was recently awarded a Griffith Review Writing Fellowship for 2018.

Riwoe is a former Byron Writers Festival Residential Mentorship participant, while she also appeared as an author at Byron Writers Festival 2017. She and seven other Queensland writers selected for the fellowship (including fellow 2017 Festival star Ashley Hay) will be supported by Griffith Review to further their creative projects with a view to publication in the journal in 2018.

‘The range of the projects and the quality of the applicants was extremely high,' said Griffith Review founding editor Julianne Shultz. 'It is striking to see how writers are seeking to engage with contemporary dilemmas to bring big issues to life, and also exploring the rich history of Queensland to revive old stories and find ones that have been lost. We are confident that this group of fellows will produce important pieces of writing that will engage readers and add to a richer and more nuanced understanding of the state and its people.’

Riwoe's first novel The Fish Girl was published in 2017, while she published crime fiction under the name M.J. Tjia.

Nambucca group invites entries to bad writing competition

Nambucca Valley Writers Group (NVWG), which has been meeting for nearly thirty years, some time ago

introduced a writing exercise that asked members to experiment with 'bad writing'. That is, writing that demonstrates how certain things – long sentences, verb/ subject confusion, clichés, exclamation marks, mixed metaphors, bad similes and too many adjectives – can create clumsy narratives. When members brought their bad writing to share with the group, it became clear that a new genre may have been spawned: the writing was so bad, it was good. And very funny. NVWG provided us with an example: The mist moved across the water as it drifted over the lake.

Cooing birds sang pigeon-like in trees which had trunks and leaves and branches, and the mist drifted through the trees and the cooing birds which sounded a bit like pigeons until the sun came up and then the mist didn’t move any more because it wasn’t there any more. It was gone.

NVWG is now launching Australia's inaugural So Bad It's Good Writing Competition, offering a first prize of $500 and publication for fifty or so of the 'best' in an e-book.

Entries open on 1 January and close on 28 February. For more information go to www.nambuccawriters.info

QUOTAT ION CORNER

'I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.'

— Richard Wright, Black Boy (1945) northerly | 005

>> READ

Susie Warrick Young Writers Award Byron Writers Festival's annual Susie Warrick Young Writers Award invited Northern Rivers writers aged between thirteen and twenty-one to submit their short stories to a competition that awards prize money of $1,000 to the winner. Having published the winning story in our previous issue, northerly is now delighted to publish the runner-up, 'How the Moon Met the Stars' by thirteen-year-old Izzy Demkin.

How the Moon Met the Stars Izzy Demkin

The night was warm, but not muggy, the crickets were treating me to a private ensemble and the breeze smelt like lavender.

That was a good night.

The moon looked really calm.

It was just hanging up there, chilling, surrounded by the stars.

What would it be like to sit up there, away from everything that made life the absolute opposite of calm?

Good old moon was a perfect sphere that night, the full moon was due the next day but with it like that no one could tell the difference.

'Earth to Tilda, come in Tilda, where are you now?'

My Grandpa came and sat next to me on the old maroon couch that we kept out on the back deck.

He put his arm around me and I leant into his side.

I lazily pointed up to the sky. 'With Luna,' I answered.

'Ah, 'course you are.' I could hear the smile in his voice.

'Did I ever tell you how she met the stars?'

I turned my head to look at his face, which was mostly made up of his enormous glasses and snow-white whiskers. 'What?' I asked.

'Clearly not.' He stood up and went inside.

I sat there not knowing what to do; a few seconds later he returned followed by my ten-year-old sister, Holly, and our twin toddler cousins, May and Mark.

I lifted May onto my lap while Grandpa sat back down with Mark seated on his knee. Holly plopped down next to him.

He waited for our attention then spoke. 'Kids, this story is an heirloom of sorts, told to me from my grandma, and I may have to repeat it a few times but if I have my way you’ll remember it and tell it to your grandkids so they can tell it to theirs.'

And so he began.

In the beginning there were three things: Earth, Sun and Moon.

During the day Sun lit up the sky while Earth kept him company.

At day’s end, when Sun set and Earth fell asleep, Moon sat alone in the darkness broken only by her small glow.

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Then night was over and Sun rose, bringing light to all near him. Earth woke up and unseen, Moon watched their friendship grow and pined for the companionship Earth and Sun shared.

Every night Moon grew smaller with each passing second of her loneliness, and every night Sun watched her wane a little more and grew sad at the fact that he was unable to do anything about it.

And then he knew.

The next night, he extracted a small bit of his light and sent it spinning into the night sky towards Moon.

The small orb of light tumbled into Moon, who looked up from her sorrow in surprise.

Right in front of her was a little orb of light.

Every night Sun sent one of his small orbs cartwheeling towards Moon until the sky was full.

Moon smiled at the stars.

The stars smiled at Moon.

And Moon wasn’t so lonely anymore.

The story wasn’t long but it was kind of late, the twins were in a doze and Holly had zoned out.

I looked up at the moon and the stars surrounding her, maybe it wasn’t so calm up there at all.

Maybe I should stay down on Earth.

The rest of that night went fairly quickly, Grandpa put the twins into their beds and Holly fell asleep on the couch while I read a book.

The story stuck with me though.

Through the years I heard that story a multitude of times but I will always remember the first time it was told to me.

How the air smelt of lavender and the crickets were in full swing.

How the moon hadn’t looked lonely and how the stars had taken up the sky.

Izzy Demkin writes, 'I was born at roughly 1.40pm on 16 July, 2003.

My parents decided to name me Izabella May Demkin, which will soon be Demkin-French to include my mother's name. I live at Lillian Rock with my mother, father, sister and dog. I am a very avid reader and have been writing since I was around nine.'

Notes from

>> INTERVIEW

the Festival: Kayla Rae Whitaker

Photo: Mark Bennington

Kayla Rae Whitaker’s debut novel, The Animators, could be described as literary chick-lit. Her highly readable, intricate character portrayal of two dysfunctional friends within a business and creative partnership challenges stereotypes and the silencing of women’s voices. Whitaker herself grew up in the first state that Donald Trump won on the night of 7 November, and she has returned recently to live in Kentucky, in ‘the small blue stud’ of Louisville in the midst of a sea of red. She spoke to Katinka Smit at Byron Writers Festival 2017.

What was it like writing a book about the creative life while developing your own?

I was writing about another medium so it let me live this vicarious life, with a certain transference between what the characters were feeling and thinking and what I experienced behind the keyboard. It was painful, but I’m glad that it happened. I don’t think that the book would have been completed without that. It’s a facet of empathy, in a way. Your connection to your characters is like your connection to other people. It’s hard to know where you end and the character begins. And I have to admit, even though I’m working on a new project now, I still miss Mel and Sharon. I wonder if that will get easier though, if the umbilical cord was shorter and thicker because it was my first book.

How close did you feel to the character Sharon and was it a difficult thing to write about her?

I identified with her but I don’t think I shouldered her particular burdens. I felt somewhat close to it as a woman, certainly, but Sharon’s not me and that’s a relief because I don’t want Sharon’s life, nor the vortex that is her brain. But even if a book isn’t autobiographical, your life ends up showing up in your work. Sometimes it’s subtle and unconscious and it might not be visible in obvious ways to the rest of the world, but for writers it’s always there. And I think everyone can relate to trauma, how people carry it around, how it becomes its own force – your feelings holding sway over you, memories, repetitive thoughts and it all reaching a point where you don’t have control over it, which by my definition is an illness. I’m drawn to work where that is explored.

There’s a stigma about mental illness but there’s that sense of shame and judgement for women in particular, so I did hurt for Sharon. I think her story is the story of a lot of women and a story of womanhood that is unfortunately rampant.

Your book has had quite a profound effect on young women, hasn’t it?

Yes, and it makes me feel really lucky to have these people reach out to me. I have the fan letters hanging in my house. I’ve felt like that about books in the past, that they really touched me, so I’m glad to contribute to that conversation. It has been very humbling.

Have you ever thought of writing a memoir?

I really admire people who write personal narratives.

It’s very brave. But I have never thought about writing a full-length memoir. When the book was coming out, the publishing house asked me if there was anything that I wanted to write about me, personally, because sometimes it helps readers to connect with the book. So I wrote a non-fiction piece, and writing that was very scary. When I write personal essays I’m writing about something that I feel is silencing and burdensome and I desperately want a portal out. I want to talk about it with other people. I want that connection with other people, I don’t want to feel alone in my grief, in a way.

What do you think markets outside of the US will get out of your book?

I think the relationship between women and agency is a universal issue. The relationship that women have between who they are and what they want to make is ripe for exploration and discussion. Making art of any sort is the ultimate expression of having a voice. I think a lot of women are afraid to make things, to put things out into the world because they know they’ll have to defend them in a way that men never will. And the book also tells a story about deep running friendship.

Not idealising the friendship does something for the depth of these female characters. Female friendship is so often simplified, and when you simplify something, you kill it. These women, my characters, are imperfect; you don’t just see the veneer. You see everything.

The Animators is published by Scribe Publications, $32.99.

northerly | 007

>>INTERVIEW

Passion play: Steve Mascord's rugby league and rock 'n' roll As one of Australia's foremost rugby league journalists, Steve Mascord's career has involved plenty of international travel and the respect of readers and peers alike. Yet as he approached the age of fifty he began to critically reflect on the two great passions in his life – his 'touchstones' – rugby league and heavy metal, with a view to writing a book. This proposed book, however, took on a different resonance as he discovered more about his birth family (he always knew he was adopted), and that his birth mother searched for him until her dying day. He felt compelled to conduct an 'audit' on his life, and ended up reassessing these all-consuming passions and their ultimate worth.

This self-analysis became Touchstones: Rugby League, Rock 'n' Roll, The Road and Me, a tome that looks at obsession, family and identity, and relies on a narrative framework that saw Mascord attend fifty-two games and fifty-two gigs over the course of a year. He took time out from promoting the book in North America to chat with Barnaby Smith about his literary debut.

Firstly, I'm intrigued to know how you came to be launching the book in the U.S., hardly a strong market for a book with rugby league as a main component.

Does the trip reflect your intention for the book to transcend what it is ostensibly about (rugby league and music)?

There are several answers to this. One, I'd be here anyway as this is what I've always done. When I turned forty I had forty parties in forty cities. So why not do it with something to sell, when I can walk away with some pocket money or refer people to buy the book on Amazon? Secondly the book is not about rugby league and music. It's about me. It's about identity and our obsession with pop culture. If I can get it printed here in the U.S. I'd remove the subtitle completely. But, in places where rugby league is not popular and is a very small community, there is a shortage of events. I think the conversion rate of people who say they will come to a launch to those who actually show up will be higher – these people don't get to see each other very often.

Can you tell us a bit about the journey to publication?

When you embarked on the book how did you envisage it being published and how did that change along the way? I know you crowdfunded but you also have the backing of Stoke Hill Press.

I first started writing a book about a decade ago. I've got two aborted earlier projects, The Three Rs and The End Of Winter. It was meeting Geoff [Armstrong, of Stoke Hill Press] at a function that allowed me to finally get it done and released. The crowdfunding was just a way to get it done – once people gave me money I was duty-bound to finish it. The fifty-two gigs and fifty-two games was also an artificial device to make sure I finished it in a year. So that's the role the crowdfunding played.

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>> INTERVIEW

If you write a phrase you read everywhere,

backspace, backspace, start again.

You'll be a better writer for it in the end.

Are there any books that acted as a sort of precedent or inspiration as you formed the idea and the writing for this book?

The two books that inspired me stylistically were Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman and It's Too Late To Die Young Now by Andrew Mueller. Structure-wise I quite liked some Dave Hadfield books that involved challenges, like XIII Worlds and XIII Winters and a more recent book in which he travelled all around Britain on a free bus pass he got as a Parkinson's sufferer.

music or sports writing. Like, 'If this and this is the case, then surely it must mean this and therefore... ' I got that from reading Klosterman and Yuval Noah Harari and bits of Andrew Mueller. I've found that it has informed my writing back on the Herald since. Music feature writing tends to be very descriptive and colourful and I probably tried to dip my toe into that at times. Mostly I try to convey how I feel as directly as possible and not focus on impressing people. Some music journalism seems bent on impressing people.

'It's not what you're like, it's what you like' wrote Nick Hornby in High Fidelity about masculine identity.

Is that a line that resonates with you, and can you describe how rugby league and music went beyond mere interests or passions for you?

It certainly does resonate and the book is very much about that obsession with things rather than people.

As a kid I struggled for an identity; like a lot of kids a large part of my existence was inside my own head, a Walter Mitty-type thing. Through rugby league and rock and journalism, I was able to make the figments of my imagination manifest themselves in real life. I darted from country to country, gig to gig, game to game, like Pokemon Go decades before it existed. These things gave my life meaning. But was this a false meaning, a placebo?

That's what I try to find out in the book.

Also, sports writing and music writing are both realms where cliché is all too easy to fall into. Again, is that something you were aware of and made moves to ward off?

I read Andrew Marmont's book on the World Cup on the way from Sydney to London and I really wanted to tell him what I was told as a kid – try to think of a different way to say something from a phrase you've read many times before. If you write a phrase you read everywhere, backspace, backspace, start again. You'll be a better writer for it in the end. I once got a direct message from John Alexander when he was editor of the Herald about using a number of clichés in one sentence, saying 'please desist'. I resented it at the time, I didn't even know which ones had been clichés. This awareness comes with age.

You got married this year – do you feel like a grownup as a result and more importantly how might this new forging of 'familial bonds' affect your writing in the future?

I feel more grown-up to an extent. I was at the Toronto Wolfpack's last home game yesterday and they encapsulate everything I think rugby league can be. Yet my enchantment at the 'touchstones' of professional sports – colours, logos, fans, personalities – has evolved over the past two years. I looked out over the stadium where 8,500 people were watching a game in a competition that in England only draws hundreds, at the sport's history being altered in front of me, and I still thought 'this is only a rugby league game'. The fascination with each player and with the mythology surrounding them has drifted just out of reach. I feel if I extend myself I can still grab it and reel it back into my chest – but I'm not sure if I want to.

Can you draw any similarities between writing about rugby league and writing about music, and do you ever find the language of one seeping into the language of the other? Did you want to stick to the tone of your rugby league writing for Fairfax and others, or experiment with something different?

Definitely something different. I think my style is very direct, it's not very flowery, but one thing I experimented with was an analytical style that I had not read in either

Yourself and a couple of other writers aside, sports writing in Australia seems at a low ebb in terms of literary or imaginative writing. Would you agree?

No not really but in saying that I don't read a lot of Australian sports writing. I read Paul Kent and Andrew Webster and Richard Hinds and Malcolm Knox and I think they are all pretty inventive, original and entertaining. I don't read about other sports just to check out the writing, at least not very often.

Can you describe how the book will appeal to readers who can't stand rugby league or heavy metal? What is the book 'really' about?

It's not really about those passions – it's about passions in general and it's about identity. If male friendship is really 'what you like and not what you're like', then the things you like are chosen more arbitrarily than you might imagine. I'm a great test case for this because my personal obsessions are almost certainly different from what they would be if the first three months of my life had been different. And if my very identity was an accident, what is my worth as a human being? Do I actually stand for anything? Do any of us? When we strip these things away, what are we left with? That's what the book's about.

Touchstones: Rugby League, Rock 'n' Roll, The Road and Me is published by Stoke Hill Press.

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>>POEM

Runner-up, Dangerously Poetic Byron Writers Festival Poetry Prize 2017

One Hundred Eyes Jacqueline Trott

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One hundred eyes track skies waiting for her

Weeping willows kneel, the wattle is mute

Tonight she waits for her younglings to sleep

Aching under a sadistic sun

Exhausted hills heave and sigh

Balming dreams over their yellow-stained sheets

Followed by night with dusty shrouds

Withered hands of skeletal branches

She will dance her fingertips in lullaby pattern

Of stars pitiless in a lying hum

Sway in pilgrim prayer to the sky

Across rooves of corrugated iron pleats

The earth here rusts in thick scabby folds

See the town dwellers as they sweat together

She is the mother of truth and curse

Where burrowing ants suck and drain

In cathedrals of eucalypt

Her name etched in desert and snow-frost

Swarms of soldiers in a tiny war

Mumbling praise and wobbling cracked hymns

The first peoples dance to herald her coming

Parasites lust-drunk on bloodstain

Through brows of perspiration-drip

The last survivors will mourn her loss.

The land sits in silent apocalypse

Begging for signs, chins heaven faced

Rain

The lambs have all stopped bleating

Crusting psalms in mutters and moans

The children have gone who played here once

The heavy air sticks their lungs to ribs

In rubbles of broken fence line and tin sheeting

And lodges in throats dry paddock stones

Amongst the twiggy, spartan leaves

She comes on the wind, weaving her hair

Birds perch, wide-eyed, open-mouth

Into cumulus piles of soft braids

In the anorexic shade of the bony trees

An angel face to all those men

Songs stolen from beaks, poached by drought

Who crumble their existence from the red-dirt trades

Insects thud and throb in beat

Today she totes potions, a shaman healer

Cranked on a tuneless gramophone

For fevers and skin blister-burned

Their tone-deaf circus warped in heat

She whispers to their hacking chests

The mad soundtrack of a lunatic drone

And swollen tongues of dry spittle spurned

Jacqueline Trott writes, 'Australian landscapes inspire and speak to me everyday. My writing explores the languages of geology, botany, indigenous spirituality and meteorology, fused with fantasy imaginings. The Dangerously Poetic Competition is an event that has provided me with encouragement as a young Australian writer. I thank the competition organisers and Byron Writers Festival on behalf of all aspiring writers for creating this award.'

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Notes from

>> INTERVIEW

the Festival: Eka Kurniawan The novels of Indonesian author Eka Kurniawan have been longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and the Best Translated Book Award, and have impressed readers the world over with their energy, rambunctiousness and visceral energy.

His English-language debut Beauty Is a Wound won the World Readers Award, Hong Kong in 2016, while Kurniawan also received a Foreign Policy Global Thinkers Award in 2015 for 'pinning Indonesian literature on the map'. Katinka Smit spoke with him at Byron Writers Festival 2017.

Does the multitude of Indonesian languages present a barrier to writing in Indonesian?

I think as writers it is natural for us to write in Indonesian; the hierarchical structures aren’t present in it, so it makes for a more inclusive literature. Nearly everybody in Indonesia can speak, read and write Indonesian; in school we all learn to read and write in Indonesian. I speak Sundanese with my family but it’s easier for me to write and read in Indonesian.

Is the visual element always a part of your writing? Do you think in images first?

Yes, usually it’s an image; there is like a movie scene in my head. I just try to write that. I’m more influenced by movies, television and sometimes video games. When I was nineteen I trained to be a graphic artist, because I wanted to publish comics. I didn’t even think to become a writer. But there is no comics industry in Indonesia, so I switched to writing novels.

Western literary tradition labels your work and others like it as magical realism, bound as we are by a worldview that cherishes realism and the scientific method, yet many cultures such as yours have a much broader concept of reality and the possible. What do you think of our interpretation of these methods of storytelling?

On the one hand, the novel was discovered by Westerners, and the Western tradition labels everything, including this genre, magical realism. But it is problematic. Gabriel García Márquez and Isabelle Allende are very different from Haruki Murakami, or Günter Grass, yet they are all labelled magical realism. But it’s pointless to fight against a definition. My novels are a new kind of magical realism. I’m influenced mostly by Indonesian horror stories and folklore. Folklore is a kind of reality. It’s a way to see something. I want to show how history can be interpreted very differently. There’s official history, where the government says what it believes really happened, but of course in society we have our own interpretations of events. There’s difference in the histories.

Why did you choose to tell the story of women’s experiences in Beauty Is a Wound?

I wasn’t really aware of it at the time. I just wanted to tell a story, to write my first novel. My mother told me a story about a woman who had been pregnant. I chose a scene from what my mother told me and placed it in a different era in history, it became something else entirely, but the original voice is from a woman’s point of view because that was how I heard it, and the subject is still the same. I wanted to write a ghost story, so it became a woman who came back from the grave twenty-one years after she had died. It’s also a historical novel, but you need a device to tell all of the history, and a ghost can live as long as history can. But when I write I have no plan, I just write as if I am a reader myself, and I ask, and then what happened? And then?

Why are you drawn to the mix of violence, sex and humour?

There are two main reasons. I grew up in a small town with no library or bookstore, so I read whatever I could get my hands on. I read a lot of horror stories and martial arts novels, and they have that mix. But also, when you want to write about Indonesia, about the social and political situation, you have to face this kind of violence, because that’s what really happened. I lived in a small coastal town among fishermen and farmers, but when I was eighteen I moved to Jakarta, and it was a very different situation.

What is it like to live through the transition from total restriction to the fall of a dictator and sudden freedom?

I tried to write about that in my second novel, metaphorically. In the novel the character is a young boy who keeps his anger inside him, but one day the anger, the tiger inside him, comes out suddenly. I think that is what happened to Indonesians. They kept their anger inside, they had to be patient for thirty-two years under Suharto but in the end it couldn’t be kept inside anymore. I think it is common in Indonesia to be like that. If you read Indonesian history, these mobs usually happened against the powerful. Sukarno had to be taken down, Suharto too.

Beauty Is a Wound is published by Text Publishing, $32.99.

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>>INTERVIEW

The two Johns: Tranter interviews Ashbery, 1988

John Ashbery in 2010. Photo: David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons

On Monday 4 September, as I was failing to placate the howls of my six-month-old who squirmed stiffly in my arms, the television told me, with the cold objectivity of ABC News 24's news ticker, that John Ashbery had died in New York at the age of ninety. The text told of the end of one of modern American literature's most illustrious lives. Ashbery's imagination was such a sprawling, inquisitive beast that he redefined the parameters of what poetry could be for the generations that emerged in his wake. Debut collection Some Trees and the Pulitzerwinning Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror stand among the most well-known works by a poet who, along with Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler and others, made up the famed New York School of poets.

As it had to, Ashbery's influence stretched to Australian poets, in particular John Tranter, a poetic disciple and friend of Ashbery. In 1988, Tranter (in Sydney) conducted an interview with Ashbery (in New York) that was broadcast on ABC Radio National in June of that year. Here, as tribute to Ashbery, we present an edited transcript of that conversation between the two seminal poetic voices. northerly would like to extend its gratitude to John Tranter for granting us permission to re-publish the interview, and to Jacket magazine, the online poetry journal where the transcript was first published.

Barnaby Smith John Tranter: I asked John Ashbery how he came to publish Some Trees, his first book, in 1956.

John Ashbery: Let’s see… It was published when I was twenty-eight, and some of the poems were dated from my nineteenth year. I didn’t expect that I would ever have a book published. When I decided to submit this manuscript to the Yale Series of Younger Poets I put together what I thought were the best ones I had written, and I sent them to the Yale University Press.

The judge for the competition was W.H.Auden, whom I knew slightly, but the rules of the competition were that one had to send them to the Press, which would then forward the good ones to Auden.

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Mine was returned to me by the Press, as was Frank O’Hara’s. He sent a manuscript at the same time I did.

As it happened, Auden decided not to award the Prize that year, on the basis of the manuscripts that were sent to him. And after he’d made this decision someone happened to mention to him that both Frank O’Hara and I had had our manuscripts returned by the Yale University Press, so he asked to see them. And I sent them to him in Ischia where he was spending the summer, as did Frank, and he chose mine.

He had a couple of problems with three or four poems that were in my manuscript, and asked me if I would take them out. In fact they were ones I didn’t particularly like myself, so I removed them. I think there was some sort of slightly scatological language in them that he objected to.

He was quite prudish, in his way. I thought he was right, really, in these particular instances.

So this was not a collection that was composed and that had a shape to it. It was merely what I had written at the time. And indeed that’s the way all my other books have been, too. I’ve never looked at a collection of poems as anything but that. I know that many poets like to give theirs a shape and a beginning, a middle and an end, but mine really are just whatever poems I have lying around.

And I don’t arrange them, really, except to alternate the long ones and the short ones, and to have the strongest ones at the beginning and the end, and the weaker ones in the middle. I think that’s my rule of thumb for putting together a book of poems.

I was going to mention The Tennis Court Oath, which was the second book you published. I think it interested a lot of readers because it was so hard to read. Would you like to talk about how you came to write that?

It antagonised a lot of readers.

My first book had very little success. It only got a few reviews and the only favourable one was written by Frank O’Hara, which was very decent of him, considering the circumstances of the publication, which I’ve just narrated.

>> INTERVIEW

And by the time it appeared, I was already living in France, so if there was any feedback to be had, I wasn’t getting it. It seemed to me that my book had fallen into a bottomless pit, and that I would never have another chance to publish another book of poems.

And I was also rather interested in trying something new, [and] having difficulty in doing this, living in a country where the language spoken was not my own. And I began a lot of experiments, using collage techniques, especially from American and/or English books and magazines, perhaps to feel that I had a toehold in the English language.

One that seems to give people the most trouble is a long poem called ‘Europe’, [for] which I cannibalised a book for teenage girls published in England during World War One, that I found in a bookstall along the Seine in Paris, called Beryl of the Biplane. And the only idea, if there is one, in the poem, is that this poem contains a lot of things that can be found in Europe. But of course they can also be found anywhere else.

The title ‘Europe’ was suggested to me by the title of one of the stations of the Paris Metro which is in a section called ‘Europe’, where all the streets are named after European capitals.

These were experiments which I thought would perhaps lead to something, but I didn’t really intend them to be finished poems. I didn’t at that point know how to write a finished poem in the way that I felt I had done so before, at least in the new way that I wanted to write.

And quite unexpectedly I had an opportunity to publish another volume. So I used what I had.

My intention was to take language apart so I could look at the pieces that made it up. I would eventually get around to putting them back together again, and would then have more of a knowledge of how they worked, together.

I was wondering if the fact that you were away from America and away from the magazines and reviewers and friends and so on, whether that may have had something to do with the fact that you felt you could go right out on a limb.

Yes, I think it did. My idea probably was, ‘Well, if nobody’s listening, then why not go ahead and talk to myself, and see what I get out of it.’

What did the reviewers say about The Tennis Court Oath?

The reception was even more minimal and more hostile than that of the first book. I remember a couple of reviews. One was by the poet Samuel French Morse, who actually edited Stevens’ posthumous books, who said that I had given the reader stones instead of bread.

And John Simon, the dreaded theatre critic of New York magazine, reviewed it for the Hudson Review, and quoted a line from ‘Europe’ which was ‘he had mistaken his book for garbage’, and he said, ‘If the poet says this, what more can the reviewer add?’

A very unkind remark. (laughs) Yes, I thought so.

When you were in Paris, you began to write for Art News. I was going to ask you about the connection between painting and poetry in New York during the fifties. People have said that the New York School poets wrote the way they do because they wanted to write like the painters of the time painted. That’s not quite true, of course, but I think there is a link there, somewhere.

Yeah. There certainly is in the case of O’Hara. I, on the other hand, was not as involved in the art scene as he was. I was at somewhat of a remove, although I did go to some exhibitions, and probably was influenced by the zeitgeist of Abstract Expressionism, that you could go ahead and do whatever you wanted to do – I didn’t ever think of myself as a critic, and particularly an art critic.

But after I’d lived in France for two years I came back and spent a winter in New York, and was very short of cash.

I was taking some graduate courses in French literature at New York University. And so I began to review for Art News at that time. It seems as though the more I tried to get out of this line of work, the more I got wedged into it. A friend of mine, Harry Mathews, the novelist, told me once that I seemed to have backed into an excellent career as an art critic.

You’ve taught at Brooklyn College for some time.

That’s right.

How do you like doing that? Do you teach writing, or do you teach reading?

Well I don’t really like it very much. I now only teach creative writing courses. I taught some literature courses but I didn’t like that very much. In fact I don’t really like teaching at all. I’ve always tried to avoid telling people what to do. So it’s rather ironical that I’ve ended up being both a critic and a teacher, and am forced to assume this role. But I don’t feel that I in most cases really know what people should do, whether they’re artists or students, and it’s a bit of a strain having to pretend that I do know.

I was going to ask you if you’d like to talk about how you actually write a poem each day. What do you do?

I postpone it as long as possible, which is probably why I write in the late afternoon. I also think that my mind in the morning — though it might be fresher and have more ideas in it — is not as critical as it is later on in the day.

I don’t usually write every day but in fact I have been in the last six months. I’ve got this large grant which is for five years. I actually got it three years ago this month, so I’ve got two more years to go. It took me two years to recover from a lifetime of drudgery, and to rest up, and get my bearings, as it were.

I used to think that it wasn’t good for me to write very often. I thought one a week was perhaps the maximum.

Otherwise it seemed as though it was coming out diluted, or strained.

However I seemed to have changed my mind about this, and am writing just about every day. And feeling okay about what I am writing.

Also I think the fact that the older one gets — for many people, at least — the more prolific one gets, realising there aren’t the oceans of time that seem to be stretching ahead when one was young. And one learns to use it, and realise how precious it is.

I also used to think that I had to wait until I was ‘inspired’ before I could write, and then I realised that I hardly ever was inspired, so that I’d have to come up with something else.

So usually my poems, when I write, I’m just in a sort of everyday frame of mind. Which is all I know, really, I suppose.

To read the full transcript of this interview, go to www.jacketmagazine.com/02/jaiv1988.html

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>>FEATURE

The year in YA: 2017 in review For local writer and YA fiction lover Polly Jude, 2017 has been another bumper year for the genre. Here, she picks some of her favourite titles from the year and categorises them according to theme, ensuring young adults of all tastes can look forward to a fantastic summer of reading.

www.pollyjude.net

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SUPERNATURAL SPOOKY

Ballad for a Mad Girl

by Vikki Wakefield

TEEN THRILLER Wreck

by Fleur Ferris

When seventeen-year-old Grace Foley takes on the pipe challenge at the abandoned quarry one night, she’s representing her side of Swampton. Grace is a fifthgeneration Swampy and in the decades-old rivalry between the Swampies and the Hearts, pride and honour are on the line. The kids from Sacred Heart are despised for their wealth and their advantage, while the Swampies are workingclass kids with a point to prove.

That night in the quarry, Grace needs to defend her record and dart across the pipe faster than the Hearts challenger. But things go terribly wrong.

Voices inside her head, strange memories and the sudden acquisition of skills that aren’t her own are just the beginning for Grace. Now the teen prankster is thrown into the middle of a twentyyear-old mystery of a missing girl, Hannah Holt. Bringing up the past reopens the still-raw wounds from her own mother’s death.

She’s already lost her mum. And now, Grace is in danger of losing her friends, herself and her mind.

Ballad for a Mad Girl is fast and spooky.

It’s an action-packed ghost thriller that will appeal to most YA readers.

Tamara Bennett is a small-town girl on the verge of adulthood. She’s got it all planned. Move to the city, study journalism, write only good news reports and make the world a better place, one news story at a time.

But all that changes when Tamara comes home late one night and discovers her house has been trashed. She doesn’t know it, but she has information that others desperately want to keep hidden and now Tamara must fight for her life to discover the real story.

Zel’s also looking for the truth. His family are hunting him down and want to send him to a psychiatric hospital because they think he’s having hallucinations, and no one believes him.

Tamara and Zel have to work together if they are going to get to the bottom of the five-year-old mystery and stay alive long enough to expose the truth.

Wreck in the third young-adult book from Victorian writer Fleur Ferris. She’s known for her thrillers and Ferris doesn’t disappoint here.

Wreck is a fast-paced and exciting action adventure that will have you hooked from the opening page.

Wreck will appeal to readers who enjoyed The Road to Winter, Frankie or Ferris’s first two novels, Black and Risk.

Text Publishing / 320pp / RRP $19.99

Random House / 304pp / RRP $19.99

>> FEATURE

GONE TROPPO

The Build-Up Season

by Megan Jacobson Ilyad Piper is angry. She’s grown up in a world of emotional and physical abuse that leaves her raging. Ily is especially angry at her mum for sending her away. She’s failing everything at school and can’t find her place in the world. She’s at war with her neighbour, Max, who is a talented artist and filmmaker.

On top of all that, she’s the new girl at school after being expelled from boarding school and she’s still trying to get used to the oppressive Northern Territory heat.

Then Ily meets university student and aspiring actor, Jared, and she finally feels like she belongs.

Ily loves art and until Jared shows up, that’s the only thing that ever made sense to her. But their whirlwind romance isn’t what she thinks it is.

Ily is a kick-arse chick who always nails a snappy comeback and expertly wields her middle finger.

She’s loveable and kind of hateable at the same time.

The Build-Up Season explores love, family, identity and belonging. The sweaty build-up to her first wet season in Darwin is a beautiful metaphor for the building drama in Ily’s life.

The Build-Up Season is the second YA novel from Megan Jacobson and if you liked her first novel, Yellow, you’ll love this one. It’ll suit the gals more than the boys but I think the mums will go for this one too.

Penguin / 272pp / RRP $19.99

RELUCTANT LADS The Fall

by Tristan Bancks

The Fall is aimed at a younger audience than most of the other titles discussed here, but the challenge of getting reluctant lads to read often starts early. Aimed at a readership of 10+, The Fall offers younger readers a murder mystery that’s scary and exciting but won't give anyone nightmares.

When young male protagonist Sam wakes up in the middle of the night, he hears an argument upstairs.

What he sees next sets off a chain of events that will change him forever.

Sam is in the wrong place at the wrong time. What he sees could happen to anyone and that possibility will engage and entice reluctant readers. Sam is already struggling with the transition to young adult, now he’s spending time with his AWOL father and things are really starting to heat up.

Local writer Tristan Bancks has given us a fast and punchy thriller for those readers on the cusp of the YA market. The Fall is suspenseful and will appeal to reluctant male readers from around eleven to fourteen. The Fall will also appeal to young female readers who are reading above their age but who aren’t quite ready for all the issues often presented in YA fiction.

Random House Australia / 243 pages / RRP $16.99

DYSTOPIAN FUTURE

Hunted

by Amanda Holohan Waiting for a sequel can be a painful and sometimes disappointing endeavour. But Amanda Holohan took her time and has nailed it with the follow up to her 2015 novel, Unwanted. Hunted picks up where Unwanted left off.

Bea Azaeli and a handful of survivors of the resistance have escaped the remains of their city and are taking their chances in the wild.

They soon discover they aren’t the only ones living rough.

Chased by the deranged and deadly Elders with their poisonous ink, Bae leads a band of survivors back to the city to rescue Red. Hunted is super fast-paced, with twists and surprises to keep you on the edge of your seat. Hunted has enough backstory to stand alone but not enough to annoy the faithful.

This one will also appeal to the reluctant older YA boys.

Penguin / 336 pages / RRP $19.99 northerly | 015

>> SCU

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

Billy and me Linda Brooks

I was named Kate, after my mother’s favourite sister.

They were the youngest of eight, separated from the others by illness and immaturity. Mum had Bright’s Disease and was wrapped in blankets to sweat the fever out. She got over it. Aunt Kate had asthma and never got over it. Mum had me and Aunt Kate had Billy. We were so much alike we said we should’ve been twins. I had an older brother and Billy had a younger sister. Neither of them got us at all. We were both curious and chatted away like crickets, roaming around our back yards looking for treasure and creatures. My brother said we were like a toothache. We didn’t care. We were five.

Our families didn’t hug much. Billy and me ran round together, one arm around the other most of the time, giggling and looking. We hugged the world. Mum was never sick. Except when she had all her teeth out. Her mouth dribbled blood and nonsense when she came home from the hospital. Dad said the anaesthetic made her silly. It still worried me because she was never silly so I sat by her bed. She kept trying to get up, all wobbly and loose. I just stayed and put her legs back in the bed. Dad said I didn’t have to do that, but I couldn’t stop. Billy’s mother was in and out of hospital, drowning for want of air to breathe. We were ten.

Mum became a shop manager and Aunt Kate took in sewing, piece work for a factory. Mum unloaded delivery trucks beside the men. They struggled to work as hard as she did. Some of them didn’t like her much. She said it was because of petticoat government. Aunt Kate ran out of breath in the winter and died on the way to hospital.

The next year Billy’s father died and Billy came to live with us. One morning I got up and he was gone. His room was empty, not even a hint of him. It was as if I’d dreamed him.

Mum tried to push on my leg in church so I’d kneel down with the congregation to pray. I slapped her hand away and told her she could have God all to herself. I was fifteen.

Linda Brooks gained the attention of a publisher when her short stories found critical acclaim on the ABC website, The Making of Modern Australia. Her first published book resulted, A Curious & Inelegant Childhood, a memoir of growing up in rural Australia. Linda has won several writing prizes for short stories and has been published in numerous anthologies.

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Camus on steroids

>> BOOK REVIEW

PORTABLE CURIOSITIES

BY JULIE KOH Review by Chris Black

I would love to meet Julie Koh – mostly to see if she is as quirky and absurdist in person as she is on the page. She also clearly has a fine imagination and a strong commitment to exposing many of the social and economic travesties of our age. But while I’ve been dipping into this collection of twelve stories over several months – each time hoping to become more enamoured of both her style and the content of each story – sadly, this never happened.

Koh is described by her publisher and various reviewers as a ‘satirist’. However, there is also an extremely strong – possibly overwhelming – absurdist streak to her writing that I found made this volume incredibly dense and difficult to absorb. Think Albert Camus on steroids.

For example, the story ‘Two’ is about a twin boy (named Two, with his much more accomplished sister being named One) whose overly fastidious father is committed to parenting-by-checklist. Koh asks us to follow, through forty pages, a lifetime of Two disappointing his father in various ways, until his father ends up dying in a nursing home with Two his only visitor. Problem is, there’s little to endear you to either main character and the absurdist scenarios and dialogue mean you have to concentrate sentence by sentence on the evolving storyline.

Other stories have similarly unappealing protagonists and overly heavy helpings of absurdist imagery. While they tackle important

issues like the failures of modern journalism, our collective addiction to over-consumption, and the overt misogyny faced by women in everyday situations, the staccato dialogue and narrative style makes it heavy going.

Unfortunately, it’s not until the last offering, ‘The Fat Girl in History’, that we find an appealing character – who just happens to be ‘Julie’, engaging in an exercise of ‘autofiction’.

As a large-boned and seemingly overweight Asian woman, Julie fails at exercise programs, relationships, leaving home and even writing.

She decides to change her ambitions to become the fattest person that ever lived, a goal she believes she can actually achieve.

As Julie focuses on overeating, she writes, 'I continue to expand in ever-multiplying concentric rings of fat, which move outwards across the world. Soon there is no more room for oceans, let alone tears. I am one big beach.'

Finally, in this instance of seeing life through the eyes of someone who’s never felt like she fits in, Portable Curiosities' heavy use of satire makes sense, and the author’s unique perspective on modern Australian life becomes a lot more engaging. I’d like to read Koh’s next offering to see how she evolves as a writer – maybe the next Byron Writers Festival could introduce us to Koh and her ‘curiosities’ so we might discover more about this distinctive Australian voice.

University of Queensland Press / 240pp / $19.95

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>>LEARNING CURVE

Learning Curve: Writing sex scenes A bad or awkwardly written sex scene can really put a dampener on an otherwise accomplished novel, but how can writers ensure they meaningfully convey this fact of life without ending up with a dreaded nomination for the Literary Review's notorious Bad Sex in Fiction Award? Australian novelist Natasha Lester, author of the award-winning What Is Left Over, After (2010) and most recently Her Mother's Secret (2017), is an old hand when it comes to sex scenes, and here offers an essential guide to getting this delicate act of writing pitch-perfect.

One of the most popular posts on my blog is about writing sex scenes. This could be because of the proliferation of Google searches involving the word 'sex', or it could be because lots of people contract a bad case of writers’ block at the mere thought of letting their characters slide between the sheets. Given the number of writers who’ve said to me something along the lines of 'I’d really like to write a sex scene but I’m terrified of my mother/husband/friends/children/wife reading it', I tend to think the popularity of the blog post has to do with the fact that sex scenes can be some of the hardest scenes to write.

But if you’re describing the intimacy of two characters falling in love, it can feel like a let down to the reader if your characters close the door in the reader’s face a millisecond after they share a kiss. So, how do we overcome all the blocks and how do we write sex scenes that immerse the reader more deeply in the world of the story, rather than making them cringe or, worse still, laugh?

My first fictional sex scene

I wrote the first draft of my first book, What is Left Over, After by skipping through the sex scenes as quickly as I could. My fictional couple kissed, embraced and had sex, but I just didn’t write about it. I was too embarrassed to commit the act to words on my computer screen.

Then I realised I wasn’t being true to my character, Gaelle. Gaelle was, for various reasons, in a promiscuous phase of her life. How on earth was a reader supposed to know this when the promiscuity was invisible?

So I sat down one night and wrote a sex scene.

I decided to forget about anyone ever reading it. I decided to simply write a scene that felt true to my character. And guess what? That scene made it virtually unchanged into the book.

It was a breakthrough moment for me. I had to get over the mental block I’d developed about writing sex scenes. Once I did – and you’ll know this if you’ve read any of my recent novels, A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald or 018 | northerly

Her Mother’s Secret – I’ve never looked back. It was by following these four tips that I managed to lose my writerly virginity.

Know your genre

Each genre has different conventions when it comes to sex. Genre will determine how much sex you need and what words you can use to write about it.

For example, historical fiction often has sex scenes.

Think Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth, think Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, think anything by Philippa Gregory and Sarah Waters and you’ll know what I mean. But your vocabulary may well be different when writing about sex in a historical novel than it will be when writing about sex in a contemporary novel.

It’s unlikely that a heroine in a novel set at the beginning of the twentieth century would know many anatomical terms for her genitalia or for a man’s. So, the vocabulary you use when writing the sex scene needs to bear that in mind. It’s the same for writing a work of contemporary women’s fiction; if a heroine refers to her genitalia as 'down there' in a novel set in contemporary times, the reader is likely to think she’s been brought up in a nunnery. Don’t be too shy about these things; it won’t ring true to the reader.

You also need to consider your reader within the genre. What level of comfort are they likely to have with the use of more explicit words? Some readers will slam the covers shut at the use of the word 'erection', whereas others might prefer a more graphic term. You don’t want to frighten away readers away by being twee when they prefer a lack of inhibition, or by being full-frontal when they prefer a softer approach.

To summarise: • Consider your genre • Look at how often sex scenes tend to be used by the bestsellers in the genre • Look at the level of explicitness • Make sure the frequency and detail of the sex scenes you’re writing suits the genre you’re writing in

>> LEARNING CURVE

It’s the emotions your characters experience during the sexual act that will make it a memorable scene, not a detailed description of what body part goes where.

Know your character

This leads me on to the nuances of your character.

For instance, Evie, the main character in A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald, is studying to become one of the first female obstetricians in Manhattan in the 1920s. So she isn’t going to use cutesy or imprecise terms for any part of her body.

She would use anatomically correct terms because that is what she is used to professionally. In a sex scene described from her point of view, the words I use need to reflect this.

Evie is also very passionate – often too passionate – about the things she is striving for and the things that she believes in. If she suddenly clammed up when it came to sex, it would be out of character. So her sex scenes most definitely need to be on the page and, as we’re in her point of view, her descriptions of the sexual act must reflect her fiery and impassioned nature.

To summarise: • Consider your main character • Consider their personality • Consider their vocabulary. If you have a character who uses profanity throughout the book but suddenly reverts to Victorian prudishness when it comes to talking about sex, the reader will be jolted out of your fictional world

Get over it

If you’re writing in a genre that requires sex scenes and you’ve been too scared to write any then you have to get over it. Yes, your mother and aunt and grandfather and friend will all read your book. If you’ve done a good job of writing it, they won’t remember that you wrote it while they’re reading it. They’ll be lost in the world of the book.

A week, or probably even a day, after they’ve finished it, they’ll have entirely forgotten about the sex scene you wrote. Everyone’s lives are too busy to be constantly thinking, 'so-and-so (insert your name here) must be sexually frustrated/debauched/getting too much of a

good thing (insert abuse of your choice here) because he/she wrote those sex scenes in that book'.

I guarantee you that it won’t be the sex scenes that leave a lasting impression on your readers. It will be the story you’ve crafted and the characters you’ve created because those things are at the heart of a good book. The sex is just window dressing. So, go dress your windows!

Don't forget emotions

I was reminded of this recently when watching the SBS series Masters of Sex, which is about Bill Masters, an American gynaecologist who created a pioneering study into human sexual response in the 1950s. In the series, he wonders why words to do with the functions of the human body in relation to sex can’t be as commonplace as those to do with sneezing.

I guess writing about sex is a little the same; as a writer, you have no qualms in describing your characters walking, eating, or sneezing. Remember that sex is just another ordinary human biological function so the physicality of it isn’t that important. It’s the emotions your characters experience during the sexual act that will make it a memorable scene, not a detailed description of what body part goes where. A sex scene should develop character or advance the plot; if it does neither, then you need to throw it out and start again.

So, why not give it a try. If you’ve been too shy/scared/ worried/concerned/uncomfortable to write a sex scene, I challenge you to block out half an hour and sit down and write one. The first time is always the hardest, as the saying goes.

Natasha Lester is the author of the bestselling historical novels, A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald (2016) and Her Mother’s Secret (2017). The Age newspaper has described her as 'a remarkable Australian talent'.

Natasha lives in Perth with her three children and three chickens. This article originally appeared at www.natashalester.com.au.

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>>BOOK REVIEW

Packing heat AND FIRE CAME DOWN

BY EMMA VISKIC Review by Colleen O'Brien

Having read Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic I was looking forward to her second novel in the Caleb Zelic crime series, And Fire Came Down. Her first novel won many awards, so expectations were high.

Although it is a very good read I don’t think it is as good as her first. This may be because the surprise of the reveal of a profoundly deaf protagonist is no longer there. I also feel Viskic spends a lot of time telling us about Caleb’s mental anguish and not quite enough showing us. It does, however, expand on the types of hurdles faced and overcome by a deaf private investigator. Sometimes a little too much. The first book had such a light touch.

And Fire Came Down re-introduces characters from the first book: Kat, Caleb’s Indigenous wife; Ant, his drug-addicted brother; Frankie, his ex-cop, middle-aged, alcoholic offsider and Sergeant Ramsden, who proved himself an honest cop and helped Caleb in the first book. In And Fire Came Down Sergeant Ramsden plays only a minor role. After a major shock in Resurrection Bay I was pleased to see Frankie reappear even if it is tantalisingly brief and obviously setting up a thread that will continue into the third book.

We get to know Kat and Ant in much more detail and the difficulties in their relationships with Caleb. I liked the way these characters were portrayed and woven into the story. I never quite understood why Kat was leaving Caleb, but now I know a little more. Ant is

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strongly portrayed and the tragedy of his drug addiction is believable.

Caleb has been compared with Cliff Hardy (from the novels of Peter Corris) and Jack Irish (Peter Temple). I think he is better compared with Murray Whelan's Shane Maloney series of crime novels. Both aren’t all that good at being investigators and both have chaotic and often humorous adventures.

The Indigenous population and white supremacists are painted in detail, as is the country town of Resurrection Bay. Unlike The Dry by Jane Harper where the town and its surrounds form a character, in this book they are static background.

There are some series of novels where you can happily pick up one of them, read it, and know what is going on. This isn’t the case with the Caleb Zelig books. I think you need to read the first before the second. This means that Viskic doesn’t spend too much time plotting out the background from the previous book.

Also, there are plot lines that must continue into the next book for them to be fully realised.

The ending reminded me of an Agatha Christie novel where all the threads are pulled together and tied in a neat and unlikely bow. I just didn’t believe it!

But, even with these faults I would recommend it to a friend.

Echo Publishing / 336pp / $29.99

Workshops

HSC Workshop – Extension 2 English with Siboney Duff

There is a lot more to the HSC Extension 2 English course than writing a good story and submitting it for assessment.

Students also have to navigate form criteria, independent research requirements, viva voces, report writing, journal entries, and reflection statements, all the while producing increasingly impressive drafts of creative writing that demonstrate sophistication and textual integrity. It’s enough to leave students, teachers and parents feeling overwhelmed and under the pump.

This full-day workshop – run by teacher, writer and editor, Siboney Duff – will explore in detail the requirements of the course, discuss literary form and narrative structure, provide students with a four-term ‘plan of action’ for their Major Work, and share tips and hints for how to make the most of their ideas and unique literary skills and talents. Participants will leave enthused, emboldened, and equipped to tackle the requirements of this subject and produce a Major Work that will both fulfil their hopes and impress the HSC assessors.

Siboney has been working with Extension 2 English students for several years. A qualified English teacher, she also has a Master of Philosophy (Creative Writing) from the University of Queensland, and has worked as a writer, editor and manuscript assessor for over a decade.

Presenter: Siboney Duff When: Wednesday 22 November, 10am – 4pm Where: Byron Community College, Level 1, 107 Jonson Street, Byron Bay, NSW 2481 Tickets: $45

>> WORKSHOPS To book tickets please go to www.byronwritersfestival.com or call 02 6685 5115

Successful submissions – How to write grant applications that impress

While there are numerous opportunities for writers and other creatives to access grants (be it for projects, professional development, service provision, or collaborative projects), the submission process itself can be complex and daunting – so much so, that many people don’t even both trying. This seminar aims to change that!

Over the course of this three-hour seminar, participants will: • Explore the myriad of funding options that are out there • Get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at how the grants process works and how panellists assess submissions • Learn how to determine the best grant for their purpose • Garner some practical strategies for writing an impressive application Everything from rationale to budgets will be discussed, and participants will leave armed with an overview of the annual funding calendar and a plan for making the most of it.

Siboney Duff has over twenty years’ experience writing successful grant applications. She has also sat on and chaired several funding panels across a wide range of artforms, assessing individual artist projects, collaborative ventures, regional and writers' fellowships, and annual and multi-year organisational submissions. She has also worked closely with numerous artists to develop and hone their own submissions (most of which have been successful).

Presenter: Siboney Duff When: Friday 24 November, 1:30pm – 4:30pm Where: Byron Writers Festival Office, Level 1, 28 Jonson Street Byron Ba y, NSW 2481 Tickets: $65 / $55 members or students

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Competitions

CHILD WRITES COMPETITION

The Child Writes Competition is open to Australian primary schoolaged children. The winning writer will be paired with an illustrator to be mentored through a program that will result in a published book through Boogie Books.

Submissions should be stories of no more than 800 words, and there is a fee of $10 per entry. There is no deadline, with entries closing when 500 entries have been received. www.childwrites.com.au/CWCompetition.html

ABR PETER PORTER POETRY PRIZE The Australian Book Review's Peter Porter Poetry Prize is open to original poems of no more than seventy-five lines, and to all poets around the world. First prize takes $5,000 and a print of Arthur Boyd's The lady and the unicorn. The second placed poet wins $2,000.

Entry is $15 for Australian Book Review subscribers and $25 for non-subscribers, with a deadline of 3 December. For full details visit www.australianbookreview.com.au

THE 2018 SOMERSET NATIONAL NOVELLA WRITING COMPETITION

The Somerset National Novella Writing Competition is open to all Australian high school students or home-schooled students aged under nineteen, and is an opportunity for literary growth as well as a number of prizes. Supported by Bond University and Penguin Group, the competition is for novellas of between 8,000 and 20,000 words.

An entry fee of $20 is payable, with the national winner awarded $2,500 and a full editorial report

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from Random House (Australia).

Entries close on 1 December. For full details go to www.somerset.qld. edu.au/celebration-of-literature/ competitions/novella-writing

THE 2018 SOMERSET NATIONAL POETRY COMPETITION

The Somerset National Poetry Prize is designed to encourage a love of poetry among secondary school students and enrich youth literature. Entrants must be under nineteen years of age and be at high school or home-schooled.

There is fee of $15 for each entry, while there are two categories: years seven to nine and years ten to twelve. Poems should be no more than fifty lines. The winner of each category wins $300 and flights to attend the Somerset Celebration of Literature. Deadline for entries is 8 December, with more information available at www.somerset.qld. edu.au/celebration-of-literature/ competitions/poetry-prize

THE HORNE PRIZE

Aesop and The Saturday Paper have combined for this new prize, with The Horne Prize an essay prize that is seeking entries of up to 3,000 words on the theme ‘Australian life’. Entries close on 18 September, with a shortlist announced on 17 November. The winning essay will be published in The Saturday Paper on 23 December. For full details on this competition, named after Australian writer Donald Horne, visit www.thehorneprize.com.au

FICTION FACTORY SHORT STORY COMPETITION

This UK-based competition is open to international submissions of

short stories of up to 3,000 words in length. Cash prizes are on offer (ranging from £25 to £150) as well as optional critique of stories.

Winning stories will be published online and in an anthology at a later day. Entry fee is £6 and the optional critique is £5 – entries close 7 January. For more information visit www.fiction-factory.biz

THE HOPE PRIZE

The Hope Prize, the Brotherhood of St Laurence's National Short Story Competition, is open for entries until 18 January, 2018. The prize aims to explore resilience in the face of poverty and disadvantage, encouraging Australian writers to look beyond common stereotypes to investigate the strengths that people show in dealing with hardship, whose voices are rarely heard. Stories entered can be fiction or fact. Whatever the genre, the story submitted must convey the experience of people facing hardship in their lives. Total prize pool is $17,000 with first place taking $10,000. Two Women’s Writing Career Development Scholarships will also be awarded.

Judges are Cate Blanchett, Kate Grenville and Dame Quentin Bryce.

For full details go to www.bsl.org. au/events/the-hope-prize

SO BAD IT’S GOOD WRITING COMPETITION

Nambucca Valley Writers Group invites entries in its So Bad It’s Good Writing Competition. $500 first prize, $250 second, $100 third, plus e-book publication for fifty or so of the best of the bad. If you are champing at the bit to write a narrative with more clichés than you can poke

a stick at and if you can create similes that are so excruciatingly erroneous they’ll make everyone LOL, this competition is for you. $10 entry fee. Rules and examples of the genre can be viewed at www.nambuccawriters.info

THE OVERLAND NEILMA SIDNEY SHORT STORY PRIZE

Overland’s short story prize invites entries of up to 3,000 words on the theme of ‘travel’. Open to national and international writers, the winning story earns a first prize of $4,000 and publication in Overland journal. Two runners-up will receive $500 and publication online.

Entries close on 19 November and there is an entry fee of $12 for Overland subscribers and $20 for non-subscribers. Full conditions can be found at www.overland.org. au/prizes/overland-neilma-sidneyshort-story-prize

HAL PORTER SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Australian writers are invited to enter short stories on any theme to this competition, which offers the winner prize money of $1,000. Entries should not exceed 2,500 words with a deadline for entries of December 16. Each entry must be accompanied by a $10 administration fee.

For full conditions visit www. eastgippslandartgallery.org.au/ halporter2017

THE BLACKENED BILLY VERSE COMPETITION

Organised by Tamworth Poetry Reading Group and now in its twenty-eighth year, this competition invites entries of bush

verse that fit on one side of A4 paper; entries are by post only. First prize picks up $500, second prize $250 and third $150. Competition closes on 30 November with the winner announced on 27 January.

There is a fee of $5 per entry (or $20 for five entries), and the entry form can be downloaded at www. abpa.org.au/Files/event_2018_ BlackenedBillyEntryForm.pdf

WB YEATS POETRY PRIZE

There is a fifty-line limit for the 2017 WB Yeats Poetry Prize, which invites entries in an open style. Winner takes $500, with second and third winning $75. Entries are via email or post, with a deadline of 31 March, 2018. There is a fee of $8.50 for the first entry and $5.50 for further entries. Full details are available at www.wbyeatspoetryprize.com

FORTY SOUTH PUBLISHING TASMANIAN WRITERS’ PRIZE

This competition is open to Australian or New Zealand residents for short stories of up to 3,000 words with an island or island-resonant theme. The winner will receive a prize of $500 and anthology publication – a selection of other entries also will be published. There is an entry fee of $20 per story, with a deadline of 18 February, 2018.

For further details go to www. fortysouth.com.au/tasmanianwriters-prize

FAW TASMANIA 2018 NAIRDA LYNE AWARD

The 2018 Nairda Lyne Award, organised by the Fellowship of Australian Writers Tasmania, is seeking original, unpublished short stories suitable for readers aged

between eight and twelve years old.

Stories should not exceed 1,000 words and there is an entry fee of $5 per story. First prize is $100 and the winner’s name will be inscribed on a plaque at Launceston State Library.

Deadline for entries is 31 March, 2018. For further information go to www.fawtas.org.au/competitions

MOZO TRAVEL BLOGGING COMPETITION

This competition asks that entrants publish a post of 350-750 words on their personal blog about the best $20 they have spent whilst travelling globally. The piece must include a link back to the competition landing page, while first prize wins a $1,000 gift card.

There is no entry fee and a deadline for entries of 22 November. Visit the landing page at www.mozo. com.au/insurance/travel-insurance/ best-20

THE MOZZIE POETRY PRIZES

The Mozzie is an independent poetry magazine that publishes over 400 poems a year. 2017 will be its twenty-fifth year of publication. To celebrate, a supporter who wishes to remain anonymous has donated funds to allow us to award three prizes of $100 each: best poem by a regular contributor, best poem by a new contributor (who sent poetry after January 1, 2017) and best poem of twelve lines or fewer. Poems should not be more than forty lines long and reach The Mozzie by the end of the year. Send poems to The Mozzie, 28 Baynes Street, Highgate Hill, Queensland 4101.

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>> WRITERS’ GROUPS

>> Alstonville Plateau Writers Group

Meets second Friday of each month, 10am - 12pm. All genres welcome, contact Kerry on (02) 6628 5662 or email alstonvilleplateauwriters@outlook.com

>> Ballina/Byron U3A Creative Writing

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 0407 749 288

>> Bellingen Writers Group

Meets at Bellingen Golf Club on the fourth Monday of the month at 2pm. All welcome, contact Joanne on (02) 6655 9246 or email jothirsk@restnet.com.au

>> Byron Bay Memoir and Fiction Writing Group

>> Dunoon Writers Group

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

Contact Helga on (02) 6620 2994 (W), 0401 405 178 (M) or email heg.j@telstra.com

>> FAW Port Macquarie-Hastings Regional

Meets 1pm on last Saturday of each month, Maritime Museum, Port Macquarie. Contact Joie on (02) 6584 3520 or email Bessie on befrank@tsn.cc

>> Gold Coast Writers Association

Meets third Saturday of each month, 1:30pm for 2pm start, at Fradgley Hall, Burleigh Heads Library, Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads. Contact 0431 443 385 or email info@goldcoast-writers.org.au

>> Kyogle Writers

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

Meets first Tuesday of each month, 10:30am at Kyogle Bowling Club. Contact Brian on (02) 6624 2636 or email briancostin129@hotmail.com

>> Byron Writers

>> Lismore Writers Group

Every Tuesday 10am to 12pm, Byron Bay Library.

Contact the library on (02) 6685 8540.

>> Casino Writers Group

Meets every third Thursday of the month at 4pm at Casino Library. Contact Brian on (02) 6628 2636 or email briancostin129@hotmail.com

>> Cloudcatchers

For Haiku enthusiasts. A ginko (haiku walk) is undertaken according to group agreement.

Contact Quendryth on (02) 6653 3256 or email quendrythyoung@bigpond.com

>> Coffs Harbour Writers Group

Meets 1st Wednesday of the month 10.30am to 12.30pm. Contact Lorraine Penn on (02) 6653 3256 or 0404 163 136, email: lmproject@bigpond.com. www.coffsharbourwriters.com

>> Coffs Harbour Memoir Writers Group

Share your memoir writing for critique. Monthly meetings, contact 0409 824 803 or email costalmermaid@gmail.com

>> Cru3a River Poets

Meets every Thursday at 10:30am, venue varies, mainly in Yamba. Contact Pauline on (02) 6645 8715 or email kitesway@westnet.com.au

>> Dorrigo Writers Group

Meets every second Wednesday from 10am-2pm.

Contact Iris on (02) 6657 5274 or email an_lomall@ bigpond.com or contact Nell on (02) 6657 4089

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Meets second Tuesday of the month from 6pm to 8pm at Communities Hub Art Space on Keen Street. Cost is $5 for Hub members, $7.50 for non-members. For more details phone 0410 832 362.

>> Middle Grade / Young Adult Fiction Writers’ Group

Meets monthly at 2pm on Sundays in Bangalow.

Contact Carolyn Bishop at carolyncbishop@gmail.com or 0431 161 104

>> Nambucca Valley Writers Group

Meets fourth Saturday of each month, 1:30pm, Nambucca. Contact (02) 6568 9648 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 (02) 6553 2829 or email rrw1939@hotmail.com

>> Tweed Poets and Writers

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 (07) 5524 8035 or Pauline (07) 5524 5062.

>> WordsFlow Writing

Group meets Fridays during school term, 12:30pm-3pm, Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre, 12a Elizabeth St, Pottsville Beach. Contact Cheryl on 0412 455 707 or visit www.wordsflowwriters.blogspot.com

Degrees to help you pursue your passion Are you seeking a career in writing or media?

At Southern Cross University we have creative and inspirational courses designed to suit you, from our Associate Degree of Creative Writing, to our Bachelor of Digital Media and Communications, Bachelor of Arts and new in 2018, Bachelor of Laws and Creative Writing.

You can also enjoy your study without compromising your lifestyle, by choosing to study full-time, part-time, on campus or online.

Explore our range of study options and discover how you can turn your passion into a rewarding career.

Apply now at:

www.scu.edu.au CRICOS Provider: 01241G

SCU6595 6595 Creative Writing ad for Northerly magazine.indd 1

13/9/17 9:28 am

SHOULD THE STATE CONTROL A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE? Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin presents the 2017 Greta Bird Lecture: Pregnancy, Poverty and the State Followed by a conversation with ABC RN’s Paul Barclay

DETAILS & TICKETS Tuesday 14 November, 6 - 7.30pm Byron Theatre FREE bookings essential byronwritersfestival.com/whats-on

FREE EVENT CO-PRESENTED BY