Format Festival’s
Academy of Words Sunday 27 February, 10am–5pm Calling all innovative, emerging, independent and underground writers! Directed by Ryan Paine – ignorant blogger, book editor, local ratbag – the program for the Format Festival’s Academy of Words is focused on the idea that the publishing industry is changing apace and young people are at the coalface. Among the independent writing communities in Australia, there is a lot of dissent being whispered to friends and friends of friends, but not so much in the way of practical ideas about how to guide these rapids of change in the direction of a more democratic, diverse and accessible market for writing, reading and the dissemination of ideas. That’s what the Academy of Words is all about in 2011. A one-day shit-fight about the things we all want to see start happening in the publishing industry. People will argue. People will cry and laugh. There will be no book signings. Be there.
When Where More Info Program
Sunday 27 February, 10am–5pm Format Collective, 15 Peel St, Adelaide (between Hindley & Currie Sts) Call 0422 094 531 or email ryanppaine@gmail.com
10.00–11.00am PANEL How to Sell Out Without Losing Your Cred, with Lisa Dempster Moving copies doesn’t mean you’ve caught the mainstream. Emerging publishing technology means it is becoming easier to access niche, subcultural markets beyond your immediate circle of friends – meaning you can have a satisfying body of readers without compromising the integrity of your soul. Meet some people who are doing this with panache. SPEAKERS: Liam Pieper, Ianto Ware and Lisa Dempster … 11.00am–12.00pm ROUNDTABLE I Write, Therefore I am a … , with Ryan Paine and YOU Roundtable about what it means to be a writer, people’s experiences of realising they were a writer, and how to build that realisation into a practice of actually producing quality content, consistently. … 12.00–1.00pm PANEL Honk if You’re the Publishing Industry, with Shane Jess Christmass Online digital technology is reducing the barriers of access to the market for emerging, niche authors and publishers. Individuals are making livings out of publishing their own eBooks, and selling them online. Discussion is rife about how this democratisation of literature production is a boon for the freedom of expression, but what does it mean for the production of literature itself? SPEAKERS: Simon Loffler, Connor Thomas O’Brien, Shalini Kunahlan, Josh Fanning and Elouise Quinlivan.
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… 1.00–2.00pm POETRY WORKSHOP Trans Anatomy Thesis – To Spit Or Swallow? with Teri Louise Kelly and Jenny Toune A 40-minute trip into the world of performance (word) art, including movement techniques (image), content and just how far the boundaries of this ‘flavour-of-the-moment’ hybrid genre can be forced in a society where conservatism appears to reign supreme. This is a non-sterile environment, which will more than likely contain expletives and occasional lewd behaviour cunningly disguised as ‘art’. … 2.00–3.00pm PANEL Will Write for Food, with Greg Foyster The remuneration models of the publishing and media industries are all fucked up. Writers, the primary producers in the sector, are the least well paid. Emerging writers get paid nothing, and innovative writers get even nothinger. Do these low pay rates and declining profits in the publishing industry represent a kind of market failure? SPEAKERS: Kami Mcinnes, Liam Pieper, Sophie Langley and Clementine Ford … 3.00–4.00pm PANEL Activism Smells, with Ryan Paine Mainstream literature is dominated by the middle-aged and the middle-class, and the underground by … well, us. This great divide is bridged by a Wikipedia stub about ‘literary activism’, but that’s about it. A panel about being active on behalf of literature. SPEAKERS: Edwin Kemp Attrill, Barbara Wiesner, Ali Edmonds and Aden Rolfe … 4.00–5.00pm ROUNDTABLE Where Can We Go From Here?, with Matt Smith, Connor Thomas O’Brien and YOU The future of literature is in your hands – in the magazines, literary gigs and companies you start. Join these emerging industry figures to discuss starting, establishing and sustaining the projects you have been inspired to start throughout the day, or were already cooking up. … 5.00–forever LITERARY TREASURE HUNT A Novelty. Doo do doo do … …
Format Festival is an award-winning artist-run festival that celebrates and explores the creative community, showcasing visual, urban and experimental art; as well as zines, live music, craft, activism, performance and discussion, including the Street Dreams urban art festival and the Adelaide Zine & DIY Fair. Format Festival has been described as Adelaide’s “fringe of the Fringe”.
Ryan Paine is a writer, editor and book junkie with experience of both extremes of the book industry’s demographic, currently as a book editor at Wakefield Press, and previously as editor of Voiceworks, a Melbourne-based quarterly produced entirely by writers and editors under 25. He is co-author of blog ‘Socratic Ignorance is Bliss’.
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