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Last Call for Flinder’s Creative Writing Students
Last Call for Flinders’ Creatives
- Victoria Delise, Clean - Last Call
A student-made anthology of short stories, Last Call follows a university Astronomy Club over a one-night pub crawl. Focusing on the main concepts of multiperspectivity and unreliable narration, each new story follows the perspective of a new character over the course of the night. We are a group of fourteen Bachelor of Creative Arts: Creative Writing undergraduate and honours students collaborating together to get our collective ‘foot’ into the doors of our profession by stepping forward with the aspiration to see our names officially published. With the generous support, and subsequent publication by Glimmer Press, a local Adelaide-Based publisher we aim to achieve just that. Last Call is an opportunity for our cohort of creative writing students to demonstrate the skills we’ve learnt in our degree and gain valuable experience within the industry. In our cohort’s final semester as undergraduates, we came to our tutor excited, but lost. The course we’d spent three years together completing was nearly over. As Creative Writing students, we weren’t sure career-wise, where we could go after university and so, after some deliberation, we were given the choice ourselves; presenting to the class a collaborative goal that we could work towards, together, as the semester went on. Each of us presented a theme and a format to the group. A professionally published anthology was voted as the format, the theme, ‘multi-perspectivity;’ the idea that our stories take place in a shared world and all our stories came from the perspective of each character we created. Currently with the copy edits completed, we are undergoing a complex editing process and are finalising the books blurb, and acknowledgements whilst seeking endorsements from those that have read the books first draft. These experiences have given us a strong understanding of the job opportunities that await post-graduation and necessary experience in highly sort after publishing skills. Through all of the groundwork to build this project to where it is, the impact it has had on our cohort has been outstandingly positive. For our cohort this presents the first chance to interact with many aspects of the publishing industry and gives us a valuable opportunity to do so under the guiding light of our very talented instructors.
When beginning this project, our goal was admittedly rather selfish: we, as aspiring authors, wanted nothing more than to have our names on a published book. Something tangible, something visible, something undeniably real. Something to make three
years of endless nights and deadlines and grading feel meaningful. However, as publication progressed and fundraising began, the sheer amount of support we received – from friends, family, peers, colleagues, staff – was jaw-dropping. Our degree had never required so much collaboration with our community until now, and to receive such selfless support instantly was beyond anything we had imagined. The idea that this sort of community involvement could continue, and that we could extend the generosity that we had been given to cohorts beyond ours, so that they, too, could feel the gratitude that we have become so overwhelmed with, is incredible. This selfish idea that we began with has become something entirely new: it has encouraged our community to see the worth in young authors, created collaboration between local South Australians (including local publishers and businesses), and it will, hopefully, become the foundations from which future cohorts can become involved in their community far sooner than we did. In the end, those endless nights truly are worthwhile, and perhaps that’s a greater achievement than our names on a book. Perhaps.
With this collaborative anthology, we aspire to kickstart future projects like ours that will give the creative writing community at Flinders a bright future. A project in this field lets the creative and imaginative potential of the cohort run free and brings its students together, offering its students, a glimpse into the local publishing industry, while having the incredible chance to be published. With the hopes that our fellow students wish to see this corner of the Creative Arts thrive as much as we do, they can help secure a promising future for the CW program by donating to our GoFundMe, which will contribute funding towards the exciting projects the future of Creative Writing holds.
In regard to our hopes, the sheer size of the donations and the community support has given us new goals and new ideas for the future. We hope to achieve some recognition, as this project is the first of its kind at Flinders University and leave a legacy of inspiration and aspiration for upcoming Creative Writing students. Further, we wish for this project to push hesitant writers out in the community towards the Flinders degree, so that they can have the nurturing experience that we have cherished. After three years on and off campus lifelong friendships have developed and can only continue to grow. We have learnt how to work independently and collaboratively to deliver polished publishable work, all the while developing outstanding rapport within the cohort. Through workshopping we have learn positive feedback is its own reward, and that less favourable feedback drags you from writers block and guides you to new thoughts and ideas. It is a perfect storm as we stride into a life of writing knowing there is always, and always will be help at hand. As individuals our ambitions vary in the publishing world. Some will be behind the scenes in script or screenwriting. Others may join the all-important position of editing and education. There may even be a few blockbuster writers waiting to unleash their stories on avid readers. Whatever path we take, we are now published authors and that alone is an enormous achievement.
For those still able to donate, please reach out through the Empire Team to help support our project. - The 2021 CRWR Team.
