Degrees to help U pursue your passion Are you seeking a career in writing or the media? At Southern Cross University we have creative and inspirational courses designed to suit you, from our Associate Degree in Creative Writing, which can be completed in two years of full-time study, to our Bachelor of Media and Bachelor of Arts. You can also enjoy your study without compromising your lifestyle, by choosing to study full-time, part-time, on campus or by distance education. Explore our range of study options and discover how you can turn your passion into a rewarding career.
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in this issue ... 02
Noticeboard
03
A word from the Director
04
Welcome to our sponsors
05
Festival guest – MJ Hyland
Edna Carew 06
Festival guest – MJ Akbar
Simon Eddy
07
The writers’ web
08
Words and music
Jessie Cole
10 Festival guest – Inga Simpson 11
Festival launches
12
Residential mentorship
13
Festival guest – DBC Pierre
14
SCU writing showcase
15
A writer’s leap of faith: Kathryn R.
Lyster Paula McDougall 16
If I tell you… I’ll have to kill you
Peter Lawrance 17
Festival guest – Catherine Deveny
18
Kids’ page – Libby Gleeson
Tristan Bancks 19
From the reading chair
Laurel Cohn 20
Festival Workshops
22
Opportunities & competitions
24
Writers’ groups and member discounts
northerly is the bi-monthly magazine of the Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre. The Writers’ Centre is a resource and information base for writers and readers in the Northern Rivers region. We offer a year-round program of readings, workshops and writer visits as well as the annual production of the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. The Centre is a non-profit, incorporated organisation receiving its core funding from Arts NSW. LOCATION Level 1 28 Jonson Street, Byron Bay POSTAL ADDRESS PO Box 1846 Byron Bay NSW 2481 PHONE 02 6685 5115 FAX 02 6685 5166 EMAIL info@nrwc.org.au WEB www.nrwc.org.au NRWC COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON Chris Hanley VICE CHAIRPERSON Lynda Dean SECRETARY Russell Eldridge TREASURER Cheryl Bourne MEMBERS Jesse Blackadder, Fay Burstin, Marele Day, Robert Hanson, Lynda Hawryluk, Brenda Shero, Adam van Kempen LIFE MEMBERS: Jean Bedford, Jeni Caffin, Gayle Cue, Jill Eddington, Chris Hanley, John Hertzberg, Fay Knight, Jennifer Regan, Cherrie Sheldrick, Heather Wearne CONTACT EMAIL: northerly@nrwc.org.au PRINTING: Quality Plus Printers Ballina MAIL OUT DATES: Magazines are sent in JANUARY, MARCH, MAY, JULY, SEPTEMBER and NOVEMBER ADVERTISING: We welcome advertising by members and relevant organisations. A range of ad sizes are available. The ad booking deadline for each issue is the first week of the month prior. Email northerly@nrwc.org.au. The Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre presents northerly in good faith and accepts no responsibility for any misinformation or problems arising from any misinformation. The views expressed by contributors and advertisers are not necessarily the views of the management committee or staff. We reserve the right to edit articles with regard to length. Copyright of the contributed articles is maintained by the named author and northerly. Cover: Design by Juliette Cohen- Solal
3 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
Staff picks for the Festival What I love about our Festival is what lies behind the fabric of the program. It’s tiptoeing around the site and coming across unexpected knots of writers with their heads together in conversation, conversations that stimulate and nourish, that spark creative debate and passionate engagement. Festivals can be incubators of ideas and while the program celebrates what is, the interaction and networking can germinate new work, new possibilities, new imaginative initiatives. The BBWF 2013 encompasses an enormous range of topics, genres and indeed ethnicities. I look forward to viewing my world a little differently as the last sessions draw to a close. A mind expanded, that’s what I anticipate. Jeni Caffin
I’m looking forward to attending the Stella Prize Trivia Quiz at The Byron Brewery on Friday night, and over the three days attending the many book launches at the Launchpad. I hope to catch one of the delectable food events too (of course). Roll on August... Sarah Ma
I’m excited about Pitch Perfect. This is always one of my favourite events at the Festival. It’s so exciting to hear writers pitch the ideas that they’re passionate about to a panel of publishers. One of last year’s pitchers, Kathryn R. Lyster, is launching her book at the Festival this year after being picked up by Harlequin last year, so Pitch Perfect gets results! Lisa Walker
Catch Pitch Perfect - 9am Saturday, Launchpad. FREE EVENT Hi, I’m Penny Leonard and I’m making the jump from Festival volunteer to Volunteer Coordinator this year. I’ve just returned from an 800 km pilgrimage across Spain and tattered feet aside, I’m keen and ready to work with the vital and energetic group of volunteers who have put their names forward this year. Without the generous contribution of our volunteers we could not run the Festival. I’m thrilled to be able to tell that the T-shirts this year are soft and gorgeous and that they will love them. I look forward to working with the regulars and new volunteers this year. Penny Leonard
This is my first year in the role of Site Manager so it’s extremely exciting for me to be working with such a dynamic and capable crew who know how to laugh AND be exceptional. Also as the jigsaw puzzle that is site infrastructure comes together, my eyes cross less and I am truly able to appreciate what a wonderful program we are presenting this year. Highlights of the program are difficult to name as it seems silly to differentiate between such talent however I have to say, bring on the wise words of Luka Lesson in the Dynamic Australian Poetry Slam.
4 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
Brigid Prain
E Her story ‘Blue, blue sky’ appeared in city-pick New York in 2011.
Congratulations Hayley Katzen’s essay The Lonely Death was shortlisted for the Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay and published in the May edition of the Australian Book Review. Jan Pearson won the Hong Kong based Proverse Publishing Prize in the fiction category which will see her second book Red Bird Summer published shortly. Kevin Lawler has published his first novel, an adult drama titled Unmask the Hero on Amazon e-books. Set in the town of Bangalow, it is the story of a young man and the four young women who impact on his life through sex, love, friendship and tragedy. Helen Burns has published her memoir The Way is a River of Stars: A Buddhist’s Journey through Northern Spain on the Camino Pilgrim Route. It is now available as an e-book through Amazon. Emma Ashmere’s short story Portrait or Landscape has been published in Mud Map: Australian Women’s Experimental Writing Anthology in TEXT, the online journal of Writing and Writing Programs. Marian Edmunds tells a Turkish bath tale in city-pick Istanbul. This literary travel anthology includes stories by Orhan Pamuk, William Dalrymple and many more. Published in April 2013 by Oxygen Books, it is the second appearance by Marian in the city-pick series. Her story Blue, blue sky appeared in city-pick New York in 2011. Krista Fuller is proud to announce that after eight years of hard work her book on suicide prevention The Outsider’s Inn – Saving Lives with Conscious Living has achieved publication.
A word (well several) from the Director
Dear members, Here it is, the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival edition of northerly , featuring some of the stellar writers and presenters you will find within the program. We are hurtling toward
August.
Have
you
organised
your 3-Day Pass for the main program? Hopefully you’ve assembled a delicious hamper of workshops and feature events to round out the BBWF experience. And if all of that is beyond the budget at this time, avail yourself of the smorgasbord of book launches detailed within. It costs nothing to be present at the birth of a book and then you can say “I saw it first!” Naturally the buzz surrounds the ninety conversations that will fill the marquees with laughter and tears and swell the imagination, but I want to sneak a moment to highlight a body of people and organisations who sustain the BBWF: our sponsors, great and small. The Festival program lists them all, online and in print; please examine these names and understand the depth of support we receive, and require, in order to present our Festival. Everyone plays a part, but in particular
I acknowledge our marquee sponsors.
impossible to imagine. Susie left this world
Southern Cross University has supported
quietly 17 May and our hearts are full. Love
us since 1999, on countless levels.
We
and compassion for the mighty Warrick
utilise SCU interns, welcome their student
family. Susie is treasured by the NRWC and
film crew and work with them throughout
by all privileged to know her.
the entire year. Macquarie came on board
Read on, with love.
in 2003, became a marquee sponsor in 2007 and has continued to grow support
Jeni Caffin
annually. We are indebted to visionary individuals within these institutions who have found room for us in their budgets in challenging times, to borrow a cliché. And now to the new kids on site: Feros Care and New Philosopher. Again, some clear sighted and innovative individuals have understood the value of the BBWF and generously given their names to marquees and support to the Festival. Welcome, and let the relationships prosper. Lastly, it is my sad and tender duty to pay homage to our beloved former colleague, Susie Warrick. Susie is familiar to many as schools and volunteer coordinator for the BBWF, and ultimately as the NRWC writer development manager, a role she held until October 2010. A more diligent, intelligent, intuitive
and
efficient
workmate
photo by Greg Saunders
is 5 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
Welcome to our new marquee sponsors Jennene Buckley from Feros Care and Zan Boag from New Philosopher magazine chat to northerly
northerly: What is Feros Care? J.B.: Feros Care is a community-owned, not for profit organisation that provides a range of aged care services and support to approximately 3500 seniors a year from Forster in New South Wales to Bundaberg in Queensland. In June 1990 Feros Care began the first of its aged care services, Feros Village, on Marvel Street Byron Bay. It arose from a long-held dream of local Greek man George Feros, who wanted to build a nursing home for his parents. It was the further commitment of a group of Byron locals who continued the fundraising efforts and government negotiations long after George’s death in 1981 to see his dream become a reality. Shirley Nelson, a long-time volunteer of the Writers’ Festival, was Feros Care’s founding chairperson and played a key role in seeing Feros Care evolve over the last 23 years. Feros Care is about Celebrating Ageing! Ageing is not a condition, it’s our next adventure. northerly: What excites you about the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival? J.B.: Despite Shirley Nelson suggesting every year for the last 12 years that I should attend the festivals, work life and motherhood just didn’t seem to allow me to have that time to consider such an extravagance of attending a weekend festival. But two years ago I went for a day and I am hooked! What I found was that I don’t need to read 50 books a year to appreciate this festival; it is entertaining, thought provoking and inspirational. And I now wished I had been going for years and brought my children.
6 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
northerly: What made you decide to be a Festival sponsor? J.B.: Feros has a long and rich history in the Byron Bay Community, has always been a thought leader in our industry and wish to be a thought leader in the community. We are an inclusive organisation and we want to give back to the community and inform and encourage debate around the concept of ageing. Feros is happy to promote those writers and their ideas and stories that challenge the concept of ageing as a negative concept. We want to encourage discussion on a realistic view of ageing with humour, with empathy, and with practical messages. Feros understands the value of “storytelling” and how our seniors greatly benefit from reminiscing. Feros Care is “owned by the community for the community” – what better way to show people what we are about. As they own us!
northerly: What is New Philosopher magazine? Z.B.: Some of the brightest minds in the world work in philosophy departments, but their ideas have been largely hidden in thick, academic literature and lengthy textbooks. Our aim is to dissect these ideas and to present them in a manner that everyone can understand, not just academics and professional philosophers. There’s an amateur philosopher in all of us, the inner-voice asking: “why are we here?” “how should I live?” “what is the point of all this?” Philosophy can help answer these questions – or as is often the case with philosophical inquiry, it opens up even more questions. To draw out that inner philosopher we need
to show people just how fascinating – and worthwhile – philosophy is to their lives. To do this, we intend to produce a magazine that’s beautifully designed and spellbindingly interesting, with topics that make you look at the world and yourself in a different way. The true aim of the magazine is for people to get to the end of it and feel inspired. To start asking themselves questions, to look at the world around them from a different angle. northerly: What excites you about the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival? Z.B.: It’s great to be involved with the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival; it’s a fantastic gathering of some of Australia’s finest minds. I think New Philosopher and the BBWF have a similar aim – to provide people with an intellectually stimulating experience that helps them look at the world a different way. northerly: What made you decide to be a Festival sponsor? Z.B.: Sponsoring a marquee gives us the opportunity to be seen by the hordes of readers and writers that come through each year, what’s more we’re looking forward to rubbing shoulders with the great line-up for 2013. It’s a pleasure to support such a wonderful event, each year Jeni and the team put something that is really worthwhile in people’s lives. northerly: What event won’t you be missing at the Festival? Z.B.:The launch of New Philosopher magazine! I’m also looking forward to the Poetry Slam to find out what all the fuss is about. New Philosopher magazine will be launched at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival on Saturday 3 August, 10.30am at the Launchpad.
MJ Hyland
talks to Edna Carew northerly: Your 2009 novel, This is How, gives a powerful insight into the mind of a young man who commits murder. Why are you drawn to themes of violence, especially unprovoked, gratuitous violence? MJH: I wanted to do my damnedest to write a decent novel in the tradition of Camus’s The Outsider, Peter Handke’s The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick and Andre Gide’s The Vatican Cellars. And I wanted to explore the ‘gratuitous act’, the unprovoked murder in a style, and tone and voice that results in an intense, authentic, hyper-zoomed-in study of one man’s mind. And I wanted to make moral judgment difficult; to eliminate neat cause-and-effect, to avoid pathologising or diagnosing Patrick’s condition . . . I wanted the reading to feel akin to reading a memoir, words so close to unadorned truth they might seem to have been written by a twenty-two-year-old man, not by a writer in Manchester who was on the phone most afternoons to criminal law QCs and giving writing workshops in high security prisons for the sake of research. I’m also interested in the insistent bewilderment borne of the very act of living. Life’s a bugger and, if you’re ill-at-ease, all the more so. That’s why I give my lead characters a deformity (small or large), to act as a motif which, if nothing else, reinforces their lack of ease. Patrick (the young man in This is How) lives in a semi-terrified dread of not ‘fitting in’ and, like Patrick, if you live an examined life and understand that there’s no god, no epic or organised design, you’ll probably spend some of your waking hours in a state of subdued terror: not a regular terror, of course, but an unsettled sensation, a sub-surface quietly buzzing discomfiture. northerly: How much of This is How had you
mapped out before starting? MJH: I began with an idea, a notion of the overall movement and thrust of the story, and a dominant theme. But I didn’t have a storyboard or plan of the intricate details of the plot, the totality, the narrative shape, the nuances, who’ll live and who’ll die. This is How was inspired by an interview in Tony Parker’s Twelve Interviews with Twelve Murderers and the young man in Parker’s book got blind drunk one night and killed a fellow lodger in a squalid London bed-sit. I decided on the seaside boarding house as a setting: a perfect, lonely and bereft place, a place that puts pressure on a person to be happy – the way New Year’s Eve does - a place most likely to make Patrick snap. northerly: Why themes of tragedy and young men? MJH: Both Carry Me Down (2006) and This is How (2009) concern family and malfunctioning relationships. And since I’m not interested in the ‘everyman’, writing with young men as my main actors forces me to wholly invent, wholly imagine, and avoid leaning on the dull and quotidian facts of the life I know, the world I inhabit. It’s a writer’s job, first and foremost, to tell a good story and to avoid generalisation and cliché. Patrick’s not an emblem, not a cipher... He’s an anomaly; a middle-class, well-mannered and ‘educated’ young man who kills for no good reason...Patrick isn’t provoked but he suffers from a species of everyday paranoia, contempt, part-time misanthropy. When he reaches boiling point, he doesn’t know it’s coming and yet the reader ought to think they might have done the same. northerly: Advice for aspiring writers? MJH: You must spend a long time not writing, but re-writing. Drafts will almost always
MJ Hyland (c) Rory Carnegie
be awful and several dozen are needed. It astonishes me how little this is understood. The act of writing should become a physical habit. I’d recommend switching off the phone, chucking out the TV. Get in the quiet cave and stay there. Be patient. If you’re in a hurry, you’re probably not in love, as you ought to be, with the plain, hard slog –the sometimes exhilarating– act of writing. northerly: Is it true that you write in bed? MJH: Yes, propped up with pillows, or on comfy armchairs in crowded cafés. I simply want to be comfortable, or maybe I don’t want writing to resemble an office-job. I worked for seven years as a city lawyer and I hated the work, but did it because it paid the bills, and saw me through my apprenticeship. So, maybe the idea of writing on an ergonomic swivel-chair at a big desk might remind me of law firms and give me a bad case of the hives. 7 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
MJ Akbar, Indian journalist and author profiled by Simon Eddy MJ Akbar is the author of seven critically acclaimed books. His subjects range from the interplay of faith and nationalism to the conflict between the Muslim world and Christian realms. He is a brilliant commentator on the conflicts and challenges that have defined the last century. With a past of journalism and politics in India, Akbar is part of India’s history. As a leading Indian journalist he edited Sunday in 1976, the first real political weekly and launched The Telegraph in 1982, recognised as India’s first modern newspaper. This had a major impact on newspaper journalism in India. His writing career went on hold during a four-year spell as a parliamentary advisor. Here, he helped policy planning in integral parts of education, literacy and the protection of heritage. Akbar’s first book, India: The Siege Within, Challenges to a Nation’s Unity was praised in academic and common circles for its concise nature and elegance. Well regarded academically, many South Asian university courses put the book on their list of required reading. Akbar went on to write Riot after Riot which contained various case studies on Indian riots and other violence. Akbar describes the book as, “[the discovery of ] what lay behind the outbreaks of communal and caste violence that have taken place in India after Partition”. 8 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
He followed this with a biography of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. A keen response met Nehru: the Making of India. The New York Times acknowledged Akbar’s “skilful analysis of the historical forces that led to the transformation of Britain’s Indian Empire ...” Akbar’s fourth book, Kashmir: Behind the Vale, dealt with one of India’s most saddening crises. The violence in Kashmir accounted for more bloodshed than any other Indian conflict. This book delved into the identity and culture of this mountainous realm. On a subject that has become widely relevant, Akbar wrote The Shade of Swords: Jihad and Conflict between Islam and Christianity in 2002. In the wake of September 11 this book gave insight into the Islamic mindset through examining the past. Praised for its timeliness, research, provocation, sophistication and originality, this book is highly regarded on an international level. Akbar’s Blood Brothers was published in 2006. An autobiography of sorts, it tells the tale of three brothers who deal with the irregular world of Hindu–Muslim relations. Translated into four languages this book humanised Akbar and contextualised his other pieces. The story revealed a saga spanning three generations. This foray into fiction for Akbar was well received, with reviewers praising its charm and writing.
M J Akbar His most recent academic work, Tinderbox: the Past and Future of Pakistan, an analysis of the ideas behind the first state shaped on faith, was published in 2011. It was noted by The Economist for standing out amongst books on Pakistan and giving “... a fine and detailed history of Indian Muslim anger and insecurity”. Akbar has captured religion, politics and history in his works while being involved in them himself. Perhaps the best Indian writer and journalist, he is an integral part of the scholarly world, contributing a vast pool of knowledge to others. Not removed from his work, Akbar remains sensitive to the world around him as he shares what he sees. For more information: www.mjakbar.org
Emerging writers get a hand with writers’ web Writers’ web is an innovation for emerging Australian writers, connecting them with a panel of readers who review their work. northerly chats to writers’ web cofounders, Emma Mactaggart and Janet Kieseker about what the service does and how it’s helping new and self-published writers. What is writers’ web? Everyone knows that a farmers’ market connects the producer direct to the buyer. writers’ web is just like that but for writers – it connects would-be authors direct with readers. Rather than doing it face-toface we do it online on the web, to create a community of readers and writers. It’s really only been possible because of the changes to the publishing industry and technology. Publishing has had a big shake up thanks to the rise of Amazon and the result is that publishers are no longer gatekeepers to the release of new books. YouTube allows musicians to showcase their work direct to the public. writers’ web does something similar for Australian writers. How did you come up with the idea? Like many good ideas it involved a glass of wine! A few years ago at our bookclub, I was lamenting the lot of the emerging writer and how easy it is to get stuck in a publisher’s slush pile. Emma knows first hand how demoralising it can be not to hear anything from publishers after you’ve sent them off your “baby” that you’ve given blood, sweat and tears to produce. It’s this bottleneck that slows down or prevents writers getting their work out into the public domain. Why not change the paradigm? And so we did. It took a few years to work through the logistics and technical side of things before writers’ web launched at the end of 2011. Everyone knows the story of JK Rowling having the Harry Potter manuscript rejected by publishers,
at least 11 in total. If she had given you her manuscript, you would have passed the word to ten of your friends and them to ten of their friends, going viral. In today’s connected world, this is entirely possible and the idea that underpins writers web. We’d love to discover the next big Australian writer. How does it work for writers? Writers complete an online registration form, then submit information to build their writer profile and so we can put their book into our online shop. Our reviewers are invited to read the work and review it, with reviews posted on the sight. Authors may choose to use these reviews in their own promotional material. What is the cost to writers? There aren’t any up-front costs for writers. We take a 35% commission on book sales. Is it only for e-books? No, writers who have produced hard copy books can be part of writers’ web (WW). What are the benefits for writers? There are lots of advantages for writers, including: • there is no rejection – every book or manuscript we receive (as long as the content is not inappropriate) goes out to our reviewers for their feedback • using the feedback from the reviewers to refine their work • a means of promoting emerging Australian writers for no upfront cost • helps writer “discoverability” to targeted Australian reading audiences and as a possible springboard to publishers • speeds up the process of getting a work into reader/purchaser hands
• • •
provides an exclusive or additional promotional channel for authors and their books builds an author’s reading and purchasing networks a channel to sell their books.
Are you currently looking for more writers? YES! We have over 100 reviewers in our system waiting to read the works of writers. Which genres can writers submit? Both fiction and non-fiction genres are covered and if there’s enough interest in a genre other than the ones we currently offer, we will look at including it. It sounds like a perfect hunting ground for publishers looking for some fresh talent – is that the idea? Yes, writers’ web complements traditional publishing by providing a chance to demonstrate commercial viability as an author to “traditional” publishers. In today’s competitive market, proven authors have a higher degree of success in securing deals. We would love to be the go-to place where writers “get spotted” by mainstream publishers through the reader reviews and reader profiles on the site.
For more information go to: www.writersweb.com.au 9 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
Words and Music by Jessie Cole When pondering inspiration and where
the poets! It seemed to me that the book
conscious control.”
it is found, the cross-pollination that
was, among other things, a meditation
As with Everything’s Turning to White,
occurs amongst artistic genres always
on the place of reading in an artist’s life.
sometimes these cross-genre inspirations
comes to mind. Artworks that inspire
In this case, a songwriter.
can
writers, novels that inspire plays, plays
Paul Kelly talks about the way songwriters
songwriter Gyan’s musical interpretation
that inspire films … the list goes on.
continuously ‘borrow’ from one another
of the poems of Michael Leunig – Billy the
Think of novelist Tracy Chevalier and her
– “Ever since Homer’s repeated use of
Rabbit – is another tantalising example.
meditative take on Vermeer’s Girl with a
‘rosy-fingered dawn’, ‘ wine dark sea’,
In this case, Gyan turned to the work
Pearl Earring. But one of the least talked
and other formulas in The Odyssey,
of Michael Leunig as solace when she
about of these artist – muse relationships
songwriters have been drawing on the
was feeling burnt out. She spent twelve
is the interaction between music and
communal pool of phrases and images
months putting a host of his poems
writing.
available to anyone with ears.” He follows
to music. Eventually a friend who had
A couple of years ago I read Paul Kelly’s
this up with – “Some people continue to
worked with Leunig encouraged her
monster memoir How to Make Gravy, and
be surprised by this – those who have
to send the songs to him. She did, and
what struck me most forcibly about it was
notions of the artist as some kind of self-
Leunig loved them. And there began an
the breadth and depth of Kelly’s reading
dredger, dragging pieces of originality up
unusual mixed-media collaboration, with
life. At seventeen Kelly was reading
from the depths of their soul.” And then
the two of them giving performances
Herman Hesse, Arthur Rimbaud, Jack
the somewhat cheeky – “Self expression
involving Gyan singing while Leunig
Kerouac and Henry Miller, by nineteen it
is overrated, though. There’s so much of
drew.
was Walt Whitman and Jean Paul Sartre,
it around these days …”
But what about how songs influence
with a bit of Nietzsche on the side. He
Reading Kelly’s memoir, it was interesting
other art forms? A fan of the 1999 film by
spent large chunks of his twenty-fourth
to imagine the young Paul devouring all
Paul Thomas Anderson – Magnolia, years
year lying on his bed reading Marcel
those literary classics, and how they must
ago I bought the movie soundtrack, and
Proust.
have swirled about in his subconscious,
discovered within the liner notes a rather
The opening line of the memoir alludes
coming to light – sometimes years later
unusual dedication. It seems the whole
to Homer’s Odyssey, and the references
– in mysterious ways. He wrote the song
movie was inspired by the songs of Aimee
to literature just keep coming. Dickens,
Everything’s Turning to White – a retelling
Mann. As Anderson explains – “Like one
Dostoevsky, Balzac, Henry James, Sir
of the Raymond Carver short story So
would adapt a book for the screen, I had
Walter Scott, Emile Zola, Thomas Mann,
Much Water So Close to Home – five years
the concept of adapting Aimee’s songs
Virginia Woolf, Saul Bellow, John Updike,
after reading it. When he got back to
into a screenplay.” He gives details of
Philip Roth, Raymond Carver,as well as
checking the story, he was startled by
how the process worked – “For instance,
more contemporary writers like Nick
how exactly the details of story and song
in my original motion picture screenplay,
Hornby, Tim Winton, Jonathan Franzen,
matched up. Kelly explains how some of
Claudia says ‘Now that I’ve met you,
Michael Ondaatje, Robert Drewe, Peter
the time this borrowing is subconscious
would you object to never seeing each
Carey, Jeffery Euguenides and Gao
– “Writing, though it may involve a lot
other again?’ I must come clean. I did not
Xingjian. Don’t even get me started on
of thinking, is never entirely under our
write that line. Aimee Mann wrote that
10 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
bear
wonderful
fruit.
Singer-
Gyan and Paul Kelly line as the opening of her song, Deathly,
on the Edge of Town hit me late at night
had somehow morphed in my brain.
and I wrote backwards from that line. It
like a whack to the back of the head. It
Lucinda’s sorrow and pain with Bruce’s
equals the story of Claudia. It equals the
wasn’t something I pondered; all of a
tentative redemption. And the result
heart of Magnolia. All stories from the
sudden it was just there. I was more
was a novel, a strange hybrid of musical
movie were written branching off from
than three-quarters through writing it
influences, but somehow all my own.
Claudia, so one could do the math and
before I realised how distinctly (in my
I’m not the only writer who feels awed
realise that all stories come from Aimee’s
mind at least) it echoed the early work
by the power of music. When asked
brain, not mine.” Thomas ends the CD
of Bruce Springsteen. His song, Darkness
about the musical references scattered
liner notes with: “So here it is, the perfect
on the Edge of Town, seemed to hold
throughout his novels, Jonathan Franzen
memento to remember the movie – or
all the nuances of my main character’s
answered – “I’m more envious of music
you can look at the movie as the perfect
voice, even though I’d never consciously
than of any other artform – the way a
memento to remember the songs that
thought about the song at all. At that
song can take your head over and make
Aimee has made.”
point I began to consider the influence
you feel so intensely and so immediately.
When I first read this dedication I was a
of songs on the work I was doing. Before
It’s like snorting powder, it goes straight
few years out of high school, crazy about
I started writing Darkness on the Edge of
to your brain.”
music but not a musician, interested in
Town I’d come out of a very bewildering
But I’ll leave the last words to Kelly
writing but managing nothing more than
love affair and was obsessively listening
himself. In his memoir he says – “Writing
a few occasional scribbles in my diary. It
to the Lucinda Williams album West. It
songs is a magpie business. You build
struck me as wondrous that someone
must be said that listening to the raw
your nest and fetch and carry to it the
could hear one line of a song and a whole
and heart-rending Lucinda Williams
bright shiny things that catch your eye.
movie might spring from the earth like a
after having your heart broken is not the
You don’t care where they come from
blossoming tree. I’d never heard of Aimee
wisest of musical choices, and in an effort
just so long as they fit just so … New life
Mann, but I was dazzled by the potential
to buoy myself I’d turned to Springsteen,
begins when strange things connect.”
in this kind of relationship.
who has the knack of imbibing his music
Fast forward ten years or so and I was
with a kind of hard won optimism. It was
Paul Kelly and Gyan are appearing at the
writing. The idea for my novel Darkness
as though the work of the two musicians
Byron Bay Writers’ Festival
Photo: Cristina Smith
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Writing Mr Wigg by Inga Simpson Mr Wigg began with the name. It belongs
having too much fun with my 1970s
to a French ancestor I was researching,
Australian Mr Wigg. I tried to anchor him
with the idea of writing a much more
to the past, though, with stories and
complicated
fairytales, blacksmithing, and his fruit
novel
spanning
the
centuries. The real Mr Wigg was forced
trees.
to leave France, possibly as a political
Nonetheless, Mr Wigg is grounded in
dissident. He worked as a journalist in
the rural Australia I experienced growing
London until things became too hot
up – the landscape, shifts in farming
for him there as well. He emigrated to
practices, and tensions between the
Australia, for a time doing lecture tours
generations. Even cricket made its way
around New South Wales. His daughter
into the story.
While these starting
was my great great grandmother.
points were real and familiar, Mr Wigg
My Mr Wigg has a much more peaceful
became much more of an imagined
life. When I realised that my grandfather
world. What I wanted the book to be,
– who died when I was in my late
in the end, was a kind of contemporary
teens – had French heritage, I began to
fable.
understand him much better. He wasn’t
When it came time to submit the
a great farmer; his passion was always
manuscript, I considered giving it a
his orchard. When I travelled in rural
‘real’ title, but couldn’t come up with
France and saw all the village gardens
anything that suited. In some ways, it
and walled orchards, it occurred to me
has been nice to talk about the book as if
that he may have been living out a way
it is a person, or there is a person inside
of life he had never seen, as if from some
its pages. It goes some way towards
sort of genetic memory. While I was
capturing the way a character, and a
fantastic program for anyone with a draft
staying in one particular village, a sense
story, can sometimes take on a life of
manuscript looking for a breakthrough:
of a character began to form around
their own.
a high proportion of participants have
growing and eating good food – a rich
Mr Wigg’s road to publication came
gone on to be published. It’s a wonderful
yet simple life. In my head, I was calling
through
opportunity to receive feedback directly
the novel Mr Wigg before I had written
Manuscript
Program.
from the publisher, and to learn about
a word.
Mr Wigg was one of nine manuscripts
the current state of the industry from
Mr Wigg’s voice, when it came, turned
selected that year, and about twelve
those who know best. The support and
the book into something rather different
months later – after a process of
friendship from the other finalists have
than I had imagined. I abandoned the
rewriting and editing in consultation
been a really rewarding part of the
second French historical storyline; I was
with Hachette – I signed a contract. It’s a
program, too.
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the
2011
QWC/Hachette
Development
Inga Simpson
Friday 12.00: Sexual abuse survivor’s handbook: One man fights the Catholic Church. John Saunders The story of a man confronting and coming to terms with the sexual and physical abuse he endured as a boy in Catholic run schools. An insightful memoir, healing guide for abuse survivors and a practical handbook for those wishing to confront the perpetrators of their own abuse through the justice system. This is a timeless and valuable resource for therapists, legal advisers, fathers, mothers, brothers, sons, mates, mentors, partners, lovers and wives; all those whose lives have been affected by the hand of abuse either directly or by its far-reaching generational ripple effect.
Friday 2pm: If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you. See article on page 16 Saturday 10.30am: The New Philosopher. See article on page 4 Saturday 2pm: The Inevitability of Stars. See article on page 15 Saturday 4pm: The Camros Bird Diana Greentree A tale of courage and of unconditional love. As a political dissident, Amir has risked a dangerous sea voyage to Australia in order to escape capture and even death in Iran. Olivia, an Australian singer falls in love with Amir and enters his world of secrets. As their love blossoms, Amir reveals to Olivia the darkest of these secrets, one that will tragically alter the future they have planned together. The story explores the true stories of many who have sought refuge in Australia and have struggled with the traumas triggered by lengthy incarceration in immigration detention centres. Launched by Benjamin Law
Sunday 11am: To Sea in a Sailing Ship Sue Vader
Sunday 3pm: The Continuum of Happiness Bianca Ferrari
In the fading glory days of the legendary Age
Genuine Happiness – where does it come from? What sustains happiness and how can this quintessential commodity be lost to humans? Human detachment from the natural principles has carved a deep trench between modern life and human nature and has altered the conditions which are in service of claiming happiness. With the natural world in shambles and the narrowing possibilities of restoration the search for human contentment has become the pursuing of cures for the planet. The Continuum of Happiness proposes a whole new look at this matter by professing that happiness is a means of survival for the human and other species.
of Sail, a slip of a girl fulfilled her dream to sail across the world on two of the last windjammers, L’Avenir and Parma, in 1935-36. That ‘slip of a girl’– Mary Lang – was the late aunt of local writer, Sue Vader. Sue embarked on a voyage of discovery – a journey around her aunt – captivated by the diaries Mary kept as a passenger/apprentice (the only woman aboard) and marvelled at the historic photographs both by and of Mary. As Mary’s daughter, Anne, later remarked: ‘Who is this fascinating woman? I’d love to meet her!’ Both Sue and Anne felt the world needed to meet her too. Thus To Sea in a Sailing Ship was conceived and will be launched at the Byron Writers’ Festival. Launched by Mungo MacCallum
Sunday 1pm: Australian Love Poems Edited by Mark Tredinnick In this collection of uniquely Australian love poems new and award winning poets join with the familiar such as Cate Kennedy, Paul Kelly, Judith Beveridge and Les Murray to offer one hundred freshly written, exquisite poems of love, desire and devotion, longing and loss selected by award-winning poet and author Mark Tredinnick. These love poems are to be read alone, aloud, or between the sheets; given as a gift to your lover, or lovers of love; or used as a compendium for proposals, weddings, anniversaries and Valentines. Launched by: George Megalogenis
Life Surfing Life Dancing Free Public Forum Associate Professor Grant Blashki, Dr Sarah Edelman, Professor Kathy Griffiths, Professor Tim Sharp, and Professor Andrew Sinclair. Welcome to Life Surfing Life Dancing. How do you dance on a surfboard? And what could it have to do with wellbeing and living a healthy happy life? The title of this book is referring to a sense of movement, the momentum that a surfer gets when launching him or herself on a wave, or the balance and flow of the dancer when swaying to the beat of the music. Living well and achieving wellbeing is a similar process of finding such balance, of discovering one’s own rhythm, and focusing one’s energy on the important things in life.
Life Surfing Life Dancing brings together some inspirational writers to discuss their views on wellbeing, based not only on their clinical and research roles, but also their life experiences. Attend this free and informative public forum: all who attend will receive a complimentary copy of the book
Friday 2 August: 4.00PM-5.00PM
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Residential Mentorship This year’s program was held from 13-17 May. Here’s what the mentees had to say. Mirandi Riwoe What a privilege it was to spend a week being a ‘writer’ with no distractions. The NRWC mentorship provided me with the perfect opportunity to develop my novel manuscript Fragrance of Night. Marele Day was the perfect mentor, both professional and thoughtful. She clearly spent a great deal of time evaluating our work so that her feedback was meticulously thorough and exact. The other lovely part of the residency was meeting the other three mentees, whose diverse subject matters and ingenuity as writers was both daunting and inspiring. Certainly I will count as a highlight our long conversations over delicious meals in Byron restaurants or snuggled into the couches in our cabins. The Byron Bay Farmstay was an ideal place to have the residency. The peace was totally conducive to writing and contemplation, even with the cows mooing outside our windows at midnight. The NRWC provided us each with a desk so that we could set up our little work areas, in which we’d type away when not taking bracing walks across the fields. This mentorship was a wonderful experience. We learnt about our own writing and also about publishing issues. Thank you so much NRWC for giving me this rare opportunity.
stories we want to tell into books people will get to read. And like any good bootcamp, we left not just stronger but with the confidence to keep going.
Sharon Dean Russell Eldridge Writing is such a solitary activity that, for me anyway, there comes a time when I crave reader connection. Being accepted into the NRWC residential mentorship is a brilliant opportunity to make that connection and gain an outside perspective on your writing project. It’s an intense week of manuscript feedback, discussion, workshops and writing. You leave your ego and your thin skin at the door, but the payoff is stepping into a world of trust and support. Really; that’s not just blah. Being able to sit in a room while your peers tell it to you straight is liberating because that’s why you’re here –to learn how to improve your manuscript. Overseeing it all is the extraordinary Marele Day, who has an uncanny ability to put her finger on exactly where and why the story wobbles, and to point out where it sings. But this is no hand-holding exercise. When the first couple of days of feedback, discussion and workshops are over, it’s just you and your manuscript. Then you carry your revised baby
Bronwyn Birdsall Can I describe the residential mentorship without excessive use of superlatives? I’m not sure. Marele Day, our fantastic mentor, began the week by telling us we were on “writers’ bootcamp”, five days in which writing was our first and only priority. I had shared my text with just a few people before the mentorship, so even the idea of it being read by the judging panel was terrifying. I was lucky enough to be selected alongside three articulate and generous writers, whose collective joy for writing made the week not just technically valuable but incredibly fun. There was a fascinating range of work as, between Russell, Mirandi, Sharon and I, our stories were set across four continents utilising four distinct genres. Marele’s precise wisdom inspired a significant transformation in each of these manuscripts, seen clearly in the revisions read aloud towards the end of the residency. The week was beyond what I could have imagined, a place to nurture
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back into the group room and show it around again. The difference in all our manuscripts amazed us all.
Clockwise from bottom left: Sharon Dean, Marele Day, Russell Eldridge, Mirandi Riwoe and Bronwyn Birdsall
This was the fourth year in a row I’d applied for a place in the mentorship. A friend who’d been through the program encouraged me to keep applying, and I’m grateful for her support because the experience was an absolute privilege. Working with Marele transformed my approach to writing. I can now look at my manuscript and pick out sections that end with neat little conclusions rather than hooks that will make the reader turn the page. Marele also taught me to be vigilant about ensuring the narrative viewpoint reflects the main character’s interiority. On the downside, Marele doesn’t like the word ‘banana’, and now I can’t say ‘banana’ without laughing. This is pretty inconvenient as my book is about a banana farmer. Before the mentorship, I assumed my manuscript was basically complete. I now realise it’s more like a first draft that I can dip into to create a more magical book. There’s a lot of work to do. But I feel good about that because Marele has helped me find the heart of the story. As she told us early in the program, “You’re building a world. If this was
‘Patrons come to touch the shadow of death.’
DBC Pierre on the Lights out in Wonderland allegory Remember way back, when it was still shameful to be selfish? To want it all, and talk about wanting it all? Somewhere between 20 and 30 years ago it was still crass to speak of money, and even more so to chase it too lustily. But in a couple of seasons that all changed. We became worth it. Our shame moved from wanting to not having; and now, as that whole period slips down the pan, isn’t each ill-advised purchase a slightly more guilty pleasure than before? I say it’s because we’re tasting the death of that era. The death of an era that appealed to animal senses. An era which in a way paralysed culture while we watched, powerless, intoxicated, from inside. It’s even kind of Biblical; temptation, condemnation, the apple and the snake. Anyway here comes the condemnation part of the era. When
it came to building that idea into the allegory of Lights Out In Wonderland, I couldn’t think of a better icon to use than fugu. Toxic pufferfish served as a delicacy in Japan plays a crucial role in the book. In Japan the fine art of fugu involves slicing and preparing the flesh with such precision that a tiny amount of poison is left, just enough to buzz the mouth. It takes years for a chef to gain a fugu licence; and even then they occasionally get it wrong. Between 30 and 60 people are hurt every year by fugu, with up to a dozen dying from its consumption. Fugu is so deadly that it’s illegal to sell whole fish, or even to put leftovers in the bin, as tramps have died on the streets while foraging for snacks. The emperor of Japan is forbidden to ever taste it, though lately fugu is also farmed, with minimal or no poison, and
can even be sold in supermarkets; but our story takes place in a fine old Shinjuku establishment, where flirtation with death is the fare; and like many things in the narrative, the incident is based on a true story. In 1975 a living national treasure, the kabuki actor Bando Mitsugoro VIII, had an illegal serving of fugu liver – the most toxic part of the fish – with fatal consequences. Tetrodotoxin poisoning is unforgiving, and has no known cure, gradually paralysing the body with the victim trapped and lucid inside. Which brings us back to late capitalism. Tell me it’s a harsh analogy; I admit it. But it works – now see if you don’t feel a tingle next time you spend ten bucks. Bon appetit!
Booker Prize winner, DBC Pierre will be discussing his third novel Lights Out in Wonderland at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. Gabriel Brockwell, an esthete, poet, philosopher, disaffected twenty-something decadent, is thinking terminal. His philosophical enquiries, the abstractions he indulges, and how these relate to a life lived, all point in the same direction. His destination is Wonderland. The nature and style of the journey is all that’s to be decided. Taking in London, Tokyo and Berlin, Lights Out In Wonderland documents Gabriel Brockwell’s remarkable global odyssey. Committed to the pursuit of pleasure and in search of the Bacchanal to obliterate all previous parties, Gabriel’s adventure takes in a spell in rehab, a near-death experience with fugu ovaries, a sexual encounter with an octopus, and finally an orgiastic feast in the bowels of Berlin’s majestic Tempelhof Airport. Along the way we see a character disintegrate and re-shape before our eyes. Lights Out In Wonderland carries you through its many corridors of delight and horror on the back of Gabriel’s voice, which is at once sceptical, idealistic, broken and optimistic. An allegorical banquet and a sly commentary on these End Times and the march towards insensate banality, DBC Pierre’s third novel completes a loose trilogy of fictions, each of which stands alone as a joyful expression of the human spirit.
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SCU Writing Showcase heals over head in love, by Madeleine Brown i was serenaded by the cacophony chaos of his lingo raven-rare. love explosions. wordsmitten. jargon-leafed ferns spiralled deep. heartbeat. mind-boggled. swept bedazzled by his brazen taradiddling. wise-ass vernacular. shifting horizons.spun-loose. inner-timeshifter. anticlockclowner. silver shivers, jazz jitters. he blasted blinkered shrink-thinkers. algorithmic mink stinkers. bourgeois bellied system-suckling sly-lickers. pow-wow bombastic battling. sense-slicing, shuffle rustling. karate-kicking sentence pretences. renouncing all sorts of restrictive linguistic fences. his silence… speaks. con-sense. neuron-sense. kaleidoscopic ambiguity.fragmentary phraseology. visual cue cluelessness. a semi-er-otic text-god: my enigmatic lover. one night. moonlight showered romance. my dada-enraptured voyager swallowed the bullet. warbling a song of alchemy-hearted union. a request of ringed-tailed fluffy love. a signified truer than true. hallelujah. two quirks unite. crazed effervescent vernaculars coalesced. anorigamic super-fly synergy. our sweet garbage-scented tongues twisted. a tongue rogueing tango-trollop to the wild side. simultaneous serotonin combustions. unifying landslides. birthing a pycho-semantic lunar-tick child. world’s inter-glide, words collide. people whined and yowled. perplexed and nosey-mouthed. blasphemic nay-sayers. antsi-pantsies. politically-correct square-faced carcass cries. cross your tea’s and dot your eye’s. “she’s … rebelliously obtuse! a disgrace. dear god! she’s lost her marbles! that dirty mouther hog.” but my synapse-heart sparked. cerebral pleasure meanderings were tried and true. a diamond blood-red sparkle adorned my path. the man was crapolla-less bunked. holeypocketed. rolling in only pages of yarn-packed willy-babble. but this crystalline drivel so raucous and rare. swooned. and cocooned. my derange-hungry heart. the man re-styled. free-smiled. re-wired my circuit bent. conducting orchestral mayhem. an armour-less knight. word-sword attacker. quashing all sorts of grammatically classified sense-see-able drabble. with gangly genes and a crinkle-laced smile. a sliced, diced, turvy-topped yay-sayer. tacking nonsense onto squabble. rosy-lensed lipstick lingo. with pistol precision. the scatter-brain sails streamed through years and years. at a driftwood pace we snailed. time bereft of syntax and rhyme. a symbiotic shell, galactically intertwined. scheduled only by the lips of the breeze. blowing chaos-ciously through the seas. but fragment frolicking ignited strife. ablazen ballads charred golden nights. lexicon’s sunk into skullfaced silence. word shards wept. pristine drivel-drab melted into extinction. volatile soil sprouted foiling ferns. scattered sensory-bleeps increased. memories swiped shadowless. haze-laden. white shaded. a puzzling dada-demic: a lovers polemic.
Calyx cycle Last month I sprouted on a branch. A white, budding sepal. The sun soothed me in the morning hours. It kindled the straining burst. Exploding into a little star, my small petals reached, pointed and ajar. But the sky-blazing fires soon found me weeping. The freshness came to brown. Growing brittle day-by-day, I took upon a swelling change. Steadily my belly began to thicken. I no longer looked the same. 16 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
Respect, by Abbey Hunt Like the stars in the universe Insurmountable Grains of sand Shift beneath every weight Cradling, as the sun’s rays Reach down and drape a blanket of warmth Against the cool breeze The rushing waves chant a lullaby, serene The edge of the earth Her beauty is arresting Primal, instinctual The water is immortal No hand can touch her Control her Worry has no place at the gate of the ocean Fear is washed away A baptism of saltwater stings in an open wound To remind us that we are alive Then heals without favour As only a mother would A lone sea eagle circles Floating free Soaring high Above suffering and judgement Beyond illusion and thought And the ever ticking hand of time The world looks different from on high Borders disappear Lines drawn in the sand Belong to the imagination The eagle moves as he pleases To remind us that we are free
by: Adrianna Bonanno
Elongated, green and thin. The sun curled me red as sin. One might warn you in wishing to try. I just might burn your lips. Unless you are one with a mature taste. Then endure me, kiss by kiss. This dear mother who nurtures daily. Sits by and watches evolution. My brothers and sisters, join me in fruition. Oneby-one we are ready. We are her little army. She snaps us free, individually. But not me. Because last week I fell off.
And she did not see. Lying by the thin trunk, overcome by heat. Out and in the shrivelling skin wore down. And soon I began to sink, crown and all. The soil swallowed me. I became no more than nourishment. But little did this mulch know. That germination is tenacious. Yesterday I sprouted through the earth. A green, leafy seedling. This time I have a root system. I can grow my own chillies now.
Pitch Perfect A Writer’s Leap of Faith Kathryn R. Lyster by Paula McDougall The annual Pitch Perfect competition at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival is an excellent opportunity for new writers with a great idea and completed manuscript to showcase their work to top Australian publishers. These face-to-face opportunities are rare for authors looking for a publishing deal and the competition is fierce. Kathryn R. Lyster, a finalist in 2012, admitted that writing has been a struggle at times over the years. “I love writing,” said Kathryn, “and I know it’s something I was born to do. No matter what obstacles life throws in my path, I always come back to writing.” Kathryn moved from Sydney to Byron Bay to work on her novel The Inevitability of Stars, a manuscript she had been working on for a number of years. “It was my dream, my goal, to be a published writer,” she said. “I wanted to be inspiring and touch someone’s heart like some of the authors I’ve read.” “My book is a love story set in Byron Bay and Sydney,” Kathryn explained. “Two young lovers are separated from each other and the novel is about their journey in coming to know themselves and finding their place in the world.” The protagonists, Rip and Sahara, are at that passionate and intense age when anything is possible. When they break up the book explores their hopes and fears of ever finding each other again and as a writer Kathryn feels able to go to these sometimes dark and emotional places. “My story was still very much forming when I sent in my synopsis for the Pitch Perfect competition,” said Kathryn. “Jessie Blackadder ran the finalist’s pitch workshop and she was an incredible mentor. She thought that Harlequin would be interested in my manuscript and suggested I focus my pitch towards them.” When she finally signed her book
contract Kathryn had to pinch herself. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said, “after all those years of trying to make it happen, becoming a published author wasn’t just a dream anymore.” For someone who is modest about her writing Kathryn found the idea of pitching her work confrontational but she knew this could be the break she was looking for. “I have learnt that if you have faith in yourself and your art, then no matter what obstacles come, it will manifest,” said Kathryn. “Anything is possible if you open yourself and make yourself available to these opportunities.” “I believe that our own blockages, or our own resistances to things, restrict our creativity,” she said. “I’m really not surprised it’s taken so long for my novel to be picked up. It hadn’t come through for me because of my constant self-doubt and crippling lack of confidence.” The idea of a large publishing house editing her work was overwhelming for Kathryn. “I expected a returned manuscript full of red marks,” she said, “I was terrified of being professionally edited!” Kathryn said that everyone at Harlequin is supportive and positive about her novel and they value her opinion when making creative decisions including cover design. “I feel I have been allowed to retain my own writing style—my voice,” she said, “and not all authors are so fortunate. I couldn’t have wished for a better publisher.” “Haylee Nash (former Publishing Manager at Harlequin), Lilia Kanna and editor Jody Lee placed a lot of trust in me and my novel,” explains Kathryn. “All it takes is someone to believe in you; hold that space for you and support you. It can change your life and I will be eternally grateful to Haylee, Lilia, Jody and the team at Harlequin.” There is an infinite amount of
writers aiming to be published and Kathryn acknowledges that getting a publishing deal is one of the biggest hurdles a writer can face. Her advice for new writers is never give up. “Join writers’ groups. Join associations like the Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre,” said Kathryn. “These are great resources for writers of all levels. They’re there to help you be the best you can be.” Connecting with like-minded people and going to workshops is a great confidence booster said Kathryn, and wishes she had done it earlier. “Lack of confidence and the feeling of anxiety, of not being worthy, stopped me from seeking out other writers,” she said. “I was wary of being regarded as a failure. Once I took the leap and overcame my fears and finally joined the Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre— well, look what happened!”
Kathryn will launch her book The Inevitability of Stars at the Festival on Saturday, 2pm, before embarking on a national book tour.
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If I tell you... I’ll have to kill you by Peter Lawrance
The genesis of the Ned Kelly Awards – in the mid 1990s – has been well documented in various places, but for the purposes of this article we will begin in the year 2000. This was the when the awards arrived in Melbourne with the express aim of keeping them alive for another year. There were never any rules in putting the Ned Kelly Awards together, not in the early days of my involvement. Still it looked relatively straightforward: finding judges, (crime was popular so that shouldn’t be too difficult); receiving entries, (publishers wasted no time in delivering their nominations); and setting a date for judging and presentation (somewhat more complex). Still, the reasoning was these things should be straightforward. And at that awards ceremony, staged on a bleak August night at a cavernous venue in Fitzroy, a sense of something special taking place was evident. Luring an audience to stand around and watch a few crime writers receive an award for their literary efforts was the key. Easy enough to bring in winners supports and publishers representatives, and even when a winner such as Peter Temple was noted as an entertaining speaker, would his speech in accepting an award be enough? The answer was simple. Invite crime writers Peter Temple, Shane Maloney and Carolyn Morwood, along with journalists and criminal barristers to go head-to -head in a fiery debate. The Neds were away. The start was shaky yet the Ned Kelly Awards moved on, crashing through regardless of woeful finances and very few prospects.
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The significance of what these strictly amateur productions were achieving was a different story altogether. Word managed to travel, the feedback from writers was good, there was newspaper coverage and publishers started asking for winning stickers to use on future book covers. Somehow they resonated (easy to understand from the viewpoint of the writer) in the literary psyche. Whilst the idea of the Neds took hold, and the event became a fixture on the literary calendar, the niggling question of financial viability was ever present. There are many long-time believers and supporters of the Ned Kelly awards, and along the way various ideas have been generated to garner some sort of financial basis: Publishers have been generous as each new awards session rolls around. Donations have been received from individuals, a Pay TV channel, the ABC Four Corners program, the Media Entertainment and Art Alliance, and both The Sydney Morning Herald and Scribe Publications have published winning short stories. In more recent years the Copyright Agency Limited Cultural Fund has been generous with its grants, ensuring that prize money is available for winning writers. While these contributions reduce the pressure to keep the awards viable, they occurred on a year-by-year basis. The Neds needed some longerterm stability. And then along came Michael Robotham. His was a generous idea. To produce and edit a book about crime writing, written by Australian crime writers, both fiction and non-
fiction, with proceeds supporting the Neds. The result can be seen in the anthology being launched at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival, If I Tell You…I’ll Have To Kill You. This book will be an exciting and important addition to the shelves of both crime readers and people interested in the craft of writing. As the cover blurb suggests, the appeal in this regard is broad; from would-be writers through to readers of crime will find much to glean here. Besides the insight and understanding of the working methods revealed here, the volume contains the writer’s rules and recommendations. And that’s just part of the delights that lie in store.
If I Tell You... I’ll Have To Kill You is launched on Friday 2 August at 2pm.
Book Review
Catherine Deveny On Procrastination
They say procrastination is crack for writers. But they say a lot of things. I don’t even know what it means, but I think it’s true. When I started out as a writer I was working with a fabulous bloke and great Australian satirist, the late John Herovium. We were working on something that had to be finished by Friday. “I’ll come over Wednesday morning,” I said. “No,” he replied, “ I won’t be scared enough. Make it Thursday night.” There is nothing more heart pumping, sphincter tightening and adrenaline producing than a deadline. Comfort is the enemy of art and fear is a great motivator, particularly if you have to pay your rego. But fear is also a great inhibitor if you have nothing to lose. Despite having creative satisfaction and that thrilling post-coital feeling of getting something done to gain. Last year I was sitting on a beach in Far North Queensland eating a packet of Chicken in a Biscuit and rereading the same paragraph for the eighth time as I watched my three little boys play Kill Me In The Face. Which was a welcome change from their usual games, Kick Chasey, Snot Wars and Hide and Spit. An almost-friend from years ago recognized me. She told me her mum had been enjoying my weekly cries for help in the newspaper. ‘Mum really wants to be a writer. She’s been talking about writing her memoirs for years. She has amazing stories. She’s 77. Have you got any advice for her?” “Yes,” I said. “Tell her to do the writing before she folds the washing. Do the writing before the ironing. Do the writing before getting dressed, having a shower or eating breakfast. Do the writing first.
Because there is always something you can be doing instead of writing.” More than being paid for writing or even seeing your work published getting the writing done and winning the battle with procrastination is the biggest triumph. The sad thing is that it’s usually at three in the morning two weeks after the deadline. Basking in the post-coital feeling of Getting Something Finished you find yourself thinking, “I love doing this. Why do I leave it ‘til the last minute? I waste all that time feeling guilty and beating myself up about pulling my finger out to do something I love.” It’s not about prizes, being published or praised. It’s about proving. Proving to yourself you can do it. And you did. There is no better feeling. We want to write. We do. It’s just scary and hard work. And usually disappointing. Our writing is rarely as good as we want it to be. My writing life spans 18 years and in that time there have only been a handful of things I’ve written that I’m happy with. The rest
make me cringe. But it’s the possibility that we may blow our own minds that propels us. We’re junkies hanging out for a hit. There are people who write and there are writers. Writers have to write. It’s like having a shit. If you’re a writer who isn’t writing it wells up inside and makes you sick. Robert Hughes summed it up for me. “I feel guilty when I’m not writing and when I’m writing I feel guilty I’m not writing well enough.” I’m worse. I’m promiscuous. A writing slut. When I’m writing I fantasise about writing something else. My mate Lou is a writer. She says, do stuff for love, do stuff for money, do nothing for neither. Sometimes it feels like an intoxicating one night stand. Other times I feels as if I’m turning tricks; $100 an hour, no kissing. The rest of the time I’m just looking for love. For more of my writing check out my archive: www.catherinedeveny.com/ journal-archives/
Catherine Deveny is conducting a writing workshop and appearing at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. 19 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
Kids’ page Libby Gleeson in The Writer’s Studio With Tristan Bancks
Libby Gleeson is one of Australia’s most respected and award-winning children’s authors. She has written everything from picture books like Amy and Louis to Young Adult novels like Mahtab’s Story. Her latest novel for children is Red. Libby is a great advocate for Australian children’s authors and children’s literature and she will be a guest at this year’s Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. To whet your appetite, take a peek inside Libby’s writing space and process. Where did you write your last book? All done in the small space left after papers and junk have taken over my desk. All done on computer. How important is the place where you write? I write best at my desk. Sometimes when it’s not going well I migrate to the kitchen table or to the sunshine outside but it never works. Do you get into character at all? Not physically but very much mentally. I try to take on the persona: thoughts, actions, voice of whoever I’m writing about.
How has the place where you write evolved or changed since you first began writing? I wrote my first novel on a tiny desk in a London flat. Then my second on the kitchen table in Newtown and then a number of desks in our house in Petersham. Now it’s on my fabulous huge desk here (in Petersham) but gradually books and papers from everything else I do keep invading and reproducing all over the place. Now it’s the equivalent of that tiny desk in London. How important is ‘place’ to your most recent novel, Red? Place is important as it’s ‘place’ that is destroyed by a cyclone. Red doesn’t recall that place at first but, gradually, she begins to remember. And each place remembered is significant as a metaphor for the circumstances she is in. During writing I spent a lot of time thinking about the parts of the coast that would be affected and the parts of Sydney left that would be less affected. I live in the Inner West of Sydney and a friend, who is a resident of one of the beautiful coastal areas asked if this novel was ‘the revenge of the Inner West.’ I denied it, of course.
Do you keep regular writing hours? Theoretically yes – 9 to 5 but the reality is that’s only sometimes. It’s any time in the day– usually about 9 to 3ish, and never at night. Do you have a morning ritual? Coffee, The Sydney Morning Herald, stretching at the gym so I can sit down for hours without a crook neck and then I start.
This interview was first published in a collection of Writer’s Studio blog posts with fifty children’s authors and illustrators at www.tristanbancks.com
Libby Gleeson’s studio
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From the reading chair Spinal care for writers Editor Laurel Cohn looks at story structure. No, this column is not about how to maintain correct posture at the computer (are you sitting up straight?). I’m interested in the notion of the spine of your story. Just as you can’t function at your optimum if you have spinal issues, your story needs to have a strong and healthy backbone. Think of your story as a creature. It does not need to look realistic – it can have a multitude of limbs and unusual features – but it needs to be able to stand on its own and deliver its creator’s intent. Being able to identify the backbone of your story is crucial to help you work out whether you have unwanted growths that need to be excised or require additional material needed for balance. PLANNERS AND PANTSERS Some writers meticulously plot their story before they begin chapter one. These are the planners. Others just start writing and let the story develop and unfold as they go. These are sometimes referred to as ‘pantsers’, those who write ‘from the seat of their pants’. There is no right or wrong way; it is totally dependent on the writerly practice that works for the individual author. However, in my experience as a developmental editor, structural issues are common in both fiction and narrative non-fiction book-length works, and while planners do sometimes need to apply structural adjustments to their work, it is the pantsers who usually need to consider significant spinal manipulation. DIAGNOSIS The first step is to find out exactly what you’re dealing with. Some writers know there are structural issues in their work, but are not sure how to go about identifying them. Writing a chapter outline after a completed draft is a good start. It is also useful if you are some way into a work and feeling like the structure eludes you. Some publishers require this as part of the submission (particularly for non-fiction), but even if they don’t, and even if you are a planner, it can be a very illuminating exercise. Using point form or prose, note for each chapter the key event, characters introduced, time covered, themes, plot lines etc. What you put into your chapter outline will depend
on the type of manuscript. You could begin with quite a detailed approach, but see if you can end up with no more than six to eight dot points or two to three short paragraphs for each chapter. The idea is to outline what you have written, not what you intended to write. You may find that the draft is well paced and balanced, with no major holes or blips. Or you may find that some chapters only have a few things happening in them and others are chock-a-block with action; that a sub-plot seems to disappear from the narrative; that a character is redundant; that the pace is uneven. Reviewing your chapter outline will give you ideas on what is working, what is missing and what needs to be rethought. IDENTIFYING THE SPINE OF THE STORY Diagnosis is only the first step. In order to fix structural issues, you have to be able to identify the spine of your story. One strategy is storyboarding. A storyboard is a series of illustrated panels in a sequence, like a comic book. It is used in film to help plot stories and you can use it to help identify the key structural points in your manuscript: the bones of the spine. Once you understand where the spine lies, you can more readily amputate unnecessary limbs or strange growths that cripple the story. Storyboarding also helps you see your story as more than a collection of words – the individual bones are depictions of characters, their actions, and the consequences of those actions.
is a fascinating sample of J.K. Rowling’s spreadsheet for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at www.slashfilm.com (search for J.K. Rowling). I’ll be exploring chapter outlines, storyboarding, spreadsheets and other strategies in ‘Understanding Story Structure’, a workshop for the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival, Monday 29 July. In the meantime, watch your posture! LAUREL COHN is an editor and mentor passionate about communication and the power of narrative to engage, inspire and challenge. Since the late 1980s she has been helping writers develop their stories and prepare their work for publication. She is presenting the workshop ‘Understanding Story Structure’ as part of the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival, Monday 29 July. www.laurelcohn.com.au
HONING THE STRUCTURE There are various ways you can play with your storyboard to help you hone your narrative structure. Try identifying a single panel that shows the key event of each chapter. You may end up with 10 or 20 panels, depending on how you have organised your material. Take those panels and see if you can reduce them to five or six without losing the central essence of your story. Another strategy is to draw up a spreadsheet to keep track of what is happening. This can be particularly useful in action/adventure/crime stories. There 21 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
WORKSHOPS WORKSHOPS MONDAY 29 JULY 10am–4pm SCU Room, Byron Community Centre, Jonson Street, Byron Bay $100/$85* Code 1W Laurel Cohn: Understanding story structure A story is like a creature. It can have a multitude of limbs and unusual features, but it needs to be able to stand on its own and deliver its creator’s intent. Being able to identify the backbone of your story is crucial to help you work out whether you have unwanted growths that need to be excised or require additional material needed for balance. In my experience as a developmental editor, structural issues are common. In this workshop Laurel will introduce the idea of storyboarding for writers. This is a useful tool to help you discover the spine of your story, the key elements that your story can’t do without, and ideas that can be trimmed away. In addition to storyboarding, through practical exercises we will explore other strategies to help you understand and hone your story structure. Writers of fiction and narrative non-fiction who have completed at least the first three chapters of a book-length draft, or have completed a short story will benefit . Participants to bring completed work with them. Expect to gain an understanding of story structure and why it matters plus a suite of specific tools and strategies. 10.00am–4.00pm Byron Sports & Cultural Complex, Ewingsdale Rd, Byron Bay $100/$85* Code 2W Alan Close: Memoir or fiction? Writing a story from your life ‘Art is a lie with which we tell the truth.’ Picasso So you’ve got a story you want to write from your own life. What’s the best way to tell it? Memoir or fiction? We yearn to tell the truth and we yearn to read it. But ‘the truth’ of our lives is inevitably elusive and contradictory and finding the best way to tell our stories can be the hardest part of writing them. Many questions confront us. What is the story we really want to tell? How can we write honestly about our lives without hurting those closest to us? Can fiction be as ‘true’ as memoir? Is memoir even ‘true’ or just fiction in disguise? Is memory reliable? What is the difference between the ‘truth’ and the
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‘facts’? Will the facts make a good enough story? Or, conversely, why let ‘the facts’ get in the way of a perfectly good story? Based around practical writing exercises and constructive feedback in a supportive environment, this workshop will help you find the ‘truth’ in your story and the best way to tell it. 1.30pm–4.30pm Byron Bay Library, Lawson Street, Byron Bay $60/$50* Code 3W Lisa Walker: Dive into chick lit Are you ready to free your inner chick lit goddess? Modern chick lit defies the traditional ‘sex and shopping’ stereotypes. Join Lisa Walker, the author of Liar Bird and Sex, Lies and Bonsai to explore this broad and popular genre. Learn how to create a protagonist your readers will love, mine humour from everyday situations, write dialogue that sparkles and bring sizzle to your character’s sex life. Chick lit comes in many shades and can explore any issue that is relevant to women. Find out how to take readers on an emotional journey that leaves them satisfied, smiling and wanting more.
TUESDAY 30 JULY 10am–4pm SCU Room, Byron Community Centre, Jonson Street, Byron Bay $100/$85* Code 4W Katherine Howell: creating suspense in fiction This workshop teaches techniques for creating suspense through skilful handling of characterisation and structure. Suitable for adults writing in any genre who wish to develop suspense and tension in their work. By the end of the workshop participants will have new tools for creating suspense in two ways: through character (including viewpoint, character traits, and reaction to problems) and through structure (including narrative questions, scene breaks, pacing of the text, viewpoint changes, fragmentation and ambiguity). 10am–4pm Byron Bay Library, Lawson Street, Byron Bay $100/$85* Code 5W Shelley Kenigsberg: Come to your senses! Goldilocks and writing with all you’ve got Appealing to your readers’ five senses is the best way to have them experience the world you’re describing or creating. In this
full-day workshop, you’ll write a piece that’s so charged with sensory detail that it draws the reader in and keeps them captivated. And then, to make sure it’s neither too much nor too little, but ‘just right’… we’ll look at the essential tools of editing, so you can not only create a powerful story but also learn vital techniques for shaping and finessing your writing. 1.30pm–4.30pm Byron Sports & Cultural Complex. Ewingsdale Rd, Byron Bay $60/$50* Code 6W Alex Mitchell: Don’t write crap, it can’t be that hard Exploring the skills of journalism and how they contribute to being a successful writer. So many of Australia’s most successful authors gained their experience and inspiration in the trenches of journalism, writing for newspapers, magazines or the ABC. Think Banjo Patterson, Henry Lawson, George Johnston, Olga Masters, Anne Summers, Geraldine Brooks, Nikki Gemmell, Christopher Koch, Matthew Condon, John Pilger. The list goes on. What inspires journalists to go beyond the column inches and make a career between the hard (or soft) covers? Whether we start as reporters, feature writers, interviewers, letter writers, bloggers or family diarists we are practising shared skills. Alex offers his insights, experience and precious knowledge to all budding writers.
WEDNESDAY 31 JULY 10am–4pm SCU Room, Byron Community Centre, Jonson Street, Byron Bay $100/$85* Code 7W Catherine Deveny: Comment, comedy and overcoming procrastination Sure, you want to write, but you’re not writing; or, at least, not writing what you want. To be a writer in this age of new media, old media and shape-shifting content you need to be a jack-of-all-trades. Learn to bust through procrastination and find your true voice in this master class with Catherine Deveny. She will cover non-fiction, columns, comedy, blogging and, yes, Twitter.
WORKSHOPS WORKSHOPS 10am-4pm Byron Bay Library, Lawson Street, Byron Bay $120/$100* Code 8W Faber Academy at Allen & Unwin presents: Getting published: insiders reveal how to get your foot in the door, with Annette Barlow, Publisher, Allen & Unwin. A one-day course offering aspiring writers the opportunity to find out what really goes on inside a publishing house, how publishers make their choices and how to improve one’s chances of publication. The program will include sessions on sure-fire proposals, editing your first page, opening chapters, how to write a great covering letter and the top ten reasons manuscripts are rejected. The day will include group sessions along with individual feedback – for this you are required to please send in the first two pages of your manuscript, double-spaced, Times New Roman, Size 12 with your name, the title and the genre in the header or footer at least two weeks ahead of the course date. Please send your two pages to info@nrwc.org.au Please note that Getting Published is targeted at writers who have manuscripts written for the adult market; either fiction or nonfiction 9.30am–12.30pm Byron Sports & Cultural Complex. Ewingsdale Rd, Byron Bay $60/$50* Code 9W Benjamin Law: Magazine feature writing and the business of freelancing Everything you always wanted to know about freelancing but were afraid to ask, from someone who does it very, very well. Freelance writer Benjamin Law (Good Weekend, frankie, Qweekend, The Monthly) teaches you the fundamental skills necessary to write stories that magazines want – and get paid for them. 1.30pm–4.30pm (continues Thursday 1 August, same hours) SAE Institute, 373 Ewingsdale Rd, Byron Bay $100/$85* for two sessions Code 10W Janet Steele: You can’t make this stuff up: journalism & the art of storytelling Interested in freelancing, blogging, or citizen journalism? Our two-day workshop focuses on the art of narrative journalism, including scene-by-scene construction, developing character, plot and setting, looking for “the revealing quote,” and using first-
person. Taught by Janet Steele of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, the workshop is open to those interested in journalism and honing their writing skills. Participants will be given a packet of short examples of quality narrative writing, and complete a short exercise for discussion and critique.
THURSDAY 1 AUGUST 10am–4pm SCU Room, Byron Community Centre, Jonson Street, Byron Bay $75/$60* Code 11W Nuts & Bolts: the mechanics of becoming a writer and establishing a sustainable career A full-day seminar covering the business and practicalities of being a writer. Rather than showing you how to write, this seminar will cover the intricacies of the publishing process, the path of a manuscript through a publishing house, the role of the agent, the work of the manuscript assessor and how an editor pulls the good bones out of the flabby body of work. Develop a writer strategy: author platform, business planning and income streams. Meet top industry professionals as they unpick the jargon, the myths and the truths and even point you toward opportunities for further writing education and development. A fat toolkit of insider knowledge for emerging writers or those who are plain curious. Sponsored by the Australian Writer’s marketplace. Ticket price includes 3-month online subscription. 9.30am–12.30pm Byron Bay Library, Lawson Street, Byron Bay $75/$60* Code 12W DBC Pierre: How to write without dying All the stuff that talent alone won’t help you with. Known for his dark comedy, swift satire and apposite allegories on modern life, DBC Pierre is read in more than 40 countries and awarded in all. DBC reveals secrets learned the hard way. 1.30pm–4.30pm Byron Bay Library, Lawson Street, Byron Bay $75/$60* Code 13W MJ Hyland: a fiction master class This will be an intensive, practice-based workshop, modelled on the approach used by the best creative writing MA programs, including the Iowa School, Gotham Writers
and, of course, the Centre for New Writing, at the University of Manchester, where MJ teaches both Masters and 3rd-year undergraduate students. During the workshop, your fiction will be read and reviewed and edited by MJ and the focus is on learning the craft by analysing and discussing samples of work from student writers, and by acknowledging that it takes dozens of drafts to ‘get it down right’. The atmosphere will be fun and energetic, with plenty of in-class writing exercises. During the workshop, there’ll be praise and comfort, but there’ll also be criticism. Without criticism, and considered feedback, a writer stands no chance. A workshop, and especially a master class, is all about finding flaws and problems, and then curing them. Of course, there’ll be laughter, too. MJ uses the best of her experience to give you writing exercises (and games to play) that’ll improve your prose and allow you to see how exciting and invigorating the hard slog of writing can be. 1.30pm–4.30pm Byron Sports & Cultural Complex. Ewingsdale Rd, Byron Bay $60/$50* Code 14W Michael Robotham: Show me some character Michael Robotham has a strange confession to make: he hates plotting. He detests it. It’s like a trip to the dentist. It’s like planning a wedding. It’s like listening to his youngest daughter sing. It’s like natural childbirth... (well maybe that’s going a little too far). What he loves most is writing characters, making them live and breathe, creating their back stories, families, strengths and flaws. People sometimes make the mistake of thinking that crime novels are plot driven, but that’s not true. It’s just plain wrong. It’s like arguing that literary novels have no plots, when the vast majority clearly do. However long after a reader has forgotten the details of a favourite novel, they will still remember the characters they fell in love with. This is a workshop about how to create such characters. How to make them laugh, cry, love, hate and...yes, perhaps even kill.
For further information or to buy a ticket please go to our website: www.byronbaywritersfestival. com 23 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
Opportunities BBWF LITLINK VARUNA EDITORIAL CONSULTATIONS with Sarah Armstrong New writers benefit enormously from the opportunity to have an experienced writer and editor read over their work and provide them with constructive feedback and advice about their writing and their story. This year’s consultant, Sarah Armstrong, is an experienced writer and mentor, whose first novel, Salt Rain, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, the Queensland Premier’s Award and the Dobbie Award. Participants submit up to 30 (preferably consecutive) pages of their manuscript, together with their application form, synopsis and writer’s statement (detailing what they hope to gain from the consultation). They then meet with Sarah Armstrong for an hour to discuss their work. Consultations will take place on Thursday 1 August and Friday 2 August at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival site. Due to funding from the Litlink program we are able to offer these consultations at a subsidised rate of $100 for NRWC members/$130 for non-members. Applications close: Tuesday 23 July. Limited places available. For further details and an application form visit www.nrwc.org.au or email lisa@nrwc. org.au TAKING IT WITH YOU Daniel Prokop will be talking about his debut novel at Brunswick Heads Library, Fingal St, Brunswick Heads Thursday 4 July at 5:30 7:00pm, Nibbles provided, please book with the Library on 6685 1816. SLOW WING A satellite workshop of the Uncivilisation Festival is on August 17 and 18. Free event but places are offered by application only. Contact ilka@thelasttree.net 2014 EMERGING WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Applications for 2014 Emerging Writer in Residence at the Katherine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre must be postmarked on or before Friday 30 August 2013. Three positions, dependent on funding. Full-time period of four (4) weeks, or equivalent part time. Salary: $2250. For guidelines and application forms, please visit our website: www.kspf@iinet.net.au Closing date: 30 August
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THE NATIONAL WRITERS’ CONGRESS What are the emerging influences on writers’ practice in the digital age and are there new ideas and answers to guide the future of authorship in Australia? The National Writers’ Congress is a place to converge, discuss, identify the issues and define the directions we will need to take—by 2020, with 20/20. Speakers will include Ally Blake, Angelo Loukakis, Antony Loewenstein, Ben Eltham, Ellen Broad, Joel Naoum, Kate Forsyth, Michael Fraser, Sandy Grant, Sophie Cunningham, Sophie Hamley, Sophie Masson, Steven Lewis, Susan Johnson and Thomas Keneally. These personalities will discuss a range of topics including the future of copyright, the author’s role, the business of authorship and the National Cultural Policy. NRWC members can attend the Congress at the discounted rate of $380 (that’s $70 off the full price). In addition, thanks to the support of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, the Australian Society of Authors is offering subsidised accommodation of $150 per night to individuals and NGO representatives for the first 80 rural and interstate bookings to encourage the broadest possible participation in the Congress. The Congress will run from Thursday 17 – Saturday 19 October at the National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour. Bookings are now open at www.asauthors. org or by calling 1800 257 121 (toll-free) JUDGES DO NOT AWARD THE AUSTRALIAN/ VOGEL’S LITERARY AWARD IN 2013 For only the second time in The Australian/ Vogel’s Literary Award history the judges decided not to award the prize. Geordie Williamson, chief literary critic at The Australian and one of the judges for the 2013 award said ‘over my time as a judge of the Vogel’s we’ve had years in which the winner was crystal clear and others where the choice was so hard that we were obliged to split the prize.’ ‘This year – as in 1985 – the judges decided to award no prize at all. The most important factor underlying this decision is the integrity of the The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award, the most significant award in this country for younger Australian authors. The judges agreed that it would damage the award if we picked a winner simply because a winner had to be picked: readers can sniff out a compromise in an instant.’
Competitions ALBURY CITY SHORT STORY AWARD 2013 Following our festival theme, entries this year should respond to the notion of Australian Voices. It’s a broad theme and we don’t think for a minute that it will limit your imagination. The only limit should be the word count: maximum 3000 words. First prize is $1000. Entry criteria is open and the fee is $10. Download an entry form at http://www. writearoundthemurray.org.au/ The winner will be judged by our 2013 ‘Book of the Festival’ author, Tony Birch, whose short fiction collections include Father’s Day and Shadowboxing, which was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Closing date: 12 July FAW EASTERN SUBURBS BRANCH SHORT STORY COMPETITION Open to short stories of no more than 3000 words on any theme. Entry fee: $5. First prize $200, second prize $100. For more information and entry guidelines go to: http://www.fawnsw.org.au/competitions.html Closing date: 26 July 2013 YOUNG WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE Three Positions are available for the ten days of Monday 2 December – Wednesday 11 December 2013. Three young writers, up to the age of twenty-five years, will be selected for a 10-day residency at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Greenmount. The residents will receive a salary of $650 and be given writing space and time to concentrate on, develop or complete a work in progress. The writer will also be invited to participate in Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Writers’ Centre activities. Closing date: 26 July 2013 TRUDY GRAHAM-JULIE LEWIS LITERARY AWARD FOR PROSE The competition is open to all writers currently living in Australia. Entries may submit up to three prose entries (fiction or non-fiction) with a word limit of 2000 words per entry. Entries must be unpublished works and not have been recognised or received awards in any other competitions. Full guidelines and entry forms are available from the Peter Cowan Writers Centre Inc website at www.pcwc.org.au in the Upcoming Competitions area. Queries to PCWC on (08) 9301 2282 or e: cowan05@bigpond.com Closing date: 26 July
Competitions
THE ASHER LITERARY AWARD 2013 Valued at $10,000, this award is offered biennially to a female author whose work carries an anti-war theme. The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) is delighted to be managing the Award in 2013; it is open to authors whose works have been published, performed or produced between 1 July 2011 and July 2013. Works across a range of genres are eligible, including writing for performance and new media. Entries will be accepted from 1-26 July 2013. For more information about The Asher Literary Award, please contact Lucie Stevens, Program Manager, on 02 9211 1004 or lucie@ asauthors.org Guidelines available on the ASA’s website: http://asauthors.org/the-asher-literary-award Closing date: 26 July IPSWICH POETRY FEAST International Poetry Writing Competition, the annual poetry writing competition giving poets of all ages the opportunity to compete for over $7800 in prizes. Widely promoted to schools, libraries and the general community, this competition attracts local, interstate and global entries. http://www. ipswichpoetryfeast.com.au/competition.htm Closing Date: 26 July THE MORNINGTON PENINSULA PRIZE 2013 Open to short stories of no more than 3000 on any theme. Entry fee: $10. First Prize $500, second $200, third $100. For more details and entry guidelines go to: http://artsonthepeninsula.wordpress. com/2013/03/04/short-story-compeition/ Closing date: 29 July CARMEL BIRD AWARD Open to short stories, this competition invites stories from the bottom of the world, 4000word limit. First prize: $500 and publication in Spineless Wonders annual anthology. $10 entry fee. For more information and entry guidelines, please visit their website. http://shortaustralianstories.com.au/ submissions/the-carmel-bird-award/ Closing date: 31 July FINCH MEMOIR PRIZE 2014 Entries for the Finch Memoir Prize 2014 will open on 1 July 2013 and close at 5pm on 20 August 2013. The prize of $10,000 and publication is awarded by an independent panel of judges to the best unpublished life
Competitions
story or memoir submitted. The competition is open to previously published and unpublished writers as well as to agented writers. The entry form and terms and conditions are available here: http://www.finch.com.au/node/9 Closing date: 20 August EXPERIMENT IN VERSE Australian Poetry is teaming up with National Science Week for a new initiative: the Science Poetry Prize. The official launch of the competition will be announced on National Science Week (August 10-18), but the folks at AP thought it was worth sending out advance notice so that all you poets out there can get your scientific imagination up and running. Entries open August 10 and close August 23 and must be on a science-relevant theme as specified in the guidelines. For more information and to download an entry form, visit the AP website or email admin@ australianpoetry.org. Come along to The Larger Conversations for your inspiration! Closing date: 23 August GCWW SHORT STORY COMPETITION Gold Coast Writers’ Workshops would like to announce a brand new 1500-word competition for 2013. Theme:‘What a week it’s been…’ Prizes: First – $250 Digitalprintaustralia voucher towards production of your book and $100 cash Second – $250 Digitalprintaustralia voucher ENTRY FEE: $7.50 per entry; $18 for 3 simultaneous entries by the same author. For guidelines and submission info please go to www.goldcoastwritersworkshops.com Closing date: 31 August
Poetry: First Prize: $500 for a poem of up to 60 lines. URL for Prize details and entry form: www.newc.org.au Closing Date: 30 September BUSYBIRD’S GREAT NOVELLA SEARCH The novella form includes such classics as Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men, The Old Man and the Sea, and A Clockwork Orange. It’s also a form of storytelling that Busybird is keen to re-popularise, and your novella could be next! The winner will receive $1000 and their book will be published in both hardcopy and digital formats. Entries must be from 20,000-40,000 words, in any genre. Entry fee: $25. Entries open 1 August and close 29 November. This competition is open only to residents of Australia and New Zealand. For details http://www.busybird.com.au Closing Date: 29 November
ONE HOUR OF POWER 10am Wednesdays Carve out sixty minutes of concentrated writing time for yourself. You will be amazed at how much you can achieve. Join our group of busy writers at the centre 10-11am Wednesday mornings. Contact lisa@nrwc. org.au for information, or just turn up.
THUNDERBOLT New England Writers Centre is proud to announce an exciting new national literary award, the New England Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing The prize is for unpublished short-form crime writing in three categories: fiction, non-fiction and poetry. First Prize: $500, for a story of up to 2500 words. Sponsored by the School of Arts, University of New England. The New England Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Non-Fiction: First Prize: $500 for an article of up to 2500 words. Sponsored by The Armidale Express. The New England Thunderbolt Prize for Crime
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WRITERS’ GROUPS
Alstonville Plateau Writers Group. Meets 2nd Tuesday of the Month. 10am to 12pm. All genres welcome. Contact Christine 66288364 or Kerry 66285662. Ballina/Byron U3A Creative Writing Contact ph. Jan 0404 007 586. Meets at 12.00pm every second Wednesday, Fripp Oval Ballina. Bangalow Writers Group Contact Simone Hogan on 6629 1838 (email Simone; coolingsolutions@westnet.com.au) or James Hudson on 6628 5061. Meets 9.45am- 12.00pm, first Thursday of the month, Scout Hall, Bangalow. Bellingen Writers Group Contact David Breaden (president) on 02 6699 3888 or email davidmb@wirefree.net.au Meets at Bellingen Golf Club on the fourth Monday of the month at 2.00pm. All welcome. Baywrite Theatre Inc. Contact Udo Moerig on 02 6680 9698 or go to www. baywrite.com. Reading and comment on new scripts 1st Saturday each month. Workshopping of selected scripts 4th Tuesday each month. Casino Writers Group Contact Brian Costin 02 6624 2636 or email briancostin129@ hotmail.com, meets 3rd Thursday of the month 4pm at the Casino Library. Cloudcatchers Contact Quendryth Young on 02 6628 3753 or email quendrythyoung@bigpond.com. For haiku enthusiasts, a ginko (haiku walk) is undertaken according to group agreement. Coffs Harbour Writers Group Contact Lorraine Mouafi on 02 6653 3256 or email lmproject@tpg.com.au. Meets 1st and 3rd Thursday of month, 10.30am–12.30pm. www.coffsharbourwriters.wordpress.com Coffs Harbour Memoir Writers Group Share your memoir writing for critiquing. Monthly meetings. 0409 824 803. Email coastalmermaid@gmail.com Cru3a River Poets Contact Pauline Powell 02 6645 8715. Meets every Thursday at 10.30am, venue varies, mainly in Yamba. Email kitesway@ westnet.com.au. Dangerously Poetic writing circle. Meets second Thursday of every month 12.302.30pm, at the Brunswick Heads RSL Hall, Fawcett St. Contact Laura – 6680 1967 or visit www.dangerouslypoetic.com Dorrigo Writers Group Contact Iris Curteis on 6657 5274, email an_lomall@ bigpond.com or Nell Hunter on 6657 4089. Meet every second Wednesday from 12.00pm - 4.00 pm Dunoon Writers Group Writers on the Block Contact Helga on 02 6620 2994 (w) or email: /heg.j@telstra.com/. Meets 2nd Tuesday of month, 6.30pm–8pm, at the Dunoon Sports Club. Federal Writers Group Contact Vicki Peterson on 02 6684 0093 or email ganden1@ gmail.com. Meets 3rd Saturday of month in Federal. FAW Port Macquarie–Hastings Regional Contact Bill Turner (President) on 02 6584 5342 or email wjturner@aapt.net.au. Meets 1pm on last Saturday of month, Historic Museum, Clarence Street, Port Macquarie. Gold Coast Writers Association Contact 0431 443 385 or email info@goldcoastwriters.org.au. Meets 3rd Saturday of month, 1.30pm for a 2.00pm start, at Fradgley Hall, Burleigh Heads Library, Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads, Qld. Kempsey Writers Group Contact Carma Eckersley on 02 6562 5227. Meets 1st Sunday of month at the Railway Hotel. Kyogle Writers Group Contact Brian Costin 02 6624 2636 or email briancostin129@ hotmail.com, meets 1st Tuesday of the month 10:30am at the Kyogle Bowling Club. Lower Clarence Arts & Crafts Ferry Park Writers Group Contact Di Wood on 02 6645 8969 or email diwood43@bigpond.com. Meets 1st Thursday of month,10.00am–12.00pm. Memoir Writing Group Contact Diana Burstall on 02 6685 5387 or email diana. burstall@gmail.com. Meets every month at Sunrise Beach, Byron Bay. Mullum Writing Group Contact Lisa MacKenzie on 02 6684 4387 ah or email llatmac28@gmail.com. Meets fortnightly on Tuesdays, 7.30pm. Nambucca Valley Writers Group Contact 02 6568 9648, or nambuccawriters@ gmail.com . Meets 4th Saturday of month, 1.30pm, Nambucca. Poets and Writers on the Tweed Meet weekly in the Tweed Heads Library, Tuesdays 1.30pm to 3.00pm. Poets, novelists, playwrights, short story writers all welcome. Fun group meets for discussion, support and constructive criticism. Free membership. Phone Lorraine 07 55909395 or Ken 02 66742898. Taree–Manning River Scribblers Contact Bob Winston on 02 6553 2829 or email rrw1939@hotmail.com. Meets 2nd Wednesday of month, 9.00am–11.30am in Taree. Call first to check venue. UKI Writers meet last Sunday of most months to share and encourage our literary endeavours. Contact Elspeth on 0266797029 or email windelwood@bigpond.com WordsFlow Writing Group Contact Rosemary Nissen-Wade 02 6676 0874, Pam Moore 02 6676 1417. Meets Fridays in school term, 1.00pm–3.30 pm, Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre, 12a Elizabeth St, Pottsville Beach. Visit http://wordsflowwriters.blogspot.com 26 - northerly magazine | july - august 2013
NORTHERN RIVERS WRITERS’ CENTRE 2013 MEMBERSHIP DISCOUNTS BOOK WAREHOUSE 107-109 Keen Street Lismore 02 6621 4204 BOOK WAREHOUSE 26 Harbour Drive Coffs Harbour 02 6651 9077 BOOK WAREHOUSE Shop 6 Ballina Fair Ballina 02 6686 0917 BOOK WAREHOUSE 70 Prince Street Grafton 02 6642 6355 BOOK WAREHOUSE Settlement City Port Macquarie 02 6584 9788 BOOK WAREHOUSE Yamba Fair, Treelands Drive Yamba 02 6646 8662 BYRON BAY LONGBOARDS 1/89 Jonson Street Byron Bay 02 6685 5244 CLIX COMPUTER CENTRE 3/3 Marvel Street Byron Bay 02 6680 9166 COLLINS BOOK SELLERS Unit 3. 9 Lawson Street Byron Bay 02 6685 7820 CO-OP BOOKSHOP Southern Cross University Lismore 02 6621 4484 CO-OP BOOKSHOP Coffs Harbour Education Campus, Hogbin Drive Coffs Harbour 02 6659 3225 DOLPHIN OFFICE CHOICE www.officechoice.com.au Cnr Fletcher & Marvel Streets Byron Bay 02 6685 7097 DRAGONWICK PUBLISHING www.dragonwick.com 02 6624 1933 EARTH CAR RENTALS 18 Fletcher Street Byron Bay 02 6685 7472 EBOOKS NEED EDITORS www.ebooksneededitors.com 15% discount to NRWC members Call 02 6689 5897 for further details HUMBLE PIES Pacific Highway Billinudgel 02 6680 1082 KEEN STREET COMMUNICATIONS www.keenstreet.com.au 50 Bulmers Rd Hogarth Range 02 6664 7361 MARY RYAN’S BOOKSTORE Shop 5, 21 -25 Fletcher Street Byron Bay 02 6685 8183 NORPA www.norpa.org.au PO Box 225 Lismore 02 6621 5600 PAGES BOOKSHOP Park Beach Plaza Coffs Harbour 02 6652 2588 THE BOOKSHOP MULLUMBIMBY 39 Burringbar Street Mullumbimby 02 6684 1413 THERE’S ALWAYS MORE HAIRDRESSING Shop 5, 14 Middleton Byron Bay 02 6680 7922
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www.byronbaywritersfestival.com www.byronbaywritersfestival.com 99 conversations, or call 02 6685 5115 Plus foodie and feature events, performance, slam poetry, or call 02 6685 5115 130 writers,
literary trivia, workshops, launches and....YOU!