Updates

Building Community

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Last year I had the pleasure of being included in The Emerging Writer, produced by the Emerging Writers’ Festival as a compendium of advice and thoughts about the business of being a writer. I wrote a chapter on community; what that means, how you can find or build your own, why you should bother. It was nice to see my chapter crop up again, in this case being quoted by Justin Heazlewood in his book Funemployed. The book is a rumination on what life is like for artists and writers in Australia. It’s rather strange to see your words in someone else’s book, especially when re-reading them confirms for you that you’re on the right track. Somehow seeing those words again made me remember how glad I am to have my writing community around me.

SBS: Female sensibilities the undoing of kids’ books? I don’t think so

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Are women in publishing the reason young boys aren’t reading? Some within the industry would have us think so, and I wrote about it for SBS News’ Comment and Analysis section. Here’s a taste:

“Women are relegated to working in children’s publishing because, like many other services or industries, books for children are considered lightweight, easier, less important. Like their counterparts in academic publishing, women are found in higher concentrations in ‘soft’ pockets. Their expertise is first and foremost as women, mothers, carers. They are certainly qualified to lend this expertise to publishing for children, but when it comes to high end literature there are men jostling to work on the serious stuff, the award winning, publicly recognised artistry of literature.”

This one was cathartic to write, because it touches on so many of my passions; writing, publishing, YA and kids books, feminism and wilful disregard of data. Head on over to the SBS website to read it in full. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the issue!

 

 

Image by Thoth God of Knowledge used via Creative Commons License

May/June 2014 Update

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It’s been an incredibly busy and incredibly good time for me over the past few months. I’ve submitted a book chapter for an amazing project, done an in-conversation event with John Marsden at The Wheeler Centre, hosted a panel on women in writing at the Emerging Writers’ Festival, been asked to join in on the National Young Writers’ Festival fun later this year and been accepted to the European Festivals Association Atelier.

I’m particularly stoked to be going to NYWF this year. My years directing the National Student and Emerging Media Conference (before VSU put an end to it) were some of the most formative for me. They were a baptism of fire in how to program literary/media events and put me in touch with a network of peers that I still work with to this day. I’ve gone back to This is Not Art a few times as an audience member, and a few times to host or facilitate panels for either Cracked or NYWF, but this year it will be even more wonderful to return and help out any way I can as two women I admire greatly — Alex Neill and Jess Alice — are at the helm. I’ve worked with Alex over many years, including one year where she took on the role of Editor at The Pun (the first and only time I’ve ever had a publicist ring me to rave over how wonderful one of our editors was… she’s that awesome) and with Jess over the last few at Express Media. Both are shining examples of artists who also have excellent artistic direction skills. They can admin the shit out of an arts project just as well as they can creatively craft it, and I can’t wait to cheerlead from the sidelines as they create an absolutely spectacular NYWF 2014.

NYWF takes place in early October, meaning it will be a very short time after that I will head off to Poland to participate in the Atelier. In the lead up I will need to write a paper to present, and start to whittle down my wish-list of places nearby I want to visit. One non-negotiable is, of course, dropping in to visit Melbourne’s sister City of Literature, Krakow. They have some particularly wonderful initiatives which I would love to hear more about.

I’m also looking forward to seeing some results flow from the Women in Writing roundtable at EWF. You can check out my blog post about the event, but it is nice to be able to update you and let you know that we are already working towards our first event. The idea came directly from the session we held, and I can’t wait to share more about it with you.

I had a wonderful time doing our in-conversation event with John Marsden at The Wheeler Centre to launch the John Marsden Hachette Prize for Young Australian Writers. John is generous with his advice and enjoyable to talk to about all things writing. Having started reading his books as a teenager it was wonderful to talk to someone I have admired for so many years. The photo above is courtesy of Courteney Hocking, who came along and snapped from the front row.

National Young Writers’ Month has wrapped up, and this year the blog was a resource jam-packed with information and inspiration thanks to our Projects and Awards Intern Aleczander Gamboa. He really went above and beyond the call of duty. During NYWM I had a chat with 2013 Scribe Prize winner Oliver Mol, which you can check out here.

I really did think the second half of this year was going to slow down somewhat, but there are in fact more exciting possibilities on the horizon than ever before. Heading to Poland is obviously high on the list of awesomeness, and I hope I can fill you in on some of the rest soon.

March/April 2014 Update

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Most of March/April has been focused on the epic UK trip, which I have written about here. It was a fantastic opportunity, and has re-energised me on lots of fronts.

While away I did get the good news that my pitch for a chapter in a new book about girls and sexuality has been accepted, which is exciting. The project is an excellent one and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into writing it.

At Express we are taking off at a breakneck speed now that I have returned from my travels, and we’ve got National Young Writers’ Month in our sights. Exciting things happening there, which I look forward to sharing soon.

Limited News is quiet, thanks to a whole bunch of us being away on holidays around the same time. Hope to see more content bouncing up there soon.

Literary UK

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The literary walkway out front of the Writers' Museum in Edinburgh
The literary walkway out front of the Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh

My literary pilgrimage to the UK (okay, actually tagging along on partner’s work trip and hijacking it somewhat to fit in some literary business) went swimmingly, although of course it has only made me even more keen to learn more. While there, I managed to:

  • Meet with Jenny Niven and Joan Parr from Creative Scotland, where an hour passed by too quickly. I had so much more to ask, and so much more to follow up on. I’m keen to upick many of the ideas and information I managed to glean in that meeting. It was particularly wonderful to hear Jenny’s perspectives on the differences between the two cities of literature, given she has worked in both.
  • Drop in to the City of Literature Trust offices in Edinburgh, meet Ali Bowden and sit down for a coffee with her coworker Sarah Morrison to talk about emerging and young writers. Sarah was a goldmine of information about the local literature world, I’m looking forward to investigating more of the leads she gave me for great events and initiatives.
  • Visit the Scottish Storytelling Centre, a beautiful space in John Knox House which is open to the public, and chat to the staff about the space and the programs they run there. It is such a wonderful resource, I’m jealous of the Scots.
  • Visit Edinburgh’s Writers’ Museum, which focuses on the lives and works of three legendary Scottish writers, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.
  • Visit the Roald Dahl Museum in Buckinghamshire, indulging in my love for his creative worlds.
  • Visit the British Library in London, where I saw original manuscripts of some of the most important texts in Western history.
  • See The Drowned Man, Punchdrunk’s latest immersive storytelling experience and one of the most memorable productions I have ever seen.
  • Catch up with old comedy buddy Sarah Bennetto, a powerhouse of a woman who writes and performs amazing shows, and is the creator of Storytellers Club.
  • Drop in to the Southbank Centre in London, where lots of excellent literary events take place. It’s like The Wheeler Centre on creative steroids, as it also hosts enormous musical, visual and performing arts events.
  • Indulging in literary tourism; staying at hotels where literary greats such as Evelyn Waugh wrote; visiting locations from much-loved books (like the view over to George Heriot’s School, the one Rowling reportedly stared at from her café and based Hogwarts upon); driving and walking through countryside featured heavily in some of my favourite stories, including Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire which the fictional Midsomer of Caroline Graham’s books are based upon, the genteel country views of Austen, the Oxford from the His Dark Materials series or the more sinister Oxford of Inspector Morse.
  • Spent a long time pouring over zines at Lik + Neon, seeing what London zinesters are up to and hoping for one of the four resident cats to wake up so I could pat them. And of course visiting adorable bookshops all over England and Scotland. I couldn’t even pick a favourite there were so many gorgeous ones.
  • Read a whopping 12 books, all by authors from the UK. See my detailed post about that here.
  • Writing more of my own fiction than I have managed in a very long time, including nailing down the plot of a book that has been haunting me for almost a year. I think I finally nutted out what it is I want it to be. A big achievement.

It wasn’t the giant research trip I’ve been dreaming of, but it was enough to get some good information and solid leads on where else to dig for information on my topics of interest. I did the best with a very short amount of time, and a four year old in tow.

I’m currently writing a summary of my discussions with Creative Scotland and the Edinburgh City of Literature Office, in which I hope to discuss a little about what I learned and the questions it has raised for me.

Reading UK Authors While in the UK

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In my recent travels around the beautiful continent of the United Kingdom, I set myself the challenge of reading works either written about, or by people from, the UK. I asked for recommendations on Facebook, compiled a wish list of reads, loaded up my Kobo and set off on a trip intended to be both an opportunity to research and learn more about the UK literary world. More on that aspect of the trip can be read here.

So how did my reading challenge go? Quite well. Overall I read 12 books, which may seem like a lot for a three week trip, but includes two audio books and a couple of shorter titles. None of them were doorstoppers, and one is not quite finished. I read a lot at night (the joys of holidaying with a small child, your night time adventures are somewhat curtailed) and while in transit (we drove the length of the continent, from London to the Scottish highlands, took the train from Edinburgh to London, and of course the interminable flights).

Of the 12, nine I had never read before, six were written by women, three were YA, one was non fiction, two were crime, one was science fiction.

My favourites were probably the David Walliams audiobook of The BFG (it had all three of us in stitches, and it was so cool to introduce Ave to Roald Dahl), Brick Lane and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.

Reading Evelyn Waugh while staying in one of the hotels he frequented and wrote in was amazing. Visiting the Roald Dahl Museum in Buckinghamshire, wandering around the village that inspired so many of his stories and buying The BFG audiobook and collector’s edition for Avery was amazing. Visiting Brick Lane after reading Monica Ali’s beautiful portrait of its immigrant roots was amazing. Thinking about Mrs Dalloway’s London while hearing Big Ben chime was amazing. Overall, I think I would say that immersing myself in writing about the locations I was actually in was amazing. Amazing? Yeah, amazing.

Of course I came home with more recommendations of UK authors to read, so I imagine there will be a sharp increase in them for the remainder of 2014.

The full list of the books I read, and some ratings and thoughts on those books, is on my Goodreads page.

January/February 2014 Update

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Phew. Is it just me, or did the end of 2013 sort of crush us all? Finishing the year with the Express Media Awards is always a great way to look back on the year and celebrate all the amazing things happening in the literary world, but it makes for a mad rush to the finish line.

As the year has kicked off Express is already one project down for the year. Our NEWS conference, where incoming student media editors from all over the country converge on us here at The Wheeler Centre for two days of workshops and panel discussions, is already a thing of the past. This year was wonderful, as they all are, and made me nostalgic for my own student editor days at Rabelais. You truly don’t realise when you have the autonomy and the budget to produce those publications how lucky you are. It’s a damn hard job, but setting your own agenda and pursuing it wholeheartedly for your elected term is a privilege.

I have set myself the same Goodreads challenge for 2014 as I did for 2012 and 2013; to read 52 books throughout the year. That’s one per week, which sounds manageable, but I haven’t managed to reach the goal yet. Here’s hoping this is the year. I have the lofty goal of trying to disengage with reading so much online, and delving back into books. I spend an inordinate amount of time reading articles, news reports and so forth on the internet. These can be great reads, but they don’t substitute for the pure joy of reading long form fiction or non fiction. It should be a good year to reach that 52 book mark.

October 2013 Update

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It’s been a year of big changes at Express Media. We’ve said goodbye to former General Manager Joe Toohey, who employed me in my role here, and hello to Steve Lamattina who has taken on the role. It’s been a pretty intense period in our offices as we were without a GM for a while during the transition, but I think we’re going to get through it all okay.

Our Innovation Prize has happened as have National Young Writers’ Month and Write Across Victoria and our 6x6x6 events. I’m now in the thick of judging John Marsden Prize and our newest addition to the Express family, the Scribe Prize for Non fiction. As with every year, the standard of entries to our competition is astounding. There is such a wealth of talent on offer.

So let’s push through to the end of the year, shall we? Send it off with a bang. Yes.

Melbourne Writers Festival 2013

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I have had such a blast at this year’s MWF. More so than any other year I felt like the program embraced emerging and young writers, had brilliant women on stage and made me think about things in a different way.

For Express Media I hosted the Write Across Victoria event, where we award our young writers from years 7, 8 and 9 for outstanding short fiction pieces they have submitted. It was brilliant and our Voiceworks editor Kat Muscat did a great job getting the audience of students interested in what the authors had to say during the Q&A section of the session. We also held our final 6x6x6 event with amazing young writers such as Xani Colac, Zora Sanders and Lucy Knisley. It was a pleasure to watch this one go off without a hitch and with so much appreciation from the audience.

I managed to make it along to quite a few sessions, including the keynote by Boris Johnson, storytelling by The Moth and a plethora of sessions with speakers who blew me away including Tao Lin, Margo Lanagan, Bob Brown, Junot Diaz, M.J. Hyland and former Express alumni Esther Anatolitis. My highlight, probably unsurprisingly, was Tavi Gevenson who merged all of my favourite things together as a young feminist who achieves amazing things and is also completely pragmatic about her own awesomeness. Plus she talked about Twin Peaks and The Virgin Suicides, so of course I was in heaven.

The Edinburgh World Writers Conference and Scottish Writers stream deserves its own post, so jam packed with ideas and information it was. Unfortunately I’m running low on energy right now, so I’ll just say how much I appreciated the last leg of the epic EWWC being held in our fellow City of Literature, and it made me even more determined to return to Scotland to learn more about their literary world.