Category Archives: Literary Event Summaries

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Mixed Bag

...And the winner is Tomorrow, When the War Began!

In third place: Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody

Your runner up: Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

And the winner is: Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden

What a great list!

And what a great month of discussion too.

Check it all out on the Kill Your Darlings site.

Anddddd, you all can read my short story from the residency! It's gone up super-quickly, so thanks Yarra Plenty Libraries! Check it out - tell me what you think! (There's some spacing issues so bare with it!)

I feel very disconnected from the literary world lately.

Like within the last month or so.

I've been living, breathing and eating media for the past two days at Mamamia, before that the residency, the USA Consulates Office, then Bendigo Writers Festival...

August has been my insane month. 

Melbourne Writers Festival starts this week, and I'm crying ...

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I am interning at Mamamia!

I have to let you guys in on a little secret, something that’s been killing me to keep to myself but now I can finally shout it from the roof tops!!

Firstly: it’s no secret, however, that I idolise Mia Freedman. I write about her often, stalked her at the Family Life Forums, practically memorised her books, articles – everything. You all know that.

So it’s with great pleasure that I can finally announce that currently – as I type! – I’m in Sydney interning for Mamamia, Mia’s website!

When I got the email saying that my application had been successful, I was at a shopping centre with my sister. We were in line, waiting for a juice, and I started jumping up and down. (There may or may not have ...

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Views from the Residency

And so yesterday my residency finished, a sad mix of feelings.

I'm really proud of the story I wrote. It started to do with abandoned suitcases, and then evolved into something to do with fire water tanks (the abandoned suitcase now playing a minor but important role). I have to give a HUGE shout-out to my Uncle Ross, and Peter, one of the artists' other halves who gave me such insight into the world of farming, irrigation and fire water tanks, which I knew nothing about: but I know heaps now!

The other three artists did an amazing job, it was so exciting to be with them working in such insane quarters. Everyone produced such high-quality work and it was such an honour to be a part of it.

It was also slightly terrifying at times: we had members of the public stream in ...

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Musings on Writing in Public

Winter in Banyule is on as I type, in fact I'm being a bit naughty by writing this and not writing my story.

I'm sitting the in the gallery, Banyule Art Space, writing.

I've already plotted, done research (well, almost, waiting for one person to reply and another to call me back), drawn a picture, written a timeline and have almost one thousand words on the page.

This is good, this is real progress.

It's been freeing just sitting here, not a care in the world, simply writing.

(Okay, I have lots of cares, and lots of things to stress about right now, but I can't focus on that; writing, writing, writing.)

I'm writing about suitcases, fire water tanks, two teen girls, two old women.

There's a party tomorrow night at the gallery to celebrate the residency, come. It's between 6pm-8pm, details here, and I'll be reading ...

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Tom Healy at the United States of America Consulate

I had left my phone in the car to run inside and grab something and that's all it took for it to ring.

I checked my voicemail, and my blood ran cold.

"Hi, it's X from the United States of America Consulate..."

"OMIGOD," I immediately thought. "Who have I pissed off in America?! Who wants to sue me?!"

Thankfully, it was nothing of the sort and the very nice lady from the USA Consulates office was calling to invite me to a literary function.

Tom Healy, American author, poet, professor and chairman of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board is in Australia for a two-week whirlwind tour and the consulates office was putting on a wine and cheese reception for him.

Of course, I called them straight back and accepted, but not before being told that the beautiful Alice Pung had passed on my number to them ...

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Wrap: Bendigo Writers Festival

I'm sitting in my friends house, snuggled on the couch with my laptop with a heater on me.

I've come here from the festival, my 'professional' day over.

The interview last night was insane. I was there from 10.30pm, on air at 11pm, and left at 1.45am.

Yep, over two and a half hours.

We covered everything from the festival to blogging to social media to censorship to new media versus old media and more.

It's all kind of a blur really.

I had my sister and another friend from Melbourne listening who both texted through-out the show. My sister helpfully suggested I should stop talking over the presenter (sorry!!) and then around twelve thirty said she was going to bed.

"No I'm still on!" I texted back.
"I can listen to you crap on at home" was her reply. Thanks for that!!

It was kind of surreal to ...

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Reporting Live from Bendigo Writers Festival

Greetings!

Some words to describe Bendigo thus far:
-Rain
-Wind
-Driving
-Meetings

Do you guys know how much thought and preparation goes into sessions?!

There are so many things to discuss and I've had meetings all afternoon fine-tuning details.

It should be good, though.

The main street in Bendigo is beautifully lined in those flags that attach to poles advertising the festival.

The theatre the festival is held in is just gorgeous.

I'm really looking forward to it. There's a great mix in the line-up and it's going to be a weekend full of literary goodness!

Tomorrow I'll be back with all the gossip from my sessions and tonight's interview - don't forget to tune into Phoenix FM! 

What are you doing this weekend?

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This Post has No Title But It’s About a Mixture of Things

What a big, journalistic day.

I know everyone's heard about Fairfax. Simply shocking.

On a slightly better note, yesterday was the public forum on the Future of the Book: the last day of the Words in Winter Writers Residency.

It was a really interesting discussion, and one that was somewhat hopeful: there will always be a place in the world for the physical book (hopefully).

It's sad that the residency is over, and The Emerging Writers Festival in general for this year.

I'm going to miss the space, the sense of community and the opportunities.

I'm also going to miss the people and the ideas.

Aww :( I wish it was one of those on-going things.

On to more chipper news, here's a great behind-the-scenes video about Random House, thanks to the lovely Steph at Read In A Single Sitting:

Call My Agent via The Ampersand Project on how ...

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The Rabbit Hole, Future Bookshop et cetera

I've seen a few wraps for The Rabbit Hole and EWF in general, I particularly like this one from Karen Andrews, and Patrick O'Duffy and Elyce Phillips.

My Rabbit Hole:

Total 10,400 words written (although Elyce counted her blog posts as writing, perhaps I should have?!)  I missed six and a half hours on Saturday due to: Planet EWF Bloggers Brunch (2 hours) and work (4.5 hours) It was at some point on Saturday night I decided to can what I was working on - the new project. I didn't have the voice, it was annoying me and becoming a waste of time Instead, I decided to work on my current work-in-progress. I spent a lot of time on Sunday re-plotting and editing, making structural changes and insert marked-up edits into the computer, however I also wrote lots of scenes (which were then inserted to ...