Sam van Zweden

In October last year I finished my Honours course. My hard work was sent off to the printer, and put between covers before being sent off for marking. My partner and I had spent hours on a cover design which I felt did justice to the texture of the work. A month or two later, I received some really energising feedback, a good mark, and told myself that I had done enough. I was allowed to finally take a break.

Continue reading “Bound” →

It’s easy to wrap up the large things I’ve read – simple to tie them up with ribbons and bows, outlining themes and concerns using broad, sweeping gestures. What’s harder is to dissect the little things. I’ve been reading Ander Monson’s Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir, and in it he says that “it’s only in the tiny that anything matters or exists at all.” Most of what I write is small – vignettes and poems, blog posts and flashes. Why prize the larger works when so many smaller things really speak to me, and they’re my main mode of creativity? I also want to cultivate the noticing of mundane life and quiet art. Continue reading “The Little Things: Poetry” →

April is NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month – the poetic equivalent of NaNoWriMo. This project is a marathon challenge to write a poem every day throughout April. By the end of April, participants should have 30 poems.

Kate Larsen, director of Writers Victoria, wrote an article about NaPoWriMo for ArtsHub, which I came across this morning.

Continue reading “Joining NaPoWriMo” →

My work space at home is a room of its own – it’s a second bedroom turned into a study, where I have a desk, a reading chair, and a couple of book shelves. This room houses the nonfiction shelves and lit mags. It’s nice to be able to get out of bed and be at work without leaving the house. Continue reading “A different room” →

Noted is a brand new literary festival touching down in Canberra at the end of March (20-22). The lead-up to the festival has been super-exciting – last week we saw Noted’s Pozible campaign surpass its goal, and earlier this week the Noted program was released. The festival brands itself as ‘experimental’, ditching typical panels and Q&As for performances and social events. Continue reading “Noted, Buzzwords” →

After the craziness of Christmas and finding the old footholds of routine in the new year, I’ve hugely enjoyed perusing the recently-released program for the Digital Writers’ Festival, which is fast becoming the event that kicks off my literary calendar. Running a massive 11-day program of events, featuring writers and organisations both established and nascent, the DWF begins on February 11th. Continue reading “Digital Writers’ Festival Picks” →

I’ve spent the morning sorting through the folder titled ‘WIPs’. Works in progress – only they’re not, really. There’s a piece there about discarded mail at the bottom of the ocean, which I haven’t touched since mid-2012. A piece about the legacy of old shoes that I haven’t opened for almost a year. This is hardly progress. I consider renaming the folder ‘Flotsam, Jetsam’. ‘Detritus’.

I’m searching for discarded images, ideas that I felt on some level had an element of animation – those things that moved me. This folder is full of them. It’s like panning for gold, shaking the mess around and hoping for some gleaming speck to surface and become my charmed destiny. Continue reading “I Worry that I will Never Have Another Idea” →