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Sam van Zweden

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Going Down Digital

You know Going Down Swinging, right? It’s a pretty nifty literature journal, jam packed with tasty pretty things. It’s produced on decent quality paper. It comes with a CD of spoken word, which is cool because it recognizes that not all poetry is page-bound…

In this same tradition of not being scared to embrace different forms, Going Down Swinging are moving bravely forward into the digital realm, and it’s quite exciting. Other journals have moved this way already – Sleepers Almanac have an iPhone app. Many journals have an online component which complements the print, such as Meanjin or Kill Your Darlings. But online-only publications? Bravery.

The next issue (#31) of Going Down Swinging will be a digital publication which “mixes video and animation, audio, richly coloured visual art, photography, and interactive text” – so not a boring page-on-a-screen kind of switch. My brain can’t quite picture what this will be like, so I’m excited!

The launch for Going Down Swinging issue #31 will be happening this Friday (17th June) at The Builder’s Arms, 211 Gertrude Street in Fitzroy. It starts at 8pm, and there’s going to be poetry and story-telling a-plenty. There’s also a promise of baked-goods, and that’s a good reason to go anywhere.

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I had blog for breakfast

28th May, 3pm-4pm, Melbourne Town Hall.
“Blogging” panel, “In Conversation” with Jessica Au and Philip Thiel.

Philip Thiel leans back in his chair, sinking his teeth into the pork terrine he made after the i ching told him to “make a pork cake”. He clearly enjoys it – he doesn’t look like a man who over-indulges in a good terrine, and I wonder how big the whole dish was and what percentage of it he ate. Whether the i ching told him that, or if it was just a question of his own will-power.

My own will-power has told me not to indulge in the pork terrine – it’s tied up with what I had for breakfast. I had a $1 coffee from 7Eleven, which I still don’t think tastes as bad as $1 says it should, and I had a muesli bar with lots of nuts in it, and my body should take a long time to burn that off. And even though I’m taking the stairs, I doubt they provide the equivalent to “a workout”. And this is why I say “no thanks” to Philip Thiel’s pork terrine, despite how amazing it looks. Because, you know, that’s a valid thing to blog about.

The panel raises questions about self-censorship, and the encouraging consensus seems to be that while social networking and blogging are mediums rife with over-sharing, this is actually what we enjoy reading. Someone mentions that they read fourfour because they like the guy’s cat. In extremely weird circumstances someone mentions my blog without knowing I’m in the room – I wonder whether there’s some sort of personal thing here, equivalent to fourfour’s cat, which keeps her coming back?

I’ve recently discovered that personal non-fiction is enjoyable. Writing and reading. Pulling what you enjoy out of reading and putting it into your writing isn’t easy – why would anyone want to hear about what I had for breakfast? Sure, we care about fourfour’s cat, but if I had a cat it’d be boring. Right?

Nah. I recently wrote a piece about my brother and how I felt eating food he’d cooked for me. Turns out it’s one of the loveliest pieces I’ve ever written, and that’s because I allowed myself to think that interiority and my personal life is interesting.

Things carry some sort of heft when they’ve got the personal attached to them. And on blogs, this is super-important – it’s the personal stuff which helps make your voice your voice. It’s a medium where people actually come for that kind of content. And it’s incredibly enjoyable to write. It feels less starchy.

And so in writing a “review” or “wrap up” post for my day at the Emerging Writers’ Festival, I decided to blog about the thing I heard that made the deepest impression on me. Plenty of people could write any of the “And then he said…and she said…the next panel…” wrap-up posts I’m capable of writing, but the truth is they’re a bit boring. They’re dry. So here’s a post which includes what I had for breakfast yesterday. This morning, I just had blog for breakfast.

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National Young Writers’ Month

Express Media, that amazing bunch of enthusiastic helpful people behind Voiceworks, are gearing up for National Young Writers’ Month. During the month of June, there will be heaps of events, as well as web-based discussions and exercises to help get the brain doing brainy things.

I’ve just registered for NYWM on the Express Media website, and there’s already some great discussions going on in the forums. When you register, you’re asked to set yourself a goal. My goal is to write and polish (whole process, from scratch) at least five pieces of poetry or prose throughout the month of June. Reading other people’s goals on the forums is making me think that maybe I should try to incorporate LGWABP into my goal in some way too…

The NYWM launch proper will be part of the Emerging Writers’ Festival…

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Because Every Time You Pick Up Your Pen, You Realise You Know Nothing

Last night was the launch of the program for the Emerging Writers’ Festival. As always in the Wheeler Centre, seating was a little awkward, but the entertainment made up for it. To launch the program, Ben Birchall hosted a panel made up of Paddy O’Reilly, Sean Condon, and Meg Mundell. While there didn’t seem to be a specific point of discussion, the wandering topic of the event was a good way into the festival, which encourages us as writers to think about our practice and process, the wider implications of what we do, not just the act of publishing but the whole idea of “being a writer”. It’s so important to have space and time to do this, to make meaning of what we’re doing.

Paddy O’Reilly provided the quote I got the most out of from the night – “I learn,” she said, “every time I pick up a pen, that I don’t know anything.” In a way, this is possibly the worst thing for me (as someone at uni studying the craft of writing) to take on board. It’s also really constructive though. It’s such a positive way of tackling blank pages, new projects – don’t try for that level of production I reached by the end of my last project, because that was something different. This is new, I’m starting from scratch, and I know nothing, so just do it.

Having spent an hour or two picking out my dream itinerary from the very spunky looking program (all individually screen printed, as last year), I’ve come up with the following events as my picks from the 2011 program. All links back to program descriptions (and tickets) on the EWF website –

26th May – The First Word

28-9th May – Town Hall Writers’ Conference

31st May – Not Your Nana’s Slide Night

4th June – The Writers’ Toolkit

4th June – Tram Tracks

4th June – The Pitch

5th June – Page Parlour

5th June – Spelling Bee

Also, right throughout the festival the #ewf11 hashtag will be active (already a fair bit of action on Twitter), and panels will be hosted online. There’s a whole extra level of discussion that occurs over the Town Hall weekend if you’ve got access to Twitter on your phone. There’s a silent layer of discussion going on on Twitter at the same time as panels are running, it enriches the whole experience. I’m so glad this year I have a wanky phone with internet access so I can get to that – last year I saw tweets post-fact and was a bit disappointed I’d missed them.

Also exciting news connecting LGWABP with the EWF this year – I’m one of the bloggers whose content is being pulled into their Planet. A “planet” is a feed which draws in content from selected blogs, which are tagged in a certain way. So throughout the festival, anything that I tag with “emerging writers festival” will appear in that feed. Lisa (festival director)’s experience as a blogger has made this feed really nuanced in the way it works, as she understands that the planet benefits both the writers and the festival. Had a non-blogger created this, it may have turned out a bit differently.

SO! Go check out the EWF program, tickets are all on sale, program’s up, I’m part of their blogging planet, the #ewf11 hashtag is already active – get involved!

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Winding Up for EWF

It’s only just over a week until the first official event for the Emerging Writers’ Festival. On Thursday, 5th May at the Wheeler Centre, the 2011 program is being launched. Titled “Stories from the Trenches”, the event promises to be a lot of fun – not only can we get our paws on the program, but we’ll also be treated to readings from Meg Mundell, Paddy O’Reilly and Sean Condon, all addressing the reality of “the cold, hard world of Writerland”. The event will be hosted by Ben Birchall.

…Did I mention it’s free? Bookings, however, are “recommended” (see: get your tickets now cuz it’s going to be so rad that if you don’t, you won’t be able to squeeze in the door).

You can see the whole program at the EWF website, and pencil those into your diary so you can’t make any other plans! Then top up your credit card for a bit of a beating.

You can also get all happy in your pants over the brand-spankin’ website, which has SO MUCH happening, and a super-spiffy new layout – more about that in the next few days, as well as a picks-from-the-program post.

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Overload Call-Out

The Overload Poetry Festival was one of my favourite things about last year; I had an absolute blast blogging for them. Sure, it’s not on again until September yet, but the back-end stuff has started happening already – they have issued a call-out for submissions, and first announcements of performers and events for the 2011 festival should happen around June. This year being the 10th year of the festival, it’s all set to be one big party.

A media release from the festival is below. Don’t discount this festival as “too hard” or “unachievable” – last year I had two pieces of micro poetry accepted and broadcast at the ticker text at Fed Square. The people who perform are those who are more than happy to rub shoulders and get sloshed with you afterwards – you could be one of those people! Melbourne’s poetry scene is super-accepting, uber-friendly, and incredibly feel-good. If you’ve got an idea – PITCH! Go forth and verse, yo.

Be sure to check out their website for details about the festival.

Overload 2011 – Calling for Submissions!

The Melbourne Overload Poetry Festival is the biggest grass roots poetry and spoken word festival in Australia. We are an inclusive and diverse festival that strives to showcase all forms of poetry, on or off the page. Overload has a reputation for pairing the experimental with the traditional, presenting them in an equal light in an accessible way.

From 10 to 19 September, the festival celebrates its 10th anniversary. We have come from being a small collective of regular, mainly pub poetry readings to a 10 day festival with a national and international presence.

In 2011 we want to celebrate this evolution with your help. We are calling for expressions of interest from poets in Melbourne and elsewhere in Australia who have ideas for events, a publication or CD they’d like to launch, or would simply like to read their work at Overload.

Go to www.overloadpoetry.org, download and fill out the submission form and return it to Overload before 13 May 2011. Provide as much information as possible: examples of your work, a bio, a thorough description of the event you’re planning, what kind of resources you have or need (publicity, venue, fees, etc), and if you’re coming from outside Melbourne, which dates you’re available.

Send us your proposals via email to submissions@overloadpoetry.org, or by post to Overload Poetry Inc, 176 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000. Attach as much support material as you can. If sending via post and you’d like us to return any samples of your work, please provide a SSAE.

Interstate and international poets please note: Overload is unable to offer any financial support for travel or accommodation. However, we will try and make the trip worth your while by offering two gigs at the festival.

176 Lt Londsale St
Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9094 7835
http://www.overloadpoetry.org
enquiries@overloadpoetry.org

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Miles Franklin Brouhaha

This morning the shortlist was announced for the 2011 Miles Franklin award. This award honours novels “portraying Australian life in any of its phases”. The award itself is a point of debate for the great Australian novels ignored due to its criteria – Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children, despite being written by an Australian, composed of mainly autobiographical material, and maybe an Australian attitude, would be unable to contend for the prize because it was set in America – of course, this text was published before the award began, but it’s the most readily available example from my dead brain this morning. Many novels written by Australians would fit this same bill.

But this year there is talk for a different reason. The short list released this morning is very much that – short.

It is only three works long:
Bereft by Chris Womersley
That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald

For a comprehensive and updating run-down of said ‘brouhaha’ check out Angela Meyer’s post, which will also no doubt generate some decent discussion in its comment section.

The general unrest seems to be about the narrow scope of the definition of “Australian life”. As mentioned before, many great novels have been discounted from the running for this award in the past, but never before has the shortlist been as short as just 3 titles – and those three titles favour the rural male voice in a historical setting. The criteria for the award is narrow to begin with (and fair enough – it’s an important goal, to be writing about Australian life), but at what cost? This year’s shortlist might suggest that the preferred depiction of “Australian life” is narrowing still.

–> No judgement is being passed here on the texts themselves – I haven’t read any of them yet, but have heard they’re great. Speculation is on the nature of the award itself and this year’s incredibly short shortlist.

–> How great is the word “brouhaha”? Damn straight, I put it in a sentence!

LATER:

I just found this post by Jennifer Mills, which makes some interesting points in the debate, including this brilliant one:

“I think that the prevalence of such stories is a result of living in a colonising culture which still has fractures along its frontiers. Yeah, we need diversity in our voices. But we also like to scratch the itches of our culture and i don’t think writers are the sole determinants of where their cultures itch.”

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Willy Lit Fest spot

The Willy Lit Fest is holding a People’s Choice poetry and prose reading night. The poetry section is hosted by Michael Reynolds, the man behind Passionate Tongues.

I managed to get a spot there reading my poem Transit. I’ll be reading at 7.25pm. Tickets are available on the website, and like everything else at this festival it’s CHEAAAPPP!

Also reading at the People’s Choice (in the prose section) is Megan from Lit Life. It’ll be a who’s-who of books and writing blogs. Come down and scream yourself silly for us!

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The World’s Most Affordable Lit Festival

The program for the Willy Lit Fest has been released, and I’ve scoured and circled and am about to purchase tickets.

“But you’re a student!” you may exclaim, wondering how I can afford such things.

Here’s how: tickets to the Willy Lit Fest events are (mostly) $5.50 for concession, $7.70 full price. Isn’t that just nuts? I can’t afford NOT to go!

On my list of must-attend:

A panel with Steven Amsterdam (who, has anyone else noticed, was in the last Big Issue holding chickens?), Jon Bauer and Jonathan Griffiths, titled “Getting Your First Novel Across The Line”. Sure, I don’t have a first novel, yet. But school’s mentioned its importance to my graduation; it’s come up. They’ve even got me taking a course which hopefully insists on referring to “Your Novel” (capitals and all). So eventually, the advice from this panel will surely come in handy. And Steven Amsterdam makes me happy.

Carmel Bird is one of my favourite short-storyists, and she’s running a workshop on writing memoirs, which gets me excited also. Both time with Carmel and the memoir-writing tips.

And a session with Angela Meyer about blogging. As you may have noticed, this here blog has been receiving some re-vamping lately. I’ve been trying, world, I really have. So let’s hope Angela has some tips which will make me (blogger) and you (, dear reader) happy.

Willy Lit Fest, the world’s most affordable literary festival is happening on the final weekend of 30th April-1st May. For those of you who (like me) didn’t know, Williamstown is only 30 minutes train ride out of the city, so not only is this cheap, but accessible also. Write-ups of above events, of course, to follow.

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