I love it when books contain the thing you’re thinking about them. A bit of cheekiness on the author’s part:
“I’ve never quite understood the difference between erotica and pornography, have you? I mean, is erotica merely porn with literary pretensions? Or is something pornography if written by a man but erotica if penned by a woman?” (Linda Jaivin’s Eat Me)
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…
Thought that’d get your attention. It certainly always gets mine.
Popular Penguins, the collection of distinctively-covered popular books which sell for just $9.95, are releasing another 26 titles in September.
As always, this gets me going. Books I’ve been meaning to read for a long time for less that $10?! Yes please! Also making me ridiculously happy is the fact that Borges’ “Labyrinths” is on this list – a book the whole world should read multiple times, and now at $9.95 they’ll have no more excuses.
Not sure I can get behind the Bryce Courtney, but… you win some, you lose some.
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!
And so is Paper Radio, the wonderfully original literary journal/audio adventure. The site itself has been up and going for a while now, and it’s fun. There are stories and non-fictional pieces, and they’re all backed by amazing soundscapes.
On Saturday my favourite story by the very talented thinker Tom Cho went up on Paper Radio. The Sound of Music can be read on two levels, and both are equally as rewarding. Full of pop cultural “a-ha!” moments (I love the really cool and handsome finger-clicking guys in the Fonz fantasy), you’ll laugh, but also perhaps give some serious thought to issues of identity, “issues of who you are, or want to be”.
A MONTH OF READING: April 2011:
Books Bought:
Voiceworks “Pulp”
The Ottoman Motel, by Christopher Currie
Books Borrowed/Received:
Library:
Kafka: A very short introduction, by Ritchie Robertson
The Penguin Dictionary of Literary terms & Literary theory, by J A Cuddon
number9dream, by David Mitchell
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell
Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell
Gifted: (Winning KYD’s literary trivia and having one of the most bookish men I know move house has resulted in a large influx of gifted books this month. It’s lovely!)
The Last Werewolf, by Glen Duncan
The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht
Nine Lives: Postwar women writers making their mark, by Susan Sheridan
Infidel: My Life, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Dune Road, by Jane Green
The Millstone, by Margaret Drabble
My Name Is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok
The Chosen, by Chaim Potok
The Gift of Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok
Burmese Days, by George Orwell
The Acid House, by Irvine Welsh
Life, the universe and everything, by Douglas Adams
Tango Nine: Love & War
Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams
Tess of the d’Ubervilles, by Thomas Hardy
The Horse’s Mouth, by Joyce Cary
Biggles of 266, by Capt W E Johns
Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de Bernieres
Smiley’s People, by John le Carre
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, by John le Carre
The Beautiful & The Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The History of Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding
Wild Swans, by Jung Chang
The Crystal Bucket, by Clive James
Dick For a Day, edited by Fiona Giles
Dear Me, by Peter Ustinov
Archy & Mehitabel, by Don Marquis
Visions Before Midnight, by Clive James
Great Classis Library (Great Expectations, Hard Times, The Cricket on the Hearth), by Charles Dickens
Borrowed:
The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? By Padgett Powell
Books Read:
Disgrace, by J M Coetzee
ROOM, by Emma Donoghue
The Catcher In The Rye, by J D Salinger
Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer (yeah, I went there)
Reading:
Explorations in Creative Writing, by Kevin Brophy
Consolations of Philosophy, by Alain de Botton
Marsden on Marsden, by John Marsden
The Ottoman Motel, by Christopher Currie
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.
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
Sam van Zweden 