Writers Voice September 2011 - Fellowship of Australian Writers NSW

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FAW Branch Reports Eastwood/hills FAW cont. from previous page Future plans are: • OCTOBER 1: Workshop will be a restricted ‘Writing Ramble’ conducted by Alice Suttie. This will involve outdoor time regardless of weather, so come prepared! • NOVEMBER 5: ‘The Short Story Toolbox’ conducted by Jacquie Winn, published author of short stories. • DECEMBER 3: Our last meeting for the year and will be our Christmas Party, venue to be advised. Margaret Longhurst euroBodalla faw Our group of writers have been very busy during the winter sessions. We have introduced a new type of writing, just to spice things up a bit and challenge the grey matter. It is called a drabble. When the criteria are met, many interesting and varied written pieces emerge. We are always asked to extend our writing skills, meaning more words, but this confines us to 100; it can be less, BUT no more. An emotion and place have to be treated as one writing task. It is amazing what the group can do with so few words. Hard to believe that the year has rolled around so quickly, but eight of our members have been working on the judging of the Eurobodalla Mayor’s Writing Competition. This is open to children aged 5 to 16, who must reside in the Shire. This year we received 129 entries – fantastic! The quality and the imagination of these children, makes selecting winners very hard. Syd and Mavis Hayes hard at work marking the Eurobodalla children’s writing competition. 8 WRITERS’ VOICE 233—SEPTEMBER 2011 Syd Hayes was guest speaker at Moruya Probus and he talked about his career at a one teacher school, way out western New South Wales. He then read some of his written pieces from our anthology ‘Where Pelicans Fly’. Our anthology has been selling very well and we have had some nice reviews, even receiving one from the Internet. Winter is usually a very quiet time, but not for our writers. The following members have all had work accepted for publication or published: Betty Williams, Eileen Bacchus, Raj Rittman, Barry Lake, Cat Sheely and Robin McPherson. Louise Falcioni Correction: forestville faw In the June issue, the title of Ellen Ash’s booklet should read, The RSPCA: An Ideal Desecrated and Destroyed. [Apologies for the misprint—Ed.] Great laKes faw We have had some very interesting meetings in the last few months. Our June meeting was on the importance of family heirlooms, and who should keep them. Members brought in some of their own family heirlooms and gave an explanatory talk about them. The July assignment was to write up one’s own particular heirloom story, and what it meant to the writer. In July we studied traditional and modern poetry, given by Hermione. Members brought in examples of both styles of poetry. The August assignment was to try writing one poem in each style on the same subject. Our guest speaker at the August meeting was wellknown local writer Jacqui Winn, who gave a wonderful talk on ‘Conflict in Writing’. As usual, her talk was both interesting and enjoyable, and we all came away quite “pumped up”, ready to apply some of her advice to our own writing. Gary Taaffe, our web master, has been writing a trilogy for young adults, and has now begun Epublishing them as a series. He had the launch of his first one during the first week in August, and has had plenty of “hits” and enquiries already. He even had a film crew at his house last week interviewing him, so we feel we have quite a celebrity in our midst! We wish him the best of luck. Our September meeting will be a talk on how to be brief in our writing whenever possible, as it is all too easy to write much too much detail, and editors are always asking writers to cut down on too much of it. Our last couple of meetings were down on members attending, as we had two members away on trips, and several others on the sick list. However, we have had several new members in attendance as well as some visitors who may become members. Noelle White has put together a book for friends and family consisting of letters she and her then fiancée wrote to each other during the second World War while awaiting her arrival in Australia to marry him. It is a lovely record of a wartime romance. Well done, Noelle! The coming months will see the compiling, editing and printing of our sixth Anthology, and it will be launched at our December meeting. Christine Hayes hunter faw At our June meeting, Louise Berry took us through a writing exercise in which we were given an opening sentence and questions to consider when writing our story. This encouraged us to look at the background to other stories and how this affected what we wrote. We looked at our use of adjectives and adverbs, deleted them, then compared both stories and decided which one we liked best. We found some adjectives and adverbs were necessary to give a more rounded sense to our stories. In July, we participated in Jacqui Winn’s workshop, ‘Pace and Impact’. In a dynamic presentation, Jacqui shared her strategies for moving a story along, giving great tips on characterisation, especially the main character; on conflict in the plot, cause and effect and escalation of the Visit us on the Internet at www.fawnsw.org.au
plot; on the quality of the narrative voice and many hints on improving style. Julie Simpson led our August meeting with a talk and exercise on ‘3D or Layered Writing’. Using two black & white graphics as inspiration, we tried our hand at weaving three narratives or narrative points of view to plait the different characters lives and settings and experiences together. This gives the reader a more rounded understanding of the plot and characters. This was a brainteaser of an exercise. Jo Tregellis isolated writers’ Branch It would be extremely gratifying if I could report on the outstanding number of isolated writers who have registered any interest in an inhouse literary competition. Instead, I can only offer my apologies to those few members who offered their support and looked forward to the competition, only to be let down. Such an undertaking can only be successful if no less than twenty submissions are received. As there are sixty isolated writers, I can only surmise that you all have the winter blues. It’s all about fellowship and helping each other along, you know. That’s how we improve our own writing – assisting others. We have sufficient funds to enable payment of modest monetary prizes, award certificates and pay judges for such competitions. Because we can’t meet and hold workshops or fundraising activities, please support the Isolated Writers’ activities. Do give this matter your consideration as any organization is only as good as the members want to make it. I’d like to hear your views. Thank you to those members who have sent me their short, short stories (ten sentences) for publication in Fair Copy. I also appreciate those stalwarts who continue to send me work for inclusion in our newsletter. We have so many good writers/poets and I commend you all, not only those who have been fortunate enough to have their short stories or verse published in magazines, but also those who submit work to both the Round Robins. I’d like to welcome a new member, Harry Baxter of Narrogin, in WA. Harry is a selfpublished author and I’m looking forward to reading his book and viewing his DVD. Harry intends to participate in our electronic Round Robin (ERR), coordinated by Brian Armour. We hope you enjoy fellowship with us, Harry. Vicepresident and Public Officer Helen Luidens, tells me the amended FAW (NSW) constitution was adopted unanimously at the Special Meeting convened prior to the AGM on the 6th August, 2011. On behalf of all Isolated Writers’ members, I’d like to thank the committee for all their hard work in making the necessary alterations. Ah red tape, don’t we love it? Be careful when reading health books; you may die of a misprint. (Mark Twain) Adrienne de Bouvier, Convenor Kandos faw We launched our inaugural anthology ‘Kandos Moments’ on July 1. Contributors are Kay Andos (pseudonym of Pam O’Connor), Shannon and Tania Pennell, Judi ‘Martinelli’ Rasmussen [see photo, ‘Roundup’ p17], Deborah Stone, Pamela Tan, Maureen Turner, Leanne Wicks and Wendy Williams. Leanne Wicks was successful in her application to be one of Australian Poetry’s Café Poets for a 6month residency in Café on Louee, Rylstone. Her poem ‘Garden Party’ was published in Tamba Issue 48. Leanne Wicks laKe MacQuarie faw Writer’s Expo Saturday August 6 was blessed with clear sunshine, glittering on the beautiful waters of Lake Macquarie. We took this all in from the lightbathed balcony of Toronto Library. A perfect day for some reading, a book launch or three, a cuppa and a chat. We kicked off with a brief introduction from Jan Mitchell, our president. She apologised for not being able to do a better comedy routine – no matter, a member of L to R: Linda Visman, Christina Batey and Rina Robinson, who all launched their novels at the Lake Macquarie writers’ expo. the audience stood up and told a joke instead. The crowd relaxed, listening to some amazing work from, in our opinion, some of Australia’s finest writers. Biographical works: an excerpt from Linda Visman’s biography of her father, Jo Hanrahan’s Cracker Night and a sample of Jan Mitchell’s soon to be published biography. We were entertained by Carol Heuchan, with her bush poem, ‘Angels on Horseback’, about a bikie gang who decides to take up horse riding with hilarious results. New member Grace Gazzara read her charming children’s story about a girl whose dearest wish was for a dog of her own, and we also heard Vicki Norton’s gorgeous story about teddy bears stealing cake. Linda Visman launched her debut Members’ novels launched at the Lake Macquarie writers’ expo. novel, Ben’s Challenge, an enthralling tale of twelve year old Ben’s search for the person responsible for his father’s death. Christina Batey kicked off her debut novel, Kicker, a punchy, actionpacked story about a seventeen year old freestyle motorcross rider. Rina Robinson introduced Tarnished Threads, an intoxicating collection of short stories, weaving the reader into their web. It was clear that two hours just weren’t long enough to show our members’ talents to their full, as we heard some more fromVicki Norton’s work, a chapter from her upcoming thriller, His Words Fell At My Feet, and cont. next page… Visit us on the Internet at www.fawnsw.org.au WRITERS’ VOICE 233—SEPTEMBER 2011 9
Page 1 and 2: Writers Voice S p r i n g E d i t i
Page 3 and 4: State Council News ANNOUNCEMENT: AT
Page 5 and 6: Sydney Harbour Bridge’! Twice a s
Page 7: FAW Branch Reports Blue Mountains f
Page 11 and 12: Shawna Hartley’s May assignment w
Page 13 and 14: sizes, margins, headers and footers
Page 15 and 16: elected Vice Presidents with Marjor
Page 17 and 18: Helen and Johan with members of the
Page 19 and 20: Competition Results results: eastwo
Page 21 and 22: Articles Keeping The Short Story al
Page 23 and 24: Jacqui Winn: 2nd prize Brighton Com
Page 25 and 26: FAW Members’ Bookshelf ALEESAh DA
Page 27 and 28: WATERLINE WRITING COMPETITION cont.
Page 29 and 30: NORTH ARM COVE COMPETITION cont. fr
Page 31 and 32: PorT STePHenS FaW 3rd Thursday - 10

Writers Voice September 2011 - Fellowship of Australian Writers NSW

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