Kristina Olsson
?r=MTAwMA0KDQoNCmM2ZDAwMDAwMDAwNjYwOQ0KaHR0cDovL3d3dy5xd2MuYXNuLmF1L2Fzc2V0cy9maWxlcy9XUU1hZ2F6aW5lL1dRJTIwSXNzdWUlMjAyNTUlMjAtJTIwZmluYWwucGRmDQp0cnVlDQptZWxpc3NhY3JhaWdhdXRob3JAZ21haWwuY29t
?r=MTAwMA0KDQoNCmM2ZDAwMDAwMDAwNjYwOQ0KaHR0cDovL3d3dy5xd2MuYXNuLmF1L2Fzc2V0cy9maWxlcy9XUU1hZ2F6aW5lL1dRJTIwSXNzdWUlMjAyNTUlMjAtJTIwZmluYWwucGRmDQp0cnVlDQptZWxpc3NhY3JhaWdhdXRob3JAZ21haWwuY29t
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
<strong>Kristina</strong> <strong>Olsson</strong><br />
- Supporting writers<br />
ISSUE 255<br />
Amie Kaufman - Trends in YA<br />
December 2016 –<br />
February 2017<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 1<br />
Jackie French - Making a living
Buy Queensland books ...<br />
CHILDREN’S & YOUNG ADULT<br />
101 of the Best Kids’ Jokes Ever: V. 1<br />
Lily Burgess<br />
Buy: amazon.com<br />
wordsfromdaddysmouth.com.au<br />
print • eBook<br />
For many years, Lily has collected virtually every kids’<br />
joke shared with her, now released for the first time.<br />
Volume 2 also available.<br />
The Magic in Boxes<br />
Chrissy Byers<br />
Buy: chrissybyers.com<br />
Print<br />
Every child knows a box is more than just a<br />
box: inside tingles a hidden magic that can only be released when<br />
little fingers are touched by the power of play. Climb inside the boxes,<br />
travel to lands of fun and wonder, where anything is possible and new<br />
adventures are born. (Printed on recycled paper. Ages 2-5 years.)<br />
From Dusk: The Vampire Hunter<br />
Prophecy<br />
M G Ryan<br />
Buy: amazon.com<br />
authormgryan.com / print • eBook<br />
When Lexi O’Connor discovers Dunkeld Cathedral in<br />
Scotland, she meets the local priest, who believes<br />
that Lexi is part of an old church prophecy. When told of the part she<br />
plays within the prophecy, Lexi is unsure of what to believe. Does she<br />
stay or run away from her destiny?<br />
Island of Puffins<br />
Val Shooter<br />
Buy: amazon.com<br />
print • eBook<br />
A 5000-year-old dormant volcano on Iceland’s<br />
Westman Islands erupts spectacularly during a<br />
bitterly cold winter’s night, forcing Kria, her family<br />
and everyone on the island to evacuate to the mainland. Kria dreams<br />
of the carefree life she once led, but will she ever be able to return<br />
home?<br />
Liberated<br />
M.J. Stevens<br />
Buy: mjstevensauthor.com<br />
print • eBook<br />
Selestia has begun to recover from the war. For<br />
Mellea, however, things are only starting. If seeing<br />
the spirits of Livolism wasn’t bad enough, Doctor and<br />
her MECH army haven’t been destroyed yet, and her father is still<br />
missing. The final installment of the Guardians Series.<br />
NON-FICTION<br />
Relinquished, Returned, Rejected<br />
Jackee Ashwin<br />
Buy: balboapress.com.au<br />
jackeeashwin.com / print • eBook<br />
In 1974, Jackee Ashwin relinquished her baby boy as<br />
part of the adoption process in Australia during that<br />
era. In 1983, she lost her second son to stillbirth.<br />
Rebuilding her life after these incidents, she was reunited with her<br />
firstborn in 2012 after he found her online.<br />
The Power and the Possible<br />
Stephen Paul Chong<br />
Buy: jabirupublishing.com.au<br />
stephenchong.com.au / print • eBook<br />
The Power and the Possible is a life education<br />
roadmap for teenagers trying to navigate the<br />
magic, mystery, trials and challenges of the teenage years. Includes<br />
practical insights, humour, easy-going parables, and a wonderful<br />
narrative about a family of ducks.<br />
Ricky<br />
Yvonne Kirkegard<br />
Buy: zeus-publications.com<br />
print • eBook<br />
Ricky met her husband, a doctor, in a London<br />
hospital. They went to British Malaya and Singapore<br />
in 1938. Ricky and her two children had a miraculous and dramatic<br />
escape from the Japanese just before Singapore fell in 1942. The<br />
family immigrated to Australia in 1951.<br />
Finding Love<br />
Carolyn Martinez<br />
Buy: hawkeyepublishing.com.au<br />
print • eBook<br />
If doing what you’ve always done is not giving you the<br />
results you seek, it’s time to do something different.<br />
Finding Love is a collection of advice from a relationships expert, 21<br />
success stories, and self-reflection exercises for the reader looking<br />
for love the second time around.<br />
The Publican’s Wife<br />
Lori Patrick<br />
Buy: boolarongpress.com.au<br />
charliwinters.com / print<br />
Working and raising a family has its challenges.<br />
When you add running an outback pub and mix it<br />
with humour and tragedy, Lori Patrick’s life story, The Publican’s Wife,<br />
becomes a compelling read.<br />
The Cruising Dream<br />
Jenny Lawton<br />
Buy: jabirupublishing.com.au<br />
print • eBook<br />
Jenny and Doug Lawton were schoolteachers. As<br />
their sons were growing up, they could see a new<br />
era in their lives approaching. They took up the challenge of Doug’s<br />
dream to buy a boat and sail away. This is their story of cruising the<br />
South Pacific in their yacht, Swifty.<br />
Advertised books from QWC’s Books from our Backyard 2015. Browse the full catalogue at backyardbooks.com.au. Advertise in WQ - editor@qwc.asn.au.
ISSUE 255<br />
December 2016–February 2017<br />
3<br />
4<br />
6<br />
8<br />
10<br />
12<br />
13<br />
14<br />
16<br />
18<br />
20<br />
22<br />
23<br />
24<br />
26<br />
27<br />
27<br />
Editorial<br />
Like plumbing<br />
<strong>Kristina</strong> <strong>Olsson</strong><br />
Australian short story trends<br />
Craig Bolland<br />
Making a living from writing<br />
Jackie French<br />
Writing games<br />
Brooke Maggs<br />
New tools, timeless tales<br />
Simon Groth<br />
Milestones<br />
Trends in young adult writing<br />
Amie Kaufman<br />
Conjuring stories<br />
Melaina Faranda<br />
Writing on the road<br />
Claire Coleman<br />
Coming home – 25 years of QWC<br />
Craig Munro<br />
Events<br />
Open calls<br />
Competitions and opportunities<br />
About QWC Membership<br />
QWC Membership benefits<br />
Membership form<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
Kris Sheather<br />
Kris Sheather leads a creative life as a freelance graphic designer (twodecadedesigns.com), artist & textile<br />
designer (onetwoblue.com), blogger (krissheather.com), publisher/editor (ormistonpress.com), contributor<br />
(shebrisbane.com.au) and a speculative fiction writer. Her first picture book, The Green Goggles, is due for<br />
release in November 2016.<br />
Facebook.com/KrisSheather.page; Instagram WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU @artylifekris; Twitter @kris_sheather<br />
1
PUBLISHED BY<br />
ISSN 1444-2922<br />
About WQ<br />
WQ is the quarterly publication of the<br />
Queensland Writers Centre. It is not just<br />
a magazine for Queensland writers – it<br />
examines issues and topics relevant to<br />
writing and publishing in Australia and<br />
around the world. It also publishes member<br />
milestones and lists of workshops and<br />
events, competitions and opportunities.<br />
The WQ you get in your mailbox or inbox<br />
seasonally should be read in tandem with<br />
the magazine’s online counterpart:<br />
www.writingqueensland.com.au<br />
Editorial and production<br />
Sharon Phillips, Lauren Sherritt,<br />
Catherine Moller, TJ Wilkshire<br />
Editorial team<br />
Lauren Sherritt<br />
Social Media<br />
Sharon Phillips<br />
Advertising<br />
Kris Sheather<br />
Guest Artist<br />
Popeye Creative<br />
Design<br />
Paradigm Print Media<br />
Printing<br />
Submissions<br />
Information on how to include your<br />
Milestones or details for the Events,<br />
Competitions and Opportunities listings is<br />
available at qwriters.co/qwc-submissions.<br />
QWC reserves the right to edit all<br />
submissions with regard to content and<br />
word length.<br />
Advertising<br />
Advertising rates, deadlines, dimensions and<br />
other information on how to advertise in WQ<br />
is available at qwriters.co/qwc-ad-info.<br />
For advertising inquiries please contact<br />
Sharon at editor@qwc.asn.au.<br />
QWC members enjoy a reduced advertising<br />
rate. Before booking an advertisement<br />
potential advertisers should read QWC’s<br />
Advertising Terms and Conditions, qwriters.<br />
co/qwc-ad-terms.<br />
About QWC<br />
QWC is the leading provider of specialised<br />
services to the writing community in<br />
Queensland. Through its annual programs,<br />
QWC promotes creative and professional<br />
development of writers and advances the<br />
recognition of Queensland writers and<br />
writing locally, nationally and internationally.<br />
qwc.asn.au<br />
Staff<br />
Katie Woods<br />
Chief Executive Officer<br />
Sharon Phillips<br />
General Manager<br />
Jackie Ryan<br />
Program Manager<br />
Elliott Bledsoe<br />
Marketing and Communications Manager<br />
Lauren Sherritt<br />
Content Producer – Membership & Program<br />
Catherine Moller<br />
The Australian Writer’s Marketplace Project<br />
Officer<br />
Simon Groth<br />
if:book Australia Manager<br />
Samantha Schraag<br />
Customer Service Officer<br />
Stacey Clair<br />
Project Officer<br />
Terry Sheather<br />
Finance Officer<br />
Elizabeth Georgiades, Shastra Deo,<br />
Kimberley Smith<br />
Workshop Coordinators<br />
Management Committee<br />
Julie Barnett<br />
Chair<br />
Leanne Dodd<br />
Vice Chair<br />
Greg McBride<br />
Treasurer<br />
Stephanie Rowe<br />
Secretary<br />
Andrea Baldwin, Kylie Chan, Kathleen<br />
Jennings, Jock McQueenie, Jo-Ann Sparrow,<br />
Ian Walters<br />
Ordinary Members<br />
The Queensland Writers Centre Management Committee and staff present WQ in good faith and accept no responsibility<br />
for any misinformation or problems arising from any misinformation. The views expressed by contributors or advertisers<br />
(including advertising supplying inserts) are not necessarily those of the Management Committee or staff.<br />
Queensland Writers Centre is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and is assisted by the<br />
Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.<br />
2<br />
WQ
Editorial<br />
Lauren Sherritt<br />
For writers, the road ahead does not always take the form of a predictable<br />
path. We may start our writing journeys with an idea of where we’ll end up,<br />
only to find that we diverge as other stories take hold of us and other styles<br />
excite.<br />
Unforeseen changes within industry and audience may open up new roads<br />
or put obstacles in our path. We must be quick to adapt as we push forward,<br />
gathering resources along the way that will help us grasp opportunities as<br />
they arise.<br />
In this issue of WQ, we have asked our writers to peer into the future and<br />
reflect on the past, giving us their take on the writing journey and the<br />
future of writing in Queensland. Kris <strong>Olsson</strong> writes about the ways in which<br />
communities can foster writers on their journeys. Amie Kaufman examines<br />
the future of Young Adult fiction, while Brooke Maggs explores the realm of<br />
writing for virtual reality, more a part of the modern writing world than its<br />
futuristic name might imply.<br />
Claire Coleman talks about the physical journey she took which inspired her<br />
writing. Having successfully traversed the road, Jackie French guides us<br />
through the realities of making a living as a writer.<br />
Simon Groth of if:book Australia talks about the unchanging fundamentals<br />
of story-telling in a world of technological possibilities. Melaina Faranda<br />
gives us some ideas on how to conjure stories, while Craig Bolland<br />
discusses trends in Australian short story writing.<br />
We close the issue with the speech delivered by QWC’s first Chair, Craig<br />
Munro, at our 25th Annual General Meeting. As Craig reflects on QWC’s<br />
past, we plan for the future, thinking about what QWC and Queensland<br />
writers will want and need in 2017 and beyond.<br />
It is easy to wish that there was a Google map to a successful writing career,<br />
with a navigator telling us when to turn or rethink our route. But perhaps<br />
this would diminish the journey. After all, why would we be here if it weren’t<br />
for the adventure?<br />
The<br />
Road Ahead<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 3
(well, most of us) nor touched by<br />
angels. That what most of us do is<br />
as workmanlike and productive and<br />
exhilarating as many other trades.<br />
Like plumbing<br />
<strong>Kristina</strong> <strong>Olsson</strong><br />
Here’s the writer in her garret,<br />
quill in hand, parchment at the<br />
ready, starving. She lives on bread<br />
and gruel and inspiration. The<br />
latter arrives punctually every day,<br />
courtesy of her muse, who alights<br />
on her shoulder and whispers in<br />
her ear. She, dutiful amanuensis,<br />
scribbles away, oblivious to her<br />
drear surroundings and unkempt<br />
hair, the fact that she has run<br />
out of bread, wine, chocolate and<br />
cosmetics. The essentials of a<br />
former life.<br />
Don’t laugh. This image of writers<br />
(replace quill and parchment with<br />
laptop) is still abroad, and it is about<br />
as real as the other stereotypes<br />
about the job: the writer as part of<br />
the leisured class, reclining on a<br />
velvet chaise in the style of Barbara<br />
Cartland; the writer as part of<br />
the under-class, forever bludging<br />
on the public purse; the writer<br />
as mysterious and noble being<br />
suffering for her art; the writer as<br />
drunken genius.<br />
It comes as a surprise to many<br />
that we don’t live in garrets but in<br />
ordinary flats and houses with often<br />
very ordinary plumbing; that we<br />
have children and mortgages and<br />
penchants for nice shoes; that we<br />
are neither whingeing egomaniacs<br />
With a crucial difference: in our<br />
trade, regardless of our seniority,<br />
we work for an apprentice’s wage.<br />
Most of us – and the exceptions<br />
prove the rule – earn just enough<br />
from our writing to keep us beneath<br />
the poverty line. We eat and we<br />
(occasionally) drink. We pay the<br />
rent. But if we want nice shoes, we<br />
have to get them some other way.<br />
Then why do we do it? Because<br />
each book or poem or play is<br />
a sharp-edged learning curve,<br />
and the lessons enlarge and<br />
enrich our minds and souls, in an<br />
extraordinary and non-fiscal kind of<br />
way. As Peter Carey once famously<br />
said, ‘When you’re writing at your<br />
best, what you write is better than<br />
you are.’ That’s what we write for,<br />
and I think that’s what we read for.<br />
To feel bigger than we are, one<br />
step further down the long road of<br />
understanding ourselves.<br />
It should be enough. But it isn’t. In<br />
the same way that bad shoes aren’t<br />
enough. Writers, like feet, need<br />
support.<br />
It’s not a new idea. For centuries<br />
many countries have acknowledged<br />
the importance of the arts and<br />
artists not just at the level of the<br />
individual and the community, but<br />
in nation-building. Iconic literature,<br />
paintings, architecture, music,<br />
theatre: they all reflect a culture<br />
back to itself and to the world.<br />
Sydney Opera House, the work of<br />
Patrick White and Eleanor Dark and<br />
Kim Scott, of Sydney Nolan, of Paul<br />
Kelly and Yothu Yindi, of Ray Lawler:<br />
they have informed not just our<br />
notions of ourselves, but the views<br />
of the rest of the planet.<br />
In some places, like the<br />
Scandinavian countries, this close<br />
link between the promotion of the<br />
arts and the making of national<br />
4<br />
WQ
identity has been accepted for<br />
more than a century. They have<br />
seen it as a worthy trade-off:<br />
support for artists and writers for<br />
a robust sense of nation and self.<br />
In one or two places that support<br />
isn’t as strong as it used to be,<br />
but still funding for the arts, for<br />
state and national libraries, for<br />
small publishers and for individual<br />
writers is seen as a priority. Writers<br />
of renown receive a guaranteed<br />
income until retirement, and others<br />
can apply for one- to five-year work<br />
grants.<br />
In Ireland, writers’ incomes are taxfree<br />
up to €50,000, and generous<br />
bursaries are available. In Norway,<br />
books are exempt from VAT or<br />
GST. In Finland, a psychologist is<br />
likely to write you a prescription<br />
for a season at the opera or a book<br />
rather than a course of drugs.<br />
It comes as a<br />
surprise to many<br />
that we don’t live<br />
in garrets but in<br />
ordinary flats and<br />
houses with often<br />
very ordinary<br />
plumbing.<br />
The above is important: support<br />
doesn’t always or only mean a<br />
hand-out to writers: a thriving<br />
literary culture also includes<br />
well-resourced libraries,<br />
assistance to ensure the survival<br />
of small publishers, and measures<br />
that ensure booksellers and<br />
independent bookshops are not<br />
destroyed by the mass discounting<br />
of books. That everyone learns to<br />
read, and read well.<br />
Interestingly, in most of these<br />
places, the private sector also<br />
contributes to the health of the arts.<br />
Individuals and corporations offer<br />
bursaries, cheap rent, houses for<br />
writers’ residencies. They sponsor<br />
chairs at universities with quality<br />
creative writing workshops. High<br />
levels of government assistance has<br />
not meant that individuals remain<br />
aloof; to the contrary, the success of<br />
government programs has spurred<br />
them to be part of a rich and diverse<br />
cultural life. Nor has it meant<br />
government interference in artists’<br />
independence: the general policy is<br />
to ‘support, but not to direct’.<br />
Over the past few years, right<br />
across Australia, the value of<br />
art and its products has been<br />
diminished materially and<br />
intellectually. State governments<br />
have slashed arts funding and<br />
literary prizes, the Australia<br />
Council has been eviscerated, and<br />
the traditional arm’s length policy<br />
around arts funding and promotion<br />
has been all but abandoned.<br />
Of course, these actions have a<br />
disastrous, three-fold effect on<br />
writers: they deprive individual<br />
artists of much-needed income,<br />
they deprive organisations like<br />
writers’ centres of their ability to<br />
provide effective support systems,<br />
and they plant a dangerous seed<br />
in the collective conscious: that<br />
writers, and literature, don’t matter.<br />
That those who complain are lazy<br />
and have an over-weaning sense of<br />
entitlement. That we should go sit<br />
in our garrets and eat crumbs, or<br />
do something useful, like plumbing.<br />
Most writers I know work incredibly<br />
hard to maintain their craft and<br />
their lives. Entitlement is not a<br />
word in their vast and colourful<br />
vocabularies. A living wage would<br />
be useful, of course, but just as<br />
important is the sense and the<br />
assurance that the job is worth<br />
doing. That, in the collective<br />
conscious, it does matter.<br />
In a straw poll I conducted recently<br />
among writers in my own circle,<br />
this emerged strongly. Several<br />
suggestions re-appeared on<br />
the wish list for change. They<br />
included: free or affordable<br />
childcare for writers with children;<br />
no tax on royalties, on grants,<br />
on awards; huge arts and review<br />
pages in newspapers; a modest,<br />
stable income in exchange for<br />
community involvement—a day a<br />
week spent at the local nursing<br />
home, school, child care centre,<br />
mental health centre (which might<br />
achieve multiple benefits). The<br />
encouragement of arts streams<br />
in schools. A national day of The<br />
Writer. More privately funded<br />
residencies, in the manner of<br />
Varuna, Bundanon, the Katherine<br />
Susannah Pritchard Centre.<br />
The strong and common thread,<br />
however, was this, from Brisbane<br />
writer Ashley Hay: ‘We just want<br />
time.’ (‘I’d happily pull weeds,<br />
mow lawns, trim hedges,’ said<br />
another writer, ‘in exchange for<br />
a room to write in.’) In the end it<br />
doesn’t come down to money itself,<br />
notwithstanding those nice shoes.<br />
It comes down to investment, in<br />
individuals, in culture, in identity. We<br />
happily invest in houses and cars,<br />
not just because of their utility but<br />
because they say something about<br />
us. An arts culture that celebrates<br />
literature by nurturing writers<br />
and writing, materially as well as<br />
publicly, that encourages reading<br />
and literacy for all and not the few,<br />
that views books as part of the<br />
national conversation: that might<br />
say something about us too.<br />
<strong>Kristina</strong> will be teaching a workshop<br />
on writing memoir at QWC on<br />
Saturday 11 March 2017.<br />
<strong>Kristina</strong> <strong>Olsson</strong> is a Brisbane writer and<br />
journalist. Her most recent book, the<br />
memoir Boy, Lost, won the Kibble Prize,<br />
the NSW and WA Premiers’ Awards for<br />
non-fiction and the Queensland Literary<br />
Award for non-fiction. Her other work<br />
includes The China Garden and Kilroy<br />
Was Here. She is currently completing<br />
another novel.<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 5
Australian short story<br />
trends<br />
Craig Bolland<br />
It’s hard to pin down an Australian<br />
tradition, stylistic or conceptual,<br />
that reliably runs through our<br />
short stories. Lawson may have<br />
had an early influence, but for as<br />
long as Australians have been<br />
writing, our short stories have<br />
poked at the edges of convention.<br />
It’s fair to say that Australian short<br />
stories, notably those from the<br />
1970s onwards, have had concerns<br />
around our landscape, our culture,<br />
our isolation, our singularity. But<br />
we lack a national tradition in the<br />
same sense that America finds<br />
the lingering sounds of writers<br />
like Hemingway or Flannery<br />
O’Connor whispering through its<br />
journal pages. Combine this lack of<br />
orthodoxy with the changing ways in<br />
which readers are encountering the<br />
form, and it’s easy to understand<br />
why the Australian short story<br />
remains a constantly evolving space<br />
to write into.<br />
So what’s a short story writer<br />
wanting to break into one of the<br />
top tier Australian literary journals<br />
to do? One of the fundamental<br />
things to understand is exactly<br />
this – that the Australian short<br />
story remains a fluid space whose<br />
edges can be tested, a space that<br />
can be responsive to contemporary<br />
concerns, forms and styles, while<br />
still retaining something of an<br />
Australianness in setting and in<br />
focus. One approach into print is to<br />
push back at what is expected from<br />
the form. We see this edge-testing<br />
not only in the ‘attack magazine’<br />
pages of zeitgeisty journals such<br />
as The Lifted Brow, Kill Your<br />
Darlings and Sleepers Almanac,<br />
but also more and more commonly<br />
in the establishment stalwarts of<br />
Overland, Meanjin and Southerly. If<br />
a short story is a photograph rather<br />
than a film, a glance rather than a<br />
gaze, the contemporary Australian<br />
short story is a flashbulb that<br />
illuminates moments as unique and<br />
particular as they are well observed<br />
and voiced.<br />
It’s interesting, and I think very<br />
telling, that this year’s Overland<br />
Autumn fiction issue opens with<br />
editor Ben Walter writing, ‘I’ve been<br />
so bored with realist Australian<br />
fiction; sleepy stories that perhaps<br />
have one eye open, but aren’t<br />
looking at anything worth seeing.’<br />
Walter is calling out here one habit<br />
that does perhaps qualify as an<br />
Australian tradition – the ongoing<br />
popularity of minimalist, realist,<br />
frequently pastoral stories. The<br />
trope runs something like this – we<br />
are in a rural setting, the landscape<br />
is pervasive and oh-so-Aussie, and<br />
a sense of almost Gothic malaise<br />
(and perhaps the spectre of past<br />
abuse) hangs over us. The writing<br />
is pared back, with the occasional<br />
poetic filigree to describe a<br />
moment of beauty against the bleak<br />
landscape.<br />
6<br />
WQ
Walter might be bored with them,<br />
but this sort of story can, in<br />
fairness, be breathtaking. Consider<br />
Cate Kennedy or Melissa Beit, both<br />
of whom at times write within these<br />
tropes but whose works combine a<br />
sense of place and tone that show<br />
the power of Australian realism<br />
its very best. This type of story can<br />
also be unambitious, however. Toomodest.<br />
Too narrow in the scope of<br />
its thematic or stylistic ambitions.<br />
And it’s this latter kind of story that<br />
gluts the submission queues of our<br />
best journals. Don’t write Australian<br />
realism that isn’t ‘looking at<br />
anything worth seeing’ and expect<br />
to land in print.<br />
The writing is pared<br />
back, with the<br />
occasional poetic<br />
filigree to describe<br />
a moment of beauty<br />
against the bleak<br />
landscape.<br />
Innovations in style or idea stand<br />
out in those submission queues and<br />
will cause an editor to look twice.<br />
Consider what Ceridwen Dovey<br />
did conceptually in ‘The Bones’ –<br />
reinventing Henry Lawson’s ‘The<br />
Bush Undertaker’ through the eyes<br />
of an immigrant camel.<br />
A number of excellent recent<br />
pieces break apart the layout of<br />
the form in staccato moments of<br />
small, discontinuous, scenes. Ryan<br />
O’Neill’s Alphabet is an excellent<br />
example of this, but there are many<br />
others, stories that seek to curate<br />
startling moments rather than step<br />
us through a traditional narrative.<br />
When editing a journal last month,<br />
the poet Mandy Beaumont and I<br />
couldn’t help but commission a<br />
story, ‘The crucible’, by Vivienne<br />
Cutbush because as a multimodal<br />
piece it commented on the short<br />
story form more than it conformed<br />
to it. It was like nothing else in the<br />
submission pile. This was to its<br />
benefit.<br />
So be bold. Please. And on this note<br />
consider non-traditional lengths of<br />
the short story too. Fiction of under<br />
a thousand words is doing well<br />
and more and more markets are<br />
opening up to it. The Chinese idea<br />
of the “smoke-long” story that takes<br />
about as much time as finishing a<br />
cigarette is an intriguing one. There<br />
is something compelling about the<br />
idea of giving someone a complete<br />
artistic experience within one of the<br />
lulls modern society affords us, a<br />
bus trip, a queue at the bank. The<br />
story short enough to be read on a<br />
smart phone does itself no harm for<br />
that capacity.<br />
Looking forward, what can be<br />
suggested? In the short story,<br />
voice will long remain the king.<br />
Australianness, yes. Place and<br />
setting, yes. But also content that<br />
surprises. Multimodality will no<br />
doubt play a greater and greater<br />
part of the stories we see – blending<br />
in visual and technical elements<br />
as the reading platforms to deliver<br />
them continue to mature.<br />
There is one final contemporary<br />
trend that bears mention and that<br />
is the trend towards open endings.<br />
The twist-in-the-tale ending is<br />
decades out of fashion, and even<br />
endings that tie everything up neatly<br />
may be robbing the reader of one of<br />
the great pleasures of the form. The<br />
short story is an ideal place for an<br />
ending that opens up, that lingers,<br />
that lands on a note or feeling or<br />
impression rather than a plot point.<br />
Give your reader the pleasure of a<br />
story that opens outwards and you<br />
have given them a lovely gift indeed.<br />
Craig Bolland is a lecturer in Creative<br />
Writing and Literary studies at the<br />
Queensland University of Technology.<br />
He is an award winning playwright and<br />
short film maker, and the author of the<br />
novel I Knit Water (UQP).<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 7
as an author as it is from being a<br />
neurosurgeon or barrister. In other<br />
words, many people do it. But only if<br />
they are extremely good.<br />
Making a living from<br />
writing<br />
Jackie French<br />
Yes, you can do it.<br />
And like those two professions,<br />
being a writer means that you<br />
work extremely hard but don’t<br />
make any money for at least two<br />
years. You plot and research your<br />
book. You write it and then rewrite<br />
it. Trash it and begin a version so<br />
different from the first that there’s<br />
no point keeping more than a few<br />
paragraphs from each chapter.<br />
Rewrite once more. Submit ... and<br />
it’s accepted.<br />
You are given an advance based on<br />
the projected first edition’s sales.<br />
This may be enough to keep you<br />
in coffee, especially if you prefer<br />
tea, unless you are already famous<br />
and/or the book is seen as having<br />
instant best-seller potential.<br />
No, most authors in Australia don’t<br />
make $13,600 a year, despite how<br />
often you hear that discouraging<br />
quotation. I doubt there is a single<br />
author who makes $13,600 and,<br />
if they exist, they are extremely<br />
skinny. That’s the average that<br />
Australians make from writing<br />
books.<br />
My darling husband makes $56 a<br />
year from his more than a-decadeold<br />
book. A dear friend’s deeply<br />
revered academic text, in libraries<br />
world-wide, makes her about $400<br />
a year. Those figures are averaged<br />
with writers who make millions of<br />
dollars a year. And they exist too.<br />
‘Some’ (a highly technical statistical<br />
term meaning that, as far as I know,<br />
there are no surveys of who earns<br />
what, but I’ve counted up the ones I<br />
actually know) authors make about<br />
the same amount of money per<br />
annum as teachers. At least twenty<br />
writers, from personal knowledge<br />
and so undoubtedly there are far<br />
more, make hundreds of thousands,<br />
or even those millions, per year. It<br />
is as possible to earn your living<br />
It is as possible to<br />
earn your living<br />
as an author as it<br />
is from being a<br />
neurosurgeon or<br />
barrister.<br />
You rewrite again, on advice from<br />
the editor. You rewrite a third time,<br />
on the advice of the second editor.<br />
The book is published. If it is about<br />
the sex life of cricketers, it will sell<br />
100,000 copies in three weeks, then<br />
be severely discounted and never<br />
printed again. More likely – and if<br />
it’s not about cricket – it will sell<br />
a few thousand copies and, if it is<br />
good, sales will keep increasing for<br />
the next ten or twenty years.<br />
But no matter how well it sells, you<br />
won’t see any royalties for months<br />
– royalties are paid on sales three<br />
months after each six month selling<br />
period – for example, you will be<br />
8<br />
WQ
paid in late March for sales from the<br />
previous period of July – December.<br />
This may be enough<br />
to keep you in<br />
coffee, especially if<br />
you prefer tea …<br />
Financially successful authors are<br />
those who are either the writers of<br />
best sellers (the name of whoever<br />
said, ‘It only took me ten years to<br />
be an overnight success’ has been<br />
lost) or who have accumulated a<br />
backlist, a number of books that<br />
make a respectable though not<br />
flagrant sum of money every year,<br />
enough for the publisher to keep<br />
them in print and available to the<br />
book-buying public. The backlist<br />
is the backbone of a long-term,<br />
successful writer’s income.<br />
And while you are becoming<br />
established, how can you top up<br />
your income? Once authors were<br />
treasured as book reviewers. These<br />
days there are fewer reviews and<br />
fewer publications in which those<br />
reviews can be read. Most reviews<br />
are done online for nothing. And<br />
sites like Amazon do not approve<br />
of authors reviewing books, as they<br />
may be part of dubious reciprocal<br />
’You say my book is brilliant and I’ll<br />
say yours is too’ deals.<br />
If you write for young people, school<br />
visits pay well, though only if you<br />
can also speak well, and preferably<br />
not just about your book but also<br />
about the craft of writing and the<br />
contagious joy of being a reader.<br />
Add free-lance journalism, paid<br />
mentoring and possibly winning an<br />
award and you have … well, enough<br />
possibly to pay for your muesli, as<br />
well as coffee. In other words, you<br />
will need another source of income,<br />
from being a waiter to having a<br />
(financially) supportive spouse.<br />
The real questions are:<br />
1. Can you write well?<br />
2. Can you give six good reasons<br />
why your particular readership<br />
will want to read what you write?<br />
3. Do the words and themes nibble<br />
at your neck and not let go?<br />
And do you care enough about<br />
them to write and rewrite and<br />
keep rewriting? Amateurs write<br />
once and dabble at a rewrite. A<br />
professional is ruthless with the<br />
delete button.<br />
And then?<br />
1. Write.<br />
2. Write well.<br />
3. Rewrite, rewrite and rewrite.<br />
4. Only submit material that others<br />
will want to read.<br />
Amateurs write<br />
once and dabble<br />
at a rewrite. A<br />
professional is<br />
ruthless with the<br />
delete button.<br />
Brilliant writing does not<br />
necessarily mean that enough<br />
readers will want to read it for it to<br />
be saleable. If you have an IQ of 247<br />
you will only be saleable if you make<br />
your work accessible to those with<br />
an IQ of 125. Dilute that cognitive<br />
density …<br />
Do not take advice from anyone<br />
who is not an experienced editor or<br />
an award-winning or best-selling<br />
author. Your Mum does not count,<br />
unless she is one of the above. Any<br />
child will adore having the phone<br />
book read to them if you cuddle<br />
them at the same time and perform<br />
it with passion and expression (I’ve<br />
tested this) so don’t rely on their<br />
reactions either.<br />
… like barristers<br />
and proctologists,<br />
if you have talent,<br />
determination<br />
and allow yourself<br />
enough years in<br />
which to hone your<br />
skills, then the<br />
career of ‘full-time<br />
author’ exists …<br />
And do not give up. If you can get<br />
published once you can do it again,<br />
far better. And once more, heading<br />
towards brilliant.<br />
And believe that, like barristers and<br />
proctologists, if you have talent,<br />
determination and allow yourself<br />
enough years in which to hone your<br />
skills, then the career of ‘full-time<br />
author’ exists, just as I dreamed<br />
it might when I was twelve, and<br />
parents, guidance counsellors<br />
and teachers, all with the best<br />
intentions, discouraged me.<br />
It is slightly strange to have<br />
everything your twelve-year old<br />
self dreamed of. It is also far more<br />
fulfilling than even a daydreaming<br />
child could imagine.<br />
Jackie French is an author, historian,<br />
honorary wombat, dyslexic, 2014-2015<br />
Australian Children’s Laureate, 2015<br />
Senior Australian of the Year, and has<br />
won about sixty awards in Australia<br />
and overseas. A few of her books have<br />
been best sellers. Others were eaten by<br />
the wombats. But ever since a wombat<br />
helped get her first book published<br />
(See jackiefrench.com and sign up to<br />
newsletter) she has made her living as<br />
a writer.<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 9
team. To do that, I would have to<br />
better understand their creative<br />
challenges.<br />
Writing games<br />
Brooke Maggs<br />
I remember approaching a writer of<br />
a game I love, Bioshock, and asking<br />
him: how do I write for games?<br />
He said, ‘Be a writer. Write a lot of things.’<br />
The Gardens Between is about<br />
two friends who find themselves<br />
in a surreal world and must help<br />
one another find their way out. To<br />
understand storytelling in our game<br />
environment (small, terrarium-like<br />
3D gardens), I made levels out of<br />
Lego and wrote stories set in them.<br />
The key was to be visual, to always<br />
ask: how do we show this story to<br />
the player? This question concerns<br />
every team member’s discipline —<br />
art, tech, design — their creative<br />
vision and technical restrictions. I<br />
mapped the story to a traditional<br />
story structure, The Voyage and<br />
Return, and pitched two synopses<br />
using a visual presentation that<br />
included the artist’s concept work<br />
and ideas about game design.<br />
The simplicity of the advice<br />
shocked my younger self: become<br />
a storyteller, regardless of the<br />
medium, with a body of work. While<br />
I can’t profess it has been easy, in<br />
my case it has been true.<br />
I was working on a novel and some<br />
short stories and it was on the basis<br />
of one of these stories, a subversive<br />
fairy tale, that I was given my first<br />
game writing opportunity with<br />
The Voxel Agents. They are an<br />
independent game development<br />
studio who wanted a writer to<br />
help them with a brand new game<br />
project. It was to be their first<br />
narrative-driven game. The catch?<br />
It is an adventure puzzle game with<br />
no text or speech.<br />
To conceive of the story, I wrote<br />
character profiles, story bibles,<br />
short stories and poems. In<br />
meetings I used storytelling<br />
language like ‘drama’ and<br />
‘conflict’, which were seemingly<br />
at odds with the creative vision of<br />
the game design: to be slow and<br />
observational. I realised my goal<br />
was to first convey the story to the<br />
The key was to be<br />
visual, to always<br />
ask: how do we<br />
show this story to<br />
the player?<br />
This marked my growth from writer<br />
to narrative designer: one who<br />
creates and writes the story, and<br />
communicates the story to the<br />
team. They form the narrative by<br />
working with art, design and tech to<br />
communicate the story to the player<br />
and advocate for the story at each<br />
step in the development process.<br />
My second project, Earthlight, with<br />
Opaque Media Group, requires me<br />
to do all of this, yet the process<br />
is entirely different. Earthlight is<br />
a virtual reality (VR) game set at<br />
NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab and it<br />
follows the journey of an Australian<br />
woman training to be an astronaut.<br />
Gloriously, I’m not the only writer<br />
on this project. With experience in<br />
10<br />
WQ
games already, my role is to help<br />
create and write the story, and<br />
to facilitate discussions between<br />
us, the narrative team, and the<br />
other disciplines. I have written<br />
character biographies, narrative<br />
treatments and asset lists (a list<br />
of objects we request the art team<br />
to create to help tell the story, like<br />
photographs). I write scripts, sit in<br />
on voice actor auditions and ensure<br />
all narrative documentation is upto-date<br />
for the rest of the team.<br />
Creating a<br />
living, breathing<br />
experience is<br />
integral for the<br />
aspirations of<br />
Earthlight as a<br />
virtual reality game.<br />
The narrative team on Earthlight<br />
works closely with the design team<br />
to ensure we have all the dialogue<br />
we need, not only to tell a good<br />
story, but also to guide the player<br />
through their astronaut training. For<br />
example, if the player wanders off<br />
the path they are meant to follow,<br />
we must ensure we script dialogue<br />
that encourages them to get back<br />
on track. If they drop an object<br />
important to a puzzle, we must<br />
ask them to pick it up. These are<br />
called ‘fail-states’ in the gameplay.<br />
To make an immersive experience<br />
for the player, we try to capture as<br />
many fail-states as possible. Other<br />
characters around our protagonist<br />
would surely say something if she<br />
is moving away from her objective<br />
or dropping things. The trick is to<br />
write fail-state dialogue in such<br />
a way that it doesn’t feel clunky<br />
when mixed in with the rest of the<br />
narrative dialogue.<br />
I never imagined myself writing<br />
for virtual reality, but having<br />
experience with games made me<br />
aware of the storytelling power<br />
of a 3D space. Creating a living,<br />
breathing experience is integral for<br />
the aspirations of Earthlight as a<br />
virtual reality game. As a narrative<br />
designer and writer, it’s part of my<br />
job to place players in environments<br />
they can explore while stationary.<br />
From discussions with technicians<br />
and designers, I learn what is in my<br />
toolbox to tell story. For example,<br />
when I know it’s possible to trigger<br />
events such as a voice-over, or when<br />
the player looks at a key narrative<br />
object like an antique ring, I can script<br />
the dialogue related to that object.<br />
The challenge of VR is that, for the<br />
most part, it’s a passive, seated<br />
experience where the audience<br />
is an observer. Moving in the VR<br />
world is tricky until the technology<br />
allows us to move safely around<br />
our living rooms - and it’s on the<br />
way! The player in Earthlight can<br />
influence their environment to a<br />
certain extent, which isn’t always<br />
the case for VR experiences, such<br />
as those displayed at the Melbourne<br />
International Film Festival this year.<br />
Locating ways for the player to have<br />
meaningful impact in the virtual<br />
world is integral for those who<br />
wish to bring agency, the control a<br />
player has in the game world, to VR<br />
storytelling. How we go about doing<br />
this will vary from project to project<br />
and will evolve with the technology.<br />
In game development, there should<br />
be an ongoing dialogue between<br />
the narrative team and the rest of<br />
the team about what is needed,<br />
and technically possible, to tell a<br />
good story. From a dialogue system,<br />
to gameplay, to level design, and<br />
keeping in mind the creative vision<br />
of the project, I’ve learned to<br />
involve myself as much as possible<br />
in the early stages. My skills as<br />
a storyteller—pitching, writing a<br />
synopsis, scripts, character profiles,<br />
storyboarding, plot structure—have<br />
served me well on my foray into<br />
games. I’ve learned to execute<br />
them in different ways to suit these<br />
collaborative workplaces and<br />
interactive mediums.<br />
In game<br />
development, there<br />
should be an ongoing<br />
dialogue between the<br />
narrative team and<br />
the rest of the team<br />
about what is needed,<br />
and technically<br />
possible, to tell a<br />
good story.<br />
Writing for games is technical,<br />
iterative and collaborative. Writing<br />
for virtual reality is the same, and<br />
as a medium, is gaining some<br />
traction as it is on the way to being<br />
accessible by the consumer. I’m<br />
excited to see games use their<br />
power for immersion and empathy.<br />
I want to see them challenge<br />
constructed identities, the way we<br />
see ourselves and each other. I want<br />
stories, in any medium, to allow us<br />
to play and shift because I believe<br />
that’s what makes good storytelling.<br />
Write lots of things.<br />
Brooke Maggs is a freelance writer,<br />
narrative designer and producer<br />
working in games and writing fiction.<br />
Recently named in the top 100 most<br />
influential women in games, Brooke<br />
has talked about games and writing<br />
a bunch of panels at festivals and<br />
conventions. She loves brunch, the<br />
beach and succulents. She’s here:<br />
brookemaggs.com & @brooke_maggs<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 11
New tools, timeless<br />
tales<br />
Simon Groth<br />
For the last few months I’ve<br />
been working with a small tech<br />
start-up company with big ideas.<br />
Called oolipo—a nod to the<br />
oulipo movement that pioneered<br />
experimental constrained writing<br />
techniques—this company is taking<br />
the nineteenth century idea of<br />
serialised storytelling and bringing<br />
it to a contemporary audience via<br />
that most twenty-first century<br />
device, the smartphone. Stories for<br />
oolipo aren’t just existing narratives<br />
repackaged for a handheld screen,<br />
they are stories written specifically<br />
with the device in mind.<br />
One of the stories I am working on<br />
is called Valhalla. It’s a very modern<br />
take on Norse mythology, combining<br />
fantasy, history, humour, and a<br />
whole lot of arse kicking.<br />
I’m not the writer of Valhalla; I’m<br />
the producer. This is a new kind of<br />
role, somewhat akin to an editor,<br />
but expanded into taking a text<br />
and translating it into something<br />
a designer and engineer can work<br />
with in producing a work unique to<br />
reading on a phone.<br />
Just think about the reading<br />
experience on a phone. Forget<br />
any other device. Just concentrate<br />
on the phone. What can you do?<br />
You can combine text and images.<br />
Animation and video is a possibility,<br />
as are sounds that complement<br />
the story. But that’s just the<br />
beginning. Phones have GPS and<br />
accelerometers. A phone knows<br />
where you are on the surface of<br />
the earth, your coordinates on the<br />
map and even your altitude. Most<br />
importantly, a phone is networked. It<br />
has a live connection to servers and<br />
other devices proliferated around<br />
the planet. It is not simply a passive<br />
device for consuming content; it can<br />
help create and share.<br />
That’s a lot of additional tools<br />
available. So how does a story for<br />
such a container come together?<br />
As a writer, you may be tempted to<br />
turn your story into a multimedia<br />
assault. Or maybe you fall into<br />
another camp that sees nothing<br />
wrong with sticking to long, elegant<br />
blocks of text. A story for the phone<br />
might work at either of these<br />
extremes, but more likely you’ll<br />
want to navigate a path somewhere<br />
between larding up the narrative<br />
with distractions or creating an<br />
impenetrable wall of text that brings<br />
nothing to the reading experience<br />
beyond what ink and paper does.<br />
This is where the producer comes<br />
in. Use the possibilities of the<br />
platform, imagine how the features<br />
of the device can bring something<br />
unique to the story. And at the<br />
same time never lose sight of the<br />
reading experience. The producer’s<br />
job, like the editor’s, has much<br />
to do with balance and restraint.<br />
The writers of Valhalla have built<br />
their story around a narrative voice<br />
that relies on short but evocative<br />
strings of text. When released,<br />
Valhalla will combine this voice with<br />
background textures, black and<br />
white illustration and the subtle<br />
use of animation, sound loops and<br />
three-dimensional parallax effects<br />
into a kind of ‘hand-made, hightech’<br />
aesthetic.<br />
For much of this year, I’ve been<br />
grappling with the question of<br />
what skills and capabilities writers<br />
will need in the future. We can’t<br />
know for certain how our devices<br />
and media may evolve, but we can<br />
assume that the fundamentals of<br />
good storytelling will remain. The<br />
choice of medium must always<br />
serve the story. And the reading<br />
experience must always serve<br />
to take a reader deeper into the<br />
story world. All the cool ‘features’<br />
in the world will add nothing to<br />
a story if they’re not relevant.<br />
And all the beautiful prose in the<br />
world will never reach a reader<br />
if it’s frustrating to access. More<br />
than anything, what writers will<br />
need is not that different to what<br />
writers have always needed: an<br />
understanding and appreciation of<br />
how their stories are experienced.<br />
In the meantime, I need to get<br />
on with turning Valhalla into a<br />
database-readable spreadsheet.<br />
Yes, being a producer has its<br />
glamourous moments too.<br />
The oolipo app is available to<br />
download now from the App Store.<br />
The first season of Valhalla will be<br />
released in January.<br />
Simon Groth’s books include<br />
Concentrate and Off The Record: 25<br />
Years of Music Street Press. His two<br />
novels have been shortlisted in the<br />
Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards<br />
and the Text Prize and his short fiction<br />
has been published in Australia and<br />
the United States. Simon is director of<br />
if:book Australia, a leading developer of<br />
experimental publishing and exploration.<br />
His work and reporting on how readers<br />
engage with digital publishing has seen<br />
him travel the globe to discuss and<br />
explore the challenges and opportunities<br />
for writers in a digital space. He<br />
tweets at @simongroth and blogs at<br />
simongroth.com.<br />
12<br />
WQ
Milestones<br />
Adele Jones’ young adult novel Activate<br />
was released on 1 November 2016 by<br />
Rhiza Press.<br />
Anita Heiss has published and released<br />
Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms with<br />
Simon and Schuster Australia.<br />
Ann Harth received a highly<br />
commended prize in the 2016 Children’s<br />
and Young Adult Writers and Illustrators<br />
Competition for the picture book You’re<br />
Doing It Wrong!<br />
Bette Guy has launched her latest<br />
independently published book Riding the<br />
Fate Train, available from Amazon.<br />
Anna Jacobson has been shortlisted for<br />
the Scribe Nonfiction Prize for her work<br />
entitled How to Knit a Human.<br />
The Illusion of Islands by Andrea<br />
Baldwin has been included in the 2016<br />
Richell Prize longlist for Emerging<br />
Writers.<br />
Cheryl Fagan has published Murder &<br />
Misconduct, the historical true crime<br />
prequel to Murder & Misconduct – The<br />
Complete Files.<br />
Damen O’Brien was highest placed<br />
Queensland entrant in the Val Vallis<br />
Award with his poem Sand.<br />
Elizabeth Smyth has been longlisted<br />
in the 2016 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short<br />
Story Prize for Will it leave a scar?<br />
Hazel Barker will publish The Story of<br />
a Conchie with Rhiza Press. Her other<br />
publications this year include Chocolate<br />
Soldier and Heaven Tempers the Wind.<br />
The Beach House by Janelle Nucifora<br />
has been included in the 2016 Richell<br />
Prize longlist for Emerging Writers.<br />
Janet Lee has won The Australian<br />
Funeral Directors Association Award in<br />
the Grieve Project competition for My<br />
Mourning.<br />
Jessica White’s short story Black Soil<br />
has been longlisted for the 2016 ABR<br />
Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize.<br />
Kali Napier has signed a two-book deal<br />
with Hachette Australia due for release<br />
from 2018. Kali is a 2015 QWC Hachette<br />
Manuscript Development Alumni.<br />
Karen Lee Roberts wrote and<br />
performed the cabaret It’s Not Easy<br />
Being Green in October at Room To Play<br />
Independent Theatre.<br />
Kelly Lyonns has signed with Atlas<br />
Productions to publish her regency<br />
paranormal romance The Soldier’s<br />
Woman, due for release in January 2017.<br />
Kerry Lown Whalen’s short story The<br />
Cool Group won the 2016 Gold Coast<br />
Writers’ Short Story Competition. It will<br />
be published in eWriteabout.<br />
Lauren Daniels has been shortlisted in<br />
the Half the World Global Literati Award<br />
for her novel The Serpent’s Wake: A Fairy<br />
Tale for the Bitten.<br />
Lea Davey has self-published her first<br />
novel, The Shack by the Bay.<br />
iGrief by Lech Blaine has been<br />
shortlisted in the 2016 Scribe Nonfiction<br />
Prize Shortlist.<br />
Lesley Synge’s play The Nature of my<br />
Illness Being will be performed at a<br />
benefit for coal miners with Black Lung<br />
disease at Magda Community Arts in<br />
September. Her essay about Australian<br />
earth artist Siegi Karl-Spence was<br />
published in online journal Communion.<br />
Growth by Mirandi Riwoe has been<br />
shortlisted for the 2016 Josephine<br />
Ulrick Prize. Her story Dignity has been<br />
longlisted for the 2016 ABR Elizabeth<br />
Jolley Short Story Prize.<br />
Mocco Wollert has had poems<br />
Heatwave and Growing published in<br />
Positive Words magazine, In Love with<br />
Gauguin published in The Australia<br />
Times magazine, Much to do About Haiku<br />
in The Fellowship of Australian Writers’<br />
Scope magazine. Her poem Home was<br />
awarded third prize in the Society of<br />
Women Writers Queensland Poetry<br />
Competition. She has received second<br />
place in the Positive Words competition<br />
for Wind at the Rock.<br />
Nathan Shepherdson’s poem Whitely<br />
visits Morandi has been shortlisted for<br />
the 2016 Josephine Ulrick Prize.<br />
Paula White’s children’s book Clippity<br />
Clippity’s Exciting Discovery has been<br />
published by Ex Libris. It is illustrated<br />
by Marvin Paracuelles.<br />
Ron Ramsay has published his memoir,<br />
An Eternal World, Messages from the<br />
Other Side, online with Boolarong Press.<br />
Sandra Watkins has published The<br />
History of the Ekka.<br />
Shelley Nolan signed a two-book<br />
deal with Atlas Productions for Lost<br />
Reaper and Winged Reaper, released in<br />
September and October.<br />
The Rabbits by Sophie Overett has<br />
been included in the 2016 Richell Prize<br />
longlist for Emerging Writers.<br />
Tania Joyce has released her third<br />
romance novel, Distractions, as an<br />
ebook and print book.<br />
Wendy Dartnall has published A Wind<br />
from the East through Balboa Press.<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 13
Trends in young<br />
adult writing<br />
Amie Kaufman<br />
“I see now that dismissing YA books because you’re not a<br />
young adult is a little bit like refusing to watch thrillers on<br />
the grounds that you’re not a policeman or a dangerous<br />
criminal, and as a consequence, I’ve discovered a<br />
previously ignored room at the back of the bookstore<br />
that’s filled with masterpieces I’ve never heard of.”<br />
Nick Hornby<br />
You know what? Nick Hornby’s not<br />
alone. With success after success<br />
unfolding, young adult (YA) fiction’s<br />
not just alive and kicking, it’s<br />
making up all-new dance steps.<br />
Interested? You’re not alone either.<br />
So let’s take a look at what YA<br />
is, where it’s come from, who’s<br />
reading it, and where it might head<br />
in the future.<br />
What is YA?<br />
How do we define young adult<br />
fiction? Despite frequent use of<br />
the word, it’s not a genre. It’s a<br />
marketing category. YA takes in<br />
everything from thrillers to memoir,<br />
fantasy to science fiction (SF) to<br />
novels-in-verse. You name it, YA has it.<br />
It’s often said that YA is named after<br />
its target market, but the truth is<br />
that these days, it’s defined more by<br />
the age of its protagonist than the<br />
age of its reader.<br />
Despite (or perhaps provoking) a<br />
steady stream of eye-roll-inducing<br />
articles about how YA is too dark,<br />
too shallow, too simple or too much<br />
for teenaged readers, the truth<br />
is that it’s a thriving and valuable<br />
member of the publishing family,<br />
offering the chance to explore<br />
questions about who we are and<br />
what the world’s like, and what kind<br />
of place we want to occupy in it. YA,<br />
like all fiction, offers the chance to<br />
live other lives, rehearse our fears,<br />
and occasionally to learn about sex,<br />
drugs and rock and roll without<br />
necessarily trying them firsthand.<br />
YA is about defining oneself—to<br />
quote author Sarah Rees Brennan,<br />
it’s the literature of transformation.<br />
And this, perhaps, is part of<br />
its widespread appeal. We are<br />
always defining ourselves, always<br />
transforming ourselves, whether it’s<br />
our first day at school as a student,<br />
or our first day as a parent on pickup<br />
duty.<br />
There’s been much written about<br />
the origins of YA—commentators<br />
point to S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders<br />
as a turning point for books<br />
aimed specifically at teens, and<br />
authors such as Judy Blume and<br />
Robert Cormier for continuing<br />
to tell stories that spoke to the<br />
teen experience. By the nineties,<br />
YA fiction was booming, and<br />
in Australia books like Melina<br />
Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi<br />
brought it to the forefront of our<br />
consciousness.<br />
So who’s reading YA now, and what<br />
are they reading?<br />
What’s on the shelves now?<br />
And whose shelves?<br />
The question of who’s reading YA<br />
now is an interesting one, and the<br />
answers might surprise you. Back<br />
in 2012, the study Understanding<br />
the Children’s Book Consumer in the<br />
Digital Age established that 55% of<br />
YA buyers (with YA designated by<br />
publishers as for age 12-17) were<br />
aged 18+, and 78% of the time,<br />
they were purchasing the books for<br />
themselves, not for a teen.<br />
It’s easy for numbers to blur, but<br />
think about that: more than half of<br />
purchases were made by adults,<br />
and four-fifths of those were for<br />
adult reading.<br />
And it gets even more interesting.<br />
Just under a third of respondents<br />
were reading a book from The<br />
Hunger Games series, then at peak<br />
popularity. But the remaining 70%<br />
listed more than 220 titles they<br />
were currently reading. And only two<br />
of those titles commanded more<br />
than 5% of market sales. (The latest<br />
Harry Potter and Twilight.)<br />
What do we take from this? YA<br />
readers of all ages are reading<br />
a huge variety of books, and not<br />
just titles from major franchises.<br />
For authors, this is wonderfully<br />
encouraging—readers don’t just<br />
jump from one big-ticket item to the<br />
next. They read widely.<br />
A side-note: the number of adult<br />
readers in the YA space raises<br />
an important issue—Given the<br />
importance of YA to teens, how<br />
14<br />
WQ
do we ensure that books written,<br />
acquired, edited, marketed and<br />
sold by adults don’t crowd teens<br />
out of their own space? Groups<br />
like Australia’s national Centre for<br />
Youth Literature, which convenes<br />
the teen-choice Inky Awards, do<br />
excellent work in this area.<br />
In terms of exactly what readers<br />
have on their shelves right now, the<br />
answer is that YA currently features<br />
a healthy eco-system—fantasy’s<br />
blooming, contemporary fiction’s<br />
doing as well as ever, and SF is<br />
unquestionably entering the picture.<br />
But let’s take a look at where we’re<br />
headed from here.<br />
Where next?<br />
This is the million dollar question.<br />
And the answer is, as ever,<br />
disappointing: nobody knows,<br />
and chasing trends is a terrible<br />
idea. By the time it’s possible to<br />
identify a trend, it’s usually far<br />
too late to start writing to it. Long<br />
publishing schedules mean it’s not<br />
unusual to see a two-year span<br />
from acquisition to publication. The<br />
success of one book in a particular<br />
genre can spawn new publishing<br />
deals, but it’s an unreliable way to<br />
go about writing—it might just be<br />
seen as the exception to a rule, or<br />
the glow might have faded by the<br />
time your draft’s finished.<br />
It could be that upcoming<br />
blockbusters will shore up the<br />
market in certain areas. Veronica<br />
Roth of Divergent fame is about<br />
to release a space opera duology,<br />
with January 17th to see the<br />
simultaneous global release of<br />
Carve the Mark in 33 languages.<br />
Combined with the new wave of<br />
Star Wars movies, perhaps we’ll<br />
see an increased appetite for space<br />
opera.<br />
Or perhaps an incredible<br />
contemporary novel will break all<br />
the rules a month from now, and<br />
the reading world will be swept up<br />
in the demand for more just like it.<br />
This is the problem—there’s no<br />
way to predict the market, which<br />
means that, as always, an author’s<br />
best bet is writing their own stories.<br />
Writing stories so good they can’t<br />
be ignored.<br />
By the time it’s<br />
possible to identify<br />
a trend, it’s usually<br />
far too late to start<br />
writing to it.<br />
If we can predict anything, it’s<br />
that we’ll continue to see an<br />
increasing focus on diverse and<br />
authentic voices. We’ll continue to<br />
see readers demand stories about<br />
characters from diverse racial and<br />
cultural backgrounds, genders,<br />
sexual orientations, abilities and<br />
more. We’ll see increasing demand<br />
for ‘own voices’, stories told by<br />
people who are reflecting their<br />
lived experience. It’s important to<br />
understand that this isn’t a trend,<br />
though—it’s about stories showing<br />
the world as it really is.<br />
So, speaking of telling our own<br />
stories, what about Australian YA?<br />
#LoveOzYA<br />
Support for Australian YA is growing<br />
exponentially—the #LoveOzYA<br />
movement is a coalition of readers,<br />
authors, booksellers, librarians and<br />
publishing professionals, producing<br />
Get Your Story Started<br />
Writing workshop with Amie Kaufman<br />
Begin your project with Amie in this workshop and develop a framework<br />
you can use to generate story after story.<br />
Amie will guide you through putting together the elements of your novel<br />
or short story – generating ideas; identifying your protagonist, inciting<br />
incident, setting, antagonist and supporting characters – and bringing<br />
depth to these elements to create a story that is layered and compelling.<br />
Sunday 25 June 2017, Brisbane<br />
everything from events to reading<br />
lists to bookseller promotions.<br />
I won’t presume to speak for<br />
Aussie publishers regarding how<br />
they view the YA scene, or what<br />
they’re acquiring, but I will say that<br />
they’re releasing a steady stream<br />
of outstanding books by Australian<br />
authors. Look at their lists and<br />
you’ll see a wide range of genres.<br />
They’ll tell you, truthfully, that<br />
their acquisitions are about quality<br />
writing.<br />
Overseas, Aussies continue to break<br />
into foreign markets, but it’s not an<br />
easy thing to do. For more on this<br />
subject, see Jay Kristoff’s excellent<br />
article in the September issue of WQ.<br />
So where does this leave us? Good<br />
question. The rules are the same as<br />
always—there are none. The truth<br />
is, we can’t predict what will sell<br />
to publishers, or what the market<br />
will demand even next month.<br />
But what we can do is plunge into<br />
the wonderful, confusing, soulsearching<br />
stories that YA has to<br />
offer, and keep on writing.<br />
We can keep on making our stories<br />
so good, they can’t be ignored.<br />
Amie Kaufman is a New York Times and<br />
internationally bestselling young adult<br />
author. Her books have won Aurealis<br />
Awards and an ABIA, been named to the<br />
Kirkus, Booklist, YALSA and Amazon<br />
best of year lists, and are slated for<br />
publication in 26 countries. She is the<br />
co-author of Illuminae with Jay Kristoff<br />
and These Broken Stars with Meagan<br />
Spooner.<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 15
.S. Elliott, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.K. Rowling, Ian<br />
ankin,<br />
Join<br />
Alexander<br />
the<br />
McCall Smith,<br />
ranks<br />
Malcolm Gladwell,<br />
of writers<br />
Ernest Hemingway,<br />
who<br />
Petter Altenerg,<br />
Aharon Appelfeld, Natalie Goldberg, Sophia Myles, Joe Sacco, Evangeline<br />
illy, Sadie Jones, Zoe Kravitz, T.S. Elliott, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, F.<br />
produce their best work in cafes<br />
cott Fitzgerald, J.K. Rowling, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Malcolm<br />
ladwell, Ernest Hemingway, Petter Altenberg, Aharon Appelfeld, Natalie Goldberg,<br />
ophia Myles, Joe Sacco, Evangeline Lilly, Sadie Jones, Zoe Kravitz, T.S. Elliott,<br />
ranz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.K. Rowling, Ian Rankin, Alexnder<br />
McCall Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, Ernest Hemingway, Petter Altenberg, Aharon<br />
ppelfeld, Natalie Goldberg, Sophia Myles, Joe Sacco, Evangeline Lilly, Sadie<br />
ones, Zoe Kravitz, T.S. Elliott, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerld,<br />
J.K. Rowling, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, Ernest<br />
emingway, Petter Altenberg, Aharon Appelfeld, Natalie Goldberg, Sophia Myles, Joe<br />
Quiet café work space t Private meeting rooms for hire t Flexible training room for hire<br />
acco, Evangeline Lilly, Sadie Jones, Zoe Kravitz, T.S. Elliott, Franz Kafka, Gerrude<br />
Excellent Stein, F. coffee Scott and Fitzgerald, tea t Book-inspired J.K. menu Rowling, t Word-themed Ian Rankin, gifts Alexander t Free wi-fi McCall<br />
mith, Malcolm Hosted Gladwell, events t Ernest Admin Hemingway, services t Facilitation Petter Altenberg, services t Aharon JP site Appelfeld, Naalie<br />
Goldberg, Sophia Myles, Joe Sacco, Evangeline Lilly, Sadie Jones, Zoe Kravtz,<br />
T.S. Elliott, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.K. Rowling,<br />
Where to find us:<br />
When we’re open:<br />
t 110 Windsor Road, Red Hill<br />
t 7am—5pm, Monday to Friday<br />
an Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, Ernest Hemingway, Petter Alenberg,<br />
Aharon Appelfeld, Natalie Goldberg, Sophia Myles, Joe Sacco, Evangeline<br />
t Phone: (07) 3368 1088<br />
t 8am—2pm, Saturday<br />
t Email: info@northsidemeetings.com.au<br />
t Closed Sunday and public holidays<br />
illy, Sadie Jones, Zoe Kravitz, T.S. Elliott, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, F.<br />
t Web: www.northsidemeetings.com.au<br />
t Room bookings available evenings and<br />
cott Fitzgerald, J.K. Rowling, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Malcolm<br />
t Social: www.facebook.com/northsidemeetings<br />
weekends<br />
ladwell, Ernest Hemingway, Petter Altenberg, Aharon Appelfeld, Natalie Goldberg,<br />
ophia Myles, Joe Sacco, Evangeline Lilly, Sadie Jones, Zoe Kravitz, T.S. Elliott,<br />
Writers, Editors, Readers, Thinkers, Conversationalists and Coffee Lovers are always welcome<br />
ranz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.K. Rowling, Ian Rankin, Alex-<br />
Conjuring stories<br />
Melaina Faranda<br />
When I give a creative writing workshop, I’ll sometimes<br />
break the word imagination into three: I for the self;<br />
MAGI being an archaic term for a magician, wise man, or<br />
sorcerer; and NATION representing a country or terrain.<br />
Put them together and we might consider that each of us<br />
contains a kind of inner magician able to roam through<br />
infinite internal realms and conjure from these—images,<br />
characters, possibilities, stories…<br />
One question that preoccupies<br />
anyone interested in the business<br />
of story making is—where does<br />
creativity come from? I’ve heard it<br />
suggested that creativity is moonlit,<br />
penumbral, that seeking to pin it<br />
down can be likened to chasing<br />
a shadow of light. For me it also<br />
entails a certain kind of leaning into<br />
a cerebral darkness. In particular,<br />
when I’m not being inundated or<br />
even inspired by a story insisting to<br />
be told, finding story requires the<br />
courage to continue to lean into<br />
that darkness and keep reaching<br />
with my inner senses, against the<br />
threat of nothing being there. In<br />
this instance, it truly is a case of the<br />
16<br />
WQ
threat of the empty rather than the<br />
empty threat.<br />
Sometimes creative courage entails<br />
a discipline of simply undertaking<br />
to remain there, to not skive off<br />
with a mundane achievement, or<br />
answering emails or staring into<br />
the fridge, but instead to ease into<br />
the nothingness a little deeper. And<br />
often from that darkness some part<br />
of us, an inner magician, appears to<br />
conjure the best type of writing—the<br />
things we didn’t know we knew.<br />
One question that<br />
preoccupies anyone<br />
interested in the<br />
business of story<br />
making is—where<br />
does creativity<br />
come from?<br />
So how does this work in practice?<br />
How is it possible to approach<br />
writing in a way in which we have<br />
an opportunity to conjure rather<br />
than contrive? I literally stumbled<br />
upon one of my favourite writing<br />
exercises in my children’s playroom.<br />
Before giving creative writing<br />
workshops, I’d often raid their toys<br />
to see what might be useful as<br />
a springboard for story. One day,<br />
while rootling through the lowrelief<br />
soft sculpture that was their<br />
playroom floor, I stubbed my toe on<br />
a blue plastic telescope. Into the<br />
bag it went, with the thought: this<br />
might be good for a five-minute<br />
activity—only to be intrigued when<br />
that five minutes stretched into two<br />
hours…<br />
I’d like to share the bones of this<br />
process with you now. There are<br />
only two caveats. The first is to<br />
refrain from rejecting what appears<br />
in your imagination. Regardless of<br />
whether anything you encounter<br />
feels like something you wouldn’t<br />
have consciously chosen, go with<br />
it. Also, not everybody visualises as<br />
such. Sometimes we see pictures<br />
in our mind, other times we tend<br />
more to feel or hear or simply know<br />
what it is that is there, and each<br />
or all are fine. Naturally, it’s also<br />
always helpful to close our eyes<br />
when imagining, to help shut out<br />
the clamour for attention from our<br />
external world.<br />
Imagine now that you are gazing<br />
into the distance at a far-away<br />
place or landscape that’s hazy and<br />
indistinct. Just take a quick note<br />
of what you see. Now imagine that<br />
you are holding up a telescope<br />
and training it on a specific<br />
spot in that landscape in which<br />
everything becomes clear within its<br />
circumference. There’s a person<br />
there. Don’t reject the person who<br />
appears. It might not be who you’d<br />
ordinarily be interested in writing<br />
about. In many ways this is even<br />
better. However, if it’s someone you<br />
already know, calmly move on and<br />
find someone else.<br />
The next thing to do is note and<br />
write down: what that person looks<br />
like, what they are wearing, any<br />
significant or noticeable facial<br />
or bodily features, any jewellery,<br />
tattoos, scars etc. This can feel<br />
like a process of observing as well<br />
as fabricating. In either instance<br />
there’s a deliberate looseness in<br />
our approach so that it can be a<br />
fusion of both. We then move to the<br />
question: how does that character<br />
feel about what they are wearing?<br />
And here begins the dance from the<br />
external to the internal and back<br />
again.<br />
Ideally we want to segue back<br />
and forth from describing our<br />
character’s external world, to<br />
describing from their internal<br />
perceptions. It is the same for<br />
all sensory observations. What<br />
sounds can they hear in this place?<br />
What sounds do they most long<br />
to hear, or most dread hearing,<br />
and why? This equally applies for<br />
sights, textures, smells, tastes<br />
etc. Questions can be asked about<br />
objects, about recurring dreams,<br />
what they care about most, secrets,<br />
loves and fears.<br />
... and from<br />
fathomless creative<br />
darkness another<br />
story is conjured.<br />
All this can be done in a spirit of<br />
ease of discovery. The telescope<br />
serves to protect us from<br />
overwhelm by delineating a clear<br />
circumference of specificity<br />
within our own infinite sense of<br />
imaginative possibilities. Rather<br />
than feeling an onus to ‘write<br />
a story’ from start to finish, we<br />
can embark on an exploration of<br />
a character revealing how they<br />
think and feel, their sensory world,<br />
and the specific artefacts that<br />
comprise their existence—and<br />
from fathomless creative darkness<br />
another story is conjured.<br />
Melaina Faranda is the author of forty<br />
YA and children’s books, published<br />
nationally and internationally, as well as<br />
being a qualified teacher for over twenty<br />
years. She gives numerous creative<br />
writing and self-editing workshops<br />
and masterclasses in schools, writers’<br />
centres and at literature festivals<br />
throughout Australia and can be booked<br />
through Speakers Ink.<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 17
Writing on the road<br />
Claire Coleman<br />
The first impressions that would<br />
become my story began on the<br />
road. I had always intended to<br />
try to write a novel on the road;<br />
I had even started one once,<br />
so abandoned now that I can’t<br />
even remember what it was. As I<br />
crossed the Nullarbor Plain, the<br />
great desert that stretches across<br />
Australia’s south—a landscape<br />
most Australians never encounter—<br />
an idea embedded itself in my<br />
head and in my heart. It was too<br />
nebulous to write. When I returned<br />
to my ancestral country, to the<br />
coast where my ancestors had<br />
always lived and to the town where<br />
my grandfather was born, I felt the<br />
story edge closer.<br />
There is a cute little museum in<br />
a small, dusty mining town called<br />
Ravensthorpe. That was where<br />
my grandfather was born, where<br />
my ancestors, both Aboriginal and<br />
White, helped establish the town.<br />
In the museum I found a wall that I<br />
did not even know existed, covered<br />
in photos of my ancestors and<br />
my family. They must have spent<br />
significant time, years maybe,<br />
uncovering all they could on the<br />
history of my family and<br />
cataloguing it.<br />
It was also there in that museum<br />
that I was told of a memorial<br />
to the massacre nearby of my<br />
distant relatives, of the family of<br />
my ancestors. I was invited to<br />
the opening of the memorial and<br />
resolved, though due elsewhere, to<br />
return for it.<br />
After the opening there was no<br />
going back; it informed my entire<br />
life, this knowledge not just in<br />
words but in feeling, of a massacre<br />
in my family’s background. This<br />
experience was also the foundation<br />
for my novel; that massacre,<br />
that landscape, all massacres of<br />
Aboriginal people informed my<br />
writing. I would never have had<br />
that exposure, more profound than<br />
words, from reading.<br />
I started my<br />
manuscript in an<br />
ancient, ragged<br />
caravan, travelling<br />
from Ravensthorpe,<br />
through Perth,<br />
then up the coast of<br />
Western Australia.<br />
The sun was relentless, cooking<br />
the asphalt, threatening our tyres,<br />
stabbing our eyes. All around were<br />
ancient mountains, weathered<br />
into red dirt and fallen carmine<br />
rocks. Among those rocks were<br />
18<br />
WQ
plants, trees and flowers we had<br />
never seen before. There was a<br />
colour to that landscape, the red<br />
soil, sometimes purple rocks, the<br />
spinifex, a greyish, pinkish yellow.<br />
The entire landscape slid towards<br />
an inexplicable purple.<br />
I wrote that novel<br />
in a fever...<br />
I had never visited the Pilbara<br />
before. I was born in Perth, but<br />
those ancient red rocks were too<br />
distant for casual travel. When I<br />
left Perth in my early twenties,<br />
maybe to never return, I went east,<br />
towards Melbourne and Sydney,<br />
towards the people, the big smoke.<br />
I had crossed the Nullarbor then,<br />
and crossed back again only a few<br />
months ago before heading north.<br />
This new landscape of the west<br />
coast, this new painfully dry desert,<br />
was so different to the cooler,<br />
limestone-floored Nullarbor that<br />
comparisons fail.<br />
We stopped in the first pull-over<br />
we saw, local gravel, smeared-out<br />
gibber, to photograph the rocks,<br />
the hills, the colour, oh the colour.<br />
My beloved grabbed the camera,<br />
started clicking; she had never seen<br />
those colours before; she wanted<br />
to keep them forever. I turned<br />
and absorbed the alien landscape<br />
through my sun-baked eyes.<br />
Then I saw it, a skeletal hilltop,<br />
glowing red. I ran to the caravan<br />
and hammered a scene into my<br />
tablet. Those hasty words came to<br />
be among the first words to enter<br />
my coming novel, and are the only<br />
words I can think of that I have no<br />
desire to improve.<br />
I wrote that novel in a fever,<br />
generally from five to seven in the<br />
morning, travelling. I continued<br />
as we turned at the top across the<br />
dry tropics towards Darwin, never<br />
making it. It was just too hot in<br />
Kununurra, right at the top of WA,<br />
and we were told by people coming<br />
the other way that Darwin would be<br />
unbearable. Much writing, much<br />
unexpected creativity, happened<br />
as we fled from the heat south<br />
towards cooler Alice Springs. All<br />
those places are in my novel, not<br />
as places, but as a feel, a sense of<br />
place.<br />
Travel broadens the<br />
mind, that is what<br />
they say. It does<br />
something far more<br />
important: travel<br />
trains the senses.<br />
I completed a draft I loved,<br />
still travelling, edited it for<br />
the black&write! Fellowship<br />
competition while briefly in<br />
Melbourne, then sent it off before<br />
departing again, heading east,<br />
planning to experience the east<br />
coast as we had experienced the<br />
west. One week before my birthday,<br />
waiting for a mechanic to receive<br />
the parts to fix my car, I learned I<br />
had won the fellowship.<br />
Writing on the road is not easy and<br />
not for everyone; there is simply<br />
never enough time. There were days<br />
I wanted to write, yet instead spent<br />
the entire day driving, there were<br />
breakdowns, there was equipment<br />
failure. I had to devise ways to work<br />
with limited and flaky electricity. I<br />
wrote on solar power and batteries,<br />
then my batteries failed. However, I<br />
would not be able to write the same<br />
novel staring at a wall, or even at<br />
the same landscape, every day. If<br />
you are stuck, or just looking for<br />
inspiration, go find another place<br />
to be. There is no way to guess<br />
where that place might take you.<br />
Shane Howard has said he wrote<br />
his masterpiece Solid Rock after<br />
camping at Uluru. You might not<br />
even have to go that far; even five<br />
minutes somewhere different might<br />
change everything.<br />
Travel broadens the mind, that is<br />
what they say. It does something<br />
far more important: travel trains<br />
the senses. The world is almost<br />
certainly bigger, stranger and more<br />
beautiful than you imagine; words,<br />
even photographs, cannot truly do it<br />
justice. There are always surprises:<br />
turn a corner and things open up<br />
that can make your heart soar or<br />
break. You can’t see that from an<br />
armchair or a desk. You can only<br />
see it by getting out there to find it.<br />
Claire Coleman is a Noongar woman<br />
whose ancestral country is the south<br />
coast of WA. She writes prose, poetry<br />
and non-fiction while travelling around<br />
the continent now called Australia in<br />
an old car and ragged caravan. In 2016<br />
she became one of the recipients of<br />
the black&write! Indigenous Writing<br />
Fellowship.<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 19
as if performing a Laurel and Hardy<br />
routine.<br />
Coming home – 25 years<br />
of QWC<br />
Craig Munro<br />
Speech delivered at the 2014 AGM, to<br />
help celebrate QWC’s 25th Anniversary<br />
I knew these slapstick artists well:<br />
one was an architect and UQP<br />
author, while his mate was a former<br />
academic whose unpublished<br />
novels I had several times rejected.<br />
Gathering up what remained of my<br />
voice, I drew on my full authority as<br />
QWC chair, and ejected them both<br />
from the meeting.<br />
It had been another, less rowdy<br />
meeting in Adelaide several years<br />
before that had inspired me—as<br />
an author and publisher—to<br />
help establish a writers centre in<br />
Queensland.<br />
In 1989, the year after World Expo,<br />
South Brisbane was a wasteland.<br />
As a member of the steering<br />
committee trying to set up a writers<br />
centre, I spent many weekends<br />
driving around the deserted back<br />
streets. My targets were the former<br />
Expo admin buildings—one of which<br />
I hoped might make a suitable<br />
home for our fledgling centre.<br />
Representing the interests of<br />
local writers groups, my fellow<br />
committee members and I wanted<br />
a location close to the CBD and<br />
transport. Although Southbank’s<br />
Performing Arts Centre, Gallery,<br />
and new State Library had recently<br />
been built, the suburb still felt like a<br />
ghost town.<br />
Eventually, the Goss regime found<br />
a space for us across the river at<br />
the back of a century-old public<br />
service building in William Street—<br />
opposite the Government Printery.<br />
Its chief virtue was a good-sized<br />
meeting room in addition to several<br />
offices. For the new staff, including<br />
inaugural director Robyn Sheahan-<br />
Bright, it was also hot and in need<br />
of refurbishment.<br />
I’ll never forget our first AGM<br />
there—held in the unairconditioned<br />
meeting room one humid evening.<br />
Unfamiliar with meeting procedure,<br />
I’d spent days reading up on this,<br />
especially after hearing that a<br />
disgruntled faction might be<br />
planning some kind of coup.<br />
Prior to the meeting, we closed<br />
all the freeway-facing windows<br />
but the room quickly became<br />
uninhabitable—so we opened them<br />
again and everyone had to shout<br />
over the roar of traffic from the sixlane<br />
Riverside Expressway.<br />
It wasn’t long before I’d talked<br />
myself hoarse.<br />
The threatened coup never<br />
eventuated but, halfway through the<br />
agenda, two latecomers suddenly<br />
swung open the heavy green door.<br />
Their entry had a theatrical flourish,<br />
and it didn’t take me long to realise<br />
they were in fact too drunk to let<br />
go of the door. Instead they swayed<br />
there on the slow arc of its hinges—<br />
The Literature Board’s new Director,<br />
Ipswich accountant and poet Tom<br />
Shapcott, had called an informal<br />
meeting during Writers Week to<br />
discuss setting up such centres.<br />
Tom’s meeting was timely, as the<br />
South Australian Writers Centre—<br />
the first in the country—had just<br />
opened its doors.<br />
Like a pair<br />
of Russian<br />
anarchists with<br />
a mutual delight<br />
in demolition,<br />
we pounded and<br />
jemmied all this<br />
shelving off the<br />
walls to create a<br />
spacious, well-lit<br />
meeting place.<br />
I came away from Adelaide<br />
determined to push for a Brisbanebased<br />
centre. Before long our<br />
steering committee began<br />
meeting every few weeks in UQP’s<br />
boardroom on the St Lucia campus.<br />
20<br />
WQ
Robyn has written about writers<br />
centres in the book she and I<br />
edited—Paper Empires: A History of<br />
the Book in Australia 1946–2005.<br />
‘From the beginning,’ says Robyn,<br />
‘there was confusion about the<br />
purpose of writers centres… Their<br />
brief was to run courses and<br />
provide writers with information.<br />
‘There was [however] much<br />
discussion about how writers would<br />
actually use a centre’s physical<br />
space.’<br />
I recall visiting the early South<br />
Australian centre which had desks<br />
set up so writers could work, well<br />
away from household distractions.<br />
This aspect was something our<br />
early steering committee spent a<br />
lot of time discussing, yet as writers<br />
centres evolved, in Brisbane and<br />
then other cities, ‘hot desking’<br />
ceased to be such a priority.<br />
In her chapter, Robyn charts the<br />
development of centres as they<br />
moved from supporting nonprofessional<br />
and emerging writers<br />
to embracing professionals as<br />
well. Over more than two decades,<br />
the number of centres has<br />
mushroomed.<br />
In NSW, for example, regional<br />
writers centres are now dotted all<br />
over the state from Broken Hill<br />
to Armidale—most on university<br />
campuses. The very successful<br />
Byron Bay Writers Festival was<br />
originally hosted by the local writers<br />
centre, and in WA, there was even<br />
a Broome branch office of the main<br />
centre in Perth.<br />
Our original steering committee<br />
reflected the writing groups and<br />
genres we collectively represented.<br />
I was a biographer and literary<br />
historian, but there were also poets,<br />
novelists, screenwriters and my<br />
playwright friend Errol O’Neill.<br />
As a postgrad student during the<br />
early 1980s, my English Department<br />
office had adjoined that of Errol’s<br />
brother: the brilliant lecturer, orator<br />
and radical activist Dan O’Neill.<br />
Over that eventful<br />
quarter-century, the<br />
literary landscape<br />
has become<br />
extraordinarily<br />
diverse …<br />
When QBuild decided to eject QWC<br />
from William Street and renovate<br />
the space for someone else, they<br />
found us another disused building.<br />
This one was larger: a two-storey<br />
former medical laboratory on upper<br />
Wickham Terrace, near Brisbane<br />
Grammar School. Robyn, however,<br />
was disappointed that the only<br />
room suitable for meetings was<br />
lined on four sides with wide timber<br />
laboratory benches. Heavens knows<br />
what gruesome experiments had<br />
once taken place there!<br />
So, one weekend—in Clint Eastwood<br />
mode—Errol and I brought in<br />
our heaviest hammers and steel<br />
crowbars. Like a pair of Russian<br />
anarchists with a mutual delight<br />
in demolition, we pounded and<br />
jemmied all this shelving off the<br />
walls to create a spacious, well-lit<br />
meeting place.<br />
Robyn and her QWC team had<br />
helped organise the hugely<br />
successful Writers Train from<br />
Brisbane to Charleville, and<br />
she framed a series of writer<br />
photographs—including scribes<br />
Hugh Lunn and Thea Astley, Tom<br />
Keneally and Rodney Hall—to adorn<br />
the walls of that reinvigorated<br />
space.<br />
Largely due to the dedication and<br />
creativity of successive directors<br />
and staff, the Queensland Writers<br />
Centre has become one of the most<br />
respected in the country. Among<br />
its many important initiatives is a<br />
nationwide bestseller: Australian<br />
Writers Marketplace, the must-have<br />
directory for every serious writer.<br />
As a QWC member for 25 years, I<br />
could not have developed my own<br />
skills and contacts as a writer,<br />
editor and publisher without this<br />
dynamic centre which has few peers<br />
in Australia or internationally.<br />
Over that eventful quarter-century,<br />
the literary landscape has become<br />
extraordinarily diverse—with writing<br />
genres to suit every taste. The<br />
timing of QWC’s establishment<br />
could not have been more<br />
propitious, as the 1980s had been<br />
a boom time for Australian writing<br />
and publishing.<br />
Queensland Writers Centre grew<br />
rapidly to maturity during the<br />
communications revolution of the<br />
1990s—with the globe-shrinking<br />
internet and the instant gratification<br />
of emails and mobile phones.<br />
Twenty-five years ago, in the old<br />
analogue world, I’d cruised at<br />
walking pace in my university Ford<br />
Falcon around the streets and byways<br />
of South Brisbane. Though<br />
I searched high and low, I never<br />
found what I was looking for.<br />
Tonight, snug in QWC’s State Library<br />
embrace, I feel I’ve come home at<br />
last to the place of my dreams.<br />
Craig Munro is an award-winning<br />
biographer and QWC’s founding Chair.<br />
As UQP fiction editor, he launched<br />
the careers of both Peter Carey and<br />
David Malouf. Craig has twice won the<br />
Barbara Ramsden Award for Editing.<br />
His memoir Under Cover: Adventures in<br />
the Art of Editing was published to wide<br />
acclaim in 2015. His other books include<br />
Wild Man of Letters and Paper Empires:<br />
A History of the Book in Australia 1946-<br />
2005, co-edited with Robyn Sheahan-<br />
Bright.<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 21
Events<br />
Whose Head Are You In?<br />
A one-day workshop on writing<br />
effective point of view and creating<br />
believable, engaging characters with<br />
Sandy Curtis.<br />
Date 3 December 2016<br />
Location Queensland Writers Centre,<br />
South Brisbane<br />
qwriters.co/curtis-characters-dec<br />
QWC End-Of-Year Party<br />
A celebration of 2016 and the launch<br />
of the 2017 QWC Program.<br />
Date 9 December 2016<br />
Location Poinciana Lounge, State<br />
Library of Queensland, South<br />
Brisbane<br />
qwc.asn.au<br />
RTX Sydney<br />
RTX Sydney is a two day gaming<br />
and internet culture event hosted<br />
by production company Rooster<br />
Teeth. See the greatest new games,<br />
learn about the industry and meet<br />
likeminded fans.<br />
Dates 4—5 February 2017<br />
Location International Convention<br />
Centre Sydney, Darling Harbour,<br />
Sydney<br />
rtxsydney.com<br />
Perth International Arts<br />
Festival including Perth<br />
Writers Festival<br />
An annual arts festival of international<br />
quality, which includes a dedicated<br />
Writers Festival program.<br />
Dates 10 February—5 March 2017<br />
Location Various venues across Perth<br />
perthfestival.com.au<br />
Adelaide Fringe Festival<br />
An open-access, arts festival that<br />
showcases artists in all genres<br />
and venue types, including cabaret,<br />
theatre, dance, comedy, circus and<br />
music.<br />
Dates 17 February—19 March 2017<br />
Location Various venues across<br />
Adelaide<br />
adelaidefringe.com.au<br />
Festivals in 2017<br />
April<br />
May<br />
June<br />
July<br />
August<br />
Swancon<br />
Sydney Writers Festival<br />
Auckland Writers Festival<br />
Voices on the Coast<br />
Emerging Writers Festival<br />
CYA Conference<br />
Byron Bay Writers Festival<br />
Melbourne Writers Festival<br />
Queensland Poetry Festival<br />
Adelaide Festival<br />
A festival of the top international<br />
theatre, music, dance, writers and<br />
visual arts.<br />
Dates 3—19 March 2017<br />
Location various venues across<br />
Adelaide<br />
adelaidefestival.com.au<br />
Somerset Celebration of<br />
Literature<br />
A three-day festival celebrating<br />
literature with interactive sessions<br />
and workshops for children and<br />
adults.<br />
Dates 15—17 March 2017<br />
Location Somerset College, Gold<br />
Coast<br />
Romance Writers of Australia Conference<br />
somerset.qld.edu.au/celebration-ofliterature<br />
September<br />
October<br />
Brisbane Writers Festival<br />
Tasmanian Writers & Readers Festival<br />
Sunshine Coast International Readers & Writers Festival<br />
National Young Writers Festival<br />
Ubud Writers & Readers Festival<br />
Bundaberg Writefest<br />
22<br />
WQ
Open calls<br />
Affirm Press<br />
Details General email submissions<br />
Information affirmpress.com.au/<br />
submissions<br />
Allen & Unwin<br />
Details The Friday Pitch runs all week<br />
Information allenandunwin.com/<br />
about-allen-and-unwin/submissionguidelines<br />
Black Inc<br />
Details General email submissions,<br />
not accepting unsolicited poetry or<br />
children’s books<br />
Information blackincbooks.com/<br />
submissions<br />
Bloomsbury Spark<br />
Details Bloombsury YA digital imprint,<br />
general email submissions<br />
Information bloomsbury.com/au/<br />
bloomsbury-spark/submissions<br />
Carina Press<br />
Details Harlequin digital-first imprint.<br />
Submit through an online form. The<br />
minimum word count for submissions<br />
has recently been lowered to 20,000.<br />
Information carinapress.com/blog/<br />
submission-guidelines<br />
Destiny Romance<br />
Details A Penguin Australia digital<br />
imprint, online submission form<br />
Information destinyromance.com/<br />
writers-centre<br />
Escape<br />
Details Digital imprint of Harlequin<br />
Australia, online submission form<br />
Information escapepublishing.com.<br />
au/submission<br />
Giramondo Publishing<br />
Details Online submission form<br />
Information giramondopublishing.<br />
com/contribute<br />
Guillotine Press<br />
Details General email submissions<br />
Information guillotinepress.com.au/<br />
submissions<br />
Hachette Australia<br />
Details General email submissions<br />
Information hachette.com.au/<br />
Information/ManuscriptSubmission.<br />
page<br />
Harlequin Books Australia<br />
Details General email submission<br />
Information harlequinbooks.com.au/<br />
submissions<br />
Harper Impulse<br />
Details Digital-first imprint of Harper<br />
Collins, general email submissions<br />
Information harperimpulseromance.<br />
com/write-for-us<br />
Mills & Boon<br />
Details Accept general postal<br />
submissions<br />
Information millsandboon.com.au/<br />
submissions<br />
Odyssey Books<br />
Details Online submission form<br />
Information odysseybooks.com.au/<br />
submissions<br />
Pan Macmillan<br />
Details Submit manuscripts on the<br />
first Monday of every month<br />
Information panmacmillan.com.au/<br />
manuscript-monday<br />
Pantera Press<br />
Details General email submissions<br />
Information panterapress.com.au/<br />
fiction-and-non-fiction-how-to-submit<br />
Penguin<br />
Details Monthly Catch (first week of<br />
each month, from the 1st to the 7th)<br />
Information penguin.com.au/gettingpublished<br />
Pixapops<br />
Details Open for submissions of stories<br />
for readers up to six years of age to be<br />
produced as immersive digital picture<br />
books and animated stories<br />
Information pixapops.com<br />
Random House Australia<br />
Details Will accept hard copy general<br />
submissions only that are separate<br />
from Penguin<br />
Information randomhouse.com.au/<br />
about/manuscripts.aspx<br />
Rhiza Press<br />
Details Will accept unsolicited YA<br />
fiction only, online submission form<br />
Information rhizapress.com.au/<br />
submissions<br />
Text Publishing<br />
Details Will accept hard copy<br />
submissions only<br />
Information textpublishing.com.au/<br />
manuscript-submissions<br />
Wombat Books<br />
Details Will accept unsolicited<br />
picture books only through an online<br />
submission form<br />
Information wombatbooks.com.au/<br />
authors/submissions<br />
Xoum<br />
Details Online submission form<br />
Information xoum.com.au/submissions<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 23
Competitions and opportunities<br />
Wombat Books’ Illustration<br />
Challenge<br />
Illustrations by school-aged children<br />
for publication in Yay! It’s Library Day<br />
by Aleesah Darlison.<br />
Closing date 28 February 2017<br />
Fee No fee<br />
wombatbooks.com.au/<br />
competitions/139-wombat-booksillustration-challenge-2017<br />
Mondeto 2024 Short Story<br />
Prize<br />
Short stories of any length that<br />
describe a credible, positive vision of<br />
life in 2024 in a satisfying narrative<br />
context.<br />
Closing date 31 December 2017<br />
Fee $10<br />
mondeto.com/2024.html<br />
The Book Illustration<br />
Competition<br />
Illustrators over the age of 18 are<br />
asked to submit three illustrations<br />
and a binding design for Mansfield<br />
Park by Jane Austen.<br />
Closing date 16 January 2017<br />
Fee £25 or £15 for students<br />
Fish Flash Fiction Contest<br />
Flash fiction up to 300 words, with no<br />
restriction on theme or style.<br />
Closing date 28 February 2017<br />
Fee €14<br />
fishpublishing.com/competition/<br />
flash-fiction-contest<br />
Toowoomba Repertory<br />
Theatre 2017 Play Writing<br />
Competition<br />
Submissions of unpublished and<br />
unperformed play scripts of one hour<br />
in length. Shortlisted playwrights<br />
will receive feedback on their work.<br />
Two selected winning plays will be<br />
performed during the 2017 Carnival of<br />
Flowers.<br />
Closing date 31 January 2017<br />
Fee $40<br />
toowoombarepertorytheatre.com.au/<br />
html/2017_playwriting_comp.html<br />
Fish Poetry Contest<br />
Flash fiction up to 4,000 words, with<br />
no restriction on theme or style.<br />
Closing date 31 March 2017<br />
Fee €14<br />
fishpublishing.com/competition/<br />
poetry-contest<br />
Fish Short Memoir Contest<br />
Flash fiction up to 300 words, with no<br />
restriction on theme or style.<br />
Closing date 31 January 2017<br />
Fee €16<br />
fishpublishing.com/competition/<br />
short-memoir-contest<br />
Gemini Magazine Poetry<br />
Prize<br />
Unpublished poems of any form,<br />
subject matter, style or length from<br />
new and established poets.<br />
Closing date 3 January 2017<br />
Fee $5 for up to three submissions<br />
gemini-magazine.com/poetryopen.<br />
html<br />
Genjuan International Haibun<br />
Contest<br />
Haibun between 7 and 35 lines, with<br />
at least one haiku included. Entries<br />
must be posted as hardcopies to<br />
competition coordinators in Japan.<br />
Closing date 31 January 2017<br />
Fee No fee<br />
hailhaiku.wordpress.com/genjuan<br />
Tasmanian Writers’ Prize<br />
Open to residents of Australia and<br />
New Zealand to submit short stories<br />
up to 3,000 words on an island or<br />
island-resonant theme.<br />
Closing date 13 February 2017<br />
Fee $20<br />
fortysouth.com.au/magazine/<br />
tasmanian-writers-prize<br />
Vine Leaves Vignette<br />
Collection Award<br />
Vignettes of poetry or prose in a<br />
collection totalling 50-60 pages,<br />
written in English and not previously<br />
published as a whole.<br />
Closing date 28 February 2017<br />
Fee $30<br />
houseofillustration.org.uk/<br />
get_involved/the-book-illustrationcompetition<br />
vineleavesliteraryjournal.com/vineleaves-vignette-collection-award.html<br />
Jim Baen Memorial Short<br />
Story Award<br />
Submissions of short stories of no<br />
more than 8,000 words that show<br />
the near future of manned space<br />
exploration (no more than 50-60 years<br />
in the future).<br />
Closing date 1 February 2017<br />
Fee No fee<br />
baen.com/baenmemorialaward<br />
24<br />
WQ
Text Prize<br />
Awarded annually to the best<br />
manuscript written for young readers.<br />
Open to works of fiction or non-fiction<br />
of between 20,000 and 120,000 words,<br />
suitable for young adult or children’s<br />
readership.<br />
Closing date 3 February 2017<br />
Fee $25<br />
textpublishing.com.au/text-prize<br />
2017 Somerset National<br />
Poetry Prize<br />
Categories for students in years<br />
7-9 and students in years 10-12, for<br />
poems up to 50 lines. Winner receives<br />
$300 plus flights to Somerset<br />
Celebration of Literature.<br />
Closing date 9 December 2016<br />
Fee $15<br />
Gival Press Poetry Award<br />
Poetry manuscripts of at least 45<br />
pages are eligible for this US contest.<br />
The winner receives USD$1,000 and a<br />
publishing contract with Gival Press.<br />
Closing date 15 December 2016<br />
Fee $20<br />
Tom Collins Poetry Prize<br />
This WA contest is for poetry up to 60<br />
lines. 1st prize $1,000; 2nd $400; four<br />
highly commended of $150 each.<br />
Closing date Prize opens in<br />
November 2016<br />
Fee not stated<br />
fawwa.org/competitions<br />
Times/Chicken House<br />
Children’s Fiction<br />
Competition<br />
For unpublished and unagented<br />
writers of children’s and young adult<br />
fiction. Top prize is a publishing deal<br />
with Chicken House and £10,000<br />
(subject to contract), plus agent<br />
representation.<br />
Closing date 18 December 2016<br />
Fee £15<br />
chickenhousebooks.com/<br />
submissions/#about<br />
Boulevard Short Fiction<br />
Contest<br />
Open to writers who have not yet<br />
published a book of fiction, poetry or<br />
creative non-fiction with a nationally<br />
distributed press. Top prize $1,500<br />
and publication in Boulevard.<br />
Closing date 31 December 2016<br />
Fee $16<br />
somerset.qld.edu.au/celebration-ofliterature/competitions/poetry-prize<br />
somerset.qld.edu.au/celebration-ofliterature/competitions/poetry-prize<br />
boulevardmagazine.org/short-fictioncontest<br />
Ballymaroe International<br />
Poetry Prize<br />
This Irish contest offers €10,000 to<br />
the winner and €1,000 to each of<br />
three runners up.<br />
Closing date 31 December 2016<br />
Fee €12 per poem<br />
themothmagazine.com/a1-page.<br />
asp?ID=8010&page=13<br />
Keep your eye out for<br />
these opportunities that<br />
may open soon:<br />
ABR Calibre Prize<br />
australianbookreview.com.au/prizes/<br />
calibre-prize/current-prize<br />
black&write! fellowships slq.qld.<br />
gov.au/whats-on/awards/blackwrite/<br />
fellowships<br />
EJ Brady Short Story Competition<br />
artsmallacoota.org/page10.htm<br />
The Hope Prize bsl.org.au/events/<br />
the-hope-prize<br />
Inky Awards insideadog.com.au/<br />
page/inky-awards<br />
National Biography Awards sl.nsw.<br />
gov.au/about-library-awards/<br />
national-biography-award<br />
Banjo Patterson Poetry Competition<br />
brandorange.com.au/orange-nsw/<br />
banjo-paterson-festival<br />
Colin Roderick Award jcu.edu.au/<br />
foundation-for-australian-literarystudies/colin-roderick-award<br />
Mulga Bill Writing Award<br />
mulgabillwritingaward.wordpress.<br />
com<br />
John O’Brien Festival Open Writing<br />
Competition johnobrien.org.au/openwriting-competition-guidelines<br />
Jospehine Ulrick Poetry and<br />
Literature Prizes griffith.edu.au/<br />
humanities-languages/schoolhumanities-languages-socialscience/news-events/josephineulrick-prizes<br />
Prime Minister’s Literary Awards<br />
arts.gov.au/pm-literary-awards/howenter<br />
Western Australian Premier’s Book<br />
Awards pba.slwa.wa.gov.au<br />
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 25
About QWC Membership<br />
Founding Patrons<br />
Thea Astley<br />
Bruce Dawe<br />
Geoffrey Dutton<br />
David Malouf<br />
Michael Noonan<br />
Jill Shearer<br />
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)<br />
Honorary Life Members<br />
Hilary Beaton<br />
Martin Buzacott<br />
Heidi Chopey<br />
Laurie Hergenhan<br />
Helen Horton<br />
Philip Neilsen<br />
Craig Munro<br />
Robyn Sheahan-Bright<br />
Kevin Gillespie<br />
Life Member<br />
Lynette Kellow<br />
Group Members<br />
Bush Curlews Writing Group<br />
Brisbane Writers Group<br />
Bundaberg Writers’ Club<br />
Burdekin Readers’ and Writers’<br />
Association Inc<br />
Capricorn Writers and Friends<br />
Carindale Writers Group<br />
Fairfield Writers<br />
Garden City Creative Writers<br />
Geebung Writers<br />
Hearts of Gold Writers Group<br />
Kenmore State High School<br />
Readers Group<br />
Mackay Writers Group<br />
Macleay Island Inspirational<br />
Writers Group<br />
Mount Isa City Library Writers Group<br />
Our Words, Our Stories<br />
RedWrites Writing Group<br />
Society of Women Writer’s<br />
Queensland Inc<br />
Stanthorpe Writers<br />
Townsville Writers & Publishers Centre<br />
Tropical Writers Inc<br />
U3A Writers<br />
Vision Writers Group<br />
Writing with a Vision<br />
Yon Beyond<br />
Institutional Members<br />
ACT Writers<br />
Aromas<br />
Australian Society of Authors<br />
Brisbane Square Library<br />
Brisbane Writers Festival<br />
Children’s Book Council of Australia –<br />
Qld Branch<br />
Griffith University Library (Gold Coast)<br />
Immanuel Lutheran College<br />
Queensland University of Technology<br />
(Kelvin Grove)<br />
Moreton Bay Region Libraries,<br />
Northlakes Library<br />
The NSW Writers’ Centre<br />
Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre<br />
Northern Territory Writers’Centre<br />
Riverbend Books<br />
SA Writers Centre<br />
St Patrick’s Senior College Library<br />
Tasmanian Writers’ Centre<br />
University of Queensland Press<br />
Voices on the Coast<br />
Writers Victoria<br />
WritingWA<br />
Legal advice<br />
We advise contacting the Arts Law<br />
Centre of Australia: www.artslaw.com.<br />
au, T 02 9356 2566,<br />
F 02 9358 6475, toll free 1800 221 457.<br />
Alternatively, the Australian Society of<br />
Authors offers a contract advice service<br />
– details are available on their website<br />
www.asauthors.org. There are also<br />
contract FAQs on the site. Alex Adsett<br />
Publishing Services offers commercial<br />
publishing contract advice to authors<br />
and offers a discount to QWC members,<br />
www.alexadsett.com.au.<br />
Terms and Conditions<br />
Refund/Returns Policy<br />
QWC does not offer refunds on books,<br />
magazines or other products purchased<br />
from QWC, except where the goods<br />
are defective by fault of the publisher,<br />
manufacturer or distributor.<br />
In the event that you have purchased<br />
an event ticket and Queensland Writers<br />
Centre must cancel that event, we will<br />
try to reschedule it for a later date. If we<br />
cannot reschedule the event, or if you<br />
are unable to attend on the amended<br />
date, your payment will be refunded in<br />
full.<br />
If you cancel a booking for, or are<br />
unable to attend, an event such as a<br />
workshop, seminar or masterclass,<br />
Queensland Writers Centre will<br />
not provide a cash refund. If your<br />
cancellation is made at least 5 business<br />
days prior to the event, you may<br />
use your original payment as credit<br />
towards the cost of attending another<br />
QWC workshop, seminar, masterclass<br />
or event (space permitting). If the<br />
alternative event is valued at less than<br />
the value of the original booking, no<br />
cash will be refunded for the balance.<br />
The alternative event you select must<br />
take place in the same calendar year<br />
as the original booking. If there are<br />
no available places in another event,<br />
your credit may be used to purchase or<br />
extend QWC membership.<br />
If you have paid a deposit to secure a<br />
place in a Year of the Writer course<br />
(Year of the Novel, Year of the Edit etc.),<br />
your deposit will only be refunded in full<br />
if you cancel more than six weeks prior<br />
to the course start date. Cancellations<br />
after this date will not be refunded.<br />
All credit must be allocated within 30<br />
days of issue by making a subsequent<br />
booking. Please note: credit cannot<br />
be used to purchase books or other<br />
products available from the QWC shop.<br />
26<br />
WQ
QWC Membership benefits<br />
Membership form<br />
When you become a member of QWC, you become part of a vibrant<br />
writing community and you have access to a wide variety of resources<br />
and information.<br />
Writing Queensland (WQ) Magazine<br />
Exclusively for QWC members, the quarterly WQ Magazine features<br />
articles from industry professionals and writers.<br />
Members-only programs and services (some costs apply)<br />
The Writers Surgery offers members 90-minute consultations to discuss<br />
their projects (including grant applications) face-to-face, by Skype or by<br />
telephone with an experienced editor or published author.<br />
Year of the Writer series is a suite of masterclasses to help you plan,<br />
write and edit your novel and explore your author platform.<br />
The Novelist’s Boot Camp is an intensive three days of brainstorming,<br />
plotting and practical exercises to get your novel started and well on its way.<br />
Rabbit Hole writing challenges (free).<br />
Advertising discounts<br />
Members receive a 25% discount on advertising in WQ and our weekly<br />
e-newsletter, a fantastic way to promote their business to an engaged,<br />
educated readership of thousands, with wide interests in culture, music,<br />
food, family and travel as well as reading and writing.<br />
QWC Member discounts<br />
QWC members receive discounts on QWC’s annual program of<br />
workshops, masterclasses and industry seminars.<br />
Presentation of your membership card will also provide you with<br />
discounts at the following places:<br />
Bookshops<br />
• 10% discount at:<br />
Book Nook, Brisbane City; Byblos Bookshop, Mareeba (discount<br />
on second-hand books only); Dymocks, Brisbane City; Dymocks,<br />
Townsville; Folio Books, Brisbane City; The Jungle Bookshop, Port<br />
Douglas; The Library Shop, SLQ, Brisbane; Maleny Bookshop,<br />
Maleny; Mary Who, Townsville; Riverbend Books, Bulimba; Rosetta<br />
Books, Maleny; The Written Dimension Bookshop, Noosa Junction;<br />
The Yellow Door Books and Music, Yeppoon.<br />
Cinemas<br />
• $10 tickets at Dendy Cinema, Brisbane<br />
Other discounts<br />
• Author Photos by Profile Portraits Australia: $110 for 3 low res<br />
photos (normally $150); $140 for 3 high res photos (normally $195).<br />
Contact Giulio on 0417 604256 www.giulio.saggin@gmail.com / http://<br />
profileportraitsaus.blogspot.com.au (mileage costs may apply)<br />
• Developmental editing and manuscript assessment services by<br />
Totally Edited: 10% discount. Contact Richard Andrews at<br />
www.totallyedited.com<br />
• La Boite Theatre tickets $25 (preview) $39 (in season).<br />
• Olvar Wood Writers Retreat offers a 10% discount to QWC members<br />
on all their writer services. www.olvarwood.com.au<br />
To join Queensland Writers Centre please complete the<br />
information below or join online at www.qwc.asn.au.<br />
Please complete and return to:<br />
Queensland Writers Centre, PO Box 3488,<br />
South Brisbane Queensland 4101<br />
or email: qldwriters@qwc.asn.au<br />
Applicant’s details<br />
Name _____________________________________________<br />
Organisation _______________________________________<br />
Postal Address _____________________________________<br />
__________________________________________________<br />
___________________________ Postcode _______________<br />
Telephone _________________________________________<br />
Email _____________________________________________<br />
Please indicate New member Renewing<br />
Duration and type of membership<br />
One Year Two Year<br />
Print PDF* Print PDF*<br />
Full membership $65 $65 $120 $120<br />
Concession $55 $55 $100 $100<br />
Passionate (5 yrs) $260 $260<br />
Youth (under 26) – $25<br />
Writers’ group<br />
or organisation $99 $99<br />
Institutional sub. $150 $150<br />
Donation $<br />
(Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible)<br />
Payment<br />
Please find enclosed my payment of $ _________________<br />
Mastercard Visa Cheque Money order<br />
Card number<br />
Expiry date ___________ / _____________<br />
CCV # (last 3 digits on back of credit card) _____________<br />
Cardholder’s name _________________________________<br />
Signature _________________________________________<br />
*PDF option means that you receive WQ as a PDF copy via email, not as a<br />
hard-copy magazine. All prices include GST. Donations are welcome and<br />
are tax deductible.<br />
27
Queensland writers:<br />
Promote your book in WQ<br />
QWC is offering discounted<br />
rates for Queensland<br />
writers to advertise their<br />
books in WQ through our<br />
BUY QUEENSLAND BOOKS<br />
advertising spreads:<br />
OTHER ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES<br />
MEMBERS<br />
WQ quarter page Full colour (CMYK) $230 $305<br />
Spot colour (2 PMS) $160 $265<br />
WQ eighth page Full colour (CMYK) $128 $170<br />
Spot colour (2 PMS) $90 $120<br />
NON-<br />
MEMBERS<br />
QWC members:<br />
$50 per issue<br />
Non-members:<br />
$60 per issue<br />
Other advertising options<br />
also available.<br />
→<br />
WQ classifieds Graphic $50 $68<br />
Text $25 $35<br />
WQ insert/PDF A4, A5 or DL only $360 $480<br />
Newsletter graphic banner $60 $120<br />
Newsletter classifieds $30 $60<br />
Prices not inclusive of GST.<br />
For more information email editor@qwc.asn.au<br />
Last chance to buy<br />
The Australian Writer’s<br />
Marketplace in print<br />
The Australian Writer’s Marketplace will<br />
soon become a digital-only directory. The<br />
2015/2016 edition of the book is the final<br />
print edition.<br />
Copies of 2015/2016<br />
print editions are<br />
now available at a<br />
discounted price of<br />
$37.50 (rrp $49.94)<br />
or $33.95 for QWC<br />
members, plus<br />
postage. Mini editions<br />
are also discounted.<br />
For more information<br />
please visit qwriters.co/<br />
shop-awm or call us on<br />
(07) 3842 9922.<br />
BEYOND THE BOOK:<br />
Learn the secrets of<br />
international success<br />
NY Times and USA Today best-seller<br />
Joanna Penn in conversation with<br />
Rachel Amphlett and Belinda Pollard<br />
Join self-publishing success, Joanna<br />
Penn, whose blogs have been voted<br />
among the Top 10 for self-publishers,<br />
as she chats with Amazon best-seller<br />
Rachel Amphlett and Belinda Pollard,<br />
writer, editor and publisher, about the<br />
secrets of success in self-publishing.<br />
Time & date 2.00pm, Sunday 26 February<br />
Prices $25 or $20 QWC and Editors<br />
Queensland members<br />
Bookings qwriters.co/penn-beyond-book
Buy Queensland books ...<br />
FICTION<br />
Ghost Galleon<br />
Errol Bishop<br />
Buy: boolarongpress.com.au<br />
print • eBook<br />
A two-year journey; a lifetime of preparation; a<br />
disaster of unmitigated proportion caused by forces<br />
beyond Hosea’s control. How can he complete the<br />
voyage for his king and country? A story about the Age of Discovery.<br />
Vietnam... Viet-Bloody-Nam<br />
Davide A Cottone<br />
Buy: piebooks.net<br />
print • eBook<br />
A story of two childhood friends. One goes to work in<br />
the sugar mill and is conscripted to fight in Vietnam.<br />
The other goes to university and protests in the streets against the<br />
war. They meet again years later, and only then do they realise what<br />
the war really meant to each other.<br />
Ample Attraction<br />
Melissa Craig<br />
Buy: boolarongpress.com.au<br />
print • eBook<br />
A sexually deprived boss, and her hot Australian kitesurfing<br />
instructor... Andy is saucy, and knows how to<br />
have a good time, which drives Jenna crazy. His hard<br />
six-pack abs never go unnoticed. Jenna is hungry for him, and torn<br />
between being his boss, or personal play toy.<br />
Surfacing<br />
Nene Davies<br />
Buy: amazon.com<br />
nenedavies.com / print • eBook<br />
Isobel’s life has changed; all but destroyed one<br />
sunshiny day, just like that, when she wasn’t looking.<br />
She needs to wake up and realise that unless she<br />
starts swimming, the waters might close completely over her head.<br />
A Deadly Service<br />
Neive Denis<br />
Buy: amazon.com<br />
neivedenis.com / print • eBook<br />
When a phone call announces her former boss is<br />
dead, Sonny Whittington doesn’t realise where it will<br />
lead. Her life is turned upside down, and she finds herself relying on<br />
favours from friends and former associates. Welcome to the world of<br />
drug trafficking and money laundering.<br />
An Ancient Solution<br />
Neive Denis<br />
Buy: amazon.com<br />
neivedenis.com / print • eBook<br />
What happened on Crete? How can a sabbatical in<br />
England have Sonoma ‘Sonny’ Whittington running<br />
for her life across Sicily? A brief stint on Crete and<br />
strange boats anchoring in the bay trigger a dangerous chain of<br />
events.<br />
Sentinels of Tzurac: Zarkwin’s Revenge<br />
James Raven<br />
Buy: booktopia.com.au<br />
jamesraven.com.au / print • eBook<br />
A riveting continuation of the Sentinels of Tzurac<br />
trilogy, Zarkwin’s Revenge will have the reader<br />
revelling once again in the lives, loves, fears, and moral quandaries of<br />
James Raven’s frighteningly believable, not-so distant future.<br />
Death of Innocence<br />
Karen Graham<br />
Buy: boolarongpress.com.au<br />
print • eBook<br />
With a seemingly perfect life, Michael and his two<br />
daughters are living happily in Arvada, until the day<br />
his eldest daughter is found murdered. Trying to solve this case and<br />
get over his loss, Michael learns that his other daughter is also being<br />
stalked by someone.<br />
Propositions<br />
Tania Joyce<br />
Buy: iTunes store<br />
taniajoyce.com / print • eBook<br />
Propositions is a steamy contemporary romance set<br />
among the dazzling lights of Sydney’s Darling Harbour,<br />
where two professional businesspeople battle work ethics, their denial<br />
of love because of their painful pasts, and how a superstition and<br />
steamy propositions change their lives forever.<br />
Red Moon: secrets of a sixties schoolgirl<br />
Pam Mariko<br />
Buy: amazon.com & all good bookstores<br />
pammariko.com / print • eBook<br />
Andrea Hampton is going to break through the north<br />
midland gloom and her fog of misery her way—she’ll<br />
get Brendan James, and lose her virginity. But she<br />
hasn’t planned on being a 14-year-old mum, or on the move to London,<br />
where life could be fun...<br />
Bent Lilies<br />
Margaret McGuigan<br />
Buy: margaretscribbles@gmail.com<br />
print • eBook<br />
Sisters Dolly and Jean are proprietors of the Star Café,<br />
Melbourne in 1955. They are petticoat crooks. They<br />
agree on their criminal activities, but their inner wishes vary. Bent Lilies<br />
shows how Australian women in 1950s dealt with problems such as<br />
theirs: surviving, keeping secrets and finding love.<br />
Aquila<br />
Sue-Ellen Pashley<br />
Buy: amazon.com<br />
sueellenpashley.com / eBook<br />
18-year-old Nick Larcombe is a self-confessed nonromantic,<br />
until he lays eyes on Grace Carr. Already<br />
bruised and battered by life, Grace isn’t looking for any<br />
sort of relationship, but when Nick rescues her from sure death at the<br />
bottom of a windswept cliff, Grace needs answers.<br />
Advertised books from QWC’s Books from our Backyard 2015. Browse the full catalogue at backyardbooks.com.au. Advertise in WQ - editor@qwc.asn.au.
QUEENSLAND WRITERS CENTRE<br />
Level 2, State Library of Queensland, Stanley Place, South Brisbane<br />
qwc.asn.au<br />
Postal address:<br />
PO Box 3488<br />
30 South Brisbane<br />
Queensland 4101<br />
Contact details:<br />
07 3842 9922<br />
qldwriters@qwc.asn.au WQ<br />
Connect with us:<br />
Newsletter: qwriters.co/qwc-news<br />
Twitter: @qldwriters<br />
Facebook: fb.co/qldwriters