Planet EWF draws in local literary bloggers to give you all the news and views from the festival.
The dark room is a carnival – eight screens on four walls broadcasting anti-authoritarian film fragments set to a soundtrack equal parts tarantella and hymn. I spend an hour in the middle, tilting my head at horses becoming noses, then megaphones, then… Continue reading
Ever been in a situation where you have a metric shittonne of writing to do in a really short time? Maybe you’ve got an overdue assignment. Maybe you have a deadline in two days. Or maybe you’ve signed up for the Rabbit Hole event at the Emerging Writers Festival, with the aim of producing 30 [...] Continue reading
For those who haven’t plugged into the hype yet: the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the festival for writers, is coming up again this year, in the next few weeks. I’m really excited to plug into the inclusive network of writers and … Continue reading →
Continue reading
Post written by Associate Producer, Tim Williams.
Like a pendulum, the team at the Emerging Writers’ Festival 2012 is currently in full swing and we’re all very excited about the program we have on offer this year. I must admit that my wrists are already starting to cramp up after an onslaught of tweeting, blogging and emailing in correspondence with the festival’s venues and our talented artists.
This year, I’m at the helm of the pecha kucha-based “Revenge of the Nerds: Slide Night” and I’m pleased about how it is shaping up so far. Led by our fabulously geeky MC, Ben McKenzie, our artists will be showcasing a very disparate array of nerdy hobbies and geeky obsessions which, let’s face it; we’ve all had at some point. Whether it’s playing Dungeons and Dragon or still putting on that old Wham! record you bought in 1984, everybody has those little hidden obsessions that, often, we are too embarrassed to bring up in public.
My first major childhood obsession was with the movie Grease which I still, to this day, carry a certain guilty reverence for. Come on! Tell me you wouldn’t want to go to a high school where students spontaneously broke into song at lunchtime and settled their issues with a car race on Thunder Road! From this starting point, I inevitably got taken in by the ‘Hanson’ (Taylor was my favourite) and ‘5ive’ boy-band phenomenon. I seem to recall that the pop groups of the 90s divided the genders a bit as the lads had 5ive and Hanson while the girls favoured Nsync and the Backstreet Boys more. However, one thing that seemed to unite all these groups (apart from their fanatical followings) was the fact that there was always one member in every group who did bugger-all but was still somehow everyone’s favourite. In the case of 5ive, it was J, the eyebrow ring-toting, English white rapper whose rap break in the middle of every song was always a fan highlight. Although my iPod now displays a much different selection of artists and my copy of Hanson’s seminal album ‘Middle of Nowhere’ is probably still gathering at the Moonee Ponds Cash Convertors, these obsessions nonetheless helped shape my childhood in a significant way.
Before taking on production duties for this event, I had completely no understanding of ‘pecha kucha,’ which is the format all of the presentations will be adopting. For the uninitiated, pecha kucha is a style of performance whereby artists perform accompanied by a slideshow consisting of 20 slides being shown for 20 seconds each. Challenging, right? Pecha kucha is still quite a recent phenomena which originated in Japan within the field of architecture. It’s a little known fact that architects have a history of ‘crapping on’ when it comes to presenting their own proposals so pecha kucha was introduced as a way of keeping their presentations a lot briefer and tighter. The great thing about the technique is that is keeps both the artists and the audience on their toes as there is only a short amount of time to get the information across. With the broad theme of nerd culture colliding head-pm with this new age format, the Revenge of the Nerds: Slide Night is bound to be one fast, frenetic and fun night where the geeks will inherit the earth. Will our artists make it? Well, you’ll have to come along and find out…
Image: chrisinplymouth
At the festival we are pleased to be presenting Future Bookshop at NGV Studio, an exploration into how we will be reading, publishing and of course writing texts in the future.
Future Bookshop will feature literary predictions from Emerging Writers’ Festival, Express Media, Freeplay, if:book Australia, Paper Radio, People Collective, SPUNC, Matt BlackWood and more… and we’d love to feature YOUR ideas as well!
We are looking for ideas (or predictions, or suggestions) about how we will be WRITING in the future, or what the life of a writer will be like in the future. Your ideas can take any form – blog post, plain text, video, image – and be in any style – journalism, statement, rant, fiction, poetry, essay, etc. All the pieces will be included on a wall of ideas for people to come in and explore.
You can send text, video or a link to a blog post or web address for inclusion in Future Bookshop… it can be work that has previously been published or is brand new (as long as it’s your own!). Of course we will include your name on the piece.
We are looking for LOTS of ideas about the future of writing! Send your work or links to me on [email protected] Closing date is Monday 21 May, however, it’s first in best dressed.
On Sunday I said that I wouldn’t spend so much time talking here about The Obituarist, and by God I meant it. So instead, I’m gonna talk about all the other places where I have been (or will be) talking about The Obituarist. IT’S A RULES-LEGAL LOOPHOLE DAMNIT …man, I have really got to get [...] Continue reading
Why was The Rabbit Hole started?
Queensland Writers Centre CEO Kate Eltham wanted to get some serious words down on the page – whether they were good or bad words, she just wanted to get a lot of writing done towards the goal of completing her manuscript. With that in mind, she set herself the goal of 30,000 words in three days, and decided to dedicate a long-weekend to the task, and go down the rabbit hole, inviting QWC members to go down with her. And so The Rabbit Hole was born.
How has it gone in the past?
Both of The Rabbit Hole events held so far have been popular and successful. We hold them in the QWC Learning Centre, an open inviting space with lots of tables and chairs. Everyone settles into their own writing space – some people have headphones in, some use a notebook, some use a laptop. We also had a mixture of writers along – novelists, poets, and non-fiction writers. Some people write furiously, others stop for lunch and stretches. While we set the goal of 30,000 words each, we also encouraged everyone to set their own goals depending on their specific projects and headspace. Overall, being in one space with other writers all absorbed in their individual projects is both motivating and heartening.
What have people gotten out of the event?
The three key things that people get out of the event are: some serious wordage towards their manuscript, an important motivational push, the sense of joining a community of like-minded people. Here is some feedback (as it was published in WQ, March 2012) from the last Rabbit Hole:
I live in cattle country and often feel disconnected from my writing community. The Rabbit Hole events are one way for me to join in online and feel, at least in part, as though I’m connected again (though nothing can beat the actual in-person camaraderie and motivation such events can inspire. I wrote for two of the three days during the first event in July, achieving around 10,00 words, and I was please with that. In January, I used the time to edit the same novel and discovered that some of the best chapters in the manuscript were actually written during the first Rabbit Hole event. – Joanne Schoenwald, QWC Member
I found the Rabbit Hole experience (both of them) to have accelerated my writing and really contributed to my manuscript – in quantity and quality. Further, the online community developed from the events has enabled me to form my own writing review groups from writers in similar fields. Several of us are noticing that in three days we can write up to 30,000 words of high-quality writing. A few have started mini-Rabbit Holes one weekend a month to write more often. All in all, an excellent experience and I will be back for the next one. – Cameron Boyd, QWC Member
My first QWC Rabbit Hole was not what I expected. I never dreamed that a person who could barely write more than 1,000 words in a day could aspire to a 30,000 goal. I gave it a go anyway (albeit with a smaller goal – only 10,000). Living in Toowoomba meant that I thought I’d feel isolated. When I posted my minor milestones to the Facebook group, I received encouraging comments and ‘likes’. I now knew that I wasn’t doing it alone. I cracked the 5,000 the first day, blazed through the 10,000 words half-way through the second, and topped the 20,000 word mark on the third. I write like I never had before. Yet, I got tired. Yes, my eyes got that sore, gritty feel from starting at the monitor for too long. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I now know that I’m not limited by my past, minor achievements. – Mark McDonough, QWC Member
The Melbourne team is full, but still have spaces in the online team for people outside of Brisbane, Melbourne and Hobart. To register for the online team, please email [email protected]
This event was created by the Queensland Writers’ Centre.
Image: valkyrieh116
The Emerging Writers’ Festival is committed to improving access to our events and the diversity of our programming. In 2012 we have introduced several new measures to ensure that the festival is more inclusive than ever.
We are happy to announce that we will have AUSLAN interpreters available at the our Saturday Town Hall Writers’ Conference on 26th May. We have opened tickets for the deaf community on this day at the concession rate of $28 – these can be booked here.
Additionally, we are pleased to have Asphyxia in our program this year, who you may know as a fabulous puppeteer and author of the Grimstones. Due to interest from the deaf community we have opened single-panel tickets to her event, which will be interpreted: Further details below:
Cross Platform, Saturday 26th May, 1.45pm
There can be more than one way to tell a story. Different mediums can bring in new elements to an existing tale, or stories can be told across many platforms right from the start. Meet some artists who write across multiple mediums. With Asphyxia, Eliza Hull, John Richards and Jackie Ryan. Hosted by Pigeons Projects. This panel is priced at $12 full / $8 concession. Bookings here.
The Monash University Undergraduate Prize for Creative Writing is kind of a big deal. It gives a really good opportunity to undergraduate writers. If you’re an emerging, undergraduate, reasonably unpublished writer, then you’ll know what I&… Continue reading
We had almost 300 entries in the Monash University Undergraduate Prize for Creative Writing – a huge response from Australia’s talented students!
Creating this shortlist was extremely difficult as the quality of entries overall were very high. We are pleased with the diversity and creativity of the shortlist, and feel that all the writers on it are voices to watch:
Shortlisted entries will have their story included in the Penguin Shorts Monash Prize anthology, and be in the running to win the $5000 prize pool. Additionally, the shortlisted students will be invited to our Stories that Matter event, where the Prize will be awarded.
