QUEENSLAND VOICES

Nick Earls – Sustaining a Writing Career

Ashley Hay ISSUE 259 WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE December 2017 – 1 Trent Jamieson February 2018 QUEENSLAND VOICES

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FICTION A Curious Intimacy Jessica White Logan’s Peak Buy: Kobo.com Graeme Ratcliffe eBook Buy: Booktopia.com.au In the 1870s two remarkable women meet in a remote country print town in Western Australia. Ingrid is hundreds of miles from home Tom’s home is a remote valley torn by WWI. and Ellyn is a young woman living in stark isolation. When the two Though his older brothers lie dead in France, women meet, they forge a bond that grows ever deeper. But can he envies them and dreams of his own heroic their intimacy find acceptance in their conventional world? deeds. After falling for a showgirl and finding JessicaWhite.com.au himself pursued by her vengeful cardsharp partner, his dreams will be put to the test. The Silver Well Kate Forsyth and Kim Wilkins Wisdom Tree series Buy: bookshop.ticonderogapublications.com Nick Earls print • eBook Buy: Bookshops One English village. Two-thousand years of stories. print People have always come to make wishes at the Silver Well: in Five pocket travel-guide sized booklets make Pagan times and Christian, during revolution and war. up Nick Earls’ Wisdom Tree, a collection of interrelated novellas. Reinforcing the Best-selling fantasy writers Kate Forsyth and Kim Wilkins have ‘travel’ connection are the individual teamed up in this collection of seven incredible stories, set in titles: 1 Gotham, 2 Venice, 3 Vancouver, 4 seven time periods. Juneau, and 5 NoHo (North Hollywood, Los Angeles). Together these novellas create CHILDREN’S & YOUNG ADULT a 21st century world in which five families struggle and resolve the tension of our time: Lily Fabourama Glamourama balancing the desire for fame and fortune Emma Mactaggart with the obligations and responsibility, and Buy: BoogieBooks.com.au or any fabulous bookstore near the love, to be found in everyday family life. you! 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Lucy Hart has been counting the days till she can get the hell out of the small Queensland fishing hamlet of Digger’s Landing. But Parting Words as graduation nears, her escape plans begin to falter. When the Cass Moriarty fish stop biting, Lucy realises she isn’t the only one with a secret. Buy: All bookshops and Booktopia Hachette.com.au/book/the-dream-walker print • eBook This Is My Song Daniel Whittaker’s will requires his three Richard Yaxley adult children to hand-deliver letters addressed to strangers from their father’s Buy: Shop.Scholastic.com.au past. Who are these people and what was print their significance to Daniel? Parting Words This is my blood, this is my song. explores the legacy we leave behind, and In the early 1940s in Czechoslovakia, Rafael Ullmann and his family asks the question: How well do we really are sent to Terezin, the so-called ‘model ghetto’ for Jewish artists. know our loved ones? In the 1970s in Canada, Annie Ullmann lives a predictable, lonely CassMoriarty.com life on a prairie with her reclusive father and deaf-dumb mother. Thirty years later, in Australia, Joe Hawker is uncertain about himself Burning Down and his future. Told across three continents and time-lines, This Is Venero Armanno My Song is a symphony, encouraging us to find our own music. Buy: Dymocks RichardWYaxley.com print • eBook Was Not Me! It’s the mid-70s and ex-boxer Charlie Smoke is living out his retirement from the ring. Shannon Horsfall Charlie’s best days are behind him, but when Buy: Where the Wild Things Are he meets Holly Banks and her teenage son, print Ricky, he has a new chance at life. However, A very funny book about a cheeky twin brother, ‘Not Me’. Sure to as an unlikely friendship develops with Ricky, delight pre-schoolers - and their exasperated parents! Charlie is unwittingly pulled back into the ‘I have a naughty twin brother who only I see, gambling underworld he thought he’d left A cheeky twin brother. His name is Not Me’. behind. In order to make a new future, first he must help settle some old scores. This A playful, funny and charming book about a young boy who is a powerful novel about family, regret, love escapes getting into trouble with his mother by declaring, ‘Was and the promise of salvation. Not Me.’ Ages: 4 - 7. VeneroArmanno.com ShannonHorsfall.com Advertise in WQ - [email protected] ISSUE 259 December 2017 – February 2018

3 Editorial 4 Staying power Nick Earls 6 To feel like a writer again Trent Jamieson 8 A long journey home Krystal Sutherland 10 World Expo 88: You’re the Voice er ... I’m one voice Jackie Ryan 12 Cat’s clause: Punctuating dialogue Catherine Moller 14 Finding the maps: On writing A Hundred Small Lessons Ashley Hay 16 More of a wonky goat track… Victoria Carless 18 The lucky ones Richard Yaxley 20 eBooks – deliberate before you celebrate Emma Mactaggart 22 Competitions and opportunities 23 Events 24 Open calls 26 About QWC Membership 27 QWC Membership benefits 27 Membership form 28 Milestones

GUEST ARTIST

Shannon Horsfall

Shannon Horsfall is an author and illustrator based in Australia but living in fairyland.

Her head is a mess of stories, pictures and the occasional cake recipe. She loves to draw, doodle, dream, design, imagine, write, dance, sing (badly), scribble, splatter & cook. Although she is not young, she is very much a child. (Or immature, depending on how you look at it.) WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 1 She has had two picture books, Was Not Me! (2016) and Nomax! (2017) published by HarperCollins. PUBLISHED BY

ISSN 1444-2922

About WQ About QWC WQ is the quarterly publication of the QWC is the leading provider of specialised Queensland Writers Centre. A magazine for services to the writing community in Queensland writers, it examines issues and Queensland. Through its annual programs, topics relevant to writing and publishing QWC promotes the creative and professional in Australia and around the world. It also development of writers and advances the publishes member milestones and lists of recognition of Queensland writers and workshops and events, competitions and writing locally, nationally and internationally. opportunities. qldwriters.org.au The WQ you get in your mailbox or inbox seasonally should be read in tandem with the magazine’s online counterpart: Staff Katie Woods qldwriters.org.au/magazine Chief Executive Officer Sharon Phillips Editorial and production General Manager Sharon Phillips Editor Jackie Ryan Program Manager Siobhan Reardon Marketing and Social Media Simon Groth if:book Australia Manager Shannon Horsfall Guest Artist Siobhan Reardon Marketing Communications Officer Popeye Creative Design Christopher Currie Marketing and Communications Coordinator Paradigm Print Media Printing Samantha Schraag Customer Service Officer Catherine Moller Submissions Programs and Publications Coordinator Members can submit Milestones or details of Events or Competitions and Opportunities, Tristram Peters or pitch articles for WQ, by emailing us at Project Officer [email protected]. Valerie Whitmore QWC reserves the right to edit all Finance Officer submissions with regard to content and word length. Management Committee Leanne Dodd Advertising Chair Information on how to advertise in WQ is Andrea Baldwin available at qldwriters.org.au/advertise. For Vice Chair advertising inquiries please contact Siobhan Reardon: [email protected]. Kym Hausmann au. Treasurer QWC members enjoy a reduced advertising Ann Wilson rate. Before booking an advertisement Secretary potential advertisers should read QWC’s Andrea Brosnan, Kylie Chan, Sandra Advertising Terms and Conditions at Makaresz, Jo-Ann Sparrow, Shel Sweeney qldwriters.org.au/advertise. Ordinary Members

The Queensland Writers Centre, Management Committee and staff present WQ in good faith and accept no responsibility for any misinformation or problems arising from any misinformation. The views expressed by contributors or advertisers are not necessarily those of the Management Committee or staff.

Queensland Writers Centre is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

2 WQ Editorial Readers, haven’t you always wondered why every fantastical world only Beth Doherty opens through a ‘gump’ in London or the USA? Narnia could be hidden QWC Volunteer underneath a trapdoor in GOMA, Lake Lachrymose should be discovered in Tanbar, perhaps there is a Hogwarts, heavily disguised, in Mission Beach?

For some, having a Queensland voice is a burden – it’s that misshapen vegetable you’ve accidentally grown in your garden that no one wants to eat. International publishers don’t want you because your voice is too niche, yet national publishers don’t want you because your voice appears the same as every other Australian. For others, they know their Queensland voice is more than a meandering hum – it’s a part of their identity that should be shared.

I’m only a recent Queenslander, but even I can hear the hullaballoo.

Queensland writers are forging ahead. Their wonderful worlds, fictional or not, are breaking down stereotypes. They’re crafting characters we have never known but urgently require. When they escape to the north for warmth, it is something we can relate to. If the river is crocodile-infested, we understand the necessity of a boat or a bridge. And if we are instructed to ‘write what we know’, what better voice to use than a Queensland one?

In this issue of WQ, Nick Earls shares his wisdom on sustaining a long writing career, and Ashley Hay reflects on her characters who still live on despite A Hundred Small Lessons being published six months ago.

Victoria Carless writes of her fortuitous, careening path towards publication, while Trent Jamieson, from our home-grown Avid Reader bookshop, speaks of the importance of writing once again.

Townsville’s Krystal Sutherland conquers her fear of putting Queensland into fiction, Emma Mactaggart discusses the importance of trusting publication specialists, and our own Jackie Ryan delves into Queensland history.

So unearth your odd-looking vegetables, turn them into a pie or a cake, and join us in embracing Queensland voices and their volume.

Queensland Voices

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 3 But how does that writer still get to Staying power be around 25 years later? Established writers are often asked Nick Earls what advice they’d give to a writer starting out, but rarely are we asked about how to endure. I can give the starting-out advice, and publishers do need to unearth new talent, but the mid-list? Do publishers need There’s plenty it? How do you stay a writer in the of advice around absence of blockbuster sales? for writers who Twenty-five years ago, in December 1992, I was asked to speak at the How do you are starting out QWC Christmas party about my writing year. My first book had stay a writer in but, unless you’re been published, but this was no James Paterson victory lap on offer. It was a more the absence of interesting proposition. In August blockbuster sales? that year, I had, for a moment, or JK Rowling, lived the dream I’d been dreaming starting out is far since the late seventies – I’d had The mid-list used to keep ticking from the only hurdle a book published – but the dream over, its books doing better than had crash-landed and I could still break-even, its authors earning writers face. Nick smell the smoke. ‘Nick Earls’s enough to stay in business. But the publisher’s claim that he is a rising world has blockbusterised, Big W is Earls takes a look star in Australian fiction is to be now Australia’s biggest bookseller, flatly contradicted, the review in the Amazon’s algorithms guide at what writers can Australian had said. And it was not purchasers to bestsellers and the do to sustain their alone. The book was going nowhere mid-list is on the slide. In Australia, fast. the mean creative income of non- careers. blockbuster writers worse than The talk was a chance to face down halved in the first eight years of this the demon of unviability. It was a century, and book-related income promise of an audience. It was, in has fallen further since. a modest way, a paying job. Plus, Philip Nielsen would be there. He So, unless you’re in a position to was editing the journal Imago and I add another 13 storeys to your wanted to be published again. No, it already hugely successful treehouse was more than that. I needed to see or have Oscar winners duelling over – and I needed the industry to see – your adaptation rights, you’d better that I would be published again. be adaptable. And you’d better leverage what you’ve got. Whatever I talked about the awful reviews, laurels you’ve earned aren’t there I played it for laughs and Philip to be rested on – they’re there to be Nielsen came up to me and asked monetised, in a considered way. if Imago could publish the piece. My CV grew a line longer. I wasn’t out If you’ve had a few books published, of the game yet. you have a name the industry knows

4 WQ and perhaps places a higher value Use your imagination, and more money for posts, linking followed on than your sales suggest. If you’ve opportunities might arise than you people with advertisers who fit played it smart, you have a track think. Do something well, and you them and their brand. Okay, so record that says you deliver and are might be surprised where it might most opportunities seem to call good to work with. And you have take you. for support from willowy straight- some kind of brand recognition and haired women in their late 20s with following in the wider world. Festivals pay, and festival sessions a liking for acai bowls, long walks can spin off into articles that on the beach and making their own If it’s the right kind of following, and also pay (by which I mean real jewellery from found objects, but big enough, you can go straight to dollars, not ‘exposure dollars’). occasionally there’s something for them with your writing. Through Live appearances can spin off into a daggy mid-career stayer. A post the US publication of his alternative other kinds of live appearances. of a pic of my battered Kathmandu history trilogies, John Birmingham I’m an introvert at heart, but my hiking boots earned me $82.50. recruited several battalions of event experience and long-dormant Selling out? Renting out, maybe, e-reading spec-fic fans who will medical degree have led to me but if you pick the right product, go over the barricades any time he MCing events for Queensland squeeze a legitimate laugh out of gives the word. Therefore any new Health. One thing leads to another. the post and declare it as an #ad, ebook he puts out will instantly people don’t seem to mind. chart high in the Kindle Store and accumulate reviews, both of which By all means, keep It might be a job of a thousand will grow his sales and readership parts, but it’s a job, and a good one, further. But that’s not by chance. writing the best and sometimes I think it makes He’s put a lot of thought into it, for better fiction when you’re not and into the platforms he uses to books you can write, at the keyboard every day, and mobilise his readers. And he got but have a few irons instead out in the world compelled himself into the right position to to have other experiences, with your start with. in a few fires at the thoughts occasionally drifting to that next book, adding to the pile of Beyond that, versatility is the key. same time. ideas, making it better than it would By all means, keep writing the best have been if you’d written it earlier, books you can write, but have a This year I was commissioned to with less. few irons in a few fires at the same write an extended essay on the time. And if that book is a hit, gets artist William Robinson, and that’s optioned, wins you an award with already led to essay commissions John Birmingham writes columns a fat cheque? Let your publisher for three art exhibition catalogues. for Fairfax, a subscription blog, shout the bar, keep the cheque restaurant reviews and other New avenues to earn money from in your pocket and do something commissioned pieces, as well writing open up all the time. smart with it, so you’re better as his fiction (and still expects placed for those years when the us to believe there’s only one of Radio National has paid to record, luck doesn’t run your way. him). Ashley Hay writes award- broadcast and podcast blog winning fiction, plus award-winning posts I’ve written. The audiobook science journalism. Children’s market is booming and evolving. and young adult authors do Videogames are becoming more Nick Earls is the author of 26 books school appearances, and the ASA complex, requiring more narrative for adults, teenagers and children. His recommends a minimum daily and characterisation. books have won awards in Australia, the school rate of $600. Plus, school UK and the US. Two of his novels have visits lead to sales. And books Tribe is an app that gives people been adapted into feature films and five in school libraries lead to ELR with enough of a social media into stage plays. His most recent work payments every June. following opportunities to earn is the novella series Wisdom Tree.

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 5 of those novels were written while I To feel like a was working, sometimes two other jobs. And, while I’ve gotten that down to just one job now, it can writer again still be exhausting. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job at Avid Reader Trent Jamieson Bookshop; it’s an incredible place where I work with people I admire and I am surrounded by books. Seriously, it’s the best workplace you could imagine. But it isn’t writing.

Time is the most valuable gift you can ever give a writer. I have been writing and submitting to publishers for over 25 years. Over that time I have been lucky enough A Fellowship opens up a space, to receive two writing grants, each mental and physical – that rare for $15,000. Both of those grants and precious thing that feeds the have had a profound impact on making of a book. But the space my writing, and both led to the is bigger than that. You suddenly publication of stories that I was not have time to chase other ideas too. expecting to write, let alone sell, This can be scary, at first, this rush and which I would not have found of new ideas, but the Fellowship in me without the grants and the makes it seem possible – you’re not time they opened up. Time is the writing in that pre- or post-work most valuable gift you can ever give fog (which is where I do most of my a writer. writing). You’re not writing while your knees and back ache from My most recent grant was a standing all day. You realise that you Queensland Writers Fellowship have time to go all Alice on those which covered 2017. I received it to ideas, and jump down rabbit holes. help me focus on my current book The Stone Road. It is a follow-up to For the first half of the year I took a Day Boy, my last novel, and my most month off work, then time off when successful work to date. It was also I could. The Fellowship gave me the a book that I was beginning to feel money to supplement my wage. In was never going to be finished. that first month, I finally delivered a draft of a book to my publisher (it The truth is, for most writers, we had been a good three years since fit our writing around everything that had last happened), polished else. You get done what you can. up some short stories, and wrote I’ve written novels and worked a a children’s picture book (which day job most of my adult life, with has already had an offer from a brief period where I didn’t. Most a publisher that I am extremely

6 WQ excited about). What’s more, I felt Finally, I accidently destroyed my have been planted and I can’t wait for the first time in, well, probably laptop in a coffee spill (I know, how to see which ones take root. since finishing Day Boy, that my foolish), and the Fellowship made work had value. That maybe I knew what was potentially something So that is what I did with my what I was doing, and that people catastrophic little more than a Fellowship. I wrote and dreamed, thought my work was worthwhile. hassle. Sure, it would have been and built new stories. I bought The idea that perhaps what you are great not to have to buy a new books and read them, and doing means something, and not laptop, but for once I could afford it. remembered why I love writing just to yourself, is a fabulous goad. in the first place. I bought tickets to a convention that I’ve always Not only that, but for the first time wanted to attend, and I survived in many years I had hours that I I wrote and a coffee disaster. The Fellowship could devote not just to writing, dreamed, and built reminded me that I am a writer, but reading. It’s funny that when that I can actually do this, that it is working in a bookshop you can new stories. fun. Hopefully you will all see the still have so little opportunity for fruits of this work, the harrowing, reading. Books have been one of I bought books delightful, terrible things that the most important things in my and read them, and I’ve put characters through, and life since I could read. That’s a good hopefully you will agree that it has 40 years of centrality. But, like the remembered why I been worth it. It has been for me; I value of my work, and time, I had love writing in the feel like a writer again. kind of forgotten just how important it was. Writing doesn’t happen in a first place. vacuum.

I’m writing this for a September deadline, though you’ll be reading So many seeds it in December. By then I should be have been planted even further along. What is certain is that without this Fellowship I and I can’t wait to would not have written nearly as much this year; The Stone Road see which ones take would be much further from root. completion – I feel it needs another draft at least – and I would not have written a children’s picture book The Fellowship also allowed me that I am rather proud of. Nor would to pay for my ticket for Genrecon, I have started a new novel, rewritten the first time I have been able to a chunk of an old one, begun a afford this since Genrecon started. children’s chapter book, or polished Writing conventions cost money, short stories and poems. and I don’t make a lot, so usually Much of this won’t see the light of I just watch other people attend Trent Jamieson is the multi-award- them and try to focus on my writing. day for a few years (publishing is winning author of Day Boy, the Death But conventions are fabulous slow, except when it isn’t), but this Works series, and the Nightbound Land networking opportunities and it’s year’s work, courtesy of the space Duology. He is a current recipient of a hard to not feel like you’re missing that the Fellowship opened up, Queensland Writers Fellowship working out – particularly with such a smart means that I have stories both long on his new novel The Stone Road, and a and focussed convention for writers and short to keep me busy over the secret picture book project. He also as Genrecon. next half decade. So many seeds works at Avid Reader Bookshop.

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 7 Australian literature was ingrained A long journey home in my everyday reading: Blinky Bill, Possum Magic, Gumnut Babies. As I teenager, however, I loved to Krystal Sutherland read about magic and folklore and dragons and heroines kicking butt in space operas, and there seemed to be a dearth of this kind of young adult (YA) fiction set in Australia or written by Australian authors.

The older I grew, and the more isolated I began to feel in Townsville, the more disdain I had for anything written by Aussies. Why, I wondered, would anyone ever want to write anything about this vast, lonely country? A country that everyone appeared to have to leave ‘Why did you choose to set your if they ever hoped to be successful? books overseas?’ It’s a question I hear often, at just about every event When it came time to settle on a I do, both here in Australia and in setting for my first book, it wasn’t so the US. It’s a question I grapple with much a choice as an unconscious every time it’s asked, because the decision. I had grown up watching answer is long and complicated. I television shows and movies about usually end up saying I watched too yellow school buses, quarterbacks much American television growing and cheerleaders, and the weeks up, which is entirely true, but not leading up to prom. In my head, the whole story by a longshot. my main character didn’t wear a uniform to school, said trunk and Let me begin by saying that I am trash can, and had an Australian a traitor to both my state and best friend. my country. For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to move I was writing a high school story, away from Queensland. Success and all the best high school came to people in big cities far stories, I thought, were set in the away from where I grew up, in US. So that’s what I did. I wrote an Townsville. Every career I dreamed American book, and I sold that book of, from volcanologist to Hollywood in America. actress to author, seemed to For most people, this would not require my departure not only from work, but I had been thoroughly my hometown, but from the entire saturated by the culture since I continent. was a child. So exhaustive and I’m sure this perception was not meticulous was my American helped by the fact that as I grew vernacular and cultural knowledge older, the types of books I wanted that when my literary agent found to read seemed to all be written out I was Australian, she asked me by foreigners. As a young child, if I’d grown up in the States. I had to

8 WQ admit that I’d never even visited. As an adult, I keep coming back to Australia, both physically and So now I have become part of the imaginatively. I have lived on four It has been a long problem instead of part of the continents now, but Australia calls solution. It’s a vicious cycle, a self- me back to her shores year after journey to find my fulfilling prophecy. Should an author year. And when my mind wanders way home, to come be beholden to write about a place, to possible future projects, it often simply because they grew up there? finds its way to Australia, to dreamy to see the incredible I don’t think so. Do I regret setting gothic tales of harsh landscapes value of stories the book where I did? No. Yet my and old magic. perspective on Australian YA has set among the changed a lot in the last two years, It has been a long journey to find since I became a part of the scene my way home, to come to see gumtrees. here. the incredible value of stories set among the gumtrees. I will write There are now so many excellent a YA book set in Australia one day. writers writing so many excellent It will be the book of my teenage Australian stories. There are even dreams, rich with enchantment and Aussies writing about heroines folklore and danger and darkness. Krystal Sutherland is the author of Our kicking butt in space operas, in My great hope is that a young Chemical Hearts and A Semi-Definitive Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s aspiring author in Townsville will Illuminae series. Maybe it has List of Worst Nightmares. Born and pick it up, read it, and know what I raised in Townsville, she has now lived always been this way, and as a wish I had known when I was their young adult I simply could not or did in Sydney, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and age: that you do not have to leave San Francisco. Our Chemical Hearts was not want to see it, but I think there’s your country for your words to mean sold in 25 countries and is currently been something of a Renaissance something. being adapted into a Hollywood film. happening in Australia with the #LoveOzYA movement.

Success came to people in big cities far away from where I grew up, in Townsville.

We are embracing ourselves and our literature in a way we didn’t seem to ten years ago. We are embracing our unique voice and language. We are pushing back against the inundation of stories from foreign lands that whisper, I am bigger and better and more important.

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 9 university, my subsequent energies World Expo 88: had been directed towards fiction writing and indie film. If I was to stand a fighting chance against my imaginary critics, I needed to You’re the voice achieve peak history-writing fitness. Cue a neon-hued Expo research montage in which I interview er ... I’m one voice many of the event’s instigators, Jackie Ryan organisers and objectors, study hundreds of articles and documents, produce audio-visual material for the South Bank Corporation and the Queensland Museum for their 20th anniversary Expo celebrations, write the didactic text for the Museum of Brisbane’s 25th anniversary of Expo festivities and complete a history and political science PhD about Expo. In the first season of the television some historians may be wary to series Girls, the famously self- transgress. absorbed central character, Hannah Horvath, infamously announced Who are you to write about Expo? I What to do? ‘I think that I may be the voice can’t believe you interviewed X but Write the book I of my generation’, before back- not Y! You explored the wrong issues! peddling to ‘or at least a voice. Of a Reached the wrong conclusions! originally wanted to generation’. Think that’s obnoxious? Too much controversy, not enough read. Try wrangling the courage to be the John Farnham! AND YOU BARELY voice of several generations. I’m TOUCHED ON THE QUEUES AT THE NEW ZEALAND PAVILION!!!!!!! writing the history of World Expo 88 Next problem: now I know too … Or at least a history of World Expo These are just some of the imaginary much. I could write more about 88. issues my imaginary critics have Expo than anyone could possibly raised in relation to my Expo quest. I want to read (I’ve also noted that I Popularly conceived as the catalyst didn’t set out to tell the Expo story—I can talk about it at greater length for Brisbane’s coming of age, Expo just wanted to read it. How did Expo than is polite). Of equal concern: recorded over 18 million visits come about? What were the social I have a vast knowledge of all the (including staff, VIPs and repeat and political aids or impediments to things I don’t know about Expo. visitors with season passes) during its success? Was it like other world There are going to be scores of its six-month run. That’s a higher expositions? How does it fit within people out there who know more figure than Australia’s population the zeitgeist of the era? What is its about its staff, deals, finances, at the time. Expo was an all-ages significance to Brisbane? scandals, technology, souvenirs, love-affair, and it continues to be intergovernmental relations and venerated nearly 30 years after it That book didn’t exist. This seemed menu items than I do. But I can’t first bedazzled and bewitched. Its quite the oversight to a former keep researching forever. various legacies—coupled with Expo season-pass holder such as fierce nostalgia—have contributed myself—an oversight I felt should be What to do? Write the book I to a formidable sense of public rectified. Next problem: while I had originally wanted to read. Be ownership of the event that majored in history and English at objective, professional, respectful …

10 WQ and maybe add in a few more lines just a voice of Expo. And I’m trying Show the World: Expo 88 and Brisbane’s about the New Zealand pavilion. not to remember that nobody likes Almighty Struggle for a Little Bit of Cred Other people have had 30 years to Hannah Horvath. (UQP in 2018). Jackie produces the be the book-form voice of Expo. And Aurealis Award-winning Burger Force there is nothing to prevent them comic series and is the founding editor Jackie Ryan holds a PhD in history and of comedy writing collective the Fanciful from doing so alongside or after political science from The University of Fiction Auxiliary. The websites for these my contribution. In the meantime, Queensland, where she is an Honorary projects have been archived by the I’m attempting to placate my inner Research Fellow. Her thesis topic is National Library of Australia as sites of critics by reminding myself that I’m the subject of her debut book, We’ll cultural significance.

– so that the writing might once attended confirm that the leaves of again flourish. this literary tree are in very good health. And when things go well for The tree of But the QWC tree is also part of a we writers, when the sun catches forest: the National Writers’ Centre our leaves and makes us shine, (a writer’s) life Network. This forest comprises all QWC provides us with a place to manner of creators and industry celebrate our successes, shout it Sally Piper professionals – agents, publishers, from the treetops so to speak, by editors and teachers – from right showcasing our milestones and across the country. It brings the promoting our work. I think of Queensland Writers states and territories together, and Centre as the sturdy trunk of a allows for the cross-pollination of But no individual part of a tree tree. It’s the main conduit that ideas and opportunities. – not root, trunk, branch or leaf nourishes all the branches that – can flourish without the other. I am one small leaf nurtured by connect to it. And we fortunate Because symbiosis is at work in the QWC tree. I have drawn on its members are its leaves; the a tree; it is an organic network of rootstock often and I have been vibrant, diverse and ever- interconnected parts, each reliant thankful for its sustenance. The renewing milieu of creatives that upon one another in order to grow. workshops and events I have spring from these branches and This is what membership to QWC participated in remind me that take sustenance from the trunk’s allows: the opportunity to grow as a there is always something to learn, rootstock. writer within a community of other always something to share, no writers. One branch of the QWC tree matter what stage your career, be might support workshops, panels it early, emerging or an established For more information about QWC or events, another literary salons writer. The literary salons I have please visit qldwriters.org.au or online courses for those distal to the main hub of the trunk. Some branches inspire, others provide a place to think Share the gift of writing and read, to listen, engage and learn. And should a limb break – should the words fail – there are Bring the budding writer in your life into the QWC community tree surgeons – word surgeons with a Christmas gift certificate for membership or one of – with How to advice and one- the fantastic events or workshops in our 2018 program. on-one mentoring to assist with regrowth – to restore confidence Contact QWC on 07 3842 9922 for more information.

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 11 It doesn’t matter whether you use Cat’s clause: single or double quotation marks, as long as you are consistent. Whichever type you’re using, use Punctuating dialogue the other type if you are quoting something within dialogue. For Catherine Moller instance: “Don Carlo told me ‘Danny, don’t you tell ‘em anything,’ and I ain’t gonna.”

The final punctuation of a piece At some point in many writers’ lives, of dialogue should always be they will come to the realisation that within the quotation marks. If they have no idea how to punctuate you’re following the dialogue dialogue. But unless you’re James with something like ‘said Officer Joyce, it’s frowned upon to do away Houlihan’, as in the example directly with punctuation altogether. above, the final punctuation mark Punctuating dialogue can be should be a comma, because the particularly confusing, as different main sentence itself has not ended. forms of writing format dialogue If the sentence that follows the differently. Playscripts are almost dialogue is not part of the main entirely dialogue, and therefore sentence, but starts a new one, end you simply need to introduce the the dialogue with a full stop: speaker and then the words that “I can do this all night if I have to.” they say. For example: Officer Houlihan lit a cigarette. Danny ‘Tightlips’ O’Sullivan: I ain’t Read and analyse the punctuation tellin’ you nuthin’, see. of dialogue in well-edited books to If you’re writing in prose, however, see how the standards are applied. this format is both ineffective Quotation marks should also be and fails to fully engage with the used around directly-quoted written possibilities of the form. Usually material, such as quotes from (though there are exceptions) books or songs. dialogue in prose is surrounded You don’t need to use quotation by quotation marks, which visually marks around indirect quotes: separate the dialogue from the prose while still keeping the flow of Officer Houlihan told Chief Winship the writing. Quotation marks can be that they’d be working late tonight. singular: Catherine Moller is a Brisbane- ‘You’re gonna tell me everything, based writer and editor. She holds you little fink,’ said Officer a Master of Arts in Writing, Editing Houlihan. and Publishing from The University of Queensland, along with a BA in writing Or double: and linguistics. She is one of the editors of WQ magazine, and manages the “I’ll never squeal to the pigs,” said Australian Writers Marketplace. Danny.

12 WQ As West Papua fights for n 1961, and one month following the disappearance of Michael C. Rockefeller off the southern coast its independence, Australia Iof what was then known as Dutch Western New is inexorably drawn into Guinea, Indonesia invaded and annexed the territory confrontation with Indonesia… and commenced the systematic slaughter of indigenous Papuans, to pave the way for a massive wave of transmigrated Javanese. With the meteoric rise of the new powerhouses, China and India, Indonesian-occupied West Papua’s wealth of oil, gas and minerals precipitates an international power- play for control over the vast natural resources. Decades have passed since the twenty-three year old Rockefeller disappeared — long presumed dead, when sightings of the heir are widely reported. Demands for West Papuan independence gain momentum and Australia is again drawn into military conflict with the Indonesian Motherland,Ibu Pertiwi.

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QWC_Queensland Writers advertisement_2017_October_colour.indd 1 07-Sep-17 1:05:25 AM Fairfield and the Harbour Bridge Finding the maps: On had left my working mind. It would be intriguing, I thought, to play next somewhere closer to home. My writing A Hundred Small writing room had an easterly view across a park full of leopard trees Lessons (Libidibia ferrea) and Moreton Bay figs, with the squiggle of the river Ashley Hay to the west. Perhaps I could write my way into this space, write the crests and troughs of Brisbane’s landscape, its volatile palette of weather, the funny way the city’s skyline seemed to loom not quite where I expected it – never obviously north, but tucked instead around a slightly more crooked curve or corner. A sense of place has always been important to my writing, I first saw Lucy Kiss standing on her but perhaps never more so than front porch one wintery morning in A Hundred Small Lessons. I’d in mid-2010 as she steadied her arrived in Brisbane in 2008 with young son on the stairs. He was two manuscripts – The Body in the eighteen months’ old, with the Clouds, set around the Harbour daring, darting gait of exploration. Bridge; and The Railwayman’s Wife, I saw her as I stood on my porch set on the NSW south coast. For with my son, steadying his just-a- almost two years, I sat in Annerley year-old steps. But while I noticed and conjured Dawes Point or my son’s own footprints pressed Thirroul every day, sinking into their into the dewy grass, and while I sights and sounds, only occasionally was heading for a busy day with glancing outside to notice – via a friends, and while I had a sort of curlew, a mango tree, a tiny sliver birds’ eye view of where we lived of the Story Bridge visible from my – river, city, rising sun – I saw that driveway – that I was a thousand Lucy had none of these things. She kilometres north of where my couldn’t work out where she was: imagination went to work. Even at my feeling that the CBD shifted the edge of the Brisbane River, I sneakily up- or downstream was for thought of the surface of Sydney her a sense of constantly malleable Harbour, the tempers of the Tasman landscape. And she had no people Sea, rather than that speedy snake by whom she could orient herself: of water in front of me. Brisbane she was at home, alone, having tiny was a friendly place – friendly conversations with her boy. people scooped me in. But my Most importantly, the footsteps topographical mind was somewhere she noticed on her lawn belonged else. to someone else entirely. And I By the time The Body in the Clouds realised that I knew whose they was published, I’d moved to were. I saw that before Lucy arrived

14 WQ in her house, someone had lived painting? Or was she something was crowded, with all those lives there for almost all of her own more? jammed into our six rooms … no married life, raising her children. I matter how polite my own husband saw that she’d fallen, as in so many Calling these two women forth felt and son were about it all. stories I’d heard about from friends’ more like an act of accretion than parents, aunts, grandparents who an act of recovery or revelation. And fell and lay trapped – sometimes for as I saw more of them, so much of I see them too long – before they were found. I their worlds became clear – their saw that after this fall, she’d been husbands; their children; their sometimes, ahead taken somewhere else to live. And secrets; their fears. In an essay I saw her, tucked into an unfamiliar in This Writing Life, David Malouf of me on the Corso, bed in an unfamiliar room, and describes beginning new work with or disappearing longing to get home. a sense of ‘the whole universe attending, around a corner in And that was Elsie, turned up just taking an interest, turning like that. a busy, city street. itself as it were in the book’s direction, so that everything one comes across – in the daily But I know that I carry them with I first saw Lucy papers, in the street, in what me still – I see them sometimes, Kiss standing on begins to come up out of the ahead of me on the Corso, or depths of memory – out of the disappearing around a corner in a her front porch one depths too of an experience busy, city street. The other morning, one may not have had yet – walking the dog to the river, we wintery morning in immediately finds a place there, reached the water as a small flotilla mid-2010. in indissoluble connection.’ of rowing boats paused. There were tiny lights on the bow and stern of This was how I came to these each craft – four or five sweeps in two lives. Incidents I glimpsed; You know the way weatherboards total – and the little dots of green encounters I had; spots of history creak in the summer? The way and white floated in the pre-dawn and memory I came across; sparks houses breathe as the temperature dim like messages from some of research that flew up from a turns? As I sat down with my Lucy other fairy world. And I thought, page. Sequences of events unfolded and my Elsie to work out who they as I always think, that I could give in front of me but I saw the book’s were, I heard my own house talking that view to Elsie or to Lucy – I characters step into them and push around me, the boards muttering notice things to gift them every day. them in another direction. And it as the afternoons cooled down. As long as I’m in Brisbane, I think was my job to piece all this together Sometimes the wind slammed a perhaps I always will. like a jigsaw, so that a whole suite door, or something pattered fast of new lives – discrete, yet strangely across the roof. And as I listened to intersecting – started to come into this domestic percussion, I began to view. I moved both families into my Ashley Hay’s work has been praised wonder if Lucy’s house might talk for its “incandescent intelligence and a own small, boxlike cottage: it was to her. How does a house carry the rare sensibility”. Her awards include the easier to have them all close by. stories of its previous occupants, Colin Roderick Award and the NSWPLA and how might it transmit them It’s six months now since A Hundred People’s Choice (for The Railwayman’s to the people who next live there? Small Lessons was published, and I Wife) and the Bragg/UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing for “The Forest at How might Lucy sense what Elsie’s miss my Lucy and my Elsie. I loved the Edge of Time”. life had been? Was Elsie a ghost, them both so much that it was hard or an idea? Was she some sort of to let them go – although it’s nice Her latest novel is A Hundred Small preserved image – a photo, or a to have them out of the house. It Lessons. She lives in Brisbane.

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More of a wonky goat track…

Victoria Carless

Every family has its folklore, and teenage main characters in my first mine is that when I was small my novel, The Dream Walker. The book father bought me a Little Golden is set in the crucible that is senior Book every Sunday when he bought year, where you are poised to jump the newspaper. We weren’t a headlong into your future, both the bookish family, but I can relate to imagined one and the real. Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye when he says: ‘I’m quite As a young adult in the early illiterate, but I read a lot.’ noughties, I wrote a short story which landed me a place in the As a teenager I wrote very deep and professional Writing and Editing very metaphysical poetry. Nowadays course at RMIT. Yet, in a decision I don’t really understand what any of that still surprises me, I decided it means, but I guess that’s not the to do a creative arts PhD in North point of teenage poetry? Queensland, mostly because I thought I had a better shot at a And despite my earnestness, this stable income after. poetry reminds me that this was a really creative time in my life. You But you can’t deny your true nature. feel things deeply as a young adult During my twenties and early and you’re starting to think about thirties I worked in a department your place in the world. In hindsight, store, as a spruiker, front of house this is probably why I chose to have at an art gallery. I interviewed

16 WQ people at petrol stations for a my manuscript by the time I landed track; I’ve oscillated for years road crash study and pretended a government arts job. between yearning to call myself a to have ailments for medical writer and seeking refuge from my student exams. I taught young Structurally speaking, my first true nature in ‘proper’ jobs. people play-writing in schools; in novel was like spaghetti – a lot And I can’t wait to write the next Babinda we made a show about pig of curly writing, but not much of one. If you’re wondering, I did do a hunting. I worked for a construction an organising principle. This was scene map. But I’m already going a company, writing reports and made obvious after attending some bit off track. project recommendations for writing courses with QWC. Learning meetings I did not attend. I how to plot and do a scene map sincerely hope those buildings was a revelation. Yet I realised I weren’t built. I lectured in Effective needed to not know a few things Structurally Communication, something I’m about my story too; a little mystery not sure I’ve mastered to this day. I was required or I’d get bored. As speaking, my first wrote grant applications for not-for- Holden Caulfield says, ‘The trouble novel was like profit organisations. And I danced with me is, I like it when somebody as a mascot on stage in a costume digresses. It’s more interesting and spaghetti. that resembled a lump of coal, for all.’ I was beginning to understand an event sponsored by a mining my own process, to trust it, which company. I tried not to read too helped immensely when working on much into that casting decision. my next story. My second manuscript, which I started in 2014, centred on an idea I danced as a that I couldn’t ignore. I’d woken up one day after a particularly wacky mascot on stage dream. I remember thinking that it in a costume that hadn’t seemed like mine. Had I got the wrong one? Somehow slipped resembled a lump inside someone else’s head while asleep? I wrote to find out. I decided of coal … to go freelance, which enabled me to finish the manuscript that would And the whole time I wrote, become The Dream Walker. I edited mostly plays, some of which my first draft, edited it again and were produced. I got better at it, sent it off for a few development with the help of some wonderful opportunities. In 2015 I was lucky dramaturges. enough to be selected for the QWC Hachette Manuscript Development Then I finished my postgraduate Program. There I met my wonderful studies. I wondered if I’d done publisher and editor, as well as an the right thing, because the inspiring bunch of writers whom academic job I’d been hoping I now call friends. With Hachette for didn’t materialise. I began to Australia I’ve learnt how to do a write a novel, in between pulling structural edit, a copy edit, and a Victoria Carless is a novelist, playwright, a 2016-17 State Library QANZAC100 together selection criteria for job proof edit. The Dream Walker was Fellow and holds a PhD in creative applications. It transpired that I published in July this year. writing. She teaches script writing at wasn’t great at the latter, a bit too tertiary level as well as contributing creative in my responses maybe. I’d As you can see, my path to writing performing arts reviews to RealTime practically finished a first draft of has been more of a wonky goat Australia.

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 17 or incarceration. I can share my The lucky ones views on issues that I believe to be important and, perhaps aside from the inane chatter that has Richard Yaxley somehow become the blood of social media, escape censure. I can publish stories that critically articulate aspects of the social fabric of our nation and have those stories commented on, denounced, I can wake up each regarded with indifference, celebrated – but read. I can day and write and lampoon iconic figures, make my be the person I characters (and myself) profane or blasphemous, write graphically, want to be. metaphorically, fantastically or nastily, be bold, be inventive, be derivative – but read. I am one of the lucky ones. I’m lucky because I’m not a writer rotting in jail on a trumped-up I can go to festivals that openly I have a welcoming writing space. charge of perpetuating terrorist celebrate what we do and hang out I have a computer, an internet propaganda, a charge that with other people who care about connection and a swag of jottings emanated from my passionately stories and words. I can be invited that, like swelling raindrops, are written support for the rights of into schools and talk to students stowed safely in a cloud. I have a marginalised cultures. I’m not about how language proficiency is comfortable chair and a desk from under house-arrest because the key to personal empowerment Ikea that I constructed with the I created a novel that was and know that, for the most part, assistance of myriad Allen keys condemned by my government as the message will have some and those weirdly androgynous anti-government. I’m not a poet resonance, and that these kids – cartoon-instruction dudes. I have living in exile, unable to return despite all the gloomy data-driven a pleasurable view: trees, the home – ever – because I crafted pap about Australian children cerulean sky and madcap birds. I works which chastised, beautifully, becoming less literate when the have food and coffee nearby and the ongoing repression of non- reality is that they’re teenagers an abundance of unused stationery mainstream religions. I’m not who understand that chronic that, like Silesius’s rose, simply compelled to write allegorically or testing is judgement rather than exists to be beautiful. via an underground network or in a advancement – will be interesting and empowered and okay. I’m lucky because I can swivel my hidden office – nor am I likely to be chair and see a shelf filled with refused medical treatment and thus In the sense of all that, lucky. perish alone in the custody that was stories, my stories, written courtesy I can read publicly from my works my 11-year reward for speaking out of a supportive family who have and be judged on the quality of my against the injustices that plague given me the time and emotional words rather than perceptions of my homeland. energy needed to create, and a political or cultural intent. I can publisher who works with me and In Australia, in Queensland, I be represented in shops, online, believes in me. can write and speak about my in reviews, via multiple media Most of all I’m lucky because government’s insipid approach to platforms, and know that my whenever I have an idea, I can write funding the arts and know that my representation will be fair, and if it. Think, share and live it – without words will not be redacted, nor not, that I have recourse to make it trepidation, without fear. will they lead to my persecution that way.I can wake up each day and

18 WQ write and be the person that I want ever said DON’T or STOP. No one space, my cloud, my desk, provide to be. ever said, WRITE THAT AGAIN AND ample. WE’LL KILL YOU. And yes, I might struggle to make a Lucky, aren’t I? Aren’t we? All of us. living as a writer because the local Of course I wish there was more market is small and competitive, money, more formal support, So very lucky. and getting published and thus more overt valuing. Of course in distributed in a traditional sense a funny little alcove in my head- is tough but that’s okay because it space I would like my stories to was my choice to do this – the point be feted and sold overseas into being that I had a choice. I could’ve mega-markets and made into hit been a desk construction expert movies, to coagulate into a legacy Richard Yaxley is a Brisbane-based or ruck-rover for the Hawthorn that will be forever cherished. Of writer. His latest novel This Is My Song Football Club (my earliest ambition), course I want the world, in all its (Scholastic) has been shortlisted for but I chose to exercise my right to gloriousness, callousness and the Young Adult section of the 2017 write and no one – no person, no unpredictability – but for now, and Queensland Literary Awards. Richard corporation, no state body – held into the future if it be so, Australia, is studying a Master’s degree in human that it should be otherwise. No one Queensland, my home, my writing rights.

How can a writers’ group fair, you should offer to swap The Gregarious benefit you as a writer? manuscripts for proofreading and critiquing. Different sets of Writer: Straight off, joining a writers’ eyes pick up different faults. Once group gives you a whole bunch of you start handing your prose out The benefits friends who have the same issues, for critiquing, it is important to problems, joys, and celebrations. remember that even negative advice of joining a You’ve just hired your own cheer is given with kind intentions. When squad and a flock of shoulders-to- returning the favour, don’t forget to writers’ group cry-on. You can pop the loneliness point out what you thought was good bubble with just a phone call to a writing as well as any flaws. fellow member of your group. Lynne Lumsden Green Every writers’ group has a different (Secretary, Springfield Writers Every person in your writers’ group dynamic, as it is a sum of its parts. Group). will have a unique range of skills If you do decide to join a group, you and knowledge, and not just about become a cog in a complex and Contrary to all the stereotypes writing. Use your group as your very exciting device. Spread the good oil! of the lonely writer, writers are a own brains trust to add authentic Invite other writing friends to join gregarious bunch. We like to hang details to your prose. If they don’t your group. out together and talk ‘shop’, just know about something – say, for like everybody else. Conferences example, the proper way to use are great occasions for that simple a crossbow – they might know of Are you looking for a writers’ reason, as we get a chance to someone who does. Don’t forget to group? Is your group looking mingle with our tribe. However, offer up your own talents in return. for new members? conferences are rare. You can make Check out the directory of Writers writing friends online, but you can’t What is the magical part of share a cuppa with an online buddy. Groups in Queensland on QWC’s being in a writers’ group? The best way of being part of your website: qldwriters.org.au/qld- writing community is to join – or You have a pool of friends writers-groups start – a writers’ group. who will read your work! To be

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 19 I had been aspiring to share picture books in an electronic format for years, before the iPad was a glint in Steve Job’s eye. (I have to admit: my vision was limited to thinking of them only as viewable on a computer screen.) After going to The Reader, if:book’s symposium eBooks – deliberate in 2011, meeting Virginia Murdoch, developer of Book.ish, hearing glowing inspirational goals of tech before you celebrate guys and gals, I could see it was a possibility in the not-so-distant Emma Mactaggart future. I knew the difference between fixed layout and reflowable text1. I was ready for this!

In a steady voice (often used by anyone in a position of authority to affray any heightening of anxiety) he explained what was wrong with my wonderful book.

It was landscape in design. This As I celebrated finishing a picture was good. This was bad. Good in book, self-congratulating myself the sense that as you looked at a … it was on my level of professionalism single page of the double, it would disheartening to given that I had engaged a talented fit an eReader with a landscape illustrator, an experienced graphic rectangle screen. However, it would understand that designer, a well-versed editor and not fit both pages. An eBook is one product, a an amazing printer, I’d always only viewable one page at a time. simply assumed that the step of A second page in a double spread print version, didn’t translating this PDF print-ready file from a printed book does make into another file type relevant to an sense without text as the pages simply translate eReader would be easy peasy, just are viewed together. A page of without a great deal like saving a .doc as a .pdf, or a .pdf illustration in an eBook, viewable on as a .jpeg. an iPad, may NOT make any sense of serendipity. without text. I am sure now you can The celebrations didn’t quite feel my pain! continue into the evening. Actually, they didn’t even continue into the I was an accidental early adopter next hour, as my eBook specialist of eBooks, having been given my (see: professional – getting advice first eReader for Christmas in 2009. and input from all the right people!) Here I was, discovering first-hand tut-tutted as he scrolled through the portability of books and how the pages. amazing the experiential experience could be for the reader. Yet, later, ‘You have double spreads,’ he said. from a creator’s perspective, it was ‘Yes!’ I replied, delighted with my disheartening to understand that prepared page layouts. one product, a print version, didn’t simply translate without a great ‘Pages without text.’ He couldn’t deal of serendipity. believe I was so slow. It was important to consider the ‘Y e s…’ Now I was aware print book and the eBook as two something was wrong, but for the different products, with a book life of me, I couldn’t work out what. trailer being a third product and

1Fixed page layout means the text is embedded with the illustration and can be resized with the image, but you can’t resize just the text. Reflowable text is used for novels and you can increase the font size and the program automatically repaginates the book for you. 20 WQ advertising material a fourth. It Sometimes, it is just about being is Child’s Play on a custom-made shows just how much consideration given a hint of what can be that USB, a YouTube version of Imagine is required as you work with inspires us. I wanted (and still in 2015, and finally, a successful your illustrator and your graphic want) the entire Child Writes library HTML version of Lily Fabourama designer. Each page needs to stand (books written by children) to be Glamourama in 2017. on its own. Ideally, it should mimic available on an iPad, being gifted the eReader screen dimensions to locations where children are in Now I celebrate! (think landscape rectangle, not crisis. I work really closely with The Child Writes Program offers square, nor portrait rectangle) for Kyle Buchanan (Brink Publishing) primary school aged children the optimum experience. Consider if and it is completely his fault that opportunity to write and illustrate you wish to ‘enrich’ the text, that Boogie Books (Publisher of Child their own children’s picture books is, have another screen behind it Writes) is now the largest publisher childwrites.com.au via links, taking the reader to more on Amazon of children’s picture information or images. Oh the books (written by children for Child amount of learning required! Writes). His fault!

Fortunately, while creating an While it can be challenging for us Emma Mactaggart has been teaching the craft of writing and illustrating to eBook may seem overwhelming, as writers to hand over our ‘baby’, children for the last 15 years via her there is an amazing amount of when it comes to eBooks, I suggest Child Writes program. Emma wrote information available out there to tossing the baby out as quickly as and originally published her latest book help you navigate the decision- possible to those in the know. Brink Lily Fabourama Glamourama in 2004. It making process. It does mean also created various incarnations has been reimagined by Ester De Boer, you can get totally distracted and of eBooks for my own books. First won an IPPY silver medal, and has been disappear into that technical rabbit a PDF version of Child Writes: translated into Bahasa for the Priscilla hole! Creating a Children’s Picture Book Hall Foundation.

courses all the way through to successful authors. Meanwhile, our Wolves in writing their first novels, all online. introduction to grammar course But we wanted to do better. is a crash-course in grammar, the garden punctuation and composition, a That’s why we launched our new great introduction or refresher to Catherine Moller online learning platform. The new the technical side of English. site is dedicated solely to online learning, with a sparkly user- Our original courses will all be Sometimes, you just can’t get to friendly interface. There you can making the crossover too, so if you’ve the writing workshops you want find short self-guided courses to been considering signing up for our to attend. Maybe you live too far introduce the basics of writing craft, introduction to creative writing or story, away; maybe you don’t have the and longer, tutor-led courses for or looking out for the next iteration time; maybe you can’t leave your more advanced writers. All self- of Year of the Novel or Year of the Edit, house because it’s surrounded guided courses are available 24 never fear: now is the perfect time to by wolves. Sometimes life gets in hours a day, 7 days a week – perfect enrol. Not sure if online learning is for the way of your writing. But now for busy schedules. you? Try our mini Kickstart your Writing we all live in the future, so why course for only $19. not put your NBN connection to The new platform also introduces work and sign up for a writing two new self-guided courses. So no matter where you are or what course online? Our introduction to publishing your schedule looks like (or how course demystifies the worlds many wolves are in your garden), For the past few years, QWC of traditional and independent you have no excuse for not writing! has had tons of success guiding publishing by revealing the writing hundreds of writers from beginner journeys of three very different www.learn.qldwriters.org.au

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 21 Competitions and opportunities

Celtic Mythology Short program for published and (PhD, MSc, MLitt, MPhil, LLM, International Radio Story Competition unpublished Indigenous MASt, Diploma, MBA, etc), Playwriting Competition writers at Varuna. you are eligible for a Gates Prizes $500, $250 & $100 Are you a promising writer Closing date 15 December scholarship. + publication in Irish Imbas living outside the UK? Closing date 6 December or Celtic Mythology Collection. Fee free Would you like to win a trip 4 January to London and have your Closing date 10 December varuna.com.au Fee free play broadcast globally on Fee US$7 Book of the Dead Horror gatescambridge.org BBC World Service? Writers irishimbasbooks.com/irish- Anthology from around the world are imbas-celtic-mythology- invited to submit scripts City of the Dead are looking Fiction Factory Short short-story-competition for the International Radio for budding or established Story Competition Playwriting Competition 2018. Hamlin Garland Award authors to submit entries for Stories to 3,000 words (except their first horror anthology. children’s and YA). Cash Closing date 31 January for the Short Story The ten best stories will be prizes, optional critique and Fee free US$2000 and publication in published in the Book of the publication. bbc.co.uk/programmes/ Beloit Fiction Journal to the Dead anthology. Closing date 7 January articles/2pWGP top unpublished story on any Closing date 20 December Fee £6 4hqkXmkH6n28gCPdQw/ theme, up to 7,000 words. international-radio- Fee Free fiction-factory.biz Closing date 10 December playwriting-competition-2018 cityofthedeadtours.com/book- Fee US$20 of-the-dead The Book Illustration Fish Short Memoir beloit.edu/bfj/garland Competition Contest The Mozzie Poetry Prizes Submit three illustrations and This contest is an opportunity Deborah Rogers Independent poetry magazine a binding design for a book. to have your memoir Foundation Writer’s publishing over 400 poems Prize £5,000 commission for published. Short memoir a year. To celebrate its nine illustrations and a binding Award pieces of up to 4,000 words 25th year, an anonymous design for the book, to be £10,000 prize open to eligible, with 10 to be supporter has donated funds published by The Folio Society. unpublished writers published in the 2018 Fish for three prizes of $100 each. residing within the British Closing date 17 January Anthology. First prize €1,000. Closing date 31 December Commonwealth and Eire. Fee £25 general, £15 students Closing date 31 January Submit 20-30,000 words of Fee free competitions. Fee €16 a work in progress, fiction australianpoetry.org/ houseofillustration.org.uk/book- fishpublishing.com/ or non-fiction, which is not competitions/the-mozzie- illustration-competition-2018 competition/short-memoir- under option or contract. poetry-prizes contest Closing date 13 December Bath Novella-in-Flash Melbourne Visiting Poets Fee free Award Magarey Medal for Program deborahrogersfoundation.org/ 6,000 - 18,000 words, but each Biography A residency-based initiative flash should not be more than writers-award Awarded biennially to the coordinated out of the School 1,000. Prizes £300, £100, £100 woman who has published of Media & Communication, and publication in a 1-volume The East Gippsland Shire the best biographical writing RMIT University, in 3-novella collection. Council Hal Porter Short on an Australian subject. partnership with Australian Story Competition Closing date 29 January Books published in 2016 or Poetry, Melbourne Spoken Australian writers are invited 2017 eligible. Word and Rabbit: A Journal for Fee £16 to enter a short story, written Nonfiction Poetry. bathflashfictionaward.com Closing date 31 January in any style, for a first prize of Fee Free $1,000. Closing date 31 December Hope Prize Short Story theaha.org.au/awards-and- Closing date 15 December Fee free Competition prizes/magarey-medal-for- australianpoetry.org/ap- Fee $10 Fiction or fact. Story must biography residencies/melbourne- eastgippslandartgallery.org. convey the experience of visiting-poets-program au/halporter2017 people facing hardship in Maurice Saxby Creative their lives. Judges: Cate Gates Cambridge Development Program Blanchett, Quentin Bryce and Varuna Fellowship for CBCA (Victoria) is offering Scholarships Kate Grenville. 2000 - 5000 Indigenous Writers a 2-week mentorship in If you are a citizen of any words. First prize $10,000. Melbourne from 17 Aug–2 A 3-year, $30,000 grant country outside the UK Closing date 31 January Sep for emerging children’s from the Copyright Agency applying to pursue a full-time writers and/or illustrators. will fund a new one-week residential course of study at Fee free residency fellowship the University of Cambridge bsl.org.au/events/the-hope-prize Closing date 31 January

22 WQ Events

Fee free Entries for the 2018 Banjo AWM Writing Races Paterson Australian Email Pamela, [email protected]. The Australian Writer’s au or mail to Pamela Horsey, Poetry Competition Marketplace online holds December book Coordinator Maurice Saxby For poets performing their regular writing races on CD Program, PO Box 781, own original poetry. Held in clubs at Avid the AWM Facebook page KEW VIC 3101 Orange, NSW on 17 February Reader 2018 (Banjo Paterson’s birthday). to support and encourage WK Hancock Prize writers. Every week writers Closing date 7 February • Saturday 2 Dec - Offers recognition to an gather together virtually and Fee $5 adult, free youth It's a Bloody Crime Australian scholar, who has dedicate an hour to practice Bookclub at 2pm recently published first book of rotarycluboforange.org.au/ the craft of writing. history. First prize $2,000. Works pages/events.php (Bluebird, Bluebird by published in 2016-2017 eligible. Date Weekly Attica Locke) Forty South Tasmanian Closing date 31 January Location Online, free Writer’s Prize 2018 • Tuesday 5 Dec - Fee free Open to writers from facebook.com/AWMonline.au Australian Fiction theaha.org.au/awards-and- anywhere in Australia for Bookclub 7pm (A New prizes/w-k-hancock-prize short stories up to 3,000 Capricon – Save the England Affair by words on an island or island- Golfwell’s 2nd Annual Golf date resonant theme. First prize Steven Carroll) Writing Competition $500 and publication in Capricon Steampunk and • Wednesday 6 Dec - Stories about golf, fiction or non- Tasmania 40 South. Pop Culture Convention. fiction, up to 700 words. First Fiona's Open Bookclub Closing date 18 February Date 7 April prize $125 worth of Amazon 7pm (The Ninth Hour books from Golfwell Books. fortysouth.com.au/ Location Rockhampton tasmanian-writers-prize by Alice McDermott) Closing date 1 February Regional Library Fee free Flash 500 Short Story facebook.com/ • Wednesday 6 Dec teamgolfwell.com/golfwell-s- Competition CapriConRockhampton - Good Sex Award golf-story-contest.html Open-themed competition, all Bookclub 7pm genres are accepted, including (Auletris by Anais Nin) CapriCon 2018 call for by or for children. 1,000 – 3,000 artists words. Prizes: £500, £200, £100. • Thursday 7 Dec The Rockhampton Regional Closing date 28 February - Fiona's Daylight Council Library Service is Fee £7 Bookclub 9.30am (The calling for expressions of Ninth Hour by Alice interest from speculative flash500.com authors, graphic artists, McDermott) Nature and Place Poetry poets and artists to attend • Thursday 7 Dec the annual CapriCon 2018 Competition Steampunk and Pop Culture First prize £1000. Poems - The Young and Convention on Saturday 7 are invited that deal with any Restless Bookclub April 2018. aspect of nature and place. 7pm (Midnight at Closing date 2 February Closing date 1 March the Bright Ideas Fee free Fee £6 for the first poem and Bookstore by Matthew £3.50 for subsequent entries [email protected] Sullivan) therialto.co.uk/pages/nature- Newcastle Short Story poetry-competition-2018 Date monthly Award International OCD Location 193 Calling for short stories up to 2,000 words. Over $7,000 in Foundation Blog Boundary St, West End prizes. Top 35 works will be Looking for submissions Qld 4101 published in the 2018 anthology. from those living with OCD Closing date 5 February or BDD, their family/friends, researchers, and medical avidreader.com.au/ Fee $16.50 professionals. Stories should hunterwriterscentre.org/ be >1,000 words. bookclubs newcastle-short-story- Closing date ongoing award-2018.html Fee free iocdf.org/ocd-stories

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 23 Open calls

About Kids Books Escape Harper Impulse Junior fiction, email submissions Digital imprint of Harlequin Digital first imprint of Harper Collins, aboutkidsbooks.com/submissions Australia, various categories of entertaining fiction for women. Email romance, online submissions submissions Affirm Press escapepublishing.com.au/ harperimpulseromance.com/write- Fiction and non-fiction (not children’s submission for-us or YA). Email submissions Finch Publishing Highlight Publishing affirmpress.com.au/submissions Biography, parenting, social issues, Various categories, hard copy, email Allen & Unwin child health, memoir, family or online submissions relationships, mental health and The Friday Pitch runs all week, check highlightpublishing.com.au/ fitness. Email submissions on website for submission details submission-guidelines Thursdays only allenandunwin.com/about-allen- finch.com.au/submissions MidnightSun Publishing and-unwin/submission-guidelines Primarily literary fiction, hard copy Giramondo Publishing Aurealis submissions Fiction, non-fiction, poetry. Online Science fiction, fantasy or horror midnightsunpublishing.com/ submissions short stories 2,000 – 8,000 words. submissions Submissions from Australian and giramondopublishing.com/contribute New Zealand writers: 1 Feb–30 Sep. Mills & Boon Others: 1 Aug–30 Sep Griffith Review Romance, online submissions aurealis.com.au/submissions Articles on each issue’s theme, millsandboon.com.au/submissions 2,000-6,000 words. Check website for Big Sky Publishing submission details Odyssey Books Primarily non-fiction and children’s griffithreview.com/submit-to-griffith- Digital-first publisher, most email submissions review genres, topics or formats. Online bigskypublishing.com.au/ submissions Guillotine Press Submissions.aspx odysseybooks.com.au/submissions Literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, Black Inc and Nero Books graphic novels, hybrid texts. Email Overland submissions General email submissions, not Non-fiction articles, online accepting unsolicited poetry or guillotinepress.com.au/submissions submissions children’s books overland.org.au/submit/pitch-to- Hachette Australia blackincbooks.com/submissions overland Fiction and non-fiction. Check Bloomsbury Spark website for limitations. Email Pantera Press submissions Bloomsbury YA digital imprint, email Fiction and non-fiction with wide submissions hachette.com.au/submissions/ appeal. Email submissions bloomsbury.com/au/bloomsbury- panterapress.com.au/fiction-and- Harlequin Books Australia spark/submissions non-fiction-how-to-submit Commercial fiction, memoir or non- Carina Press fiction Australian stories for adults. Pan Macmillan Email submissions Various categories of romance, Commercial, literary, non-fiction, mystery, crime and erotic fiction, harlequinbooks.com.au/submissions children’s, YA. Submit 10am-4pm online submissions first Monday every month carinapress.com/blog/submission- panmacmillan.com.au/manuscript- guidelines Monday

24 WQ Pencilled In – Pen Licence Wombat Books A publication for teen Asian Early readers, middle fiction and Australian artists picture books, online submissions pencilled.in/pen-licence wombatbooks.com.au/authors/ submissions Penguin Random House Australia Xoum Adult and children’s manuscripts, Non-fiction and fiction for adults and check website for submission children, email submissions options xoum.com.au/submissions penguin.com.au/getting-published

Rhiza Press YA fiction only, online submissions rhizapress.com.au/submissions

Scribe Literary fiction and serious non- fiction via email, Jan-Mar and Jul- Sep only scribepublications.com.au/about-us/ manuscript-policy

Text Publishing A professional organisation for writers of romantic Fiction, non-fiction, upper primary fiction with more than 1000 members, including and YA. Hard copy submissions only best-selling authors and hot new talent. textpublishing.com.au/manuscript- submissions

The Lifted Bow Writing and critique groups Romance author community Join a writing group in your area or online, Come together with over 1000 authors to Literary manuscripts and articles. find a critique partner, or access the discuss everything related to writing, from Check website for details. Online Individual Writers Support Scheme. genre to craft, publishing to marketing. submissions theliftedbrow.submittable.com/ submit Contests Hearts Talk Enter our annual writing contests designed Receive our monthly journal, packed full of to motivate you and assist with your writing craft and industry know-how. Walker Books development. YA and middle-grade manuscripts, first Wednesday of each month. Email submissions Annual conference and courses Promotional opportunities click.walkerbooks.com.au/ Attend our annual conference and other Got a new book coming out? Want to raise professional development opportunities your profile? RWA offers a number of free walkerwednesday such as online courses. promotional channels to members.

Promoting excellence in romantic fiction. www.romanceaustralia.com

WWW.QLDWRITERS.ORG.AU/MAGAZINE 25 About QWC membership

Founding patrons Institutional Members Legal Advice Thea Astley ACT Writers We advise contacting the Arts Law Bruce Dawe Australian Society of Authors Centre of Australia: artslaw.com.au, T 02 9356 2566, F 02 9358 6475, toll Geoffrey Dutton Book Links free 1800 221 457. Alternatively, the David Malouf Brisbane Square Library Australian Society of Authors offers a Michael Noonan Byron Writers Festival contract advice service – details and Jill Shearer Children’s Book Council of Australia – FAQs are available on their website asauthors.org. Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) Qld Branch Children’s Book Council of Australia – Alex Adsett Publishing Services offers Honorary Life Members National Branch commercial publishing contract advice Immanuel Lutheran College to authors and offers a discount to QWC Hilary Beaton members, alexadsett.com.au. Martin Buzacott Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary Mount Ommaney Library Heidi Chopey Terms & Conditions Kate Eltham NT Writers’Centre Refund/Returns Policy Kevin Gillespie Northlakes Library QWC does not offer refunds on books, Laurie Hergenhan NSW Writers’ Centre magazines or other products purchased Queensland Poetry Festival from QWC, except where the goods Helen Horton are defective by fault of the publisher, Lynette Kellow Queensland University of Technology manufacturer or distributor. (Kelvin Grove) Craig Munro Riverbend Books Philip Neilsen If you have purchased an event ticket SA Writers Centre and Queensland Writers Centre Robyn Sheahan-Bright Sunnybank Library must cancel that event, we will try to Meg Vann reschedule it for a later date. If we Sunshine Coast Libraries cannot reschedule the event, or if you Group Members St Patrick’s Senior College Library are unable to attend on the amended Brisbane Writers Group Tasmanian Writers’ Centre date, your payment will be refunded in full. Brotherhood of the Wordless Townsville Library Bundaberg Writers’ Club The University of Queensland If you cancel a booking for, or are Burdekin Readers’ & Writers’ Assoc Inc University of Queensland Press unable to attend, an event, Queensland Writers Centre will not provide a cash Carindale Writers Group Voices on the Coast refund. If your cancellation is made at Fairfield Writers Writers Victoria least 5 business days prior to the event, Garden City Creative Writers WritingWA you may use your original payment as Geebung Writers credit towards the cost of attending another QWC workshop, seminar, Mackay Writers Group masterclass or event (space permitting). Macleay Island Inspirational If the alternative event is valued at Writers Group less than the value of the original Our Words, Our Stories booking, no cash will be refunded for the balance. The alternative event you Ravenshoe Writers Group select must take place in the same Society of Women Writer’s calendar year as the original booking. If Queensland Inc there are no available places in another Stanthorpe Writers event, your credit may be used to Townsville Writers & Publishers Centre purchase or extend QWC membership. Tropical Writers Inc If you have paid a deposit to secure a Vision Writers Group place in a Year of the Writer course Write Links (Year of the Novel, Year of the Edit etc.), QWC Members enjoy a your deposit will only be refunded in full Writers Rendezvous if you cancel more than six weeks prior Writing with a Vision presale period with 5% to the course start date. Cancellations Wynnum Creative Writers discount for the QWC after this date will not be refunded. Yon Beyond workshops and events All credit must be allocated within 30 days of issue by making a subsequent program. booking. Please note: credit cannot be used to purchase books or other products available from the QWC shop.

26 WQ QWC membership benefits Membership form

When you become a member of QWC, you become part of a vibrant To join QWC please complete the information below writing community with access to a wide variety of resources and or join online at qldwriters.org.au. information. Please complete and return to: Queensland Writers Centre, PO Box 3488, Writing Queensland (WQ) magazine South Brisbane Queensland 4101 | F 07 3842 9920 | Exclusively for QWC members, the quarterly WQ Magazine features [email protected] articles from industry professionals and writers. Applicant’s details

Members-only programs and services (costs apply) Name ______The Writers Surgery offers members 90-minute consultations to discuss Organisation (if relevant) ______their projects (including grant applications) face-to-face, by Skype or by telephone with an experienced editor or published author. Postal Address ______Year of the Writer series is a suite of masterclasses to help you plan, ______write and edit your novel. ______Postcode ______The Novelist’s Boot Camp is an intensive weekend of brainstorming, plotting and practical exercises to get your novel started and well on its way. Telephone ______Email ______Advertising discounts Please indicate New member Renewing Members receive a discount on advertising in WQ and our weekly e-newsletter, a fantastic way to promote your business to an engaged, educated readership of thousands, with wide interests in culture, music, Duration and type of membership food, family and travel as well as reading and writing. One Year Two Year Print PDF* Print PDF* Full membership $70 $70 $130 $130 Concession $55 $55 $100 $100 QWC member discounts Associate $50 $50 $90 $90 Passionate (5 yrs) $280 $280 QWC members receive discounts on QWC’s annual program of Youth (26 and under) $55 workshops, masterclasses and industry seminars. (includes Express Media membership) Presentation of your membership card will also provide you with Writers’ group $99 $99 discounts at the following places: Organisation $150 $150 Bookshops Overseas supporter $50 (no GST) $90 (no GST) • 10% discount at: Donation $ Byblos Bookshop, Mareeba (discount on second-hand books only); (Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible) Dymocks, Brisbane City; Dymocks, Townsville; Folio Books, Brisbane City; The Jungle Bookshop, Port Douglas; The Library Shop, Payment SLQ, Brisbane; Maleny Bookshop, Maleny; Mary Who, Townsville; Riverbend Books, Bulimba; Rosetta Books, Maleny; The Written Please find enclosed my payment of $ ______Dimension Bookshop, Noosa Junction; The Yellow Door Books and Music, Yeppoon. Mastercard Visa Cheque Money order Card number Other discounts

• Author Photos by Profile Portraits Australia: $110 for 3 low res photos (normally $150); $140 for 3 high res photos (normally Expiry date ______/ ______$195). Contact Giulio on 0417 604256 [email protected] / CCV # (last 3 digits on back of credit card) ______profileportraitsaus.blogspot.com.au (mileage costs may apply) • Developmental editing and manuscript assessment services by Cardholder’s name ______Totally Edited: 10% discount. Contact Richard Andrews at totallyedited.com Signature ______• La Boite Theatre tickets $25 (preview) $39 (in season). • Olvar Wood Writers Retreat offers a 10% discount to QWC members *PDF option means that you receive WQ as a PDF copy into your inbox, not on all their writer services: olvarwood.com.au as a hard-copy magazine. All prices include GST. Donations are welcome and are tax deductible. QWC has a no-refund policy. Provided three • $5 memberships at Dendy Cinemas working days’ notice is given, participants may use the paid funds as credit towards the cost of attending another workshop, seminar or event (space permitting). All credit must be used within 30 days of issue. 27 Milestones

Amanda Niehaus’ ‘Breeding for Poetry. ‘Xeno’s Paradox’ was Janet Lee‘s unpublished Breath and Heartbeats’ was a Season’ won first-place in the longlisted in UC VC’s International manuscript The Killing of finalist in the 2017 Grieve Writing 2017 VU Short Story Prize for Poetry Prize, and ‘Drone’ was Louisa was shortlisted for the Competition, won the Aust New and Emerging Writers. longlisted in the 2017 Vallum Award Emerging Writer – Manuscript Funeral Directors Association Amanda O’Callaghan’s for Poetry. ‘Company Men’ was Award in the 2017 QLAs. Prize, and is included in the 2017 shortlisted story ‘Things’ was shortlisted in the Newcastle Poetry Jenn J McLeod’s novel A Place Grieve Anthology. published in the Bristol Short Prize. ‘Appraisal’ received Highly to Remember will be released Megan Norris won the Davitt Story Prize Anthology (vol 10). Commended and ‘Endurance’ worldwide by Head of Zeus, and in (Nonfiction) award for Look came third in the Open Section of Andrea Baldwin was awarded Australia and NZ by HarperCollins. What You Made Me Do: Fathers the Ipswich Poetry Feast 2017. ‘The a Varuna Fellowship to develop Jo Sandhu’s novel Clan of who kill at Sisters in Crime’s Price’ was published in vol. 77 of the her novel The Illusion of Islands. Wolves was released by 17th Davitt Awards. Southerly Literary Journal. ‘Dinners Penguin Random House. Melissa Ashley‘s The Anna Jacobson was shortlisted with Dead People’ was shortlisted Birdman’s Wife was shortlisted for the Qld Premier’s Young in the Oxford-Brookes International Joanna Beresford’s short story for the UQ Fiction Book Award Publishers and Writers Poetry Competition and ‘The War on ‘Wild Goose Chase’ won second in the 2017 QLAs, and for The Awards in the 2017 QLAs. the War on the War’ was published prize in The Stringybark Dog Eat Courier-Mail 2017 People’s Her unpublished manuscript in Issue 5.2 of Meniscus Journal. Dog Short Story Award 2017. How to Knit a Human was also Choice Qld Book of the Year. Daniel Young’s ‘Dalian Blood Jonathan Hadwen‘s vignette shortlisted for the Emerging Melissa Fagan’s memoir What Futures’ won the Transportation collection All That Wasted Heat Writer – Manuscript Award. Will Be Worn will be published Press 2017 Smoke flash fiction was released by Vine Leaves by Transit Lounge in 2018. Anita Heiss’ Barbed Wire competition. Press, and was a semi-finalist and Cherry Blossoms was in the 2017 Vine Leaves Mocco Wollert’s article ‘The Diane Demetre’s romantic shortlisted for The Courier-Mail Vignette Collection Award. Joys (and Guilt) of Grandparents’ suspense Retribution won 2017 People’s Choice Qld Book was published in Oct Your Time the RWA Best Unpublished Karen Alexander’s writing of the Year in the 2017 QLAs. magazine and her poems ‘The Romance Manuscript 2017. prompt was included in Penguin Belinda Raposo was selected Random House’s The Writers’ Hat’ and ‘Coca Cola Ad’ were 2018 black&write! Fellowships call for entries Edwina Shaw was selected for the Aust Film Television Academy writing prompts blog. published in the anthology as an Emerging Writer-in- Redemption: 2017 by Bent and Radio School (AFTRS)/ Kathy Andrews released her State Library of Queensland’s black&write! Fellowships are now open for Residence in the Katharine Banana Books in association with Screen Qld’s Talent Camp. children’s picture book My Susannah Prichard Writers the Writer’s Anthology Group. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers across Australia. Ben Marshall’s unpublished Centre 2018 program. Her short Mum is a Parasite Scientist. Nick Earls‘ Vancouver was manuscript The Fox was memoir ‘Thirty Years Gone’ That’s RAD! during the Qld shortlisted for the UQ Fiction Book shortlisted for the Emerging won the Lifeline Prize and was National Science Week launch. Two winners will each receive: Award in the 2017 QLAs, and for Writer – Manuscript Award in published in the Hunter Writers Kathy George was runner-up The Courier-Mail 2017 People’s the 2017 QLAs. Centre’s 2017 Grieve Anthology. in the Field of Words Memoir • $10,000 prize money Choice Qld Book of the Year. Bill Wilkie‘s The Daintree Eileen O’Hely launched her Competition for ‘Isolation’. Nicola Scholes’ poem ‘Evening • manuscript development with the black&write! editing team Blockade: The Battle for YA novel PEP Squad: Freshman Kathy Hoopmann’s book All Birds Still Life With Red Apples and Australia’s Tropical Rainforests Year at Where the Wild Things Have Anxiety won a silver medal in • publication opportunity with Hachette Australia Proteas’ was published in the was shortlisted for the Qld Are Bookshop. the Living Now Book Awards (USA). Premier’s Award for a Work of Spring 2017 edition of Meanjin. Emma Ashmere’s short story She has signed with Wombat Books State Significance in 2017 QLAs. Richard Yaxley‘s This is My Song was ‘The Sketchers’ was published to co-write a children’s novel with shortlisted for the GU Young Adult Carmen Leigh Keates’ Meteorites in the Sept/Oct NGV Magazine. Josie Santomauro, and is a finalist Book Award in the 2017 QLAs. was shortlisted for the SLQ Felix Calvino was awarded a for the 2017 Autism Qld Creative Open to published and unpublished authors, this is your chance to join a Poetry Collection – Judith Wright PhD in Creative Writing from UQ. Futures Recognition Awards. Robyn Osborne’s sixth book and growing community of writers! Calanthe Award in the 2017 QLAs. third picture book, My Dog Socks Grace Howell self-published Defense & Foreign Affairs (illustrated by Sadami Konchi), black&write! alumni include Claire Coleman (Terra Nullius), Ali Cobby-Eckermann (Ruby Cass Moriarty‘s 2nd novel Parting her second book, When Life Strategic Policy published Kerry was published by Ford Street. Words was published by UQP. is a Fairytale. Collison’s article ‘The Question of Moonlight and 2017 Windham Campbell Prize winner, Yale University), Sue McPherson West Papuan Independence’ and Tara East’s ‘Heart Sounds’ was Cathy McLennan‘s novel Hazel Barker will release her (Grace Beside Me, currently in production for NITV/ABC Me) and Tristan Savage (Rift Breaker). reviewed his book Rockefeller & shortlisted for the 2017 Avid Saltwater was shortlisted for memoir The Sides of Heaven The Demise of Ibu Pertiwi. Reader Flash Fiction Prize. the Qld Premier’s Award for a with Armour Books in 2018. Entries close 31 Jan 2018 I Free entry Work of State Significance in Kerry White‘s article ‘Veteran Tom Kwok self-published his Ian Bates launched the the 2017 QLAs, and for the UQ recalls: “Vietnam is still fresh memoir Iron Rice Bowl through biography Champion of the Entry guidelines and applications form: slq.qld.gov.au/whats-on/awards Non-Fiction Book Award and in my mind”‘ was published Rainbow Works Pty Ltd, and Quarterdeck: Admiral Sir Enquiries: [email protected] I 07 3842 9985 The Courier-Mail 2017 People’s by Sunshine Coast Daily. participated in the 2017 QUT Erasmus Gower (1742-1814). Choice Qld Book of the Year. Writing as Ky Garvey, Kylie Minns’ Alumni Authors Showcase. James Norris’ short story ‘The Damen O’Brien’s poems ‘New ‘The Beginning’ was shortlisted Venero Armanno‘s novel Burning Wind Forest (kaze-no-mori)’ Born’ and ‘Alternative Energy’ were for the 2017 Avid Reader Flash Down was published with UQP. was shortlisted for Overland‘s shortlisted for the 2017 ACU Prize Fiction Prize. Her story ‘Deep 2017 VU Short Story Prize. Image: Yasmin Smith and Claire Coleman The black&write! Project is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, 28 WQ its arts funding and advisory body. 2018 black&write! Fellowships call for entries State Library of Queensland’s black&write! Fellowships are now open for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers across Australia. Two winners will each receive: • $10,000 prize money • manuscript development with the black&write! editing team • publication opportunity with Hachette Australia

Open to published and unpublished authors, this is your chance to join a growing community of writers! black&write! alumni include Claire Coleman (Terra Nullius), Ali Cobby-Eckermann (Ruby Moonlight and 2017 Windham Campbell Prize winner, Yale University), Sue McPherson (Grace Beside Me, currently in production for NITV/ABC Me) and Tristan Savage (Rift Breaker).

Entries close 31 Jan 2018 I Free entry Entry guidelines and applications form: slq.qld.gov.au/whats-on/awards Enquiries: [email protected] I 07 3842 9985

Image: Yasmin Smith and Claire Coleman The black&write! Project is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. QUEENSLAND WRITERS CENTRE Level 2, State Library of Queensland, Stanley Place, South Brisbane qldwriters.org.au

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