The Minding The Gap: Writing Across Thresholds And Fault Lines Papers – The Refereed Proceedings Of The 19th Conference Of The Australasian Association Of Writing Programs, 2014 are now available under the publications tab

‘Writing the ghost train: rewriting, remaking, rediscovering’ will be the theme of the AAWP’s 20th conference, hosted by Victoria’s Swinburne University of Technology from Saturday 28 November to Tuesday 1 December, 2015.

‘Reading and writing, we are at once visceral and ghost-like; in our bodies and out of them; making imagined places real’.
—Martin Edmond

While this conference looks back to twenty years of work carried out in the field of creative writing studies by the Australasian Association of Writing Programs, it also looks forward to that which is ‘in the making’. With the title of this conference, ‘Writing the ghost train,’ we pay homage to Martin Edmond’s keynote address of 2014, ‘riding the ghost train,’ an insightful exploration of the creative drive of one singular writer. We also acknowledge that for the original inhabitants of this land, the white man was once—and perhaps still is—a ghost. As the planet moves, with a grim relentless urgency toward destruction brought on by our own spectral dreams, we also note both history and nature’s examples: destruction makes room for creation. Working by association, linking the real with the imagined, the memory with the artefact, the archive with the avatar, this conference is an invitation to explore what such scholars as Todorov, Genette, Hutcheon, Eco and Kristeva have called hypotext, hypertext, genotext, phenotext, and, more generally, the recontextualisation of narrative and aesthetic motifs.

The focus of the conference will be the question of rewriting, interpreting and adapting texts. …

The Conference will provide four thematic streams, with variants of refereed and non-refereed academic papers and creative works, including installations.

1. ‘Rewriting the historical event’ will address the issue of interpreting or re-interpreting the past through the filters o memory, ideology and ethics.
2. ‘Recovering narratives, re-crafting texts’ will focus on reading drafts and archives against those rewritings that are corrective in nature and those that pay homage to the source.
3. ‘Rescripting the text, visual encounters in the text’ will bring together an original literary text with adaptations, transpositions or variations.
4. ‘Refashioning the self’ will explore the effects of rewriting texts, remaking images in the experiences of the subject in the text as, for example, through the process of canon-formation.

In addition to this mix of standard academic and creative possibilities, there will be a series of panels, a PhD hub and a Master class for Honours and postgraduate students with a notable writer. If you are interested in convening any of these events, or have suggestions, please get in touch.

Watch this space as important information will be posted from April 1^st — the first call for papers.

Contact: Dominique Hecq, dhecq@swin.edu.au

The AAWP has launched its Facebook page, making it easier than ever to keep in touch – just ‘Like us’! While there is still a group page for postgraduate discussions, the new Facebook page makes it easy to stay in the loop with conferences, opportunities and developments within the writing discipline and the writing world. To go to the new page, click on the image below. 

Contributions are sought for a special issue of TEXT Journal entitled ‘Why YA?: Researching, writing and publishing Young Adult fiction in Australasia’. The issue seeks to reflect on Australia’s unique scholarly and creative contribution to this dynamic genre, and seeks submissions that address the growing interest in stories for teenage readers, particularly those stories set in and around Australasia. Deadline for initial submission is May 30, 2015. Download full details here.

Given that the YA genre is one of the most dynamic and economically progressive in the contemporary marketplace, the editors are eager to highlight Australasian YA fiction, creative practice and scholarly research. YA scholarship, in response to the genre’s growing popularity, has become more common in the last few decades, but this scholarship is generally considered to be an offshoot or subcategory of the more well-established Children’s Literature criticism. The issue proposes to offer a YA-specific space for scholars to present their research.

Scholarly papers should be no more than 6000 words in length. Creative works will usually be up to 3,500 words in length, or as agreed by editors. Creative work must be accompanied by an ERA research statement that clearly explains the submission’s relevance as a research outcome. Peruse any of TEXT journal’s Creative Writing as Research special issues to familiarise yourself with research statements. Email j.seymour.21@student.scu.edu.au if you have any queries or download full details (above).

Aotearoa Creative Writing Research Network (ACWRN) is a national organisation for creative writers, creative writing teachers and students as well as those in industries related to creative writing. It is a way for anyone interested in creative writing to connect and communicate across New Zealand, Australia and beyond. Registration is free in 2015 – go to http://acwrn.ac.nz for more information and to create a profile.

In addition to offering a creative writing news and events Twitter feed, online resources, and a brief video from the 2014 Professing Creativity Conference, the ACWRN website features a fully-searchable members directory, which allows members to include a photo and selected personal details as well as to register professional details, such as institutional affiliation, research supervision areas, and website links. ACWRN sends mass emails very infrequently, so joining the organiastion will not clog up your inbox. The Twitter feed will serve as the primary means of communicating creative writing news and events, so please follow acwrn on Twitter. Your creative writing news and events will also display in the ACWRN feed with @acwrn in your tweet.

The call for papers for ‘The Writing Commons: Research and Pedagogy in Writing and Discourse’, the Seventh Annual Conference of
the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing (CASDW / ACR) has been extended to this Friday, 23 January. The Conference takes places at the University of Ottawa – Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Saturday, May 30 to Monday, June 1, 2015.

CALL FOR PAPERS
We invite papers on all aspects of writing studies for the seventh annual conference of CASDW/ACR, the largest gathering of writing studies scholars in Canada.  In particular, we invite papers on research into discourse and on writing theory and pedagogy connecting with our theme of The Writing Commons. This theme suggests multiple interpretations of “common” and the intersections of these meanings with writing.
Papers might address topics such as:
·         the nature of public discourse and public writing; past, present, or future of public discourses
·         writing commonplaces: beliefs and perceptions about writing and writing pedagogy; how these commonplaces are challenged or supported
·         the  writing centre as a “writing commons”
·         writing to build public knowledge, disciplinary knowledge, or the professions
·          common versus individual voice(s) and identities in writing
·         writing and accessibility: who needs access and improving access
·         the role of writing in academic institutions: democratic impulses and policy making
·         writing and resources – what we have, what we share, what we need to protect
Papers that address the 2015 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences theme of Capital Ideas s are also welcome.
We invite papers that draw on work in genre studies, rhetorical theory, writing studies, writing centre theory and practice, and professional and technical writing research and practice. We welcome papers that connect with CASDW’s heritage as a place for sharing research on technical and professional writing as well as those that connect with its more inclusive mission to examine all forms of discourse and writing and to explore pedagogical practices and innovations.
The proposal deadline is now January 23, 2015 (See Proposal Requirements)
Ÿ  For more information about CASDW and to join the association or renew your membership,
please visit http://casdwacr.wordpress.com/about/
Ÿ  For more information about the Congress or to register, visit www.congress2015.ca

The AAWP is delighted to announce the winners of the Postgraduate Prize for the most outstanding paper presented at the 19th Annual Conference at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, in 2014.

The winner is Lisa Smithies (Melbourne University) for her paper ‘Playing with Gaps: Cognitive Science and the Creative Writer’. Extract from judges’ comments: a balanced, generous and memorable piece of writing.

Highly Commended is Shari Kocher (Melbourne University) for her paper ‘Flying into the eye of the volcano: Dickinson’s volcano imagery in Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red’. Extract from judges’ comments: This paper is extremely erudite. It weaves fine threads with a poised hand.

Prizes total $400, and the winner is offered the opportunity to co-edit the conference proceedings.

The Postgraduate Prize for most outstanding conference paper is open to postgraduate conference participants each year. It aims to encourage and reward excellence in research and scholarship in creative writing. Papers are ranked according to the following criteria: clarity of the research question; significance of the inquiry; originality in thought and approach; appropriateness of the writing style. The judges commented that a number of papers were in very close contention for the top prizes this year.

The AAWP warmly congratulates Lisa and Shari for their exceptionally engaging papers. Thanks as well to all the postgraduates who submitted their papers for consideration, and we look forward to seeing you at the next AAWP conference.

The Historical Society Australasia’s inaugural conference will be held in Sydney, 20-22 March 2015. Great speakers, interesting sessions on craft, research, inspiration, etc. A fascinating weekend at reasonable cost. To find out more about the Conference visit
http://hnsa.org.au

To celebrate and reward postgraduate excellence in research, the AAWP is again awarding prizes for the best scholarly papers presented in the referreed stream by postgraduates at the Annual Conference. The winner receives a prize of $300 value and highly commended a prize of $100. The winner is also invited to co-edit the Conference Proceedings, a valuable career opportunity. The criteria used by the judges are: clarity of the research question; significance of the inquiry; originality in thought and approach; appropriateness of the writing style. Prizes at this level represent a significant addition to the CV of recipients, so all eligible postgraduates are encouraged to submit final versions of their papers to Dr Julia Prendergast (j.prendergast@deakin.edu.au) by 15 December 2014.Copies of the entry conditions can be downloaded here. The results of the prize will be announced in February 2015.