Our 21st Annual AAWP conference has come to a close.

We would like to thank the hardworking volunteers from the University of Canberra for putting on a stellar conference. You all worked so hard and we really appreciate it. We would also like to send our deepest thanks to the conference committee members, Monica Carroll, Jen Crawford, Caren Florance, Katie Hayne, Paul Hetherington, Paul Munden, Shane Strange, Jen Webb, Jordan Williams, and especially the committee chair: Niloofar Fanaiyan.

Our 2017 conference will be hosted by Flinders University in Adelaide. Details to come.

The AAWP AGM is on 29th November, 11:30am till 12:30pm, at our Canberra conference. The AGM will be preceded by morning tea and followed by lunch, and all members of the AAWP are invited to attend. The AGM is a great way to have your voice heard in our organisation, bring up any issues you think need to be addressed, and get to know the Executive team working for you. We are looking forward to having you there!

The Executive AGM will be held at the AAWP conference on 28th November, from 9.30am – 11.00am. Executive members can click here to go to the Executive Portal, where they will find the list of documents they need to bring to the meeting. Send any agenda items to Quinn Eades (q.eades@latrobe.edu.au).

Special August 2017 issue of the journal Axon: Creative Explorations www.axonjournal.com.au

This issue builds on work emerging from the Poetry on the Move festival hosted by the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI) in September 2016. There may be a further, associated IPSI symposium at the University of Canberra in May 2017 (see below).

This Special Issue of Axon aims to explore ways in which contemporary poetry fashions its various forms of utterance, with particular attention to form and how poets abide by, manipulate or ignore its restraints. We would like to hear how poets understand their own creative practice, as well as the poetry of their contemporaries in whichever part of the world they may be situated. We would like to know how poets approach the formal requirements or expectations that writing poetically may (or may not) impose on them. We would like to understand the extent to which poetry represents a crossing of boundaries for poets, what those boundaries are, and what poets are trying to achieve in making these crossings.

We are particularly interested in papers that relate to:

• How poetic form is used by poets and how they understand poetic tradition
• Inventive, subversive or transgressive poetic forms or strategies
• Prose poetry and other ‘hybrid’ poetic forms
• Poetry at the margins, wherever they may be
• Poetry as ‘alternative’ knowledge

We welcome papers that explore the above with reference to a variety of broader themes, such as:

• Poetry and the contemporary zeitgeist
• How poets make poetry out of autobiographical material
• How contemporary poetic language ‘works’
• Contemporary poetry’s relationship to the quotidian
• Contemporary poetry’s relationship to the ‘sublime’
• Poetry as a way of knowing the ‘other’, however that may be defined
• Connections between poetry and culture
• Poetry and its relationship to language more broadly

What we would like from contributors:

1. A 150-word abstract of your proposed paper by 10 December 2016.
2. If your abstract is accepted (we will notify you by 28 February 2017), a full written paper of between 4,000 and 6,000 words by 31 May 2017.
3. If we run an IPSI symposium on this topic we may invite selected authors to the University of Canberra to participate in May 2017.

The editors of this issue of Axon: Creative Explorations journal are Professor Paul Hetherington, Professor Jen Webb and Dr Paul Munden.

All abstracts, papers and related correspondence should be addressed to Dr Paul Munden at Paul.Munden@canberra.edu.au

The English Association, University English (the body for HE Departments of English) and the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE), with support from the Institute of English Studies, are organising a huge conference for the whole of the discipline of English in Newcastle in 2017. Scholars are invited to form panels and submit an abstract before Friday 7 October. These panels could discuss:

• emerging, new or challenging research horizons within the subject;
• shared, inter-/cross-/extra-disciplinary research futures for English studies;
• productive intersections between teaching and research;
• the impact of technology on English studies;
• the challenges of funding, government, or institutional agendas to the shape and scope of English in Higher Education.

among other topics. For a full call for papers and how to submit, see the website

Submission Deadline: January 15, 2017 Midnight EST

DontTalkToMeAboutLove.org is hosting a second competition exploring love in any of its myriad expressions: romantic, platonic, parental, and much, much more.

All submitted works must be original and unpublished. All works that have been published in print or on the Internet, including self-published works, as well as works that have been broadcast or taped are considered previously published and are therefore ineligible for submission.

Poems must be written in English.

Multiple submissions are allowed, but for each entry (1-3 poems of up to 75 lines), participants must complete a separate submission form and pay the entry fee of $20.

See their website for more information

When: Thursday 8^th December 2016, 9am-6pm

Where: La Trobe University’s city campus (360 Collins St, Melbourne, Australia)

Literary works have long taken historical figures as their subjects. Recently, a term has emerged to describe this approach and to group associated scholarly research: biofictions. The topic has featured in the most recent MLA conference and in publications. Multiple areas of focus are appearing but, at this stage, no large-scale recent investigation of Australasian historical biofictions has been undertaken. To address this gap, we will hold a day-long symposium to bring Australasian writers of historical biofictions in close contact with scholars of the genre, to share ideas, catalyse debate and contribute to this developing field of study. For this reason, we plan to record the conference sessions. After the symposium, we will seek publication of the papers as a special edition of a peer-reviewed journal.

We invite 20-minute papers that contribute fruitfully to this emerging area. Questions that papers might address include but are not limited to the following:

·       Does writing from Australasia affect how we render our historical subjects and our settings?

·       What is the significance of the themes, personages, settings or time periods chosen by authors from these regions?

·       How has biofiction addressed questions of colonialism and the interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous people?

·       What differences emerge in the biographical portrayals by early and more recent Australasian authors?

·       What narrative techniques are Australasian authors using to construct their biographical figures?

·       What role does gender play in Australasian portrayals of historical figures?

·       How do Australasian historical biofictions negotiate other genre categories (for example, historical romance or crime, or young adult?)

·       What role do biographical figures play in these works when they appear as secondary characters, rather than the protagonist?

Please email an abstract (250 words) and a biography (100 words) in Word format to symposium organisers Catherine Padmore and Kelly Gardiner at biofictions@latrobe.edu.au

Deadline for abstracts: 14 October 2016

Notification of acceptance: 21 October 2016

We invite the submission of manuscripts from those interested in publishing in a special issue of Qualitative Research in Psychology, entitled “Creative Representations of Qualitative Research”.

Special Issue Editors
Kerry Chamberlain, David Anstiss & Kathryn McGuigan

Background

The presentation of research findings, discussions of research methods, and debates about research processes within psychology are frequently framed within relatively traditional forms when submitted for publication. As Parker (2004, p. 100) commented “The standard format of a research report is a secure framework for many writers, but it is itself a particular genre of writing that can turn into a constraint and inhibit innovative work.” Recently, we have seen a growing interest across the social sciences in using a variety of arts-based forms to conduct and represent research differently (e.g., Barone & Eisner, 2012; Fraser & Sayah, 2011; Knowles & Cole, 2008). Barone and Eisner (2012, p. 3) argue that “arts based research is a heuristic through which we deepen and make more complex our understanding of some aspect of the world.” Arts-based research may be divided into that concerned with knowledge production, where the arts-based approach is central to data collection, interpretation and representation, and that concerned with knowledge translation, where arts-based approaches are used to disseminate existing research findings in alternative forms. Arts-based research can involve a variety of forms and variants. These can include: fictional and literary forms, such as short stories (e.g., Leavy, 2013), poetry (e.g., Galvin & Prendergast, 2012), play scripts (Rossiter et al., 2008), or flash fiction (e.g., Chamberlain, 2015); visual forms, such as photography, painting, portraiture, drawing and collage (e.g., Aita, Lydiatt, & Gilbert, 2010; Sullivan, 2010), or performative forms, such as theatre (Rossiter et al., 2008) dance and movement (e.g., Eales & Peers, 2016; Margolin & Riviere, 2015). Specific art forms may cross these categories or have variants, and there can also be combinations of genres involved in any specific research project (e.g., Yuan & Hickman, 2015). We also note the value of arts-based approaches in therapeutic and applied work (e.g., Wilson, Bungay, Munn-Giddings, & Boyce, 2016), and consider that more translation of academic research into arts-based forms will make such research more accessible and useful beyond the academy.

Scope

Although a few psychologists have authored publications of this nature (e.g., Hatcher, 2011), very little writing using these alternative forms has been published in journals for psychology audiences. Accordingly, this Special Issue of Qualitative Research in Psychology calls for work of this nature. The objective of the special issue is to provoke researchers to think more deeply about arts-based forms of research, alternative forms of research representation, and to provide a venue for psychology researchers to produce research representations in arts-based forms. We invite the submission of relevant material using arts-based forms of creative writing around qualitative research and qualitative research practices for a Special Issue of Qualitative Research in Psychology. We seek a variety of work illustrating creative representations of qualitative research and qualitative research issues, with the aim of highlighting new ways of knowledge production and of representing our research using arts-based forms. Suggested topics that could be addressed by papers are:

· theoretical, exploring the value of, or the application of, some form of arts-based approach to research

· methodological, examining methodological approaches to qualitative research and their value, or examining specific methods of qualitative research and their value

· reflexive, presenting accounts of research engagement

· creative accounts of specific research, offering interpretation of research data, involving the interpretation of new findings or the reinterpretation of already published research findings

· other topics, as proposed by submitting authors

Articles may be presented either as stand-alone works involving a particular arts-based form (e.g., a poem or set of poems) or include a particular art-based form with accompanying textual commentary (e.g., three short poems around the research topic with related explication) or as more standard papers discussing the value, practice or theory of arts-based research.

Forms of representation could include, but are not limited to:

· poetic forms, using poetry to present findings, reflexive statements or illustrate methodologies and methods,

· theatrical forms, using play scripts, such as readers’ theatre, or similar

· fictional forms, including short stories

· creative non-fictional forms, reporting research findings and outcomes

· essay forms, discussing arts-based research, methods, theory, or ethics

· visual forms, including photo essays, artwork as research, art and research, or similar

· standard paper forms, discussing the value, practice or theory of arts-based research

· other forms, including mixed forms, as proposed by submitting authors

Special Section: As part of the special issue we also seek to include a special section involving flash fiction. Accordingly, we also invite submissions of fictional pieces of 55 words (no more, no less) that address the topic of research engagement in some way. This could relate to the researcher, methods, participants, reflexivity, or any issue that addresses research processes relating to research engagements.

Note: These 55-word submissions will not be peer-reviewed in the usual way, but will be selected for publication on the recommendation of two experienced academics with skills in creative writing. Depending on space constraints within the journal, we will seek to publish the ten best pieces of writing in this special section.

Submissions

All manuscripts will be reviewed as a cohort for this special issue. Manuscripts should be submitted by February 28, 2017. All manuscripts, with the exception of the special section flash fiction submissions, will be peer reviewed, based on initial editorial screening and anonymous double blind peer review in line with journal editorial policy.

All submissions should be sent to K.Chamberlain@massey.ac.nz . Submissions should comply reasonably with standard QRiP journal format requirements, although these may be relaxed to allow for the needs of specific forms of creative papers (e.g., no abstract, very short papers, photo-essays with few words). Please be aware that accepted papers will appear in print and electronic form, and must be suitable for both forms. If your submission contains images in colour these will appear in black-and-white in the print form and in colour in the on-line form of the journal.

The AAWP takes great pleasure in announcing the winner of the 2016 ‘Chapter One’ prize.

 The winner is Ruby Todd for her manuscript Counterpart.

The AAWP takes great pleasure in announcing a highly commended entry: Lyn Dickens forBirdwatching in the Erinyes. Dickens’ work was long listed for the highly prestigious Richell Prize (2016).

The University of Western Australia Publishing (UWAP) has agreed to receive both manuscripts. Both authors are invited to read from their work at the annual conference of the AAWP. Their attendance at the conference is fully subsidised. As the winner, Ruby also wins a $500 cash prize.

Please find below extracts from the judges’ reports.

Extract from judge’s report for Counterpart:

I found this to be the most ambitious of the submissions, with the quality of the writing coming up to match the very searching themes and complex events outlined in the synopsis.  The writer shows an impressive descriptive power, both in the outlining of scenes and in the development of character.  The short extract quickly sets the reader’s mind running in numerous directions, in highly evocative density of impressions and allusions, in a way that is both demanding and rewarding.  The novel broaches very demanding psychological territory in ways that look, in this short extract, to be very effective.  The writing is impressively tactile and visual; the reader is presented with object after object, visual impression upon further visual impression.  It does far more than simply tell the story; it creates a very distinctive mood and a highly reflective ‘way of seeing’, that steadily schools the reader and with each paragraph, heightens sensitivity […].  Overall though, it is deeply learned, resonant, polished and evocative writing.  

Extract from judge’s report for Birdwatching the Erinyes:

As a judge, I was impressed with Birdwatching the Erinyes. The writing was strong with an engaging narrator who drops us right into the action – a skeleton has been discovered under a Sydney university quadrangle. According to the outline, we follow mixed race student Tuesday Goodman through the course of the novel as the skeleton’s story comes to light. This work also explores Pulau Pontianak, a multiracial island in the Java Sea that sank in 1979, and we learn about Tuesday’s uncle and love interest, moving between the present of the novel and three years previous. The work touches on themes of love, family and terrorism, asking the question: how do we reconcile with that which haunts us? On a line-by-line level, the author proves she is in control of her scenes, fleshing them out with telling details that offer a sense of character and place for the reader. The author’s use of language, especially, drew me in. The descriptions were haunting – even those pertaining to Twitter and nicotine inhalers. On both the structural and line-by-line levels, this was an engaging, thoughtful submission.

Up to two creative writing/literature PhD positions are now open for application at Curtin University for an innovative collaborative PhD program with the University of Aberdeen commencing early 2017.

PhD candidates will be enrolled at both Curtin University and University of Aberdeen and will, on completion, receive a joint award. The first and third years will be spent based at Curtin (Bentley campus, Western Australia) with the second year based in Aberdeen, Scotland. Candidates will receive world-class supervision from staff at both universities. The positions will be fee-waived (ie no fees payable) and with an APA scholarship for three years.

High calibre honours or Masters students or graduates are invited to contact Dr Rachel Robertson, Senior Lecturer at Curtin University on R.Robertson@curtin.edu.au or 08 9266 2615 to discuss this opportunity.

Proposed projects, which are open to negotiation, are:

Negotiating Cultural Identity in Contemporary Australian and Scottish Literature

Aberdeen Supervisor: Curtin Supervisor: Dr Deborah Hunn; Aberdeen Supervisor: Dr Helen Lynch

This project will focus on cultural identity in contemporary literature and may be suitable for a fiction writer. Aspects to explore may include literary work concerned with travel and unfamiliarity, stories of migration and expatriation, and issues of deportation, identity and belonging. Possible areas of exploration might include historical fiction, on the principle that the past is also ‘another country’ where things are done differently; fiction influenced by or generically derived from/related to folktale or oral narratives; work which reflects on the relation of a city to its surrounding areas, on place, landscape, language, gender and identity and on the relation of local and/or indigenous populations to new developments such as oil and mineral discovery or further migration.

Haunted by Use: Theories and Aesthetic Uses of Post-industrial Space and Place

Curtin Supervisor: Dr Christina Lee; Aberdeen Supervisor: Dr Wayne Price

The project will focus on specifically writerly uses of the past, setting and memory in post-industrial (and more broadly post-purpose) contexts and could include creative as well as scholarly work. This area of exploration is particularly well-suited both to the North East of Scotland and Western Australia, regions strikingly similar in terms of the cultural dislocations arising from industrial and post-industrial heritages and transitions. Some possible topics to explore in terms of both aesthetics and theoretical understandings of broader constructions of personal and cultural identity might be the phenomenology of uselessness/redundancy; nostalgia and voice; industrial gothic/hauntedness and urban spectral spaces; the aesthetic uses of ‘edgelands’; or psychogeographical approaches to urban space.

We have become aware of fraudulent emails advertising a scam competition that mimics our Emerging Writers’ Prize. The competition targets young, school-aged children. The fraudulent was sent from the following email address: Aawp-prize@outlook.co.uk

As many of you will know, we were recently partnered with UWRF for our Emerging Writers’ Prize. The winner was announced September 1.

We have been in touch with UWRF; they had no prior knowledge of the fraudulent emails.

We have been in contact with Creative Writing Ink (the organisation identified in the email). Creative Writing Ink have never alleged a connection with AAWP and had no prior knowledge of the fraudulent emails.

If you have any questions about AAWP initiatives please visit our Opportunities page.