Category Archives: Call for papers

Closing soon: AAWP Annual Conference Call for Abstracts/Proposals

The 31st Annual Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference: “Voicing Our Worlds”, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2–4 December 2026.

Abstracts/proposals for individual papers or panels close 31 May 2026.

We invite scholarly and creative contributions that address these ideas directly or in tangential yet fresh ways. Abstracts/Proposals may address, but need not be limited to, the following themes:

First Nations voices in our world
The voice of the writer in the public sphere
Voice, power, representation
Voice, disability and neurodivergence
Diverse voices in the writing workshop
Voices in translation
Voicing the past, the present, and the future
Voicing the popular
Intertextuality and the voices of others in literary work
Mentoring relationships and voice
Prize culture and voice
Creative Writing pedagogy and voice
Our disciplinary voice in the higher education sector
Formalist or craft-based conceptions of voice, tone, and/or perspective
Vocalising the relationship between the human and the more-than-human
Vocal Aesthetics in literary texts
Algorithmic composition, SLMs, LLMs, machine automatism and the human voice
Voice as reflected in form and style (including hybrid forms that disrupt literary conventions and challenge genre classifications)
Voice as it can emerge in various modes of poetry, and in lyric prose

For more details regarding submission guidelines, visit the conference website hosted by UNSW.

Call for Papers: TEXT Special Issues on “Disabled People’s Creative Writing”

This special issue of TEXT aims to highlight the myriad ways in which disability engenders creative writing. We invite papers that explore the influence of impairment and disablement on writing techniques or topics. We are particularly, but by no means exclusively, interested in how these are entangled with other personal characteristics such as race, gender, age, and class.

Potential topics may include (but are not limited to):

Analysis of a particular disabled author
How impairment shapes creative writing
How disabled authors influence each other’s writing
Learning and unlearning writing conventions
Translating individual experience for a diverse audience
Stories told and stories concealed
Crip style, genre, etc
Disability politics and poetics

Editors: Associate Professor Jessica White and Dr Amanda Tink

Abstracts are due by 1 June.

Read the full details and submission guidelines via the TEXT website.

Call for Papers: TEXT Special Issue “Use Your Allusion – Intertextuality in Twenty-First Century Writing”

This special issue of TEXT seeks to publish scholarly papers and creative works concerned with and inspired by the theme of intertextuality. We are seeking creative works and scholarship that consciously respond to this tension, reflecting on or engaging in acts of allusion, rewriting and reimagining. In our contemporary moment of environmental, political and existential crisis, it is necessary to ask what purpose ‘writing back’ serves and how it might be done, especially in decolonising contexts.

Editors: Dr Aidan Coleman, (Southern Cross University), Associate Professor Melanie Duckworth (Østfold University College) and Associate Professor Adelle Sefton-Rowston (Charles Darwin University).

Abstracts for scholarly papers and creative work EOIs should be sent by 10 April 2026.

Read the full details and submission guidelines via the TEXT website.

Closing Soon: AAWP 2025 Annual Conference Call for Abstracts

Movement & Stasis: 30th Annual Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference

University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3 – 5 December 2025

This year’s conference is on the theme of Movement and Stasis. We invite abstracts for conference presentations of 15 or 20 minutes in duration and pre-formed collaborative discussion panels (three to four panellists only) that reflect consideration of movement and stasis. We encourage any or all modes of presentation.

We welcome the submission of abstracts relevant to the creative writing discipline, on creative and professional writing practices and processes, research in creative writing, the teaching of writing and related issues.

The deadline for abstract submissions is 30 May 2025.

For more information and submission guidelines visit the AAWP website here.

Call for Papers: Text Special Issue

Call for Papers, TEXT Special issue: ‘Isn’t it Romantic’, inspired by the RWA 2024 academic symposium

Romance is a powerhouse genre, a $1.4 billion dollar industry in 2022 (The National Herald). Sales of romance print books increased 52% in the 12-months ending May 2023 (Global Newswire) and according to Nielsen BookScan in Australia the ‘Romance and Sagas’ genre more than tripled in sales 2017-2023, showing an increase of 230%, while New Zealand saw a 270% increase in the same period. Popular Romance Studies is of growing scholarly interest and there are increasing numbers of Higher Degree Research students in the field, particularly doing Creative Writing PhDs. This is a call for papers inspired by the themes of the academic symposium hosted by Flinders University and Assemblage Centre of Creative Arts at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in August 2024. We invite scholarship on popular romance fiction in all its incarnations, including its intersections with colonialism, race, gender, sexuality, power, disability, and queerness, and explorations of genre and subgenre. Both scholarly articles and creative work will be considered.

Papers are encouraged, but not limited, to explore the following:

Popular romance fiction tropes
Popular romance fiction and questions of genre/subgenre
Romance fiction and colonialism
Romance fiction and race
Romance fiction and gender
Romance fiction and sexuality
Romance fiction and dis/ability
Romance fiction and queerness

Abstract Submissions

Abstracts for scholarly papers should be 200 words in length and sent to the editors at degreesoflove@flinders.onmicrosoft.com with the subject line:‘EOI for Isn’t It Romantic Special Issue of TEXT Journal.’

Scholarly papers should be 6,000 – 8,000 words as per TEXT guidelines (including endnotes). Please include a brief biography with your abstract (100 words max, in TEXT style) and ensure that you include your email address for reply.

EOI for Creative Submissions

Creative submissions will also be considered for this Special Issue. Final prose works would be 2,000 – 3,000 words. Creative EOIs should include a short synopsis/description of the proposed work, its relation to the theme and focus of the Special Issue, and a 200 – 300 word (10 – 20 lines) creative sample.

EOIs should be sent to the editors atdegreesoflove@flinders.onmicrosoft.com with the subject line:‘Creative Submission EOI for Isn’t It Romantic Special Issue of TEXT Journal.’ Please include a brief biography with your abstract (100 words max, in TEXT style) and ensure that you include your email address for reply.

Deadline for Abstracts and EOIs: Friday, 6th September 2024

Deadline for completed, accepted works: Friday, 1^st November 2024

We welcome early submissions

References

Bhowmik, Ananyaa. “Era of Romance: Exploring the Unprecedented Boom in the Popularity of Romance Novles.” The National Herald, 2023. Retrieved June 1st, 2024, from thenationalherald.com.

Baur, Erick. “From Laggard to Leader: Record Sales of Romance Books Reflect Next Generation of Contemporary Readers.” GlobeNewswire, 2023. Retrieved June 1st, 2024, from globenewswire.com.

Program for the RWA ‘Trope Actually’ academic symposium:

https://willorganise.eventsair.com/2024-romance-writers-of-australia/friday-workshops

DEADLINE EXTENDED – CALL FOR PAPERS: 29TH CONFERENCE OF THE AUSTRALASIAN ASSOCIATION OF WRITING PROGRAMS

The deadline for abstract submissions has been extended until 30 June.

Conference Theme: Intersections
Conference Host: The University of New England (Armidale, New South Wales)
Conference Dates: 27– 29 November 2024
Conference workshops: 26 November 2024 (focusing on creative, critical and professional practice), details TBA.

The 2024 AAWP conference will be held at the Armidale campus of the University of New England, located on Anaiwan Country. Armidale is surrounded by national parks, gorges, and waterfalls. Its natural beauty has historically inspired writers, artists, and storytellers, including Judith Wright.

Intersections offer the possibility of the unexpected, as a meeting point or a place of divergence. We invite proposals for conference papers, panels, or performances that contemplate literal and figurative intersections involving writing (creative/professional/academic). Some starter points to consider include:

•   Interdisciplinarity
•   Intersectionality
•   Identities and cultures
•   Hybrid genres
•   Co-authorship and collaborations
•   History and fiction
•   Writing and place
•   Poetic forms
•   Pedagogy
•   Performance and writing
•   Technologies and writing
•   Writing and artificial intelligence
•   Curriculum design/delivery
•   Borders and boundaries
•   The publishing industry
•   Creative nonfiction and life writing
•   Writing for different audiences.

We also welcome other approaches to the theme.

While the conference can be attended by anyone, presenters must be current AAWP members. More information about becoming a member is available here. The conference will primarily take place in Armidale, with options to participate in some parts of the program online.

Submissions are due by 30 June.

Please include the following in your proposal: Your name, institutional affiliation, email address, what you are proposing (paper, panel, or performance), title, an abstract (250 words max), and a short bio (100 words max).

Please email submissions or any questions to aawp@une.edu.au

Call for Papers: International Australian Studies Association (InASA) 2025 Biennial Conference

Australian Studies in the 21st Century: Human and More-Than-Human Worlds Interactions, Perspectives, Futures

Where: Macquarie University Wallumattagal Campus, Sydney, Australia

When: 5–7 February 2025

Australian Studies has long been concerned with histories and stories about human experiences focusing on issues of settler colonisation, conflict, violence, resistance, resilience, agency, and justice. The 2025 InASA conference continues to focus on these vital issues but turns also to consider Australians’ formation by, and engagement with, the more-than-human world. Australian Studies is experiencing rapid transformation in the 21st century as new biopolitical challenges emerge with climate change and concomitant environmental and ecological concerns, and as artificial intelligence impacts and transforms social, cultural, economic, and political life. New understandings, inspirations, and challenges emerge not only about the peoples across Australia, but also the continent’s more-than-human entities, including animals, plants, landscapes, ecologies, and technologies, among others.

The 2025 InASA conference aims to foster interdisciplinary and cross-cultural dialogues on Critical Indigenous Studies, history, literature, culture, creative arts, politics, media, sociology, anthropology, geography, ecology, and other disciplines that engage with human experiences and/or more-than-human worlds. We welcome proposals for individual papers, 3 member panels, or 4-5 member roundtables for plenary sessions, that engage with the conference theme from diverse disciplines, perspectives, and methodologies. We particularly encourage submissions that prioritise Indigenous voices. We invite contributions from established and emerging scholars that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Indigenous knowledges and perspectives
Indigenous histories and geographies
Indigenous relationalities
Australian histories, biographies, and fiction
Australian cultures
Geographies of Australia
Settler colonialism
Colonial commemorations
Justice, agency, and resistance
Gender and sexuality
Cross-cultural encounters
Migration, refugees, and diaspora
Class, poverty, inequality, and the asset economy
Screen and media production and representation
Social and digital media
Creative writing and multimodal creative research
Ecocriticism and environmental humanities
Technology and future studies
Changing meanings of more-than-human
Politics of the more-than-human

Please submit an abstract (approx. 250 words) and a bio note (no more than 100 words) to the 2025 InASA Conference. For panels or roundtable proposals, please include a brief description of the proposed session (approx. 200 words), along with abstracts for each individual paper and bio notes. The conference is primarily face-to-face but online access may be possible.

The submission deadline is Monday, 30 September 2024. Please send your submissions or general inquiries sent to Dr Daozhi Xu (daozhi.xu@mq.edu.au).

A conference website with further details will open soon.

Call for Papers: 29th Conference of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs

The 2024 AAWP conference will be held at the Armidale campus of the University of New England, located on Anaiwan Country. Armidale is surrounded by national parks, gorges, and waterfalls. Its natural beauty has historically inspired writers, artists, and storytellers, including Judith Wright.

Intersections offer the possibility of the unexpected, as a meeting point or a place of divergence. We invite proposals for conference papers, panels, or performances that contemplate literal and figurative intersections involving writing (creative/professional/academic). Some starter points to consider include:

•   Interdisciplinarity
•   Intersectionality
•   Identities and cultures
•   Hybrid genres
•   Co-authorship and collaborations
•   History and fiction
•   Writing and place
•   Poetic forms
•   Pedagogy
•   Performance and writing
•   Technologies and writing
•   Writing and artificial intelligence
•   Curriculum design/delivery
•   Borders and boundaries
•   The publishing industry
•   Creative nonfiction and life writing
•   Writing for different audiences.

We also welcome other approaches to the theme.

While the conference can be attended by anyone, presenters must be current AAWP members. More information about becoming a member is available here. The conference will primarily take place in Armidale, with options to participate in some parts of the program online.

Submissions are due by 31 May.

Please include the following in your proposal: Your name, institutional affiliation, email address, what you are proposing (paper, panel, or performance), title, an abstract (250 words max), and a short bio (100 words max).

Please email submissions or any questions to aawp@une.edu.au

Call for Papers – Axon: Creative Explorations

This issue of the Axon: Creative Explorations journal will explore the relationships and connections between Creative Writing, Place and History and will be published in the December–January 2024-25 issue.

The editors, Paul Hetherington and Cassandra Atherton, now invite 150-word abstracts for proposed articles related to the relationships and connections between Creative Writing, Place and History, which might include topics such as:

Poetry and place
Poetry and history
Genius Loci as a concept
Creative writing and the factual
Writing about ‘what actually happened’
Recreating histories
The relationship between truth, facts and invention
Visiting writing locations
Understanding the ‘other’ in other places
The creative use of documentary resources
Biography and creativity

Abstracts for articles on other related topics are also welcome.

All abstracts should be submitted by 30 APRIL 2024 at Axon’s Submissions Manager (https://axoncreativeexplorations.submittable.com/submit)

If an abstract is accepted by the editors, the full article will be due by 31 OCTOBER 2024.

Articles, essays, papers and other scholarly contributions are peer reviewed in a double blind process and in producing a research-based paper, authors should be drawing on a sound framework of scholarship relevant to the paper’s topic, rather than purely on personal experience and/or anecdotal evidence. Papers are expected to make a contribution that extends the current literature in the field. Authors are welcome to take a creative or lateral approach to their topic or to incorporate images or other graphic work.

Further information for authors is available here: https://axonjournal.com.au/contribute

Final revised articles, papers, essays and interviews (including endnotes) will be a minimum of 3,000 words and maximum of 6,000 words in length.

Please note: poems for the issue will be solicited by the editors. Unsolicited poems should not be submitted.

Call for Papers | TEXT Special Issue: Writing from the Fringes

Deadline: Monday 22 April 2024

TEXT editors are calling for paper abstracts and creative EOIs for a December special issue of the journal. The theme of the issue is “Writing from the Fringes”, and possible subject matter includes (but is not limited to) the following:

· Written perspectives from writers of colour

· Writers challenging neo-liberalism and patriarchy

· Writing from the shadow/y land of Gothicism

· Writing and reading Aboriginal Gothic literature/stories

· Writing to challenge/subvert gender stereotypes

· Writing and reading from positions of neurodiversity

· Writing and reading from positions of disability

· Thoughts and perspectives on reconfiguring Australia’s literary “canon”

· Writing through/about trauma and pain

· Writing through/about personal “hauntings”

· Writing through/about racism

· Writing through/about experiences of dislocation

· For love or money? Writing through socio-economic hardship

· Writing about diaspora and the immigrant’s/migrant’s experience

· The margins as a liminal space (place): What is happening there?

· (Re)writing history/perspectives from historical narratives, suppression, and oppression

· Exploring relationships with the more-than-human world (through written work)

· Writing that uses other englishes and/or languages other than English in English-based writing

· Writing from/through translation.

Abstract Submissions

Abstracts for scholarly papers should be 200 words and sent to the editors at textsifringe@gmail.com with the subject line: “EOI for Scholarly Submission”.

Final scholarly papers would be 6,000 to 8,000 words, per TEXT guidelines (including endnotes).

EOIs for Creative Submissions

EOIs should be sent to the editors at textsifringe@gmail.com with the subject line: “EOI for Creative Submission”.

Creative EOIs should include a 200-word synopsis/description of the proposed work and its relation to the special issue’s theme, as well as a 200 to 300 word- (10 to 20 lines) creative sample.

Final prose works would be 2,000 to 3,000 words or a conventional equivalent for script-based works. Poem sequences of up to 80 lines (500 words for prose poems) are also welcome.

The deadline for scholarly paper abstracts and creative EOI submissions is Monday 22 April.