This issue of TEXT is an invitation for writers, scholars, and creative practitioners to think through the implications of the essay as an evolving contemporary genre in Australasia. While we presume a focus on contemporary literature and national context, given the recent popularity of the essay here, we also welcome contributions that gauge and reflect on the genre as it has developed historically, or that trace its inflections in international contexts of relevance to Australasian stories and voices.

For more information on possible topics and how to submit, see the full Call for Papers.

We can confirm that the proceedings, both the critical and creative papers, will be publishing on or before March 1, 2016. We can’t wait to share all of these thought-provoking papers with you, and we would like to thank the editors, Eugen Bacon, Dominique Hecq and Amelia Walker for all of their hard work.

Watch this space

We are currently inviting abstracts and expressions of interest for our 21st Annual Conference, hosted by the University of Canberra. The conference is themed ‘Authorised Theft’, and will explore the processes of making creative works in writing. This conference will showcase creative works and highlight creative modes of writing; it will enable investigations of how we make and say; and it will provide opportunities to explore how creative writers engage with research.

Papers are invited in four streams:

1. a refereed scholarly stream (a work of scholarship on or about creative practice, intended for inclusion in the published conference proceedings);
2. a refereed creative stream (a creative work accompanied by a scholarly research statement, intended for inclusion in the published conference proceedings);
3. a general (non-refereed) scholarly stream; and
4. a general (non-refereed) creative stream; this should incorporate a scholarly framework that will be presented along with the creative element.

For full details and relevant due dates, visit the conference page

Forgotten Lives/Biographies

@ University Of Southern Queensland (Toowoomba) in April 2016

The aim of the symposium is to encourage research, innovation and collaboration by bringing together academics within and outside the University of Southern Queensland whose research focuses on historic figures who have been largely neglected by history and/or forgotten over time. Academics and HDR students working in this or related theoretical, methodological or research areas are encouraged to attend.

Professor Donna Lee Brien is a highly-esteemed senior researcher in the discipline of Creative Writing, particularly non-fiction writing, with an interdisciplinary research practice intersecting with a number of other research areas including food studies, gothic studies and popular culture.

Professor Brien will deliver a keynote address entitled Australian Speculative Biography: Recovering Forgotten Lives.

The symposium will lead to a publication (a book and/or journal issue). Papers presented at the seminar will be considered as chapters for the publication and/or the special journal issue.

The date for the symposium is: Thursday 28th April 2016

The program for the symposium is:

10am to 11am – Keynote address by Professor Donna Lee Brien

Session 1 – 11:30 to 1:00pm

Session 2 – 1:30 to 3pm

Session 3 – 3:30pm to 5:00pm.

If you are interested in presenting a paper please email a brief abstract (250 words max) and a biography of no more than 150 words by March 15^th 2016 to:dallas.baker@usq.edu.au

Please also nominate the session time that suits you.

This special issue of TEXT takes the opportunity of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death to explore the nexus between Creative Writing and Shakespeare Studies, in particular the ways that Shakespeare and his work are being studied and applied in the context of the practice and pedagogy of creative writing (broadly defined). For more information and how to submit, see the Call for Papers

AAWP is proud to team up with the UBUD Writers and Readers Festival to launch the Emerging Writers’ Prize!

See Terms and Conditions

The AAWP is delighted to announce the winners of the 2015 Postgraduate Prizes for the most outstanding theoretical and creative papers presented at the annual conference.

The winner of the theoretical stream is Amelia Walker (University of South Australia) for her paper ‘Re-Collecting the Self as An o/Other: Creative writing research matters’. Extract from judges’ comments: ‘A very strong theoretical paper and highly relevant to creative writing practitioners’. Highly Commended is Caitlin Maling (Sydney University) for her paper ‘Collage and ecopoetry in Brian Teare’s Companion Grasses’. Extract from judges’ comments: ‘an erudite, wide-ranging and considered contribution’.

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

The winner of the creative stream is Amelia Walker (University of South Australia) for her paper ‘“I” has to give: Rethinking Bloom’s apophrades and/as ghostly Derridean gifts’. Extract from judges’ comments: ‘This is a beautifully written and conceptualised piece […] a haunting inquiry, utterly befitting of the conference theme and highly relevant to creative practitioners/teachers’.

The winner receives $300 and annual subscription to Overland, Island and Review of Australian Fiction.

The AAWP thanks all entrants for their thoughtful and rigorous contributions. The AAWP is grateful to the judges in both the theoretical and the creative stream for their generous support of our thriving PhD community.

New literary website ‘Don’t Talk to Me About Love‘ is hosting its debut writing contest for writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry exploring the concept of love. First Prize is $1000.00 CDN, plus a full manuscript review by the literary agency The Rights Factory. For more details and to submit your work, visit their website.

Deadline: February 14th

In December 2016 the Curtin University Centre of Human Rights Education, School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts and the Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute will host the International Australian Studies Association’s be-ennial conference at the Fremantle Maritime Museum. The conference theme is: “Re-Imagining Australia: Encounter, Recognition, Responsibility.”

The conference venue is on the water situated in the midst of the living as well as historic port of Fremantle, a cosmopolitan, vibrant and enchanted city (one of the top 10 cities in the world to visit in 2016 – Lonely Planet), with superb beaches, excellent coffee and sunsets and markets as well as wonderful bookshops (New Edition) art galleries and restaurants.

Keynotes so far include:

Randa Abdel-Fattah, Macquarie University

Ariel Heryanto, Australian National University

Suvendrini Perera, Curtin University

Kim Scott, Curtin University

Tony Birch, Victoria University

Vinay Lal, University of California, Los Angeles

Anna Haebich, Curtin University

Feature Panels so far include:

‘Indonesia-Australia’ and ‘Reimagining the Kimberley, After the Boom’.

Special panel by Researchers Against Pacific Black Sites

For details and call for papers, see the conference website