Across the ages, critics and poets have made pronouncements about the role and function of poetry in the world. Plato banished poetry from the ideal society, though was open to its value if defenders could prove it; Coleridge said that poetry is for ‘pleasure, not truth’. Auden said that ‘poetry makes nothing happen’; Anne Carson says that a poem ‘is an action of the mind captured on a page’. Alison Whittaker says that poetry can be a ‘great tool for organising and for mobilising people’. 

What is poetry now? What purposes does it serve, and for whom? How are poets harnessing poetry’s power globally to address urgent contemporary issues? How is poetry experienced and received among different communities of readers and listeners? And what are the new frontiers for poetry? How does it intersect with other domains, and what are the fruits of these intersections? What are its emerging contexts? How will poetry function in the future? 

This special issue of TEXT seeks to publish scholarly papers and poetry that investigate poetry’s evolving place in the contemporary moment. Papers and poetry are encouraged to explore, but are not limited to the following:

• Poetry and activism
• Poetry and aesthetics
• Poetry and ageing
• Poetry and the body
• Poetry and collaboration
• Poetry and community
• Poetry as confession
• Poetry as conversation
• Poetry and design
• Poetry and ecologies
• Poetry and elders 
• Poetry and the environment
• Poetry as experiment
• Poetry and genre
• Poetry and humour
• Poetry and identity
• Poetry as instruction
• Poetry as manifesto
• Poetry and medicine
• Poetry and memory
• Poetry and music
• Poetry and the non-human
• Poetry and older Australians
• Poetry and politics
• Poetry as protest
• Poetry and practice
• Poetry as process
• Poetry in public spaces
• Poetry as record/history
• Poetry as research
• Poetry and science
• Poetry and technology
• The role of the poet
• Poetry as witness
• Poetry and writing lives

Scholarly papers should be between 5,000 and 6,000 words, including references. Up to three poems and/or one poetry sequence of any length per poet, will be considered. Please note, all poetry submissions must be accompanied by an ERA research statement that clearly explains the submission’s aims and significance. 

How to submit your Expression of Interest: 

• Please submit a 250 word Expression of Interest for scholarly essays (by email to Jessica Wilkinson: jessica.wilkinson@rmit.edu.au with ‘Poetry Now EOI’ as the subject line. In your EOI please outline how your paper or poems explore(s) the theme of ‘Poetry Now’. Also, make sure you include the following information: your full name, institutional affiliation (if any), email address, title of paper/poem, brief biography (50–100 words), and 3 to 5 keywords (at least two of which should clearly relate to the issue’s title). Deadline: October 31^st2020.
• Poetry submissions should be sent in full, accompanied by an ERA research statement, by February 28^th 2021.

Enquiries: Jessica Wilkinson, RMIT jessica.wilkinson@rmit.edu.au or Cassandra Atherton, Deakin University cassandra.atherton@deakin.edu.au or Sarah Holland-Batt, QUT, sarah.hollandbatt@qut.edu.au

The Arts Law Centre of Australia recently reviewed the AAWP’s Prizes terms and conditions for best practice.

Arts Law was very impressed with AAWP’s attitude, saying it clearly demonstrates respect for writers.

You can read the full review on the Arts Law website here, and don’t forget to send in your entry by July 31 for one of our five annual prizes for writers and translators.

More information on all of our prizes is available on our Prizes page.

Dear members and friends of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP),

The AAWP is developing a list of recent publications by members of the association in recognition of our work as writers and scholars. 

This initiative was inspired by the entirely excellent Dr Stephanie Green and the 2020 conference team at Griffith University, who have been considering best practice for conference book sales in the face of Covid-19. 

The AAWP Committee of Management has decided to support this initiative by facilitating member book sales via the AAWP website as an ongoing venture.

We see this is a way of supporting our (ace) members as well as commemorating twenty-five years of successful advocacy by AAWP for creative writing in Australian higher education. 

We invite you to send a list of your major creative and scholarly works, published since 2012. 

Details should be sent to Eileen Herbert-Goodall (AAWP memberships portfolio holder): memberships@aawp.org.au

Please use the following format:
Author:
Title:
Publisher and year of publication:
ISSN:

We would be grateful to receive these details as soon as possible but, at the latest, before 30 September 2020.

Please note that your AAWP membership must be current in order for your books to be listed on the website. 

If you’d like to become an AAWP member, or re-new your membership, head to the membership page on our website here.

Write boldly. Go gently. In solidarity. 

Dr Julia Prendergast
AAWP Executive Committee Chair

Please find below a link to a letter from HASS Associations opposing changes to HASS Degree fees, with AAWP as a signatory: 

https://www.chass.org.au/media-releases/letter-from-hass-associations-opposing-changes-to-hass-degree-fees/

Some of you may wish to sign a petition, opposing changes. If so please find attached a link and generic message, to share: 

Hi there,

I just signed the petition: Education for all – Stop fee hikes!
This issue means a lot to me – will you please sign the petition as well? Every person that signs this petition builds momentum for the campaign. Every signature brings us closer to victory!

Join me.
https://www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/educationforall?share=197c72cd-a364-436a-a5d1-6b5c900a613d

After you’ve signed the petition, please also take a moment to share it with others.

Australia’s leading creative writing journal, TEXT, is calling for Expressions of Interest to guest edit upcoming Special Issues.

Special Issues of TEXT have long provided leading research for the creative writing discipline in Australia and internationally. In 2020, the Special Issues editors are calling for Expressions of Interest from emerging and established academics for themed collections of scholarly articles (including research-led creative works).

If you are interested, please familiarise yourself with TEXT’s journal policies (available here), and examples of past Special Issues (numbers 1 – 58 are available here).

EOI submissions should include the following information:

• Proposed title of your special issue
• Your proposed Call For Papers (no more than one page)
• Where you will advertise and circulate this Call for Papers
• A clear outline of the relationship of this special issue to TEXT’s brief and audience, and particularly its relationship to current scholarship on creative writing
• The approximate predicted size of the issue, i.e. number of papers involved and the length of papers
• A list of your editorial team, including brief CVs outlining editorial experience (1-3 guest editors per special issue is usual; beyond 3 can become unmanageable)
• The main contact person for the team and their email details
• Acknowledgement that the guest editors understand their role, i.e. in handling the collection of papers, double blind peer review and revision processes, and the editorial development of the works to publication copy standard, formatted as per TEXT’s requirements. At the point of final submission, you will need to submit a list of the reviewers used and their titles and institutional affiliations, and your record of how writers have responded to reviewers’ comments (authors need to submit to you a statement of how they have addressed the reviewers’ comments).
• A statement that you understand that the TEXT Editors will read the Special Issue and have the right to reject any articles, reviews, or the entire issue, if it does not reach TEXT’s standard (TEXT was ERA ‘A’ ranked in the 2010 census).
• Where you will draw your reviewers from (nationally and internationally).
• A proposed timeline for the processes involved and an indication of the edition of TEXT being targeted for publication

More information about the Special Issues can be found here.

For questions or to submit an EOI, please contact the Special Issues editors: Dr Liz Ellison (l.ellison@cqu.edu.au) and Prof Craig Batty (craig.batty@uts.edu.au)

Opportunities exist for new reviewers to join the TEXT Reviews database. If you are interested in writing reviews, then please get in touch. We have lots of beautiful books waiting for the right people to read and review them. Writing reviews for TEXT is a wonderful way to:

(1) Engage with up to date publications and ideas relevant to your creative writing and research interests

(2) Gain publication in the premier journal of creative writing research in the Australasian region

(3) Build your CV for job and grant applications

(4) Contribute back to your scholarly and creative community.

ECRs and PhD candidates are particularly welcome to apply, and we are happy to mentor people through the process if it is their first-ever reviewing experience. Reviewers do not need to be current AAWP members (though we of course encourage it!) so if you would like to forward this to supervision candidates and/or colleagues who aren’t currently connected with AAWP but might be interested in this opportunity, please forward them this email and/or let them know they can contact our team at textreviews@unisa.edu.au to discuss opportunities and/or request more information.

Here is an EOI form for prospective reviewers to indicate preferred areas of interest and other information of relevance.

We look forward to welcoming new members to our wonderful community of TEXT reviewers

Sue Joseph and Craig Batty here. We are the AAWP Research Portfolio Team – Craig is the Portfolio Chair and I am the Research Training Lead.

We are convening a new initiative – the AAWP HDR Hang-out. As we all know, Masters and Doctoral study is often an isolating undertaking; COVID 19 has dramatically exacerbated this. We are aiming to create a virtual community across Australasia, which we hope will continue post-COVID. It is mainly social, but within this social space we will convene research-related discussions, activities and debate.

Our first session is Wednesday 10 June from 2-3pm (AEST). If you are interested in attending, please reply to sue.joseph@uts.edu.au and we will send you a Zoom invitation, closer to the day. This first Hang-out is an introductory session only really, to talk to everyone and gather ideas about what you want the hang-outs to look like and how you want them to function.

We’ll be using Zoom to facilitate this session. You don’t need to have Zoom installed on your computer, just click on the link that we send you, when you’re ready to join in. If you have any specialised accessibility issues, please let us know via email.

We aim to run the session along these lines:

Meet and greet
Share information about your research topic and your background.
A chance to ask questions of each other, share tips and generally catch-up

The following session is on Wednesday, 8 July, 2-3pm (AEST). This date may change, depending on the availability we discuss with you on June 10. Looking forward to seeing you online if you can make it.

The South Australian Gender, Sex and Sexualities Committee is seeking abstract submissions and art proposals for the Seventh Annual South Australian Gender, Sex and Sexualities Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Conference. The deadline for submissions is June 29, 2020.

The conference will run over two days, Tuesday the 22nd and Wednesday the 23rd of September, at the Flinders University Victoria Square campus. Due to current travel restrictions due to COVID-19 concerns, we are sourcing our keynote speakers (TBA) from South Australia. We are however operating under the assumption that the conference will take place in September as planned, so we welcome submissions for standard presentations from postgraduate and early career researchers from interstate. We are working to ensure that other arrangements will be made if travel restrictions or social distancing measures prevent people from physically attending the conference as planned.

If your work has been disrupted or delayed by the pandemic, this conference is a safe space to explore disruptions, and, in general, discuss and in some ways address the precariousness of academia.

This interdisciplinary conference invites postgraduate students, including Honours as well as Masters and PhD candidates, and early career researchers to submit presentations or visual art exploring gender, sex and/or sexualities. For more information, visit the website.

Creative writers take from the world around them – observed environmental details, character traits, that time when Aunty Bev threw a glass at Uncle Kevin’s head during Christmas dinner. But what happens when we focus on everyday objects to construct and inform our creative practice? How does responding to an object change the writing, and the object? As thing theory suggests, an object becomes a ‘thing’ or an artefact when it is noticed beyond its everyday use. Can creative writing make meaningful things of everyday objects by using them as the prompt the writing responds to? The objects in question stop being purposeful only in their functional capacity and become instead a thing that embodies meaning. Everyday things can be evocative; they can be used in a manner unintended by their original design by creating a prompt for writing. In moving objects from their original use to be in the service of literature, they ‘shift from function to meaning’ and this shift is exactly the process that transforms the item into an artefact. As writers, we are always responding to something and in times of uncertainty, concrete objects might provide the stability and the limitations required to take our creative practice into new and exciting areas. By fostering a discussion of the things we write to, we intend this TEXT Special Issue will interrogate ideas pertaining to the collaboration between writers and the concrete objects in their worlds.

To participate, please email deb.wain@deakin.edu.au with a brief abstract (150 words) by May 31st 2020. Selected contributing scholars will need to send their articles by September 30th, after which the articles will be peer-reviewed as per TEXT’s standard procedures: we request contributors assist by peer-reviewing two papers each (please inform us if this is likely to pose any problem).

We welcome proposals for articles and/or creative interrogations relating to the theory and practice of using everyday objects to construct and inform our creative work; enhance the relationship between our writing, ourselves, and the (significant objects in) the world around us; and expand insights about the nature of limitations on our creative practice and the use of artefacts. All submissions are electronic. Contributors will be asked to submit research articles of 4000-6000 words or creative works of similar negotiated length accompanied by a research statement or exegetical component. There is also the option to submit fictocritical articles of this word length. All submissions must be sent as a Microsoft Word document attachments to the special issues editors at deb.wain@deakin.edu.au by 30th September 2020. Please use ‘CFP: TEXT Special Issue’ as the subject line.

Please contact the special issue editors if your proposed submission requires additional formatting, including images or figures, or if you have any enquiries regarding your submission. We kindly look forward to receiving your submissions.

We are extending the due date for Abstracts and presentation proposals to 15 May 2020.

Please email Abstracts (150 words approx) with your name, the title of your proposed paper, your university affiliation, e-mail address, and a short bio (100 words approx) to: aawp@griffith.edu.au

NB: attendees must be members of AAWP. Links to conference information, registration and AAWP membership are provided here: https://aawp.org.au/annual-conference/25th-annual-conference/

Although the C-19 situation may change our original conference plans, there’s never been a more important time for us to come together around the theme of ‘Rising Tides’. We will have the event in some form and will contact registered participants with more information in coming months. In the meantime, you’re welcome contact us if you have questions.

Best wishes, be safe, be well,

Dr Stephanie Green, Dr Sally Breen, Prof Nigel Krauth