The AAWP / UWRF Prize is a publication pathway for emerging writers. The prize is open to fiction or poetry. The Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) is delighted to partner with Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) to provide this publication pathway for emerging writers. Heartfelt thanks to the judges for managing the judging process with such integrity—thank you for so generously donating your time in the interests of emerging writers.

2019 Winner: Annabel Stafford for ‘Acid’

Judges’ report:

The winning entry for this year’s contest is Annabel Stafford for ‘Acid’. The voice is fresh and raw, intent on unpeeling the mystery of a child’s pain. Stafford presents early, if not primitive, aspects of life in dramatic and uncompromising ways, stripping the world of easy sentiments, highlighting the visceral qualities of experience, its haunting and its premonitions of disaster. The intensity of the story, and its focus on multiple ways of understanding the word ‘acid’ in a medical and societal frame of reference is tempered by the Stafford’s deeply human engagement with the topic. Like smoke rising from a candle and casting shadows and lights that shift and evade, the story will draw you in, hold you firmly there as the story unfolds and in its wake.

About the winner:

Annabel Stafford is a casual teacher in the creative writing program at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she completed her Doctorate of Creative Arts in 2018. She was formerly a federal political reporter for The Australian Financial Review and The Age and Sydney Correspondent for The Age. She has also been published in The Griffith Review, Meanjin, The Good Weekend, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Tablet among other publications. 

Chapter One is a publication pathway for emerging writers. The prize is open to authors who have written a poetry collection, literary novel, short story collection, or a hybrid work that crosses genre boundaries. The Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) is delighted to partner with University of Western Australia Publishing (UWAP) to provide this publication pathway for emerging writers. Heartfelt thanks to the judge for managing the judging process with such integrity—thank you for so generously donating your time in the interests of emerging writers.

2019 Winner: Benjamin Muir for The McMillan Diaries.

Judge’s report:

The submission I favour is the one that has come to me as The McMillan Diaries.   The standard of writing in all the submissions is very high, and a good proportion seem to me to be worthy of publication.  I have chosen The McMillan Diaries, though, because of its special ingenuity and inventiveness.  I find it impossible to separate out its various strands – fact and fiction, scholarly interpolation or satire on scholarship, history and fantasy – and  immediately somehow I felt the need for far more than one chapter and one brief synopsis to ‘orient myself’ with this work, while at the same time wondering f the whole exercise wasn’t just a Laurence Sterne ‘shaggy dog story’, but one which, as in the case with Tristam Shandy, distributes a lot of wisdom and insight along the way, as it romps through a veritable smorgasbord of genres, interpolations and digressions (much of which comes in the scholarly appendages), while constantly in review of its own methods, strategies and subterfuges. 

It’s a work which generously toys with and takes inspiration from the mysteries at its core: from the small part I have been given to read, it neatly offers the spectacle of the mystery of its central subject working its way up and out into the structure, the prose and the methods of the investigation.  The whole novel will not, I suspect, ‘solve’ the mystery as it seems itself so heavily infected and shaped by it?  For me, it evokes Rabelais, Swift, Sterne, Borges, Sebald – that delicious feeling that the writer is somehow ‘having a lend of one’, dismantling (and satirizing?) the kind of assurances and conventions that usually support this mode of inquiry.

It is, however, a work of serious intent – as is of course the case in all those writers I’ve noted above.  Can this writer pull it off?  Will the core narrative, at full length, keep the reader engaged and focussed, while at the same time being entertained, waylaid, diverted, teased and provoked?  I couldn’t be sure, from just this one chapter and brief synopsis.  It is indeed a very risky venture.  I think that’s why I have chosen it… 

About the winner:

“Benjamin D. Muir is a writer and doctoral candidate from Western Sydney, who predominantly authors postmodern Gothic and horror fiction. His work has appeared previously in FBI Radio’s Or it Didn’t Happen and Antipodean Science Fiction. He is currently completing the manuscript that won AAWP’s First Chapter contest as the creative component of his DCA thesis. The exegetical component examines depictions of grief and trauma in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves and The Fifty Year Sword, the works that chiefly informed his creative component. You can follow his work atfacebook.com/benjamindmuir and @benjamindmuir on Twitter.“  

Registrations for the 12th annual gathering, ‘Bridging Worlds with Words’ #APWT2019, from 5-7th November at the University of Macau are now open!

“In addition to a stellar line up of feature authors, registered participants at APWT get to be part of the experience.

Would you like to launch a book, speak on a particular issue, run a workshop or propose a panel or event? We’re open to your ideas and want to hear from you. The sooner you register the sooner we can begin to consider you as a priority in our programming. Register now to tell us how you would like to be involved. With generous member, early bird and student discounts it’s time to lock in Macau! Visit our website now for full details” 

Axon: Creative Explorations (ISSN 1838-8973; axonjournal.com.au) is a Scopus-listed journal that publishes material aimed at building understandings about creativity, the creative process, and the cultural contexts, and theoretical frameworks, that inform creative practice.

For issue 9.2, ‘Living in the world: creativity, science, environments’, we are publishing material associated with cities and creative thinking/practice; creativity and space/place; science/art relationships, and related matters. We invite submissions of between 500 and 6000 words, by 30 September. Details and submission portal can be found here

Please join us for the Australian Short Story Festival: October 18-20 2019.

This is the first time the festival will be held in Melbourne and we look forward to welcoming you.

Abstracts are being sought for the Sixth Annual South Australian Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Gender, Sex and Sexualities conference. All applicants whose abstracts are accepted also have the chance to submit a full paper for publication in the special issue of an academic peer-reviewed journal.

Past, Present and Future: contested histories and emerging identities will be held on September 23 and 24 at the Napier Building: Theatre 102, University of Adelaide. It will feature exciting, local and interstate keynote speakers and panellists (TBA).

The submission deadline is June 3, 2019.

‘Standard presentations’ (20 minutes) are eligible for the Dr Michael Noble Prize for Outstanding Contribution to the Conference. The prize is a book voucher, awarded to the best conference presentation, in honour of Dr Michael Noble. We recognise Dr Noble’s life work, including his contributions to intersex activism, his role as Intersex Consultant and Communications Officer for the 2017 Gender, Sex and Sexualities Art(i)culations of Violence Committee, alongside many other achievements and experiences. More information on the Dr Michael Noble Prize to follow. 

The aim of this conference is to bring together postgraduate students and early career researchers from across South Australia to share their work and research with their peers and to continue building a collegial and collaborative environment for South Australian and Australian students. This year’s theme aims to explore the past, present and future of gender, sex and sexualities in relation to the structural, personal, institutional, cultural, symbolic, epistemic, and discursive. This theme is purposefully broad and can be applied to any number of issues, theoretical and practical.

This is an interdisciplinary conference that aims to bring together a network of postgraduate students and early career researchers from across South Australia whose research explores gender and/or sexualities. Previous conferences have featured papers from students of Sociology, Gender & Women’s Studies, Indigenous Studies, Politics, Anthropology, History, Visual Art, Cultural Studies, Creative Writing, Health Science, Law, Philosophy, Linguistics and more. We are excited to bring together a multitude of exciting thinkers across disciplines!

This year’s theme is Past, Present and Future: Contested Histories and Emerging Identities. Possibilities for exploring the concepts of past, present and future include (but are not limited to):

• Post genderism
• Intersectionality
• Activism and privilege
• Diversity and the academy
• Decolonisation
• Performance and storytelling
• Human rights, health and wellbeing
• Family, intimacies, transformation, and marriage
• Childhood and youth
• Environment and sustainability
• Violence
• Power
• Education

We invite three different types of presentation:

• Standard presentation (20 minutes)
• Short ‘snapshot’ paper (5 minutes)
• Visual art (see call for visual art)

Our invited speakers will talk about their exciting research and offer helpful guidance to postgraduate and early career researcher attendees.

Visit our website for more information: https://sagenderandsexualitiesconf.wordpress.com/

Submit your abstract using the relevant proforma and email to: gsspostgradconference@gmail.com

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

This special issue of the Axon journal is connected to a one-day symposium to be held in Canberra on 21st October 2019 during the Poetry on the Move Festival (17-21 October 2019), organised and hosted by the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI) in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra.

This issue aims to explore ways in which contemporary poetry uses or harnesses knowledge of various kinds and how poetry understands the world. For example, how does poetry make use of, interact with or transform existing bodies of knowledge? And how is poetry itself a form of knowing? If poetry may be said to produce knowledge, what kind of knowledge is this?

We are particularly interested in papers that relate to:

• Poetry’s relationship to various conceptions of truth (social, political, abstract, aesthetic)
• Embodied knowledges
• Cultural knowledge
• The play of convention and subversion
• Poetry’s use of and intersection with knowledge from other intellectual domains (e.g. science, mathematics, philosophy, economics, etc.)
• Poetry’s incorporation of knowledge about the environment, climate and landscape
• Poetic modes of thinking and cognition
• Poetry and the thought-feeling nexus
• Ways in which poetry explores knowledge
• Heuristic knowledge and trial-and-error
• Ways in which poetry produces knowledge
• Poetic revision as a pathway to knowledge
• How poetic expression relates to the production of knowledge
• Poetry and the ephemeral

What we would like from contributors:

1. A 150-word abstract of your proposed paper by 30 April 2018
2. If your abstract is accepted (we will notify you by 20 May 2018), a full written paper of between 3,000 and 6,000 words by 15 November 2018.

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

All abstracts, papers and related correspondence should be addressed to Shane Strange at Shane.Strange@canberra.edu.au

The University of Melbourne is seeking a Level E Professor to enrich and advance our program in Creative Writing. The appointee will have expertise and significant publications in areas of Creative Writing practice and scholarship that complement and enhance their Program.

For more details and to apply, click here

Edited by Kate Cantrell, Ariella Van Luyn, Emma Doolan

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘wandering’ as ‘going about from place to place; an aimless, slow, or pointless movement; and a shift away from the proper, normal, or usual course’. Wandering, as both a physical movement and a conceptual metaphor, can transcend the boundaries between past and present, the real and imagined, the centre and the periphery, the virtual and the actual, the human and the non-human, the private and the public, and the finite and the boundless. Wandering, by its nature, signals a shift away from linear modes of operating to a more colourful vista of experimentation, repetition, spontaneity, play, and general misrule. Historically, wanderers have been transgressive subjects who at different times have been both revered and feared, appreciated and misunderstood, and rewarded and punished for their alleged risk-taking, vagrancy, and aimlessness. Like the exile, the wanderer represents the ghost of modernity who is uprooted from home and perpetually displaced in space and time. However, not all experiences of wandering are the same. The experience of a refugee who wanders in search of a safe place to call home is different to the experience of a traveller who elects to wander while on holiday. Therefore, wandering is both an alternative mode of subjectivity and an apt metaphor for different ways of thinking, knowing, and being. Ingrid Horrocks, in her recent book, Women Wanderers and the Writing of Mobility (2017), explains: “To be a wanderer is not quite the same as being a traveller: wandering assumes neither destination nor homecoming. The wanderer’s narrative tends to work by digression and detour rather than by a direct route. Wanderers, and their narratives, are always in danger of becoming lost. A wanderer is also someone who moves from place to place encountering a series of different people, making her a natural vehicle for explorations of sympathy and sociability, social exclusion, and loneliness.” Wandering, as Horrocks notes, is not always voluntary. People with dementia can be prone to wandering, as can children with autism. The expression ‘to have a wandering eye’ is an idiom that highlights the intersection between gendered mobility and morality. In Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), wandering is a curse that haunts the Mariner and takes it shape as a longing that he can never satisfy or fulfil. Wandering refuses to assign meaning to a single locus and instead encourages us to consider ideas and practices that are fluid, pluralistic, and intuitive. This special issue on ‘wandering’ will explore current and emerging research on wandering practices and behaviours, methodologies, texts, and technologies.

Areas of investigation may include but are not limited to:

* Wandering and the body

* Wandering and the environment

* Wandering and new/emerging technologies

* Wandering and tourist cultures, images, and identities

* Wandering and migration, immigration, and refugeeism

* Wandering and mobility

* Wandering and diaspora

* Wandering and concepts of home and homelessness

* Wandering and urban spaces

* Wandering and philosophy, including morality

* Wandering and cartography, psychogeography, and affective geography

* Wandering in art, literature, and film

* Wandering in indigenous cultures and contexts

* Wandering in time

* Wandering between genres

* Wandering as a literal, textual, physical, or imaginative phenomenon

* Wandering as a form of protest, resistance, or ‘promiscuous’ behaviour

* Wandering problems and stereotypes

Prospective contributors should email an abstract of 100-250 words and a brief biography to the issue editors. Abstracts should include the article title and should describe your research question, approach, and argument.

Biographies should be about three sentences (maximum 75 words) and should include your institutional affiliation and research interests. Articles should be 3000 words (plus bibliography). All articles will be refereed and must adhere to MLA style (6th edition).

Please send any enquiries to wandering@journal.media-culture.org.au.