Every creative expression shares a vision. Whether writers look away, towards, askance, within or over, they draw readers to peripheries, asking Where from? Why this? How so? Where to?

This special issue of TEXT seeks to publish papers that explicitly investigate peripheral visions of past, present and future, and of figures and forms, fractures and erasures. Papers may tackle, for example, unconventional wisdom, unsettled perspectives, lapsed borders— that which is beyond and outside the accepted or obvious. In this way, alternative worlds, ideas, fictions and verities may emerge, compete, coalesce, fragment, shift …

For more information and how to submit, click here.

All involved with AAWP who knew Judith will be saddened by the passing of a friend, colleague, supportive mentor and fierce advocate for writers and writing.

Judith has been a supporter of writing and writers in so many ways – in creative writing courses across a range of institutions, with PEN both locally and internationally, and on an individual basis guiding emerging writers. She always gave graciously to others, whether it was advice on a poem or help with a launch, and her style and wisdom lit up the many events she attended and organized.

Judith will be much missed, not only for her belief in writing as a creative force for change, but also for her inimitable wit and compassion for others.

PEN International has provided details of Judith’s career as well as further evidence of how much she has contributed to the fabric of our lives in Australia and internationally:

Into the New World: Diaspora in Australian and Scottish Writing

As part of Curtin’s collaboration with the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, a PhD project with scholarship is available for 2019 start.

Students undertaking a collaborative PhD under the alliance are offered a seamless international experience as well as a fully funded scholarship with living stipend. You will spend time at each institution and will be supervised by both Aberdeen and Curtin research staff.

Immigration and Emigration are dominant features of our current global experience but they are foundational to the relationship between Scotland and Australia. Many Scots left Scotland to make a new home in Australia and arrived at the port of Fremantle near Perth and many modern Australians trace their origins to Scotland.

This PhD project invites submissions on the theme of emigration and immigration between Scotland and Australia (whatever the direction of travel) with particular emphasis on diasporic experience. Proposals are welcomed from those wishing to undertake a creative writing project that deals with the historical experience of emigration and immigration between the two countries, or one that considers more recent experience by taking either a fictional or life-writing approach. Proposals from those who wish to take undertake a more literary study exploring existing literary works on the topic of Scottish-Australian diasporic experience will also be welcomed.

Closing date for EOI: 10 January 2019.

For more information, see: https://scholarships.curtin.edu.au/scholarships/scholarship.cfm?id=3646.0

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.

This year, we have joint winners: A Book of Broken Pieces by Wendy Riley and The Whistler Calls by Greg Woodland.

Since the time of submission, Greg has been offered a contract with TEXT Publishing for The Whistler Calls. Warm congratulations, Greg. Wendy receives a $500 cash prize and both authors are entitled to fully subsidised conference fees, to attend the annual conference of the AAWP (November 2018), where they are invited to read from their work. The University of Western Australia Publishing agrees to assess Wendy’s manuscript as a matter of priority.

Judge’s Report: The Whistler Calls by Greg Woodland

The Whistler Calls (Greg Woodland) is joint-winner of the Chapter One prize in 2018. The submission is very well written, in a forceful and very down-to-earth style, which creates strong literary effects without being ‘literary’ in any precious or laboured sense. The writer offers many memorable images, many vivid descriptions, and the synopsis and first chapter indicate a very strong narrative drive-forward, a determination in the writer to tell a good story, as vividly and authentically as possible. The evocation of the Australian rural environment is very effective indeed, and the writer has superbly matched language, place and people.  I believe this story will find a keen readership both as an adult novel and as ‘young adult’ fiction, and in this latter category, would have a good chance of finding publication. The writer shows a very sure hand and the submission is characterised throughout by powerful language and very strong story-telling skills.

Judge’s Report: A Book of Broken Pieces by Wendy Riley

A Book of Broken Pieces is a short story collection. The short story, ‘Billy and the Sea Eagle’, one of a number of stories submitted by Wendy, characterises the wider range of her work. The story is a challenging exercise in cultural empathy—in moving ‘inside’ the world, the family, the environment of her central characters—and together with the other stories offers a remarkable conversation between cultures, likely to be controversial in some respects, with its bold imaginative incursions into the territory of others, but fulfilling, in doing so, one of the best and bravest ventures of which writing is capable. The writing broaches a series of subjectivities, intimately portrayed. She has a very sure hand—the writing is throughout beautifully crafted, evocative and intimate, and with a strong command of basic storytelling and with an impressive grasp of concrete detail. Her story-telling technique is highly sophisticated, and yet it results in inviting storytelling. One distinctive feature of the writing is that it invites a particularly wide readership, from late childhood through to adult. There is a strong and distinctive blend of fantasy and imagining, together with a very secure sense of physical location. Impressive throughout.

About Wendy Riley:

Raised in the UK, Wendy lives in Melbourne with her husband and son. Trained as a journalist and now working as a content writer, creative writing has always been her passion. Eleven of the twelve stories in her short story compilation A Book of Broken Pieces have now been recognised in national and international literary awards. Wendy also has a novel manuscript waiting in the wings.

About Greg Woodland:

Greg is founder-director of script development service Script Central. He’s been a script developer and consultant for Australian film funding bodies and the Australian Writers Guild for over 20 years. An award-winning writer/director, his films and documentaries have screened nationally and internationally at over 60 film festivals and numerous TV channels. His screenplays The Visitor and Pangs won several script competitions including the Inscription Open Script Award, Fellowship of Australian Writers Best Drama, an Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship and two Varuna Fellowships. Greg’s script editing credits include produced feature films: ‘Don’t Tell’ and ‘Broken’, ‘The Bet’, ‘Needle’, ‘Cold Turkey’ and indigenous documentary feature ‘Occupation Native’. He also script edited the 2016 AWG John Hinde Science Fiction Unproduced Script Award winner, the 2013 Tropfest Best Film Winner We’ve All Been There and many others. He’s taught Scriptwriting at UTS, NIDA, and AFTRS. Greg’s rural crime novel ‘The Whistler Called’ will be published in 2019 by TEXT Publishing

It is our very great pleasure to announce the winner of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs / Australian Short Story Festival Emerging Writers’ Prize. The winner is Margaret Hickey for ‘Fowler’s Bay’. AAWP/ASSF are proud to support emerging writers in offering this opportunity for emerging writers.

Highly commended entries (in alphabetical order) include:

• ‘A Name Like For Ever’ by Suzanne Hermanoczki
• ‘Between You and the Stars’ by Nicole Janov
• ‘Cat’s Kiss’ by Alison Thompson
• ‘Pass Muster’ by Deb Wain

AAWP/ASSF would like to thank all authors who submitted to the prize. The judges were overwhelmed by the quality and diversity of entries. This made the judging process very challenging.

AAWP/ASSF would like to acknowledge the generosity of our fine judges. Heartfelt thanks.

Judges’ appraisal:

Margaret Hickey’s ‘Fowler’s Bay’ is a quietly humorous story about poverty, hardship and loss. A story about a woman who was returned to her childhood bay to find that although much has changed she still can’t breathe there because of all the ‘sand blowing down my gullet’. In few words Hickey paints the picture of a life that has floundered, a woman who has lost plenty but who is still ready for life to take new turns. ‘Fowler’s Bay’ is a sad but life-affirming story that stood out in this year’s batch of fine stories.

About Margaret Hickey:

Marg Hickey is a playwright and author living in North East Victoria. Her plays are published with Playlab and have been performed in Melbourne (La Mama), Brisbane, New York and regional Victoria. Marg’s short stories have been shortlisted and won prizes in many awards. This year, her short story Binky won first prize in the Victorian Writers Grace Marion Award and second in the state. She has been published in many newspapers and literary journals including Meanjin.

This year, Marg submitted her PhD on depictions of landscape in contemporary Australian literature. When Marg isn’t writing, she teaches Theatre Studies at a local high school. She lives in the North East with her husband and three sons in a small house surrounded by gums.

AAWP/UWRF EMERGING WRITERS’ PRIZE 2018

It is our very great pleasure to announce the winner of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs / Ubud Writers and Readers Festival Emerging Writers’ Prize. The winner is Sophie Overett for ‘Sea Wife’.

Highly commended entries (in alphabetical order) include:

• ‘Forty Seven’ by Elizabeth Cummings
• ‘Feral Street’ by Susan Francis
• ‘Scales’ by Keely Jobe
• ‘Ruby’ by Saman Shad

AAWP/UWRF would like to thank all authors who submitted to the prize. The judges were overwhelmed by the nuanced responses to the theme and the quality and diversity of entries. We are proud to support emerging writers in offering this opportunity for emerging writers.

AAWP/UWRF would like to acknowledge the generosity of our fine judges. Heartfelt thanks.

Judges’ appraisal:

In ‘The Sea Wife’, Sophie Overett turns her attention to myth in order to explore the tragedy of love in a world that inevitably destroys. Suffused with exquisite aquatic imagery that reflects the currents in the main protagonist’s own moods, this richly layered story charts the interplay of life and death, memory and murder, feeling and language. It is an intense and hauntingly atmospheric story.

About Sophie Overett:

Sophie Overett is an Australian writer and cultural producer. Her writing has been published in journals and anthologies around the world. In 2015, she was a Queensland Literary Fellow, and her YA manuscript, Agatha Abel Meets Her Maker, was shortlisted for the Text Prize. In 2016, her adult manuscript, The Rabbits, was shortlisted for The Richell Prize, and in 2018, her novelette, They Built Us Out of Buried Things will be published by Tiny Owl Workshop. She is one half of Lady Parts, a podcast about women’s roles in genre cinema, and blogs at www.sophieoverett.com.

The University of Queensland Library is excited to announce that we are offering a $25,000 Fellowship for an emerging Australian author to create a new work of creative writing. The successful recipient will be immersed in a higher education setting and receive support from Library staff, the School of Communication and Arts and University of Queensland Press.

The Fellow will use the special collections of the Fryer Library as inspiration to create a novel, play, collection of short stories, book of poems, narrative non-fiction, creative non-fiction, biographical work, novella or associated creative work.

You will also have the opportunity to be mentored by an established Australian writer. Our mentors are Dr Nick Earls, Ross Cark, Sean Williams, Associate Professor Bronwyn Lea, John Birmingham, Matt Condon, Dr Veny Armanno and Dr Jessica White.

As part of the Fellowship you will also have a feedback session with the editorial team of University of Queensland Press.

Applications close on Sunday 30 September. More information is available online.

In 2020 Melbourne University Press will be publishing an anthology of Australian prose poetry, edited by Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington, and entitled The Australian Prose Poetry Anthology. This anthology will chart the trajectory of the Australian prose poetry from its beginnings to the present day, and will include about 150 works. Cassandra and Paul now invite submissions from contemporary Australian prose poets for consideration for publication in the anthology.

Please note that all submissions MUST have been previously published in a journal, magazine, newspaper, anthology or volume of poetry (and please include these publication details in your submission). Previous publication in personal blogs or self-published collections do not meet the criteria for inclusion.

All prose poems submitted must be available for publication (i.e. the author must have all rights to the prose poem(s) or must submit a note from the relevant publisher and/or editor to state that the poem may be published in the anthology).

The editors cannot guarantee that prose poems accepted for the anthology will receive a publication fee, although they are currently making every effort to ensure that this will be possible.

Poets should submit no more than four prose poems for consideration by the editors and no more than three pages of work in total in a Word document (no PDFs please).

Excessively long submissions, or submissions of more than four poems, will not be read.

Please include a 50-word biographical note and your contact details, including address, email and phone number. All submissions should be emailed to prosepoetryanthologymup@gmail.com by 1 March 2019. Poets who have prose poems selected for inclusion will be notified by 30 June 2019.

Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington

Sex and Journalism: Beyond the ‘Dirty Dons’ and Randy Royals’ Syndrome
Edited by Sue Joseph and Richard Lance Keeble

Paradoxically, while sex is everywhere in the media the research into the coverage of sexuality by journalists hardly exists. A vast body of work considers gender issues (stereotyping, discrimination, the ‘male gaze’, male/female presence in media organisations, strategies for promoting equality etc). But the media’s handling of issues relating to sexuality (consensual intercourse; heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality; feelings about our bodies; sexual feelings, thoughts, fantasies, experiences; prostitution; rape; nudity) is almost totally ignored by the academy.

The text aims to be international in focus – and incorporate studies of both print (corporate and alternative; online and off-line) and broadcasting. Topics in this innovative and important text could include:

* Titillation and sleaze: The tabloid media’s handling of political sex scandals.

* The ethics of covering sex trafficking.

* How the media handles disability and sexuality.

* The activist media’s handling of lesbian/bisexuality issues in Muslim countries.

* Critical studies of the reporting of rape as an instrument of war; sex tourism in Asia; prostitution in Peru etc.

* Analysis of sex advice columns/explicit sex confessional blogs.

* Orwell’s essay on the sexy seaside postcards of Donald McGill.

* Angela Carter’s exploration of sexual issues in her journalism.

* Sex and humour in the media.

* Playboy and the myths of masculinity.

* Social media’s ‘sextalk’.

The text is likely to be published by Bite-Sized Books, London (https://www.bite-sizedbooks.com/). It publishes books (paperback and on Kindle) of around 24,000 words for just over £4. The idea is that their shortness means that they are actually read! So we are looking for tightly written, lively, original chapters. All articles will be rigorously peer-reviewed. Abstracts of 100 words should be sent to Richard Lance Keeble (rkeeble@lincoln.ac.uk) and Sue Joseph (sue.joseph@uts.edu.au) by 1 December 2018. Chapters, of 3,000 words (including references) will be required by 1 May – with publication later in-2019.

Submissions are invited for Volume 5 of Writing in Practice: The Journal of Creative Writing Research, to be published in March 2019. The editors are looking for articles that explore the art of imaginative writing of all kinds, from an authorial perspective, highlighting and evolving current academic thinking and practice. Creative Writing itself is welcomed when integral to an article.

For more information and how to submit, click here

Writing and Researching (in) the Regions – A TEXT Special Issue

Editors: Dr Nike Sulway, Dr Lynda Hawryluk, Dr Moya Costello

The Australian Regional University Network (RUN) asserts that their member universities (and, by implication, regional universities more generally), ‘play an important and distinctive role in advancing Australia’s national prosperity, productivity and identity.’ Internationally, Hartley (2014 http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/10368) identifies, in a special issue of the European Journal of American Studies devoted to regionalism in North America, that ‘[s]ince the 1990s [there has been] a surge of interest in the local, the regional, the global, and their intersections’.

This special issue of TEXT will focus on exploring the ways in which creative-writing teaching, research and practice in regional settings have particular flavours and concerns. The editors strongly urge writers and researchers from the regions to reflect on the particularities of their teaching, research and writing experiences and contexts.

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following questions/themes:
• What narratives, stories, or voices ‘naturally’ arise in regional research and writing practices? What stories about the regions are acceptable to the largely urban publishing industry?

• How do perceptions of regionality impact on the ways regional writing, teaching and/or research are funded, framed, or received inside and outside the regions?

• What negotiations or relationships exist between regional and non-regional writers and writing researchers?

• Is the global-local nexus naturalised and unproblematic?

• Do those of us who teach in a region, outside of a large city, inevitably do a comparison with our collegial city counterparts? Do students make such a comparison?

• What characterises academic life for both academic and student in a regional university?

• Are there particular challenges or advantages in researching, teaching, supervising and studying in regions? Are there issues that academics must address specifically in undergraduate teaching through a perceived or real lack of access to resources in a regional context?

• Are regional students from a very different profile to their urban counterparts? And if so, what does this mean?

• In what ways do researchers and writers embrace or reject regional identities?

For more information and how to submit, click here.