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

Deadline: Wednesday 15 April 11.59pm (EST)

The in/completeness of human experience…

Dear all,
I’m writing to invite you to contribute to a Special Issue of TEXT, to be released alongside the standard issue, in April—The in/completeness of human experience. The Special Issue will consist of AAWP members’ creative responses to the current health crisis and its impacts—it is an opportunity for us to come together as writers.

We are deeply interested in capturing a composite “picture” of what people are writing about. Now. Please send creative work—short-short fiction, “sudden” fiction, “sketchy” stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, short pithy scripts, as well as hybrid forms.

We are accepting submissions on the following scale: up to 400 words prose (including submissions in script format), 40 lines for poetry (approximately 200 words for prose poems), and the equivalent for hybrid forms. Submissions must be previously unpublished. We will accept a maximum of two submissions, per author. Please send your most polished work, without delay. The aim is to capture the immediacy of people’s “thinking positions”. The call opens on Tuesday 7 April and closes on Wednesday 15 April 11.59pm (EST).

In ace news: Recent Work Press (RWP) has agreed to publish a selection of entries in a hard copy collection, following the Special Issue. This will be launched and offered for sale at our 25th annual gathering: Rising Tides (Griffith University, Gold Coast, 16-18 November 2020).

Please note that this opportunity is open only to current AAWP members. You will be prompted to provide membership details, when you submit:
https://meniscusliteraryjournal.submittable.com/submit/164256/the-in-completeness-of-human-experience
 For inquiries re. the status of your membership please contact:
memberships@aawp.org.au
 If you are a student, or in precarious employment, and the membership fee presents an issue, please contact Julia: jprendergast@swin.edu.au
Write boldly. Go gently. In solidarity.
Julia.

Dr Julia Prendergast
Senior Lecturer, Writing and Literature
Major Discipline Coordinator: Professional Writing and Editing
Swinburne University
Chair of the Executive Committee
Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP)
AAWP Portfolio: Partnerships and Prizes

Deadline: Wednesday 15 April 11.59pm (EST)

The in/completeness of human experience…

We invite you to contribute to a Special Issue of TEXT, to be released alongside the standard issue, in April—The in/completeness of human experience. The Special Issue will consist of AAWP members’ creative responses to the current health crisis and its impacts—it is an opportunity for us to come together as writers.

See the Prizes page for full details in a letter from AAWP President Julia Prendergast.

For the second issue of Axon for 2020, we are calling for work that addresses the topic “Manifestos, diatribes and interventions”, in manuscripts that take on the big issues of the day: natural, environmental and epidemiological disasters; questions of social, economic and environmental ethics the place of creative practice in contemporary culture (including in cultural and higher education institutions) and the capacity of creativity and creative engagements to intervene in and help remedy individual and collective crises.

For this issue, we are inviting submissions of:

• scholarly essay up to 6,000 words
• manifesto or diatribe/rant up to 750 words
• photo essays incorporating a contextualising statement of up to 500 words (send up to 12 images, and the editors will make a selection from those images)
• creative essay incorporating poetry, short fictional prose, images, sound, up to 4000 words; attach a contextualising statement of up to 500 words

Submissions can be lodged at our Submittable site: here.

By popular demand the deadline for Meridian: The APWT Drunken Boat Anthology of New Writing – APWT’s first book length publication featuring the best fiction, non-fiction and poetry from APWT members – has been extended. Submissions now open until April 1st 2020. The anthology will be edited by preeminent editors in their fields Ravi Shankar (poetry) Tim Tomlinson (fiction) and Sally Breen (creative non-fiction). There is no theme for the collection, so please send us your best unpublished work. They are looking for bold and original voices and welcome work which features Asia Pacific perspectives. Open to established and emerging authors, poets and translators. This opportunity is only available for current or new financial members. To make a submission visit: https://drunkenboat.submittable.com/submit

The Australasian Association of Writing Programs was a milestone in the history of university creative writing teaching a quarter of a century ago. We celebrate that milestone at the 25th anniversary AAWP conference to be held at Griffith University, 16-18 November 2020. Proposals are invited for academic papers, panels, performances and/or creative presentations of up to 15 minutes duration that explore the conference theme of ‘Rising Tides’.

Although travel plans may be delayed due to Covid-19 concerns, we anticipate that the conference will go ahead in November as planned.

Links to the conference registration and AAWP membership pages are provided here:  https://aawp.org.au/annual-conference/25th-annual-conference/

Please email abstracts and proposals (150 words approx.) by 24 April 2020 to: aawp@griffith.edu.au 

Submissions should also include your name, university affiliation, e-mail address, the title of your proposed paper, and a short bio (100 words approx).

We encourage participants from Australasia and around the world, from all backgrounds, including university lecturers, postgraduate candidates and undergraduate students of writing – who are working in all genres, modes and styles, theories and practices of creative writing. If you’ve never been to the AAWP conference before, we encourage you to take the plunge!! If you are unable to make it, we hope you’ll encourage your colleagues, associates and students to embrace the opportunity.

Please note that all conference presenters must be AAWP members. To renew your membership please go to: https://aawp.org.au/membership-new/