We are delighted to announce that our second keynote speaker for Peripheral Visions (Perth, 28-30 December 2018) is writer and cultural historian Maria Tumarkin. Maria will speak on the final day, while Kim Scott, whose latest novel has just been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, will open the Conference.

Please note: Paper and panel proposals for the Conference should be submitted to AAWPConf18@curtin.edu.au by 30 June 2018. For the CFP and additional information, click here

In this two-part event, HDR and ECR participants will have an opportunity to engage with exciting and innovative theories and approaches to writing and publishing.

Dr Quinn Eades and Professor Terri-ann White will host exciting workshops aimed at helping HDR and ECR participants write from lived experience and new, peripheral and conventional ways of reading, writing and publishing.

For more information about what these masterclasses entail, click here or visit the host university’s website.

This event is free for postgraduates and early career researchers within two years of completion who register for the AAWP Conference, Peripheral Visions (28-30 November 2018). Postgraduates and ECRs not attending the AAWP conference are welcome: cost $30.00, includes afternoon tea.

The Department of Humanities and Creative Writing is now inviting applications for an assistant professorship in English Creative Writing. The appointee is expected to teach a range of introductory and upper level broad-based, writing and interdisciplinary core courses in the Department. Preferable teaching and research topics include some of the following: fictional writing, speculative fiction genre (including science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective fiction), experimental narrative forms, multimedia writing, video-game narrative, audio/digital storytelling, and/or digital literature.

For more information and how to apply, click here

To apply directly, click here

Poetry on the Move: Inhabiting Language

This issue is connected to a one-day symposium to be held during the Poetry on the Move Festival, 13-17 September 2018, hosted by the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI) in the Faculty of arts and Design at the University of Canberra.

This Special Issue of the Axon journal aims to explore ways in which contemporary poetry ‘inhabits’ language, and the extent to which poetic language may be understood as inside and/or outside of human experience.

We are particularly interested in papers that relate to:

• How poetic expression and form may be said to ‘inhabit’ language.
• How poetry inhabits its language differently from prose, and how poetry dwells in the possible (remembering that Emily Dickinson wrote that she dwelt ‘in Possibility’ and that this was ‘a fairer House than Prose’).
• The ways in which poets ‘inhabit’ language in order to write their works.
• Poetry’s capacity to inhabit various and divergent languages through translation.
• The relationship of poetry to experience and knowledge.
• Poetry and autobiography.
• The space and time of poetry.
• The connection of poetry to ideas of home, place or belonging.
• Poetry’s connection to the quotidian.
• Poetry’s ways of ‘inhabiting’ diverse identities.
• The way poems ‘house’ ideas and emotions.
• Poetry as a way of knowing and/or inhabiting the ‘other’.
• Poetry and its relationship to language more broadly.
• Ways in which lyric utterance may be said to ‘belong’ inside human experience.

What we would like from contributors:

1. A 150-word abstract of your proposed paper by 20 April 2018.
2. If your abstract is accepted, a full written paper of between 3,000 and 6,000 words by 15 August 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

Thematic issue of Recherches en Communication
Deadline for submission: June 29, 2018
Languages: English and French

Paper submissions are invited for a thematic issue of Recherches en Communication, which will explore the interplay between journalism and experience in narrative and literary forms of journalism.

Considering the recent evolutions of journalism, the study of experientiality should not be limited to the written text, but should also concern more innovative forms of narrative/literary journalism, such as multimedia, transmedia and interactive narratives. For this thematic issue, all submissions investigating the relationship between narrative/literary journalism and experience are welcome.

For more information and how to submit, click here

Every creative expression shares a vision. Whether writers are looking from, looking towards, looking askance, looking away, or looking over, writing beckons us to the periphery and asks, ‘Where to now?’.

The location of the 2018 annual conference of the AAWP in the western reaches of the continent has inspired our theme. And we are delighted to announce that Kim Scott, award-winning novelist and Professor of Writing, will be our keynote speaker.

We invite presentations — from pedagogy, research, and practice in creative or professional writing, editing and publishing — that explore or excavate these different ways of writing beyond and outside the obvious, enabling alternative worlds, ideas, or truths to emerge.

For a list of potential topics, as well as how to submit, click here.

An International Symposium dedicated to exploring the boundaries of biography

25-26 October 2018, Noosa Queensland Australia

Abstracts are being sought for and investigation into speculative biography and exploring associated practices.  Recently, some writers have chosen to experiment further with biography, employing conjecture and ‘informed imagination’ to fill in the gaps and silences in the archives, and when writing the lives of those who are under-represented in sources and obscured from the historical record. Such works have come to be known as ‘speculative biography’, not only because they challenge traditional notions of authorial veracity but also because, in contrast to biographically-based fiction or historical fiction, these experimental approaches are still clearly recognizable as nonfictional attempts to explore and express the ‘truth’.

Details and how to submit can be found here

The NonfictioNOW Conference is currently seeking panel proposals for its 2018 conference, taking place November 1-3 in Phoenix, Arizona, hosted by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University and held at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel and historic Orpheum Theatre.

NonfictioNOW is unique in being neither a conventional academic conference nor a writers’ festival, but rather a lively conversation among peers, one that brings together well-established writers and those just starting out. We are especially interested in proposals that defy the expectations and/or subvert the format of the traditional conference panel, as well as those that include a diverse group of participants, reflecting the inclusive and international nature of this gathering.

In the past, the most successful panels have been conceived and conducted as lively, discursive, playful, and interactive events, as opposed to the reading of a succession of individual papers. Similarly, we are enthusiastic about the great energy and range present in all of nonfiction’s many forms, including literary and political essays; memoir and journalism; digital media, graphic memoirs, and hybrid essays; performance-based work; and other areas of the field. Our hope is that we might receive great proposals exploring the many different shapes of nonfiction, with variety and diversity serving to enlarging both the conversation and community present at the conference.

Submissions are due April 15, 2018. All submissions must include a panel description (150 words or less, written as it should appear in the program, if accepted), a statement of merit (150 words or less), and the complete contact information for three to five panel participants, including a program-ready bio of 50 words or less for each participant.

The NonfictioNOW Board is a rotating group of writers and academics from around the world. Panel submissions will be assessed in a timely fashion by the Board, with every effort made to have final panels confirmed by the middle of July.

INDICATIVE TOPICS:

The following list is a starting place for brainstorming and conversation, not an exclusive expression of the conference’s interests. We hope and expect that many proposals will go far beyond the topics listed here, offering to bring new areas of inquiry and exploration to this year’s NonfictioNOW:

• nonfiction genres and their boundaries and tensions, including but not limited to: essay (personal, narrative, lyric, collage, interdisciplinary, etc.); memoir; immersion writing; history; biography; long-form journalism; travel writing; food writing; nonfiction poetry; environmental and science writing; sports writing; hybrids of fiction and nonfiction
• non-traditional and/or supra-literary forms of nonfiction, including but not limited to: performance, documentary, radio, video, hypertext, programmable media, and graphic forms
• indigenous, regional, national, and/or international characteristics and issues that are expressed through nonfiction genres
• threads of influence, style, and discourse, with a focus on important authors or on historical/cultural/theoretical trends
• the poetics of nonfiction
• intersections of self and other genders, race, sexualities, and abilities in nonfiction
• nonfiction in/as translation

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• Please note that individuals may appear on up to three panel proposals and may present on two. If all three proposals of a person’s panels are accepted, they will have to drop off one of them. 
• The conference cannot fund presenters, but we will provide travel tips to make the trip more affordable. After this year’s panel acceptances are announced, we will encourage meetups on Facebook’s Friends of NonfictioNOW page so that people without a panel can find one and panels with vacancies can fill their open spots.
• To help facilitate international diversity, we will give preference to panels with three to four participants that indicate their willingness to include additional panelists.
• It is the role of each panel chair to finalize, confirm, and coordinate their panel, as well as provide any necessary additional information for the conference program.
• After panel acceptances go out, we will open up a second call for proposals to formally participate in the conference outside of panels. In Reykjavik in 2017, this took the form of  roundtable presentations (in Icelandic, húslestur, or “house readings”). More information will be forthcoming.  The conference will host multiple sessions of these húslestur, creating another avenue for participation and conversation among participants and potential presenters.

Click here to submit

Australia is home to the world’s longest living story traditions, but are our creative writing classrooms a place where Indigenous Australian story can be shared? How might the teaching of creative writing be changed through ongoing relationship to the knowledge and experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? What can creative writing as a discipline offer in return? The symposium will engage these questions through panel discussions, yarning circles, and creative readings from leading Indigenous writers, academics and storytellers, including members of the university and local First Nations Australian communities.

Presenters on the day include Professor Jill Milroy, Professor Tony Birch, Ellen van Neervan, Dr Jared Thomas, Dr Paul Collis and Lisa Fuller. Their discussions will jump off into yarning circles where participants can discuss the issues they raise in depth.

There will be an evening reading event with stalls. Come along for the day, or drop in after work for some wine and nibblies, browse the books and other items, and get a book signed by the author.

All are welcome to the symposium, the evening reading, or both.

Symposium: 8.30-5.30pm

Evening reading & stalls: 5.30-6.30pm

For more information, click here

Manuscription Magazine is a new magazine that publishes only authors and creatives under 18.

When they are chosen for publication, the young writers will work with university-level writing students to edit and develop their work in a mentoring relationship designed to encourage and improve. By showcasing different genres, as well as offering a space for young people to critically reflect on the media they consume in the reviews section, Manuscription intends to act as a space to foster creative talent and interest by providing an opportunity for younger creatives to see their work in print.

Manuscription is looking for stories/poems in all genres. They look for great stories/poems about the youth experience, issues of identity and friendship, coming-of-age, family, and anything else that you as an author consider to be an important aspect of your life. For more details on submission guidelines and how to submit, click here.