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.

Closing date: 31 August 2018

Prize: $1,500

The Award is for a Life Writing, defined as a work of biography, autobiography, memoir, monograph, bibliography. Biography and autobiography may be an extract to meet the word count requirements which is a minimum of 10,000 and a maximum of 25,000. The competition is open to all residents of Australia 18 years and over.

Entry Fee: $25.00 per entry. For full Conditions of Entry please download the entry form

http://fawnsw.org.au/walter-stone-2018-life-writing-award/

The winner of this will be invited to attend the annual FAW NSW Awards Presentation Luncheon in Sydney on Saturday 3 November 2018.

Results will be published in Writers Voice and on the website.

Dear Friends and colleagues,

As you may be aware, Carclew administers a grants program for artists and arts workers aged 26 & under, on behalf of the state government. Carclew Fellowships provide financial support for professional development, and are currently open for applications.

Carclew is committed to improving access and widening our network of applicants in order to reach young people who may be operating outside of the usual study or formal networks.

We would love your assistance in reaching a wider audience.

Carclew Fellowships can be used for a broad variety of professional development activities including international study, summer schools, masterclasses, residencies, internships, mentorships, or to be exposed to an environment of innovation and cutting edge ideas.

Fellowship proposals can request financial support ranging from $3,000 – $12,000.

Recognising the breadth of skills in the arts and creative industries, Carclew Fellowships are open to applicants practicing in all creative mediums, as well as technical, administration and production areas of the arts. This includes but is not limited to Performing Arts | Film & New Media | Visual Arts | Creative Writing | Technical / Production | Arts Administration.

More support for applicants – As Carclew’s Funding Program Coordinator, I am available to present information sessions in person or via video, locally and outside of the Adelaide Metro area. I also regularly provide one-on-one consultations with potential applicants. In addition to the written/online submission system, Carclew also accepts project proposals video format.

We’re able to provide image and information in any convenient format that will make it easiest for you to distribute this information. We also have printed postcards that we can send to you.

Further information is available on the Carclew website or you’re welcome to contact me directly on (08) 8230 1103 or rmeston@carclew.org.au

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