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2023 Australian Short Story Festival Program

The full program of events, including workshops, panels, book launches and more, is now available on the Australian Short Story Festival (ASSF) website. With a star-studded lineup of storytellers from across Australia and overseas, the 2023 festival is one not to be missed! The festival will be held at the Fullarton Park Community Centre in the City of Unley in Adelaide from the 9th to the 12th of November. Tickets are available to purchase now, with discounts for students, concession card holders and City of Unley residents. For more information and to purchase your tickets, visit the ASSF website.

AAWP and Partners 2023 Prizes Results

We are thrilled to announce the results for the six 2023 AAWP and partners prizes for writers and translators.

*drum roll*

The 2023 winning entries are:

– AAWP & Ubud Writers & Readers Festival Translators’ Prize: ‘Introduction to Darkness’ by John McGlynn

– AAWP & Ubud Writers & Readers Festival Emerging Writers’ Prize: ‘The Interview’ by Jake Dean

– AAWP & Westerly Magazine Life Writing Prize: ‘There is another world, but it is this one’ by Luke Allan

– AAWP & Express Media Sudden Writing Prize (under 25): ‘this is the earth’s Alarm system going off’ by Maz Howard

– AAWP & Australian Short Story Festival Short Story Prize: ‘In Search of Murakami’ by Alicia Sometimes

– AAWP & UWA Publishing Chapter One Prize: The Freelancer by Jonathan O’Brien


Congratulations to all!

Deep gratitude to our generous judges and to our partner organisations, who all show their love for our writer and translator community through meaningful support for these prizes.

Huge thanks to all who entered work and made judging both a conundrum and a delight.

For winner bios, full shortlists, and to read the glorious judges’ reports, head over to the Prizes page.

2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize Longlists Announced

Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA), in partnership with Australia’s leading essential building and infrastructure services provider ARA Group, is excited to announce the Longlists for the 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize.

This year’s Longlists traverse a vast tapestry of settings and eras, delving into tales of love against prejudice, the resilience in the face of societal shifts, and the enduring spirit of individuals amidst challenges. From sun-soaked Australian landscapes to the complexities of medieval England and the turmoil of wartime Europe, the stories underscore the potency of historical fiction to illuminate the intricacies of human nature, evoke untold tales, and spotlight the shared tribulations and triumphs echoing through time.

The Longlist for the 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize – Adult Category is:

The Longlist for the 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize – Children and Young Adult (CYA) Category is:

The ARA Historical Novel Prize is worth a total of $100,000 in prize monies. The Prize will award $50,000 to the Adult category winner, with an additional $5,000 to be awarded to each of the remaining two shortlisted authors. In the Children and Young Adult (CYA) category, the winner will receive $30,000, while the two shortlisted authors will receive $5,000 each.

The 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize Shortlist will be announced on Wednesday 27 September 2023. Winners will be announced on 19 October 2023. For more information about the awards and to see last year’s winners, please visit the HNSA website.

Australian Short Story Festival Mentorship

Submission deadline: Friday 25th August 2023

This incredible opportunity is open to emerging Australian or permanent resident short story writers who do not have a full-length, published collection. The winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize and a three-month long remote mentorship with award-winning Irish short story writer and playwright, Paul McVeigh. During this time, you will work with Paul to develop three short stories across three months of mentoring from October to December 2023.

This opportunity is made possible by the Australian Short Story Festival and an Australian Government’s Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) grant.

About Paul McVeigh:

Paul’s debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award, and was shortlisted for many others including The Prix du Roman Cezam. Paul began his writing career as a playwright and comedy writer. His short stories have been in numerous anthologies, journals and newspapers, as well as on BBC Radio 3,4 & 5, and Sky Arts. He co-founded London Short Story Festival and is associate director of Word Factory, London, ‘the UK national organisation for excellence in the short story’ The Guardian. He co-edited Belfast Stories and edited the Queer Love anthology and The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices. He has judged numerous literary prizes and his writing has been translated into seven languages.

To apply:

Send us your best short story under 5,000 words. Stories can be published or unpublished and of any genre or theme. Stories will be read and selected by Paul McVeigh.

Send your submissions to theaustralianshortstoryfest@gmail.com

Include in your email your full name, preferred email address and phone number as well as a short bio and a short paragraph (50-100 words) explaining why you would benefit from this mentorship.

Applications are due by midnight on Friday 25th August 2023. The winner will be contacted by the end of September 2023. Any questions to be directed to Gillian Hagenus through info@australianshortstoryfestival.com

Lecturer in English & Creative Writing

  • Full-Time, Continuing position
  • Based at La Trobe University’s Melbourne, Bundoora campus
  • Teaching & Research opportunity

About the position

The School of Humanities and Social Sciences is a dynamic community of scholars who research and teach about the human experience, from its earliest beginnings to the latest developments in society, politics and culture.

We are seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Creative Writing, with a strong creative publication record, demonstrated potential for traditional research outputs, a demonstrated ability to teach creative writing to a high standard, supervision or mentoring experience, and a commitment to community and industry engagement.

The primary purpose of the position is to contribute to teaching and research in the English and Creative Writing Programs, ensuring alignment with La Trobe University’s strategic plans, while complementing existing strengths.

Skills and Experience

To be considered for this position, you will have;

  • A PhD in creative writing or equivalent accreditation and standing recognised by the University/profession as appropriate for the relevant discipline area.
  • A substantial creative writing publication record in one or more literary genres.
  • Demonstrated potential for traditional research publication with quality journals and presses.
  • Demonstrated ability to coordinate, develop, and teach creative writing undergraduate units (including fiction and creative nonfiction).
  • Demonstrated ability to supervise, or co-supervise, honours and postgraduate students.
  • High-level analytical, verbal, and written communication skills, including the ability to interact effectively with people from a diverse range of backgrounds.
  • Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively and respectfully with staff and students from a diverse range of backgrounds.
  • Experience in the preparation of research proposal submissions to external funding bodies and evidence of success in securing research funding.
  • Demonstrated commitment to building community, professional, and industry relationships at local and national level.

Please refer to the Position Description for other duties, skills and experience required for this position.

What La Trobe University can offer you!

  • 17% employer contributed superannuation
  • On site child care facilities
  • Flexible work arrangements
  • Discounts for staff and their family members to study a range of La Trobe courses

How to apply

Closing date:  By 11:55pm Thursday, 10th August 2023.

Position Enquiries:  Tonya Stebbins, Head of Department, Dept of Language and Cultures

Email: T.Stebbins@latrobe.edu.au

Recruitment Enquiries:  Bianca Trajanov, Talent Acquisition Consultant

Email:  B.trajanov@latrobe.edu.au

Position Description below:

 PD – Lecturer, English & Creative Writing.pdf

Only candidates with Full Working Rights in Australia may apply for this position.

Please submit an online application ONLY and include the following documents:

  • Cover letter;
  • An up to date resume; and
  • A separate document addressing each essential and desirable bullet point in the Key Selection Criteria which is located in the position description.

We’d love to stay connected! If you would like to find out more about this School, please follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/89174495

Full job ad: On the La Trobe jobs website

Online Forum: Uncertainty Across Expanded Fields of Practice #2

FRI 19 MAY 2023, 12:30 – 2.00pm (ACST)

Tickets: $10-$25 (pay what you can)

Open to artists and researchers at any stage of practice.

This event features South Australian artists Brad Darkson, Deirdre Feeney, Niki Sperou and Catherine Truman addressing their processes, as well as a range of topics including traditional First Nations land management using fire, depth-of-field exploration, inter-species empathy and altered landscapes.

Hosted by writer and advocate Jessica Alice, CEO of Writers SA, we’ll examine the experimental methodology and DNA of the Uncertain Times project. In this participatory dialogue–a conversation for our times–you will be invited to ask a question or propose a talking point around the uncertainty of your practice.

To find out more about this event and how to book your ticket, visit the website here.

UCD Ad Astra Fellowship

Deadline for applications: Friday 26 May

In 2019 we launched the UCD Ad Astra Fellowship scheme to welcome early career academics into our community of scholars. The response since then has been exceptional and we are now looking for the next thirty Fellows to join the Colleges of Business, Arts & Humanities and Health & Agricultural Sciences.

We are particularly interested in receiving applications from academics who will contribute to advancing one or more of the four themes identified in our current strategy: Creating a Sustainable Global Society, Transforming through Digital Technology, Building a Healthy World, and Empowering Humanity. I invite you to explore the themes and consider how you might align your interests with our ambitions.

To learn more about this opportunity and find out how to apply, visit the UCD website.

Call for Papers : The writer’s place

A Special Issue of TEXT Journal of Writing and Writing Courses

Deadline for EOIs: 29 May 2023.

This Special Issue seeks to explore the experience of the place of writing. Much has been written about how writers immerse themselves and ‘feel’ – even vicariously in recent years – in/to the place/s their stories are set. But little scholarly attention has been given to the writer’s place, where the works are often ‘written up’. 

Yi-Fu Tuan clarifies in differentiating ‘space’ from ‘place’:

Place has a history and meaning. Place incarnates the experiences and aspirations of a people. Place is not only a fact to be explained in the broader frame of space, but it is also a reality to be clarified and understood from the perspectives of the people who have given it meaning.  

(Tuan 1979:387).

This Special Issue seeks contributions from writers (of creative nonfiction, fiction, academic writing, poetry/poetics, life/self-writing) as to the meaning attached to their place of writing.   

Malcolm Holz (2022) suggests that as many writers work alone, a large space may not be required to be most creative/productive, rather, that it is often the small place, the archetypal writer-hermit’s hut in the wild, where many influential (and infamous) writers retreated. Martin Heidegger, for example, produced most of his vast works in a hut in the Black Forest (Sharr 2006). Virginia Woolf’s (1929) classic essay illuminated the significance of having ‘a room of one’s own’ in which to write.

This provocation/invitation for contributors is centred on the phenomenology – the phenomenological experience – of the writer’s place. Potential contributors might like to consider:

  • What are the characteristics of the writer’s (preferred or limited) place of writing, and how important is the articulation/decoration/function of that place in the creative process e.g., the writer’s chair, desk, bookcase, pictures, music, temperature?
  • What is the writer’s experience – how does the writer ‘feel’ when writing – and how does the place of writing influence that experience, the creative process, and creative outputs; can the place be imagined/ virtual; how does technology affect the planning or design of the writing space; what does writing in that place smell or taste like? 
  • Does the writer (or their editor?) feel that the work created in a place of the writer’s own making is of a higher quality than if produced in a place they would prefer not to be?
  • Is the writer’s place only/solely the mind/body, and if so, what goes on in writing in that place?

This Special Issue of TEXT is seeking, but is not limited to, creative works and scholarly studies in the coalescence of the psychological space and the physical place of writing. Where do writers go: is it alone in their head, or bed; down the hall, or beside the pool; perhaps on the veranda, or in a fold-up chair by the beach, or a hut in the mountains? What is it about that place which attracts, and what happens – what is the writer’s experience – when the writer gets ‘t/here’?

How to submit your expression of interest:

Please submit a 200-word Expression of Interest by email to Malcolm Holz with ‘The Writer’s Place’ as the subject line. In your EOI please outline how your paper or work(s) explore(s) aspects of the experience of the writer’s place.  Please also include the following information: your full name, institutional affiliation (if any), email address, title of paper/work, brief biography (50–100 words), and 3 to 5 keywords (at least 2 of which should clearly relate to the issue’s title).

Deadline for EOIs: 29 May 2023.

Deadline for finished works/papers: 31 July 2023.  
Enquiries: Malcolm Holz (malcolmholz@outlook.com)

References

Holz, M. (2022) (Re)creative reflective writing in Focus and Flow: towards a timeless way of Being

Paper presented at Australasian Association of Writing Programs Annual Conference, Fire Country, University of the Sunshine Coast, November 2022

Sharr, A. (2009) Heidegger’s hut

MIT Press, Massachusetts

Tuan, Yi-Fu. (1979) Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective

In Gale, S. & Olsson, G. (Eds.) Philosophy in Geography

D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland.  pp. 387-427

Woolf, V. (1929) A room of one’s own

Hogarth Press, England

Book a book proposal conversation with Bloomsbury Academic commissiong editor in Creative Writing, Lucy Brown (UK)

Lucy Brown, commissioning editor in Creative Writing at Bloomsbury Academic (UK) will be running a couple of commissioning days for the creative writing list on Monday 24thand Tuesday 25th April. The idea is for people to book in a short, 30-minute session to discuss any ideas around potential projects or proposals they have been thinking about. Lucy hopes this opportunity will make publishing with Bloomsbury’s Creative Writing area feel more accessible through an informal chat.

Writers can informally discuss projects at the early stages, see if an idea has legs or be ready with a proposal to submit. Lucy is most interested in creative writing books for students to use on courses, and research books for scholars and practitioners. 

Find out more about Bloombsury Academic’s Research in Creative Writing Series here: 

Link to book: https://bit.ly/3UgORvw

Dates: 9am – 5:30pm BST, 24th & 25th April 2023

ENTRIES FOR THE 2023 ARA HISTORICAL NOVEL PRIZE NOW OPEN

Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA), in partnership with Australia’s leading essential building and infrastructure services provider ARA Group, is excited to announce that entries for the 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize opened at 9am on 12 April 2023.

The ARA Historical Novel Prize is the richest genre-based literary award in Australasia, incorporating both an Adult category and a Children and Young Adult (CYA) category. The Prize is worth a total of $100,000 in prize monies. The Prize will award $50,000 to the Adult category winner, with an additional $5,000 to be awarded to each of the remaining two shortlisted authors. In the CYA category, the winner will receive $30,000, while the two short listers will receive $5,000 each.

Key dates:

  • Awards open: 9am (AEST) 12 April 2023
  • Awards close: 5pm (AEST) 14 June 2023
  • Longlist announced (nine books): 13 September 2023
  • Shortlist announced (three books): 27 September 2023
  • Winners announced: 19 October 2023

Winners will be announced at a cocktail party in Sydney on 19 October.

The HNSA supports and promotes the writing, reading and publication of historical fiction across Australia and New Zealand. It is the third arm of the international Historical Novel Society.

To enter the 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize, visit: https://hnsa.org.au/the-2023-ara-historical-novel-prize/