Thursday 30 September 2021, 10am – 12pm AEST

The Arts Faculty at Macquarie University is holding a special online event — Creative Nonfiction and Social Justice: In conversation with Behrouz Boochani — on Thursday 30 September at 10am AEST. It will be recorded for people to view later in other time zones.

Behrouz Boochani’s book No Friend but the Mountains drew intense local and international interest when it was published in mid-2018.

The book conveys the inhumane treatment of refugees and asylum seekers imprisoned on Manus Island by the Australian government to prevent their resettlement in Australia. Boochani’s tools were successive contraband phones hidden at one stage in a cavity he carved deep in his mattress. Originally written in Farsi, No Friends but the Mountains was produced text by text under constant surveillance and the threat of retribution and violence.

In August 2019, after the book won a slew of major literary awards, the Papua New Guinean government offered to relocate all the men from Manus Island to Port Moresby. Boochani is now in New Zealand and able to reside there permanently.

In this conversation, Behrouz Boochani discusses the writing and form of his book – why he chose creative nonfiction over journalism – and the impact the book has had on Australian refugee and asylum seeker policy.

View Behrouz Boochani’s profile.

Anyone interested in joining can use this link to register: https://event.mq.edu.au/behrouz-boochani…/registration

Any questions about the event should go to events@mq.edu.au

Social Alternatives is an independent, not-for-profit peer-reviewed journal with quarterly publications. It is committed to the principles of social justice, commenting on important social issues of current concern or public debate. We publish practical and theoretical articles on relevant topics, as well as reviews, short stories, poems, graphics, commentaries and critiques.

While Social Alternatives is primarily a scholarly journal, publishing articles and commentary, the collective firmly recognises the ability for literature to comment on range of social issues and act as vehicle for social change. Fiction is by definition transformative, allowing us to reveal and re-imagine ourselves. No particular theme or focus is required for short stories.

Please note, authors are invited to submit short stories they have polished and should not attempt to artificially target social issues since the creative nature of short story writing can be stymied by this focus.

Please read these guidelines carefully before submitting your writing.

Direct enquiries and submissions to the Short Story Editor:
Dr Thu Hoang – Independent scholar
hoang_ngoc_thu@yahoo.com.au – Please use this while the Social Alternatives server is undergoing reconstruction. Once this is completed, future contact can be made at thoang@socialalternatives.com

Poetry on the Move Symposium 2021:
Archives, counter-memory, creative practice and poetry

We are seeking wide-ranging work for a Poetry on the Move 2021 symposium (in Canberra and via Zoom) and a subsequent issue of the Axon Creative Explorations journal that takes up what has been a lively discussion about archives and counter-memories situated in opposition to official histories.

This call is for presentations/papers that explore the contemporary relationship between creative thinking, creative practice, poetry and the archive. We are especially interested in topics that connect to the following issues:

• Poetry and the archive
• The archive re-imagined as counter-memory and/or resistance
• Creative writers as archivists
• Poetry and memory
• Poetic biography
• Archives, connections and genealogies
• Non-dialectical histories and the reconstruction of memory
• Poetry and the digital archive
• The quotidian, fact and creative writing
• Poetry and forms of resurrection

The editors are seeking papers for a symposium to be held in Canberra and via Zoom on Thursday, 14 October 2021, from 10 am to 3:30 pm (it will be followed by the launch of the Poetry on the Move festival). Selected papers from the symposium, as well as other papers on theme, will be published in the first issue of Axon: Creative Explorations for 2022.

Please submit a 100–150-word abstract by midnight on 30 September 2021. If you wish to write full paper of between 3,000 and 5,000 words for subsequent publication in Axon: Creative Explorations (subject to the usual referee processes) this paper will be due on 15 March 2022.

When you submit your abstract, please record whether you want it to be considered for 1) the symposium; 2) the journal issue; 3) or both symposium and journal issue

Please submit via Submittable

Early Bird Registration is open for the @historicalnovelsocietyaustralasia HNSA 2021 Virtual Conference in October. 

With the Conference being hosted virtually for the very first time, HNSA has created its most extensive conference program to date featuring Guest of Honour, Geraldine Brooks. 

Join HNSA over two weekends in October to celebrate historical fiction with panels, interviews, workshops, bootcamps and so much more. Recorded sessions will remain accessible to registrants for three months after the event. Check out the program and book now.

Check out the program and book now.

Dear Colleagues,

The passing in June this year of Janet Malcolm, the longstanding journalist for The New Yorker, and author of The Journalist and the Murderer, started us thinking about her legacy.

We want to collate some reflections about her work here in Australia, for possible publication in a journal. If you are interested in participating, could you please answer the six questions in the attached word document and email it to me.

Let us know whether you want to remain anonymous and if you would be willing to do a follow-up interview if needed.

Thank you so much for your time in advance. It is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Associate Professor Sue Joseph and Professor Matthew Ricketson

In response to numerous requests for late abstract submissions (so many more than expected), the AAWP conference team are re-opening the Call for Papers for the 2021 conference, November 24-26.

The window for submission is now open and must close July 31. This deadline coincides with the early bird registration (see below). So, if you missed out the first round or are simply excited at the prospect of an amazing Creative Writing research conference event near the beach, please submit before July 31. We’ve arranged discounted accommodation, great food and some excellent guest speakers. It’s also just a lovely place to visit. Come for the conference, stay for the weekend.

And if you submit your abstract early, we’ll try to let you know before the early bird date closes.

Early Bird Conference Registration reminder: July 31.

If your abstract has been accepted or you just want to attend this year’s conference at the excellent discounted price, please follow this link.

For enquiries, please email the 2021 Conference Management Committee: aawpconf2021@gmail.com

This issue of the Axon journal investigates ways in which contemporary poetry (and other forms of creative practice) constitute, result from or are otherwise connected to travel—whether this is understood literally or metaphorically. We are NOT looking for poems. Please submit academic papers that explore and relate to:

• ways in which readers may ‘travel’ in poetry
• ways in which poetic form may contribute to ideas or modes of imaginative travel
• the composition of poetry as a form of travelling
• the composition of poetry as a result of travel
• reflections on or interviews about travel and poetry
• reflections on or interviews about travel and creativity
• how ‘travel’ and ‘creativity’ may be connected—literally, imaginatively or metaphorically
• how poetry may allow or facilitate forms of creative ‘travel’
• how creativity is, in and of itself, a way of travelling
• tropes of travel in poetry
• poetry/creative practice and travelling through cultures, sexualities and/or gender diversity
• creative fluidity and ‘travelling’
• poetry’s connection to movement through space and/or time
• creative transformations/metamorphoses as a way of ‘travelling’

What we would like from contributors:

1. A 150-word abstract of your proposed paper by Friday 20 August 2021.
2. If your abstract is accepted (we will notify you by Friday 3 September 2021), a full written paper of between 3,000 and 6,000 words should be submitted by Monday 22 November 2021.

Submissions can be lodged here
Please DO NOT submit poems to this issue

The AAWP has partnered with UWAP once again to bring this exciting new publication pathway and prize for writers of poetry, literary novels, short story collections, and hybrid works.

Submissions are now open. Head to our prizes page here for more information on how to enter.

Please submit to our dazzling suite of prizes, as listed below.

Head to our Prizes page here to enter.

Abstracts are invited for this online workshop on creative nonfiction as it is practised in Australasia.

Guest speakers on the day are the award-winning writer Behrouz Boochani, author of No Friend but the Mountain, and his translator Omid Tofighian.

Participants are invited to explore uniquely Australasian research, practice and pedagogy regarding creative nonfiction. Investigations into diverse manifestations of this form are welcome, ranging across a broad spectrum from life writing/memoir to experimental histories and narrative journalism.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

* Environment/s

* Experiments

* Ethics, empathy, and change

* Speaking truth to power

* Immersive experiences and the eye-witness

* Subjectivities

* Aesthetics

* Life writing

* Multiplicities

* Cultural, social and political diversity

* Tracing histories

* Imagination

* Fact and/or fiction

* Social Justice

One aim of the workshop is to develop individual and collaborative written work.  People accepted to participate are asked to submit a 1000-word short paper by 31 August to be circulated ahead of the workshop for discussion on the day. 

We anticipate that there will be at least one publication emerging from the workshop, a special issue of the journal Literary Journalism Studies which will be devoted to Australian work in the field, to be published in 2023.

If you would like to attend, please submit an abstract of 300-500 words, plus a short bio of less than 150 words by 31 Mayto willa.mcdonald@mq.edu.au with the subject line “Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop”.