Please note: these are partnership events with Connected Libraries and only available for residents living in the City of Casey.
Each workshop is free and bookable via the Connected Libraries website.
Make it Sing! Rhythm in Poetry and Prose with Thabani Tshuma
When: Sunday 1 June, 10:30am – 1pm
Where: Bunjil Place Library
Every writer has a unique voice, but what if it could sing? Spoken word performer and poet Thabani Tshuma will explore the musicality inherent in both poetry and prose to show you how rhythm and sound can bring your words to life.
In this practical workshop, you will learn ways in which you can play with words across form, structure, genre and craft to create works that sing from page to stage and beyond. Come ready to play and explore your craft, you’ll leave with insights to create new work that shines.
You Will Learn:
~Poetic rhythm and musicality
~Improvisation
~Form and breaking constraints
~Voice in relation writing
~Take-home techniques
Please bring a pen and notepad or whatever you feel most comfortable writing on.
About Your Tutor:
Thabani Tshuma is a multiaward-winning Zimbabwean writer and performance poet. His work can be found in publications such as Dichotomi magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, CUBBY ART and ABC ArtWorks’ SLAMMED segment. Thabani is co-curator of Thin Red Lines and his debut poetry collection, The Gospel of Unmade Creation, was released in 2023 through Recent Work Press.
Writing with the Archives with Grace Yee
When: Saturday 28 June, 10:30am – 1pm
Where: Bunjil Place Library
In this workshop you will explore different ways of integrating archival materials into fiction and poetry under the guidance of award-winning poet Grace Yee. You will experiment with text extracts with the aim of drafting contemporary prose and/or poems enlivened by historical events.
The past is never past—it reverberates insistently in the present! This workshop will be of most value if you are open to hybrid texts and have in mind a history that you would like to explore.
You Will Learn:
~Strategies for finding and using archival extracts in your writing.
~How to integrate historical narratives into contemporary contexts.
~How to experiment with voice and point of view.
~How to read and respond to the work of other writers and poets .
~How to revise your drafts.
Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop, if you have one, in addition to pen and paper to participate in the writing exercises and a historical text or book that is of special interest.
About Your Tutor:
Grace Yee is the author of Chinese Fish (Giramondo Publishing), winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry in 2024. She has taught in the creative writing programs at Deakin University and the University of Melbourne. Her second collection, Joss: A History is forthcoming in June 2025. She lives in Melbourne, on Wurundjeri land.
Writing Your Personal Narrative: Personal vs Political with Cher Tan
When: Sunday 17 August, 10:30am – 1pm
Where: Online via Zoom
Note: this course is better suited for early and emerging writers
How do you capture and convey the immediacy of one’s experience in a way that is compelling yet not self-indulgent or self-aggrandising? Award-winning essayist and critic Cher Tan will walk you through the ways in which fictional forms and devices can be utilised to tell the true stories of our lives. The workshop will explore narrative structure, characterisation, argument, place-making, dialogue, under and overstatement and context.
If you are starting an essay or working on a collection, then this workshop is for you.
You Will Learn:
~To explore various forms of creative nonfiction and what you need to write them effectively.
~How to use research, interviews and memory to generate material.
~How to narrativise your truths in a way that is compelling yet not self-indulgent.
~The ethical implications of writing in the non-fiction genre.
~How to weave political insights into your writing.
About Your Tutor:
Cher Tan is an essayist and critic. Her work has appeared in Kill Your Darlings, Catapult, Runway Journal, The Guardian, Cordite Poetry Review and Disclaimer Journal, amongst many others. She is an editor at LIMINAL and the reviews editor at Meanjin. Her critically-acclaimed debut essay collection, Peripathetic: Notes on (Un)belonging, is out with NewSouth Publishing. She lives and works on unceded Wurundjeri land.