Short stories, features and poems from our writing community.
Writers Vic: Participants in your upcoming screenwriting bootcamp will learn how to create characters and stories that have longevity over a full season. Do you ever use observations and experiences from your own life when developing characters?
Writers Victoria recently surveyed everyone who registered for Write-ability events since the program began in 2012, along with WV members who identified as people with disability (PWD). While the statistics collected are invaluable, it’s the experience of participants that matter most. We’ve learned much from participants’ comments and stories and have already implemented changes to the program based on that feedback.
Legend has it that rain is on the way when black cockatoos are in flight. However, in Harriet McKnight’s debut novel, ‘Rain Birds’, the cockies don’t so much signify rain as they do an almighty shit storm.
The story starts here. This is a work of fiction. The author is struggling, she wants to write about a bad tabloid that gained from victims of murder, hacked into their phone lines.
I nod hello to the barista and settle into my usual seat. I’m about to pull out my book when I see two people signing. They are sitting two tables over. I can’t help but really look at them. Their hands are flying up and down, touching cheeks, chins, ears, elbows. They are conversing rapidly; they are exchanging smiles.
I keep my hands under the table; they thrash about like freshly hooked fish. They can’t speak. I dig my nails into my palms to punish them.
The Oxford definition of ‘access’ is ‘the means or opportunity to approach or enter a place’.
A definition that breeds triviality. A meaning that surpasses physicality. It is more than sizing up a space. A restricted movement from place to place. It is a negotiation. A validation of a way through. Ears that can hear and make improvement. Minds that can recognise and cause change. Hearts that will accept unconditionally.
Access for me is a dream of weightlessness. An easy way from one place to the next.
The Oxford definition of access is ‘the means or opportunity to approach or enter a place'.
A definition that breeds triviality. A meaning that surpasses physicality. It is more than sizing up a space. A restricted movement from place to place. It is a negotiation. A validation of a way through. Ears that can hear and make improvement. Minds that can recognise and cause change. Hearts that will accept unconditionally.
Access for me is a dream of weightlessness. An easy way from one place to the next.
Ally means partner, or so I’ve heard. Someone who cares, who'll be there when the walls fall down. Ally is an action, an alliance you build, not something you identify as. Ally is meant to mean something, like a marriage, because that's how marriage started too.
The 2017 Deborah Cass Prize for Writing has been awarded to Rafeif Ismail, a 23-year old Perth woman from a Sudanese background.
