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The Writing Life

Information, inspiration and insights into the writing life

For Sale: A Past Life

‘The carpet could be pulled up,’ Barry says as he bounces on the carpet. The floorboards underneath make a painful squeak. They must be as arthritic as my knees.

‘Caro, I reckon the boards might be alright.’ His eyes are seriously intense.

I jerk my neck. Caro? Did he call me Caro? Do all real estate agents have this instant familiarity with their clients?

Bazza, the name’s Caroline, I correct him in my mind as I inhale the stale mustiness of the old house. Hmm, Mum used to walk around this house spraying magnolia air freshener. It could do with a spray now.

On the Lookout

I went out looking for one this afternoon,
just after an uninspiring lunch of leftovers.
Sometimes I hear one singing or repeating
a single syllable but other times I catch sight
of a flash of colour or happen upon one
as it’s dozing. I even located one by scent.
You’re unlikely to find one if you wander
about hoping to find one but I do anyway.
Like us, their habitat is anywhere,
so I prowl with my net, my dart, combing
the You Never Know Department.
Rare ones behave like they want to be caught,

MARCH: Toni Jordan

Toni approached Writers Victoria with her first manuscript and since then she has published several novels and has been widely published in newspapers and magazines. The international best-seller Addition was longlisted for the Miles Franklin award. Fall Girl was published internationally and has been optioned for film.

Mid-Year Program has launched!

The weather may be getting colder, but the Melbourne literary scene is heating up. It is with great pleasure that we introduce our True Grit Mid-Year program, designed to complement the many Victorian festivals and events, and help you to meet your writing goals.

AGM: Wed 27 Mar

As a wonderful member of Writers Victoria, you are invited to attend our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 27 March, from 6–7PM.

The AGM will be held in the Workshop Space, on Level 4 of the Wheeler Centre, 176 Little Lonsdale Street. This is a great opportunity to meet Writers Victoria staff members and our Board members.

You can also vote on the night to fill vacancies on our Committee of Management.

Eleanor Hogan wins the 2019 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship

Eleanor Hogan smiling

On Monday 4 March, in front of a large audience at Adelaide Writers’ Week, author and academic Eleanor Hogan was announced as winner of the 2019 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship for her proposed biography of Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates.

Our Prize Winners for February 2019

Trophy

Welcome to our monthly brag about our Writers Victoria community members who have won awards, been shortlisted or longlisted for writing prizes or received industry recognition.

Penguin Random House Australia is delighted to announce the shortlisted authors for the 2019 Penguin Literary Prize. Among the shortlist are:

  • Imbe Neeme, member, for ‘The Spill’
  • Kirsten Krauth, member, for ‘Almost a Mirror’

The longlist for the 2019 Stella Prize, worth $50,000, has been announced. Among the longlist are:

Before the Storm

It is early 2016 and, after being ‘on submission’ for eight months, my first book for young adults, ‘What the Woods Keep’, finally has a home with a publisher: Imprint, part of Macmillan in the US. ‘It takes about two years to launch a YA debut’, my agent warns me once we receive the interested publisher’s long-awaited formal offer. Responding to my numerous ‘is this really happening?’ follow-up queries, the agent assures me that this is indeed very much happening, and then reminds me for the thousandth time that ‘publishing is slow’.

 

On Labels

I am a Palyku woman who comes from generations rich in story. Many of those stories were carried on the inside. Many had to be; for in a colonised land, it was not safe for Indigenous voices to speak. We had much taken from us, including our stories, which continue to be appropriated still. My work is given many labels, such as ‘young adult’, ‘speculative fiction’ and ‘literature’. But all these words come from Western story traditions. What do they mean to me, an Aboriginal writer?

In Verse

When I tell people that I’ve written a verse novel they often look at me blankly and ask what that means exactly. I explain that it’s a novel written in verse, in poetry. According to the Australian Poetry Library, ‘A verse novel tells a long and complex story with many characters, much as a prose novel would, through the medium of narrative verse. The verse may be blank verse in the manner of Shakespeare, or free verse, or (less often) formal rhymed verse of any type.’