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Events | Featured projects | Call for entries | Announcements
Events
Summer Reading Club 2009 - national
Image courtesy of Discovery Education.
1 December 2008 - 15 February 2009
The Summer Reading Club program encourages young people of all ages in reading, writing, sharing books and other fun and engaging literature-based activities over the summer period. Libraries can offer a range of reading resources, book lists, programs and activities for Summer Reading Club participants. Various libraries.
Finding Your Voice - Sunshine Coast, Queensland
17 May 2009
The Finding your voice workshop offers you the opportunity to step outside your comfort zone, explore the use of other styles in your writing and branch out into more creative prose; perhaps you have written for adults before but you would like to write a children's story. In the workshop you will complete exercises and ideas to awaken dormant aspects of your writing voice. This workshop deals primarily with non-fiction, though some of the tools and exercises will appeal to fiction writers as well. Maroochydore Library.
Novel ideas - Book selection and use for the classroom and library - Brisbane
22 May 2009
Novel ideas is an opportunity for professional development to inspire and support librarians, teachers and literacy professionals. Discussion will include books for class novels, recommended books for use in the classroom, take home readers, set texts, reading circles, library events, book clubs and more. State Library of Queensland.
Developing your Writing Practice - Cairns, Queensland
21 June 2009
During the Developing your Writing Practice workshop, you will cover the discipline of daily writing, touching on different approaches, ways to get started and methods for going the distance. Cairns campus, Tropical North Queensland TAFE.
Young Writers' bootcamp - Brisbane
29 June 2009 - 3 July 2009
The Young Writers' bootcamp leads 13 to 17 year-old participants through a weeklong journey of writing discovery. Focusing on the short story, each participant will have the opportunity to write, edit and polish a new work as well as develop any works in progress during the week. They will also learn secrets to publication success and outline opportunities and avenues for young writers. Queensland Writers' Centre.
Tips for Getting Published - Sunshine Coast, Queensland
15 July 2009
Tips for Getting Published workshop gives a brief introduction to the publishing industry and how to go about getting your book published. This 90-minute session is a must for any aspiring writer. Immanuel Lutheran College.
Featured projects
Letter Vox
October 2008
Send an audio postcard from your literary outpost. Write about your personal and shared experiences of words, writing and reading. Reading and writing can be solitary activities, but these experiences are often shared at book clubs, writers' centres, literary salons and spoken word events. Your stories for the Letter Vox project could be about your bookshelf, where you read, where you write, love letters in the library, your adoration of science fiction, your book club or your writing group. There is a focus on audio, but images, video and music are welcome too. Record it onto your camera, mobile phone, mp3 player or digital recorder.
Aus-e-Lit Project
October 2008
AustLit, in conjunction with the UQ eResearch Lab, has received funding from the National eResearch Architecture Taskforce (NeAT) to expand the services available through the AustLit interface. This first phase of the project aims to establish federated searching across a number of databases, including AustLit, SETIS, the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, Picture Australia and Libraries Australia. A prototype should be completed by December 2008 and a federated searching facility should be completed by July 2009.
Joshua Button, Joshua and the Two Crabs, Magabala Books, 2008
Front cover of Joshua and the Two Crabs. Image courtesy of Magabala Books.
July 2008
Joshua Button is a young Indigenous author with a keen interest in the saltwater country he has grown up in. Joshua's observations of his family's fishing trip to Crab Creek give us a unique opportunity to see this adventure through his eyes. Joshua's illustrations are both insightful and evocative of the beauty of Crab Creek. Crab Creek is a tidal creek that lies in the mangroves of Roebuck Bay near Broome, in the Kimberley region of north-west Western Australia. Joshua won the NAIDOC Junior Scholarly Achiever of the Year for his work.
Call for entries
Going Down Swinging - national
Entries close 1 January 2009
Going Down Swinging accepts poetry, short fiction or non-fiction, flash, comic art, graphic art and spoken word recordings from writers and artists internationally.
The Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize 2009 - national
Entries close 30 January 2009
The Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize is now open. The first prize is $10,000 for a 1,000-3,000 word short story.
Alan Marshall Short Story Award 2009 - national
Entries close 20 February 2009
The annual Alan Marshall Short Story Award for Australian writers is held in memory of the great Australian writer and former resident of Eltham, Alan Marshall AM. OBE. HON LL.D (1902-1984), whose most well known books are the autobiographical, I Can Jump Puddles, This is the Grass and Pioneers and Painters.
Queensland Poetry Festival - national
Entries by 27 February 2009
Queensland Poetry Festival is now inviting proposals from poets and other performers and artists interested in being part of the 13th Annual Queensland Poetry Festival.
Brunswick Poets and Writers Workshop Literary Contest 2008 - national
Entries close 4 June 2009
Brunswick Poets and Writers Workshop is celebrating its 36th anniversary. They are holding a poetry and short-story competition, any theme, any style.
Announcements
Librarian John Hughes on British prize list
20 November 2008
John Hughes, a librarian at Sydney Grammar School, has been long-listed for the new $115,000 Warwick Prize for Writing in Britain. Hughes's book, Someone Else, is a collection of fictional essays, written from the point of view and in the style of writers, artists and musicians who have influenced Hughes, such as Franz Kafka, Bob Dylan, John Cage and Samuel Beckett. Hughes's first book, The Idea of Home, was a set of autobiographical essays that won the National Biography Award and the NSW Premier's Award for non-fiction. A short-list of six books for the Warwick Prize will be announced in January.
Australian writers nominated for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
18 November 2008
Eleven Australians are among the 146 writers nominated by worldwide libraries for the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The nominees include Christopher Koch, The memory room, Tom Keneally, The widow and her hero, and Jessica White, A curious intimacy.
2008 Northern Territory Literary Awards winners
November 2008
The winners of the the 2008 Northern Territory Literary Awards have been announced. Award winners include: David Curtis' What a Fright for the Dymocks Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers' Award 2008, Ali Cobby Eckermann's Intervention Pay Day for the Dymocks Red Earth Poetry Award 2008, and Jennifer Mills' Plain Indians for the Dymocks Arafura Short Story Award 2008.
Aussie Nam Le wins Dylan Thomas prize for The Boat
11 November, 2008
A Vietnamese refugee who escaped to Australia by boat with his parents as a three-month-old has won the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize for his debut collection of short stories, The Boat. The $140,000 prize, which is sponsored by the University of Wales, is one of the highest paying literary awards in the world.
Blake Poetry Prize winners announced
October 2008
Wet Ink is proud to announce the winner and writers of the two commended entries of the 2008 Blake Poetry Prize. With the theme of 'Bliss, blasphemy and belief', this competition has allowed Australian poets to explore the nature of spirituality in the twenty-first century. The winning poem of the Blake Poetry Prize was Mark Tredinnick's Have you seen. Dorothy Wordsworth, Boiling turnips by Chloe Wilson and Tredinnick's poem Paradise were also highly recommended.
Melbourne proclaimed a City of Literature
October 2008
The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, has named Melbourne a City of Literature, as part of the organisation's Creative Cities Network. 'Melbourne demonstrates the important role literature plays in the overall development of the city, through various multilingual editorial initiatives, the active development of related industries and the quality of educational programmes and public events reaching out to different audiences reflecting the cultural diversity of local communities,' concluded UNESCO's evaluation of Melbourne's successful bid. Booker Prize-winning Australian writer Peter Carey lent his support to Melbourne's bid.
First-time novelist wins Booker
15 October 2008
First-time Australian-Indian novelist Aravind Adiga has won the Man Booker Prize with The White Tiger.
The 33-year-old is only the third debut novelist to claim the prestigious literary award in its 40-year history. He receives a cheque for 50,000 pounds ($125,000) and can expect a significant spike in book sales in the run-up to Christmas. Booker organisers say last year's winner, Anne Enright, has sold around 500,000 copies of The Gathering - largely due to the prize.
Griffith Taylor: Visionary, Environmentalist and Explorer
2 September 2008
A new book reveals why Griffith Taylor, founder of geography at Sydney University, was virtually hounded out of Australia for his ideas on race, the environment and sustainability. A geographer, anthropologist and world explorer, Thomas Griffith Taylor joined Captain Scott's final expedition in Antarctica and traveled to every continent on earth. His remarkable life is told in a new biography from the National Library of Australia, Griffith Taylor: Visionary, Environmentalist, Explorer, co-authored by the University of Sydney's Associate Professor Alison Bashford.
Literary Award winners announced
Steven Conte. Image courtesy of Steven Conte.
15 September 2008
The winners of the inaugural Prime Minister's Literary Awards were announced at Parliament House in Canberra. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was joined by Arts Minister Peter Garrett to announce the two winning works, both by first time authors and selected from a competitive field of 14 short-listed Australian fiction and non-fiction books. The Zookeeper's War, by emerging novelist Steven Conte, won the $100,000 Fiction award. Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers, by South Australian museum curator Philip Jones, won the $100,000 Non-fiction award.
Garner wins Queensland Premier's literary prize
16 September 2008
Acclaimed Melbourne author, screen writer and journalist Helen Garner has taken out the top prize at this year's Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. Garner won $25,000 for her novel The Spare Room at a ceremony in Brisbane last night.
Australians on Man Booker Prize short and long lists
9 September 2008
Steve Toltz, first time-Australian novelist, is on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize, for his 500-page novel, A Fraction of the Whole. Tolz studied video production at Newcastle University from 1990 and has lived in Montreal, Vancouver, New York, Barcelona, and Paris, working as a cameraman, telemarketer, security guard, private investigator, English teacher, and screenwriter. Michelle de Kretser, from Melbourne, was listed for the Booker long list.
Victorian Premier's Literary Awards winners announced
1 September 2008
The winners of the 2008 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were announced on 1 September by the Premier John Brumby. Award-winning Melbourne novelist, screenwriter and journalist Helen Garner received the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction for her novel The Spare Room. She was among 12 writers who share in the $210,000 prize pool. The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction was awarded to Meredith Hooper, for The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica. The John Curtin Prize for Journalism went to Richard Flanagan, for his article 'Out of Control: The Tragedy of Tasmania's Forests', published in The Monthly. Marcia Langton received the Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate for 'Trapped in the Aboriginal Reality Show', published in Griffith Review. Brigid Lowry was awarded the Prize for Young Adult Fiction for her book Tomorrow All Will Be Beautiful.
For more information see our Australian story on Australian literature.
Key online resources
- Australian Poetry Resources Internet Library (APRIL)
- NSW Writers' Centre
- Tasmanian Writers' Centre
- Queensland Writers Centre
- Northern Rivers Writers' Centre
- Federation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages (FATSIL)
- Writing WA
- Fellowship of Australian Writers (VIC)
- Fellowship of Australian Writers (WA)
- Writers Now Online
- Australian Poetry Centre
- Gold Coast Writers' Association
- Aboriginal Languages of Australia
Collection resources and online publications
- Jacket Magazine
- Red Room Company - poetry promotion and distribution
- The Complete Review
- Thylazine : The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature
Institutions and government organisations
Peak bodies and associations
People
Featured websites/projects
To contact us with your news and events, please email the News Editor, NewsEditor at culture dot gov dot au, including the URL of your website.
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