Last week the London chapter of the international writing-school revolution began with the opening of the Ministry of Stories. A few months ago, I went to Dublin and paid a visit to the Irish centre, Fighting Words. Set up by author Roddy Doyle and former director of Amnesty International Ireland, Sean Love, the centre had […]

For my Overland Subscriberthon post this year, I wanted to raise and discuss the importance of writing community. Here at Overland, I have always felt a sense of community; a place where I can share my thoughts and engage in hearty political debate. A place where I can learn, make mistakes, reflect. We may be […]

1. ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.’ 2. Looking inwards is inevitable, natural, expected, required for a writer – writing being an essentially meditative activity. But prolonged navel-gazing is a selfish waste of time if it doesn’t translate into actions that make the world […]

Poets, listen up: the 2010 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets, sponsored by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, closes Monday. In case you haven’t heard, the major prize is a magnificent $5000 – plus there are two runner-up prizes of $1000 a piece. This year’s judge is Overland’s distinguished new poetry editor, […]

This year I have harshly come to the realisation that our government doesn’t care about art, well, not unless you’re Tim Winton, Nicole Kidman or the Australian orchestra. To them, emerging artists are just the people on the sidelines who should get their act together and get a real job. We are the annoying buskers […]

With the closing ceremony of the Overload poetry festival at the Grace Darling Hotel on Sunday, I was disappointed poetry would once again retreat from the limelight. The experience I had this year, participating in the festival as a poet, was far more exciting than my role reviewing it here on Overland last year. Observing […]

My name is Mark William Jackson and I was a compulsive blogger. It has been eight weeks since my last post. At my worst I would spend up to two hours per evening posting, responding to comments and checking statistics. If I wasn’t in my dashboard I was checking my email to see if anyone […]

Here are ten reasons why you shouldn’t despair if you have an unpublished manuscript. These famous rejections are sure to cheer you up: 1. Can you imagine a world without Possum Magic? Apparently many publishers could. Mem Fox’s classic was rejected nine times over five years. Little Hush would have remained invisible were it not […]

I’m thinking about writing and helplessness and being comfortably numb. I was chatting with my nephew, 27, as we set off to see Exit through the Gift Shop: (sold out so I suggest you book ahead!) Now, dear reader, 27 is the young man’s age – my sisters and I are not such keen Get […]

The 2009 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets saw a staggering 925 entries. Keri Glastonbury, Overland’s poetry editor and judge, discusses in her report what she admired in the winning entries and touches upon notions of the academicisation of poetry and the state of the emerging poetry scene: Networked communities The […]

The Emerging Writer’s Festival, held in Melbourne in the last two weeks of May, was just what emerging writers needed to kick off the winter months: inspiration, motivation and the coming together of a writerly community. Still I have to admit I’m a bit bemused by the concept of ‘emerging writer’, perhaps because I’ve been […]

This was my first experience of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, and it was interesting to compare it to larger writers’ festivals I am more familiar with. Over nine days, events were spread out over the city at venues such as the Wheeler Centre and BMW Edge, but the weekend program was housed at the Melbourne […]

From the doubts of conception through to the power of labour, and onto the magic and miseries of babies and children and mature awareness as daughters – 5 women wordsmiths share their perspectives to create a multi-voiced portrait of mothering in modern Australia. Performing on the night: Koraly Dimitriadis, Vicki Thornton, Amy Bodossian, Tiggy Johnson […]

If you didn’t make it to the Emerging Writers’ Festival last weekend, I’m afraid to say you missed out. The festival, which is aimed exclusively at writers, attracts a different audience to the major festivals which also court readers. Nowhere was this more evident than in the ‘Never Surrender’ session when author Sean Condon asked, […]

As the red sun dipped into the azure ocean, the last words from Wordstorm 2010 were carried away by the cool sea breeze as it blew into the Botanical Gardens. Wordstorm, The NT Writers’ Festival, was put to bed and it will be two years before it returns to Darwin, as next year it will […]

Known Unknowns Emmett Stinson Affirm Press Known Unknowns is Emmett Stinson’s debut collection of short fiction. His work first came to my attention when I reviewed Issue One of Kill Your Darlings, in which Stinson’s stand-out story ‘Clinching’ was published. That story is included here along with 13 others of varying length. As any writer […]