Sunday, August 31, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
$275 Hong Kong: What's that in real money?
Li Young Lee, poet and scholar
HK University Press 2014 Poetry Prize
The Hong Kong University School of English Creative Writing Studio and HKU Press announce the 2014 International Poetry Prize for an unpublished first collection written in English. Li-young Lee will be the final judge and the prize will include HK$2500 and publication of the collection. The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2014 and the winner will be announced in January 2015.
There is an administrative fee of HK$275 - but bear in mind that in inviting submissions from anywhere in the world, there will be a lot of administration and reading to do! We know that some prizes exist to generate income for the entity making the award, but that's not the case here.
Details of previous awards are available here: HKU Poetry Prize 2012 and HKU Poetry Prize 2010
Friday, August 29, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
The 2014 Adrien Abbott Prize CLOSES SEPTEMBER 1st
The Adrien Abbott Prize was launched on 4th May 2012 for Adrien - a gifted writer and inspirational teacher of english who died before her time in May 2010. This is the third year of this competition "inspired by the poetry of her life" - Mark Tredinnick
Competition Theme 2014 — MUSIC
Poem(s) maximum of 25 lines — 1st prize $400 tutorial with Mark Tredinnick
Short story(s) maximum of 750 words — 1st prize $400 tutorial with Diana Simmonds
Closing date — 1st September 2014
The collected stories & poems — winners and highly commended will be announced 15th October 2014
Judges 2013 — Mark Tredinnick & Diana Simmonds
{ Judges 2012— Kathryn Heyman & Mark Tredinnick }
Each entry must be submitted anonymised as an individual PDF file — Ariel 16pt
Full name and address required separately— including State & postcode
Open to residents of Australia.
A poem or short story can have been submitted elsewhere, or be under consideration elsewhere but not previously published at the time of submission.
Submissions should have either 'poem' or 'short story' in the subject of the email and be sent to — adrienabbottprize@gmail.com
Competition Theme 2014 — MUSIC
Poem(s) maximum of 25 lines — 1st prize $400 tutorial with Mark Tredinnick
Short story(s) maximum of 750 words — 1st prize $400 tutorial with Diana Simmonds
Closing date — 1st September 2014
The collected stories & poems — winners and highly commended will be announced 15th October 2014
Judges 2013 — Mark Tredinnick & Diana Simmonds
{ Judges 2012— Kathryn Heyman & Mark Tredinnick }
Each entry must be submitted anonymised as an individual PDF file — Ariel 16pt
Full name and address required separately— including State & postcode
Open to residents of Australia.
A poem or short story can have been submitted elsewhere, or be under consideration elsewhere but not previously published at the time of submission.
Submissions should have either 'poem' or 'short story' in the subject of the email and be sent to — adrienabbottprize@gmail.com
News nicked from writingWA's Newsletter
Book Launch: Letters to Mark
Please join Regime Books to summon into reality this remarkable collection by WA poet Christopher Konrad. To be launched by Shane McCauley, with music by Ross Bolleter. A book of wilderness, poetry and redemption. From 6.30pm, Monday Sept 15, at New Edition Bookshop, 41 High Street (cnr Henry Street), Fremantle.
The Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize
For an unpublished single poem or linked suite to 80 lines. First Prize: $2000 + publication in Island + annual subscriptions to a range of literary journals. Second Prize: publication + annual subscriptions. 2014 judges are Sarah Holland-Batt, Gig Ryan, and Sarah Day. Entries close September 30. Entry fees $20/$15 Islandsubscribers. For details click here.
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Nailing Your Novel - Why Writers Abandon Books
This five-week course will teach you everything you need to know about starting, writing and finishing a novel. Join novelist Natasha Lester as she shares her secrets to writing an award-winning novel. Designed for those who’ve always wanted to write a novel but don’t know where to begin, as well as those who’ve started only to give up because they’re not sure where they’re going. Five sessions, from 6:30-9:00pm, Thurs 30 Oct-Thurs 27 Nov, at UWA Claremont. Cost: $169. For details, clickhere.
Josephine Ulrick Literature & Poetry Prizes 2015
Among the richest poetry and short story prizes in the world, the Griffith University Josephine Ulrick prizes in 2015 are worth $30,000 in total prize money. The Literature Prize seeks short fiction to 2000 words, while the Poetry Prize calls for poems to 100 lines. Each offers a First Prize of $10,000, with $5000 for Second Prize. Entries open 1 Dec and close 13 Feb 2015. For details, click here.
Among the richest poetry and short story prizes in the world, the Griffith University Josephine Ulrick prizes in 2015 are worth $30,000 in total prize money. The Literature Prize seeks short fiction to 2000 words, while the Poetry Prize calls for poems to 100 lines. Each offers a First Prize of $10,000, with $5000 for Second Prize. Entries open 1 Dec and close 13 Feb 2015. For details, click here.
Marathon Writing Competition
The Society of Women Writers WA is hosting another Marathon Writing Competition to help you ignite your creativity and prise raw ideas from the bedrock of your imagination. Mine a rich seam of plots, characters and narratives, to be cut and polished later into literary diamonds. Bring your favourite pens; notepaper supplied. There will be ten challenges of 25 min each, with the winner receiving a trophy and certificate. There are also prizes for second and third places. Cost is $20, inc. tea/coffee, and the Marathon is open to men and women. Sat 20 September, from 9.30am-4pm at the Citiplace Community Centre, Perth Railway Station Concourse. Book via email or ph. 0415 840 031. For information on the Society of Women Writers WA, visit their website.
Writing Books for Children and Young Adults
Writing for children and teenagers - it's easy, right? After all, if there's one thing we all were once, it's a kid. But just as eating ice-cream doesn't automatically make you a gelato expert, so too with children' s fiction. Many of us have great book ideas for children and teens, but simply aren’t sure where to start. That’s where the Australian Writers’ Centre can help. Whether it’s epic fantasy, comic adventure, romance or realism you want to write, this course covers all the essentials of writing fiction, with a specific focus on the most common questions about the dos and don’ts of writing for children and young adults. Weekend course at The Wembley Hotel, 18 & 19 October. Cost: $395. For details, click here.
Trove UWA Seeks Fiction and Poetry
Trove is the University of Western Australia's student-run online creative arts journal. They are currently seeking submissions as follows:
* Poetry on the theme of Memento Mori. Selected poems will receive $50 cash and will be displayed as part of the exhibition featuring the extraordinary video work Allegoria Sacra by the Russian collective AES+F, an evocation of Purgatory as an international airport. Submissions close 19 September.
* Poetry and fiction for an issue with the theme of "Ground". Submissions close 10 October.
Get creative. Get cracking. For details, click here.
for more information from writingWA, go to
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Robert Hass wins $100,000 Wallace Stevens Award
Robert Hass, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and UC Berkeley professor, has won the prestigious Wallace Stevens Award. The $100,000 prize is given annually by the Academy of American Poets in recognition of “outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.”
Hass, a 73-year-old native of San Francisco, is a former poet laureate of the United States; he served from 1995 to 1997. He has also won a National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle Awards and a MacArthur Fellowship. His recent books include “What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World” (2012) and “The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems” (2010), which Chronicle reviewer Dean Rader described as “a generous book [that] shows Hass’ impressive range, both thematically and formally.” The poet Forrest Gander has said Hass’ work “attends to the details of quotidian life with remarkable clarity.”
Read on HERE
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Cincinnati Review Reading Period on now
The editors of The Cincinnati Review (est. 2003) have opened their yearly reading period and are now reviewing submissions for upcoming issues. The semiannual literary journal is edited and published by students and faculty of the University of Cincinnati. Both aspiring and experienced writers are encouraged to submit their work. Poetry: submit up to 10 pages of poetry. Prose (fiction/nonfiction): not to exceed 40 (double-spaced) pages. Long-form narratives (prose/poetry): submit 10-plus pages of poetry; 10K-35K words for prose. Book reviews: submit a single review of a book, up to 1500 words. Payment: $25/page for prose; and $30/page for poetry. The Cincinnati Review buys FNASR, plus electronic rights. Authors retain All Rights after publication. Reading period: August 15, 2014-April 15, 2015 -
http://www.cincinnatireview.com/#/submissions/guidelines
http://www.cincinnatireview.com/#/submissions/guidelines
Queensland Poetry Festival 2014 starts Friday
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Exactly, Jerry Garcia, same here!
Oh, the coincidence is too much! I had a Jerry Garcia Day the day before yesterday (I'm sick with a cold which just seems to get worse, so I don't know which day it is!), and then a discussion about what choice do we have when yesterday's newspaper reported the ranking of just TWO parties in our national politics debate - then I tuned into facebook today to see this great little comment from Jerry Garcia:
Saturday, August 23, 2014
'One Hour Seeds Another' brag post
When I was young, I wrote a book. I enjoyed the launch so much, I wrote another one. Then, another. The habit caught until I couldn't kick it. So when I wrote my twelth book, I took it around the country. It also coincided with my 70th birthday, so I stood tall and proud, especially in front of works by one of my favourite Australian artists, Brett Whiteley at the gallery that holds his name in Sydney.
Now I am back in the country town where we see out our days - Corowa, New South Wales. There are about six pubs here but no bookshop, so I know how difficult it is to go fishing for interesting books.My I boastfully claim mine to be very interesting - Take a look yourself at http://store.walleahpress.com.au It is a bargain at $20!
Here's one launch speech, by Lyn Reeves, in Hobart -
Another by Andy Jackson at Collected Works in Melbourne
Novelist and long-time friend, Nicholas Hasluck, launched ONE HOUR in Perth with these words:
REMARKS
BY NICHOLAS HASLUCK AT THE LAUNCHING OF ‘ONE
HOUR SEEDS ANOTHER’ BY ANDREW BURKE AT MATTIE FURPHY HOUSE, SATURDAY 2
AUGUST 2014
We
are here for the launch of Andrew Burke’s book of poetry One Hour Seeds Another. It might also be said that ‘one book seeds
another’, for this is Andrew’s eighth [Ed: 12th] book of poetry and, as I aim to show in
the course of my remarks, there are links between the various books which say
something about the poet’s style and the nature of his preoccupations.
I
am conscious, of course, that any attempt to review a particular poet’s output
over many years bring to mind that age-old lament so ably voiced by the poet
Wordsworth when he said: ‘We poets in our
youth begin in gladness / but thereof at the end comes despondency and madness.’
Fortunately, there are exceptions to nearly every rule. It will emerge from
what I have to say that Andrew is an exception to Wordsworth’s dire warning.
And when it comes to writing he is more than willing to break any rule that
might stand in the way of reconfiguring his life and times. As he notes at page
3 of the book: ‘In poetry, being off duty
is part of the job.’ [Bernstein]
I
first met Andrew at a poetry reading in Tom Collins House given many years ago.
A report of the occasion dated 2 December 1967 refers to the Fellowship of
Writers holding its annual ‘wind-up’. It goes on to say that ‘among members who
have had books published this year are Katherine Susannah Prichard, Henrietta
Drake-Brockman, Griffith Watkin, John Barnes, Vincent Serventy, Gerry Glaskin
and Lucy Walker.’ The poets represented at the reading included Ian Templeman,
Bill Grono, Andrew Burke, Viv Kitson, Noelene Burtenshaw, Merv Lilley, Dorothy Hewett’ and several others. So we
were in good company that night, and it pleases me to recall the occasion for
several reasons. It marked the beginning of some long-standing friendships, and
I am conscious also that Andrew has dedicated the book being launched today to
his friend and fellow writer Viv Kitson who was there that evening but unfortunately,
like some of the others, is no longer with us.
I
forget how Andrew introduced himself back then but it may well have been along
the lines of his poem Self Portrait which
was later published in Soundings, the
first book put out by the fledgling Fremantle Arts Centre Press. The poem in
question is a deeply introspective piece of soul-searching which reads as
follows: ‘mainly have always lived in
Perth / have mainly always lived in Perth / have always mainly lived in Perth /
have always lived mainly in Perth / have always lived in Perth mainly / born
Melbourne 1944.
The
photograph that accompanied this and other Burkean poems in the anthology is a
head and shoulder shot of a youngish poet with a splendid ‘Ginsbergian’ beatnik
beard. There are traces of that era in
the present book when Andrew mentions ‘riding
a Greyhound bus / I think of Kerouac and co / in this sparse / Australian
landscape on / an air-conditioned coach / reading AA recovery stories / socking
water back.’ There was certainly a
touch of Ginsberg, Snyder and some of the other ‘beats’ in Andrew’s first book Let’s Face the Music and Dance which was launched by Peter Jeffrey at the Old
Fire Station Gallery in West Leederville, shortly before the Soundings anthology came out. It’s a
great pleasure to see Peter Jeffrey here today and to recall that earlier
launch, attended by a jazz band and a clamour of general revelry.
These
early books were followed by On the Tip
of My Tongue, Mother Waits for Father Late and Pushing at Silence. By then Andrew had become well-known for
readings at venues all over the city from the Stoned Crow at Fremantle to the
Stables in Mount Street and the decrepit upstairs loft off King Street, the
exact location of which now escapes me. Wherever it was, it gave heart to poets
young and old, although we were sometimes reading mostly to ourselves. In the
midst of all this, in Andrew’s poetry, one caught the echo of the contemporary,
metropolitan experience – fragmented rhythms, fleeting allusions, quips and
parodies, a style affected by what was happening overseas, but with an
Australian tone, and with an increasing emphasis upon the ups and downs of life
on the home front, the gains and losses of domestic experience and of the
workplace. There is something of this in
the books that Andrew brought out later including Beyond City Limits and Whispering
Gallery.
Mentions
of Whispering Gallery prompts me to recognise
in passing the work done by Roland Leach of Sunline Press, a fine poet himself
and the publisher of that book. At a time when poets are finding it
increasingly difficult to get their works into print, he gave heart to many. I
note in passing also that author’s photograph on the dust-jacket of Whispering Gallery presents a scrubbed-up
and clean-shaven version of Andrew Burke, but the poetry within – fortunately -
continues to thumb its nose at the rule book and goes its own way.
And
so we come finally to Andrew’s latest work One
Hour Seeds Another. It struck me immediately, upon a first reading of the
book, that there were indeed many links to the earlier works, and echoes of
former ventures and relationships. The first poem in the book commences: ‘You open my pages. Memories fly out, / roots
still growing. Clouds / float our globe
in shapes by the elements. / Start here: we could render them meaningful …
/. The reader will find that in many of the poems there is a poignant sense of the
past revisited and the youthful foibles of other days. In ‘Under a Black Beret’, for instance, the poet is pictured ‘ … still in my school suit / ordering café
noir, s’il vous plait at El Calib / or late night at The Coffee Pot / where
they’d put on Oscar Petersen Plays / Porgy and Bess when I walked in.
El
Calib. The Coffee Pot. Poems of this kind will have a special resonance for
many readers, and it was this that prompted me to return to some of Andrew’s
earlier works and various adventures. But one has to be careful in giving too
much emphasis to the vagaries of biography. I was reminded of this while
reading a piece by the American poet and novelist John Updike. He had this to
say about the process of recording the ups and downs of a life, the jobs held,
the worries confronted, and so on: ‘The
trouble with literary biographies, perhaps, is that they mainly testify to the
long worldly corruption of a life, as documented deeds and days and
disappointments pile up, and they cannot convey the unearthly human innocence
that attends, in the perpetual present tense of living, the self that seems the
real one.’
There
is much of value in these reflections, and they proved to be of use to me in
singling out the merits of Andrew’s book. In this context Updike is using the
word ‘corruption’ not as a synonym for malevolence, but simply as another way
of describing a process of wearing down or distorting. I take him to be saying
that an inventory of the external or worldly events of a life, the mundane
matters that may be of interest to a biographer, will leave an incomplete or
false impression, for a portrait of that kind is bound to omit a number of
interior or ‘other-worldly’ facets of the life in question. For most people,
underlying what happens on the surface, is the sense of personal joy or wonder,
the moments of illumination, that influence their actions. It takes a poet to
bring this home to us by enriching the scraps and fragments of the daily round
that remind us of our ‘unearthly human innocence.’
These
reflections help me to define a singular quality in Andrew’s poetry, in this
book, and in his earlier works. In many of the poems there are autobiographical
elements, be they haikus or longer pieces, episodic or carefully structured renderings,
light or sombre, but underlying these elements there is a generally a sense of
discovery and wonder, one could almost call it gladness. In this way he refutes
the Wordsworthian rule I mentioned at the outset and underlines the wisdom of
that other rule I quoted earlier: ‘In
poetry, being off duty is part of the job.’
With
these thoughts in mind it gives me great pleasure to declare that One Hour Seeds Another is now well and
truly launched. I urge you to buy several copies, for yourself and for your
friends.
**
** **
Typography rules for writers
- The four most important typographic choices you make in any document are point size, line spacing, line length, and font (passim), because those choices determine how the body text looks.
- point size should be 10–12 points in printed documents, 15-25 pixels on the web.
- line spacing should be 120–145% of the point size.
- The average line length should be 45–90 characters (including spaces).
- The easiest and most visible improvement you can make to your typography is to use a professional font, like those found in font recommendations.
- Use curly quotation marks, not straight ones (see straight and curly quotes).
- Put only one space between sentences.
- Never use underlining, unless it’s a hyperlink.
- Use centered text sparingly.
- Use bold or italic as little as possible.
- all caps are fine for less than one line of text.
- If you don’t have real small caps, don’t use them at all.
- Use 5–12% extra letterspacing with all caps and small caps.
- kerning should always be turned on.
- Use first-line indents that are one to four times the point size of the text, or use 4–10 points of space between paragraphs. But don’t use both.
- If you use justified text, also turn on hyphenation.
- Don’t confuse hyphens and dashes, and don’t use multiple hyphens as a dash.
- Use ampersands sparingly, unless included in a proper name.
- In a document longer than three pages, one exclamation point is plenty (see question marks and exclamation points).
- Use proper trademark and copyright symbols—not alphabetic approximations.
- Put a nonbreaking space after paragraph and section marks.
- Make ellipses using the proper character, not periods andspaces.
- Make sure apostrophes point downward.
- Make sure foot and inch marks are straight, not curly.
On the tenth anniversary of his death - Czesław Miłosz
Czesław Miłosz
Read more quotes at
http://culture.pl/en/article/10-unforgettable-quotes-by-czeslaw-milosz
Friday, August 22, 2014
Fame at last for 'One Hour Seeds Another'!
Thanks Anna Teasdale for this pic of ONE HOUR SEEDS ANOTHER on display at Perth City Library.
If you're in the Perth parish, borrow it.
If you're elsewhere and would like a copy, go to
If you'd like to read Andy Jackson's launch speech, go to
If you're in Melbourne, you'll find it at Collected Works, Swanston Street.
If you're in Hobart, at Hobart Book Shop, Salamanca Sq.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Another Grand Reading at COLLECTED WORKS
With Kris Hemensley, David Morley, Gig Ryan and Will Eaves at Collected Works Bookshop
19 August 2014
Artists: Improve your Figure Drawing
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La Mama 'Kissing a Stranger' LAST DAYS
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Tuesday, August 19, 2014
THURSDAY - Kevin Brophy in Eltham
AUG
21
Join
Guests and Friends · Hosted by Emily Manger
- at 20:00–23:00
- Show Map
A monthly open-mic reading by poets & performers from Melbourne and beyond, this time featuring Kevin Brophy.
Remember to get there at 7.30 if you'd like to get a spot on the open mic - this month's suggested theme is 'beyond'.
$5 entry includes wine, tea, coffee, biscuits & door prize.
Eltham Courthouse is accessible by public transport; within hiking distance of Eltham station (about 1km), and close to bus stops. The 902 and 513 buses run till late. You can plan your journey here:
http://ptv.vic.gov.au/
Or for the drivers, Melway ref: 21 J7
Remember to get there at 7.30 if you'd like to get a spot on the open mic - this month's suggested theme is 'beyond'.
$5 entry includes wine, tea, coffee, biscuits & door prize.
Eltham Courthouse is accessible by public transport; within hiking distance of Eltham station (about 1km), and close to bus stops. The 902 and 513 buses run till late. You can plan your journey here:
http://ptv.vic.gov.au/
Or for the drivers, Melway ref: 21 J7
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