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News and Events: July to November 2009

The Creative Writing Program is delighted to announce a series of Masterclasses in 2010. The Masterclasses will run for five days from 23 - 27 August 2010. Workshops will be run by acclaimed visiting writers Helen Garner and Gail Jones, as well as the Creative Writing Program's own award-winning writers Brian Castro and Jill Jones. To pre-register your interest in the Masterclasses please email creativewriting@adelaide.edu.au. Full information, including program and fees, will be available soon. 

The latest issue of Meanjin (68,4) features new fiction from PhD candidate Maya Linden and PhD graduate Patrick Allington. It also features editor Sophie Cunningham interviewing Visiting Research Fellow (and former Creative Writing lecturer and writer in residence) Eva Hornung.

Several postgraduate candidates have read work-in-progress on Writers Radio, broadcast across Australia via the Community Radio Network. In November Ken Bolton read his poem 'God of trieste' and Sandy Verschoor read from Sea Acres. In October Shannon Burns read his poem 'The Beach', Maya Linden read from her novel-in-progress Anatomy of the Upper Body, and Stephanie Hester read from her novel-in-pogress Hungry Ghosts. In September Lauren Lovett read her story 'Kids who Kick Dogs'.

Festival news: Brian Castro (The Bath Fugues), Jill Jones (Broken/Open) and Carol Lefevre (If You Were Mine) will all be participating in the 2010 Adelaide Writers' Week. Patrick Allington (Figurehead) will be in participating in the 2010 Sydney Writers' Festival and Wordstorm, the Northern Territory Writers' Festival.

PhD graduate Cath Kenneally's new novel, Jetty Road, has been published by Wakefield Press. Jetty Road is an amusing and insightful novel about women of a certain age, kids and oldies - about life actually, and how we never really grow into it.

Congratulations to Shannon Burns, PhD candidate, who is winner of the inaugural The Adelaide Review/The University of Adelaide short story competition. Shannon's winning story was published in the October issue of The Adelaide Review. MA by coursework graduate Rebekah Clarkson was one of several runners-up.

Jamaican-born poet and short story writer Olive Senior was writer-in-residence from August to September 2009. Olive Senior is the author of over a dozen books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction; her latest is the poetry book Shell. Her novel Dancing Lessons will be published in spring 2011. Her short story collection Summer Lightning won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and her poetry book Over the Roofs of the World was shortlisted for Canada's Governor-General's Award for Literature. Her other books include Arrival of the Snake-Woman, Discerner of Hearts (fiction); Talking of Trees, Gardening in the Tropics (poetry); Working Miracles: Women's Lives in the English Speaking Caribbean and The Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage.   

At the 2010 South Australian Writers' Festival, postgraduate coursework student Alexia Champion was the winner of the youth section of the Wirra Wirra Short Story Competition.

People's Choice Awards: as part of the South Australian Writers' Festival, thirty book groups read and reviewed six books by emerging South Australian writers. Of the six books, four were written by Creative Writing program students and/or graduates: Nine Hours North by Tim Sinclair, Sweet Guy by Jared Thomas, Nights in the Asylum by Carol Lefevre and The Quakers by Rachel Hennessy. The People's Choice Award was won by Carol Lefevre.

Independent Melbourne publisher Ilura Press is proud to be producing Etchings Indigenous, a publication promoting the work of Indigenous writers and artists. The entire publication will be produced by Indigenous members of the community under the mentorship of Ilura Press editors and staff. Etchings Indigenous will be modelled on Etchings, blending short fiction, essays, poetry, art, and photography. Project Coordinator for Etchings Indigenous is Coral Reeve, a member of the Gunditjmara nation. Ilura Press was founded by Sabina Hopfer and Christopher Lappas, both graduates of the University of Adelaide's Phd in Creative Writing.

Senior Lecturer and award-winning poet Jill Jones and PhD graduate and Writers Radio host Cath Kenneally are both represented in a new anthology Motherlode: Australian Women's Poetry 1986 - 2008, edited by Jennifer Harrison and Kate Morrison.

The most recent Wordfire was held on Tuesday 25th August at the Crown & Sceptre Hotel, 308 King William Street. Following on from the SALA festival, some readings were on the theme of visual art. The program included Olive Senior, Jared Thomas, Jill Jones reading alongside photographic images by Annette Willis, Rosemary Jones, Chelsea Avard, and Emma Carmody.

Cassie Harrex is the 2009 winner of The Adelaide Review/Penny's Hill Prize for Food Writing 2009 - awarded to the most outstanding student in the University of Adelaide's Graduate Certificate in Food Writing program. Harrex's evocative article about the Spanish resort town of San Sebastian, 'Pintxos Nights', was published in the August 2009 edition of The Adelaide Review. Harrex writes about San Sebastian's great tradition of pintxos: ‘These are the Basque version of tapas, each just a mouthful, and they are piled high between the beer taps and wine bottles on almost every bar countertop throughout the city.' Read the full article here.

The Discipline of English, including Creative Writing, is continuing its Seminar Program in Semester 2, 2009. Seminars will be presented by Marion Halligan, Jennifer Harrison and Kate Waterhouse, Susan Sheridan, Patrick Allington, Olive Senior, Kate Douglas, Deirdre Coleman, Gillian Whitlock, Anne Brewster, Robert Phiddian, Lyn McCredden and Maya Linden. Full details, including times and seminar titles, are listed on the Seminar Program.

Sean Williams has been awarded this year's Peter McNamara Achievement Award. The Peter McNamara Achievement Award is an annual award given to a professional in the Australian Science Fiction field in remembrance of the life and contribution of Peter Trevor McNamara. Sean comments, 'I was surprised, delighted, and deeply moved to receive the Mac this year. Peter published my first novel, as well as some of my earliest short stories, and played a very significant role in shaping me as a writer. He was also a very good friend, and is greatly missed. I'm honoured to be among the other recipients of the award, who include some of the best writers and editors in Australia.'

Issue 7 of Etchings, Chameleons, is now available. Etchings is a creative magazine with an international focus, dedicated to showcasing new work by emerging and established writers and artists. Etchings is published by Ilura Press, founded by Creative Writing PhD graduates Sabina Hopfer and Christopher Lappas.

Patrick Allington's novel, Figurehead, was launched by J.M. Coetzee at the SA Writers' Centre, on Wednesday 29 July at 6.30pm. Patrick Allington was also July's guest blogger on the Black Inc. Blog, The Inc. Blot.

ENTRIES NOW CLOSED. The Adelaide Review, in association with the Creative Writing Program, is proud to announce the first Annual Short Fiction Competition. This annual competition aims to encourage the art of short fiction writing, to set new standards in contemporary short fiction and to be one of Australia's most prestigious writing awards. The competition features an international judging panel consisting of prize-winning Australian author and Chair of the Creative Writing Program, Brian Castro, Noel Laureate J.M. Coetzee and Jamaican poet and short story writer Oliver Senior. Entry forms and full terms and conditions are available from the Adelaide Review. The Creative Writing Program is delighted to be beginning a fruitful new collaboration with the Adelaide Review.

Unbound, a conference dedicated to postgraduate and academic research from English & Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide, was held on 9-10th July in Napier GO3. For more details see the Unbound conference program.

Issue 15 of Wet Ink: the magazine of new writing is now available. It includes poetry by Stephen Lawrence and Tom Shapcott, Dominique Wilson's interview with Thomas Keneally and the usual invigorating mix of fiction, essay, poetry, reviews and photography.