Language and literature - News and events

Events | Featured projects | Call for entries | Announcements

Events

Viva Poetry - Australian poetry comes to Wollongong

11 October 2008

Viva Poetry gathers contemporary poets for an afternoon of challenge and contemplation. The program features Dorothy Porter, John Tranter, Joanne burns, Judith Beveridge, Peter Skrzynecki, Barbara Nicholson, Chris Mansell, Elizabeth Hodgson, Merlinda Bobis and more, reading from their work. Call in to Wollongong City Gallery for half an hour or the whole afternoon, and experience these extraordinary Australian writers. A co-production of South Coast Writers Centre and Viva La Gong. Wollongong City Gallery.

The Bedside Books Club - Melbourne

14 October 2008

The Bedside Books Club invites discussion on important bedside reading matters at its quarterly get-togethers. Take a book you would like to share with fellow readers and join the group for good wine, company and reads. Special guests include: author Alex Miller (Journey to the Stone Country, 2003 Miles Franklin Award winner), Mark Rubbo, Managing Director of Readings, guest reader Genevieve Tucker. State Library of Victoria.

ANZAAB 35th Australian Antiquarian Book Fair - Melbourne

24-26 October 2008

Leading Australian dealers will offer scarce and interesting books, prints, maps, photographs, manuscripts and ephemera covering a wide range of collecting interests, especially Australiana. Malvern Town Hall.

Brand Spanking New - National

22 October - 1 November 2008

Brand Spanking New is an initiative to foster new Australian writing through the creation of a hothouse for emerging and established writers and directors. Brand Spanking New is an opportunity for writers and directors to collaborate in a non-competitive, well-resourced, nurturing environment with the view of strengthening relationships between emerging and established practitioners.

Australian Poetry Slam 08 - New South Wales and national

Heats: 6 Sep to 4 November; NSW Final - 21 Nov; National Final - 4 December 2008

Contestants are given a microphone, a live audience and just two minutes to impress the judges with their spoken word, poetry, hip hop, monologues and stories. This year there are 10 regional and metro heats in NSW. Heat winners will compete in the State Final at the State Library of NSW on 21 November. NSW's top two slam poets will battle against state and territory winners for the coveted Australian Poetry Slam 08 title and $5,000 cash, at the National Final in Sydney on 4 December.

Featured projects

Joshua Button, Joshua and the Two Crabs, Magabala Books, 2008

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.

Sydney PEN Voices: 3 Writers Project 2008 - Sydney and Canberra

12-13 November 2008

Sydney PEN commissions three talented writers to write an essay and deliver a lecture on a big issue facing contemporary Australia. In 2008 these writers are Christopher Kremmer, Melissa Lucashenko, and Anna Funder. The essays will be published as a collection by Allen & Unwin in 2009. Various locations.

Call for entries

The Inkys - Teen choice book awards shortlist announced

Voting will close on 27 October

Voting is now open to determine the winners of the 2008 Inkys Awards - Australia's only teen choice book awards, reflecting what teenagers want to read rather than what they are told to read. Votes are registered by readers online at the insideadog website. Anyone under 20 from anywhere in the world can vote. The books with the most votes win.

Barbara Jefferis Award 2009 - National

Entries by 28 November 2008

Entries are open for the Barbara Jefferis Award 2009. The Award is paid from the Barbara Jefferis Literary Fund, which was established by a bequest from Barbara Jefferis' husband, ABC film critic John Hinde, who died in 2006. The Australian Society of Authors is Trustee of the Fund. In 2009 the Award is valued at $35,000.

Inner City Life Literary Competition - National

Entries by 28 November 2008

This writing competition for adults on the theme of 'Inner City Life' is organised by the NSW Writers' Centre, sponsored by Gleebooks and the Village Voice, and open to anyone from anywhere. The topic is 'Inner City Life anywhere anytime', whatever interpretation you give to the phrase.

The Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize 2009 - National

Entries by 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.

The Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize 2009 - National

Entries by 30 January 2009

The Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize is now open. The first prize is $10,000 for a poem or suite of poems up to 200 lines.

Announcements

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

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 Qld 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.

Ministerial appointments to Australia Council Literature Board.

27 August 2008

Minister Garrett has announced the appointment of Ms Margo Lanagan and Dr Gail Jones to the Literature Board. Ms Lanagan is an Australian writer of short stories and young adult fiction. She recently published her third collection of short stories, Red Spikes. Dr Gail Jones is an associate professor in English at the University of Western Australia, whose second novel, Sixty Lights, won the 2005 Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction, amongst other awards.

41st AWGIE Awards

August 2008

At this year's annual Australian Writers Guild AWGIE Awards, The Black Balloon by Elissa Down and Jimmy the Exploder won the award for Feature Film Original. Doug MacLeod took home a number of awards for Dogstar: the Children's Television - C Classification award, the inaugural John Hinde Award for Science Fiction and the Fred Parsons Award for Contribution to Australian Comedy. Dogstar is a 26 x half-hour animated comedy series from ScreenWest; a quest across space to find a missing ark full of dogs called the Dogstar. John Alsop was the recipient of the FOXTEL Fellowship for Excellence in Television Writing.

2008 Prime Minister's Literary Awards shortlist

21 August 2008

Arts Minister Peter Garrett said that the 14 shortlisted authors had presented the two judging panels with very difficult choices. The seven short-listed fiction books include prose, a compilation of short stories and a verse novel. Represented in the fiction short list are established and emerging authors. The seven short-listed non-fiction books include histories, memoir, biography, essays and political analysis. The winners of the 2008 Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction and Non-Fiction will be announced at an evening event to be held in the Mural Hall at Parliament House on 12 September 2008.

Victorian Premier's Literary Awards: Shortlist 2008

August 2008

The 2008 shortlist for the 12 categories of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards was announced on Friday 8 August. The awards were established in 1985 by John Cain, the Premier of Victoria at that time, to mark the centenary of the births of Vance and Nettie Palmer - distinguished writers and critics who made significant contributions to Victorian and Australian literary culture.

Books Alive opens new chapter for Aussie readers

27 July 2008

Arts Minister Peter Garrett has announced the launch of Books Alive 2008, a month-long campaign featuring a host of activities to tempt people to pick up a book. Books Alive aims to introduce all Australians to the joys of reading, and includes a list of recommended books, a giveaway feature title, promotions, advertising and author tours throughout August.

2008 Prime Minister's Literary Awards - Judges receive nearly 200 entries

24 July 2008

The judging panels for the 2008 Prime Minister's Literary Awards consist of a  three-member panel for both the Fiction and Non-Fiction Awards. Each panel is comprised of a chair from academia, an esteemed author and a recognised public figure. Every judge is also an author in their own right. The judging panel for works of fiction, chaired by academic Peter Pierce, with author John Marsden and broadcaster Margaret Throsby, received 91 entries. Academic Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Indigenous artist and author Sally Morgan and comedian and script writer John Doyle, panelists for the non-fiction award, received 103 entries.

Short-list for the 2008 Kit Denton Fellowship

21 July 2008

The Australian Writers' Guild has announced the shortlist for the 2008 Kit Denton Fellowship for courage and excellence in performance writing, named in memory of writer Kit Denton. The projects of this year's finalists investigate our very essence - from stories of racism and loss to narratives which question our constructs of punishment, religion and morality. The fellowship allows the selected writer to develop their proposed project into a marketable script. The winner will be announced at the AWGIE Awards on Friday, August 15.

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
• 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

• Australian Libraries Gateway
• Australian Literature Resources
• National Library of Australia

Peak bodies and associations

• Australian Society of Authors
• Copyright Agency Limited
• Australian Children's Book Council (CBC)

People

• Sleepers - advocates for writers
• The Angry Penguins
• Henry Lawson

Featured websites/projects

• Word Map
• Lightning Bug
• Project Gutenberg