Express Media – We're here for young writers

An Un-Friday Not-Quite Writing Exercise

2 comments

Rosanna Stevens

Jul 27, 2010

Are you finding Friday Writing Exercises tie your knickers in a knot? Feeling anxious? Are you reaching the end of the blog post, opening a word document, and flopping toward the pantry door Piderman-style, in the hope you’ll chance upon food that was invisible five minutes earlier? Unfortunately the pantry will only continue to offer stale starch, a strange breed of savoury conserve from a 2006 Christmas hamper, and a ransacked packet of snakes featuring only stiff orange and yellow. Worse still, you’ve given up on tapping out a Friday Writing Exercise post. The latter is a grand shame - I can only imagine the deliciously imaginative things you would have written (far better than anything in that bland old pantry). I stumbled across (i.e. a very cool friend of mine linked me) this piece of fantastic last week, and couldn’t help but daydream about some of the wild responses y’all would invent. It’s not Friday, and this isn’t quite a writing exercise, but it might just loosen up those joints in lieu of the end of this week.

Friday Writing Exercise

5 comments

Cathy Tran

Jul 24, 2010

Personally, I find descriptions to be the hardest part of a story. See, what happens is that I’ll have a rough plot in my head and there’s this part in the narrative that I desperately want to get to, because that’s the part I have the words for. But what about the other parts? What about setting up the scene, creating an image of my characters or adding that extra bit of depth? That’s unfortunately where the clichés come in. For this exercise, I’m going to give you the beginnings of a sentence that requires you to follow up with a description. See if you can expand on it; create characters or scenes or emotions. As always, work with the first thing that pops into your head. However, watch out for phrases that you’ve read before, see if you can twist them round. Bonus points if you can guess where I stole these from: He looked down at me from his pedestal. ‘Have faith.’ Having faith in him was like… To start the bar I’d borrowed as much as I could from every place that would lend me money, and I’d almost repaid it all. Things were settling down. Up until then, it had been a question of sheer survival, of keeping my head above water, and I didn’t have room to think of anything else. I felt like I’d… That’s all it was. A huge plate of fat. His fingers found the fork. It seemed as if I was watching… What they are hanging from is hooks. The hooks have been set into the brickwork of the Wall, for this purpose. Not all of them are occupied. The hooks look like…

• pseudonyms
• submissions

a pen by any other name

8 comments

Susie

Jul 22, 2010

Submissions to Voiceworks have the option of being published under a pseudonym. A few months ago I was submitting a story that I thought could probably offend certain acquaintances of mine should they read it and figured it would be safest to use a nom de plume. Discussing possible names with my family members (as it was over Christmas) the most astute of them suggested that if I wasn’t able to publish the story under my own name I shouldn’t try to have it published at all. Fortunately it wasn’t selected and in hindsight I realise it wasn’t a very good story anyway. Funny how the powers that be at Voiceworks could divine the inwards shame I felt about it. I don’t know if there’s any legitimate reason why submissions to Voiceworks should be under a different name. In my case, I thought there might be some sort of conflict of interest or moral dilemma involved and a pseudonym would protect everyone. Should I be writing things that people need to be protected from? Probably not. Or if I had written something outstanding, would the success have negated any ill or immoral feelings I had about it? Should we be worried about the moral implications of writing something, or should we plough on with our literary pursuits regardless of consequences, in a Helen Garner way? Gone are the days of the Bronte sisters or George Eliot where we have to change our names just because we’re ladies – I haven’t noticed a crippling insistence on nineteenth century values at any Ed Comm meetings – besides, names aren’t included on submissions, so they are all treated with the same anonymity. But despite the crazy values we uphold at Voiceworks, I remember reading that JK Rowling was encouraged by publishers to make her sex more ambiguous so young boys wouldn’t be put off reading her books by her name. Which is frankly a bit weird when you think of the success of Diana Wynne Jones. Anyway the K wasn’t even part of her name, she stole it from her grandmother to go from Joanne Rowling to how we know her today.

• books
• Jane Austen
• merchandise
• Virginia Woolf
• Writing

How to buy presents for book lovers

4 comments

Elizabeth Redman

Jul 20, 2010

Buying presents is never as easy as you expect. It's a particular problem when buying for the book lover. They like books, let's get them a book, I think to myself. Oh wait. Will they already have it? Will they like it? Will they turn their nose up and forever doubt my literary tastes? Maybe I should get them a nice Moleskine instead. It seems one solution is to buy them a gift that looks like a book but isn't one. Like this:

I've been given a tea cup and a notebook with the Penguin classics design. I've also bought similar gifts for heavy-reading friends.

• events
• live
• wheeler centre

Voiceworks Live

0 comment

Johannes Jakob

Jul 19, 2010

If you're in Melbourne, we're running another Voiceworks Live event this Thursday, and we'd love to see you there. There'll be readings from Birthmark, including Daniel Hogan, Christopher O'Neill and Holly Voigt. We'll give away some prizes in games of boggle and a spelling bee, and the editorial committee will do a radio play of Danielle Bink's 'Is this a miracle?' All of us have a face for the big screen, not radio, and the only way to enjoy said faces is to be there! It's a free event at the Wheeler Centre, but bookings are required. To see what happened the last time we did one of these, see Sam's recap.

• Joan Didion
• Kill Your Darlings
• Michaela Mcguire
• the age
• The Big Issue
• The Lifted Brow
• Women of Letters

Q&A MONDAY: MICHAELA MCGUIRE

4 comments

Jodie Kinnersley

Jul 19, 2010

Michaela McGuire is a Melbourne writer. Her first book "Apply Within: Stories of career sabotage" was published last year by MUP. She co-curates and hosts 'Women of Letters' which is Melbourne's loveliest literary event TM. She is currently working on her second book, a collection of essays, that will be published by MUP in 2011. Her writing has appeared in The Age, Kill Your Darlings, The Big Issue, JMag and is forthcoming in The Lifted Brow.

• erotica
• submissions

Word Porn

3 comments

Kat Muscat

Jul 18, 2010

or alternatively, is one person’s trash another’s night-in? Editors and lit nerds far and wide cannot be blamed for that vaguely sexual thrill that comes of a seriously well crafted sentence. The refreshingly brave imagery that successfully equates a first kiss to something you never realised was titillating until now. Writers who avoid the term ‘pregnant pause’ at all costs, god bless them. Donne’s metaphysical conceits (I was forced to study The Flea in y12, and now think it’s actually pretty cool). There’s a lot of good stuff there.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. Well, that’s not all at least.

Little known fact: ManComm (that’s Managerial Committee of Express Media) have never blocked a story due to its content. This should be kept in mind for all kinds of content that is considered subversive, or as I like to think of it 'awesome'. For a quick study of back issues, I bring your attention now to Bryce Joiner's ‘Pushkin’ in SUPERFUNHAPPY, a story that made me cry on a plane. Or more recently, ‘Fog’ by Elspeth Muir published in Budget. Now there’s an example of surrealism and rape working together to create something special.

So the question stands. Where is the smut, kids?

And what is the difference between erotica and porn?

In your opinion.

Friday Writing Exercise

0 comment

Madeleine Crofts

Jul 17, 2010

This exercise is about something you probably do every day anyway and if you don't well then it's time to start! It's about: eavesdropping! Which is a wonderful word isn't it? Time to drop some eaves people! Eavesdropping on other people's conversations can sometimes help with a piece of writing when you least expect it to, you are walking along thinking about something else then someone says something brilliant and you know how to keep going with that poem or story. But we are going to use eavesdropping consciously, to start to train your brain to be on the lookout for interesting words or phrases. Your challenge is to start listening to other people's conversations. Subtly of course. On the tram or the train, in the office, at school - anywhere! You need to find 5 phrases that grab you and write them down. Share them here on the blog! Then take all 5 and try and write them into an imagined conversation. Remember we're thinking about the way people actually talk and what makes their dialogue real and fresh and exciting to hear. Go forth and listen!

The Talks by Holly Voigt

1 comment

Johannes Jakob

Jul 15, 2010

Unfortunately we misprinted Holly Voigt's poem, 'The Talks', in Voiceworks 81 Birthmark. We failed to include the last few lines of her poem. We apologise to Holly, and have already put systems in place to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future. Please find her excellent poem below, in full.

The Talks by Holly Voigt a writhing heap on the street with no hive the noise made me see them the bees to crush them into the grass with my feet would have been sweeter than watching but I hadn’t the guts the bees knew and they talked walked meetings over each other and under hissing to each other with their feet hands all touching small hairs brushing the last one uttered deft eulogies by the gutter whispered lies about flight to his high pile of dry bodies like yellow leaves they speak to breathe and all speak is breath and they spoke that night to death.

• NYWF
• opportunity

NYWF volunteers

2 comments

Johannes Jakob

Jul 14, 2010

We really like the National Young Writers' Festival. We'll be there because hey, anyone who's cool will be there, and we are pretty cool. But if you really, really like the festival, maybe you'd like to volunteer and help them out? Lots of cool, different opportunities are up for grabs, and I bet there are lots of perks. Details below the jump.