6-8pm at Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

Adam will talk about the kinds of writing you might like to consider for your zines. He’ll talk about comics, reviews (including tips on how to scam free stuff), creative writing, rants and raves - by the time this workshop is over you’ll have the beginnings of a bunch of stuff that would certainly not look out of place in your new zine. Everyone who attends this workshop will get a free copy of Adam’s zine, ‘Jutchy Ya Ya’.

Adam Ford is a zinemaker, comic maker, novel writer, poet and internet guy. His zines include ‘Jutchy Ya Ya’, ‘Duck Fat’, ‘What Astronauts Wear’ and the zine anthology ‘Chimp Frenzy’. When he’s not making zines Adam writes novels, poetry, comics and short stories, some of which have been published by actual real publishers, and some of which he’s published himself.

link:
www.labyrinth.net.au/-adamford

6-8pm at Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

Personal blogging can help a writer in many ways: practice your craft, increase your public profile and gain general confidence. Karen’s workshop will cover all these aspects for those who are beginning their blogging journey or those already involved who
wish to meet and discuss this increasingly popular activity.

Karen Andrews is a Freelance Writer and award winning short story writer. Her children’s picture book is being released in October.

Her personal blog (www.miscmum.com) is ranked in Australia’s Top 100.

link:
www.miscmum.com

6-8pm at Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

Independent Publishing is a workshop about the world of independent and small press publishing. In the workshop you will learn how to get involved, what it takes to set up your own press, planning what to publish, where to sell your publications and pitfalls to avoid.

Lisa Dempster is the publisher at Vignette Press, an indie small press producing quirky books and magazines. Titles include the kooky ‘The Mook’ and Mini Shots mini-magazines. She runs a blog about independent publishing at locusbooks.wordpress.com and has had her writing published by several independent publishers.

6-8pm at Bar Open, 317 Brunswick St, Fitzroy.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

This workshop will cover all the elements you need to bring your writing from the page to the stage. Spoken word is the rawest, most frightening art form - just you and a microphone. It can include poetry, hip-hop, short fiction and even non-fiction. The
important thing is the performance. Time permitting, we’ll also look at elements of meter, rhythm, and rhyme, that can make or break a piece when it finally gets read aloud. Participants should bring work to perform through a microphone - preferably their own, though someone else’s will do.


Geoff Lemon is Poetry Editor of ‘harvest’ magazine and runs Melbourne’s Blue Velvet readings. You can find him in ‘Best Australian Stories 2007’, ‘Blue Dog’, ‘Wireless Bollinger’and ‘Visible Ink’. In poetry slams, he’s won the New South Wales State
Slam, Melbourne Slam (twice), and Melbourne Writers’ Festival Poetry Idol.

6-8pm at Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

In this workshop we will look at experimenting with form (or lack of form), focusing on the prose poem. Participants are invited to bring a poem of their own to share with the group (this doesn’t have to be a prose poem). We will also do several writing exercises and time permitting will read and discuss the work of several influential prose poets.

Ella Holcombe’s first collection of poetry, ‘Welcome/No Vacancy’ was published in 2007 by Five Islands Press. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including ‘Voiceworks’, ‘Sleepers Almanac’, ‘Going Down Swinging’ and the ‘Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology’. Ella lives in Brunswick with her trusty sidekick, lop-eared bunny Mr William Burrows.

6-8pm at Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

In this workshop, Jo will tell you how pictures and words can be combined to make a greater synthesis. We will wrestle with some of the basic mechanics of comic book structure, narrative, types of transitions, character design, consistency, what to show and what to say, and so on. Please bring along sketchbooks, character designs and any comic ideas you have been working on.

Jo Waite has been a comic artist, cartoonist and illustrator for more than 20 years. She has been paid to draw comics and cartoons for many community based organisations and refused to be lured from comics into any more sensible and lucrative work. Her comics have appeared in various small press compilations including ‘Tango’, ‘Heat’ and ‘Going Down Swinging’, and she has printed her own comics, zines and diaries since 1987. Her minicomic ‘One Sock the Lovesick Devil’ is up to issue #5, and a new book ‘Kickstart’ which details some of her adventures with Centrelink, will be available soon.

6-8pm at Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

This workshop will take you step-by-step through a range of avenues for getting your work published in a range of genres, including the when, where and how to pitch your work. It will also address a range of means for promoting yourself as a writer and publicising your work, giving you an outline of the media landscape and how to engage with it.

In recent years Natasha Ludowyk has been co-founder and features editor of ‘Is Not Magazine’, has worked as a publicist with Oh Traveller Publicity, a publicist with Spinifex Press and worked as a freelance writer. She is currently working on the art of reading whilst cycling, and understands that the art being a writer includes the business of being published.

6-8pm at Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

How to you pitch a story to an editor? What’s the right angle for your article? What does an inverted pyramid have to do with a news story? Can you make a living as a freelance writer? This workshop will answer all these questions and more, and provide you with a solid grounding in the basics of journalism, from spotting a good story, to interview technique, story structure, and working with an editor. We’ll also look at some of the business basics that all freelancers need to know, and discuss the differences between soft and hard news.

Richard Watts currently works as the editor of the weekly gay and lesbian community newspaper ‘MCV’, where he works with a wide range of freelancers on a daily basis. His own writing has appeared in numerous publications in Australia and overseas, including broadsheets, journals, magazines, zines, blogs and anthologies. Richard is also the producer/presenter of the weekly program SmartArts on 3RRR FM, and the Chair of Melbourne Fringe. He was the Artistic Director of Express Media between 2000 and 2005.

Wednesday September 24th, 6-8pm.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

This workshop will cover the process of editing your own work, from first draft through to working with editors on your oh-so precious baby darlings. Participants should bring a short piece of their own work and be prepared to discuss it with other workshop participants. There will be a focus on the process of collaborative drafting - giving a piece to two or three people and consolidating their feedback into your own redraft. Red pens will be provided, but participants will need to bring their own concoctions of brutal honesty mixed with diplomacy and tact.


Ryan Paine is the editor of ‘Voiceworks’ magazine, a youth-literature quarterly renowned for its active engagement with writers in drafting and developing their work. He writes for Radio National’s ‘The Book Show’, a gig that seems to require more drafting than writing - especially in the studio when his ‘p’s keep popping.

Download the full program here and keep an eye out for a new PayPal section which will be up soon!

Express Media provide tailor-made workshops to schools, councils, libraries, festivals and other organisations.

We can come to you with professional tutors best suited to your requirements.

We can provide workshops in these areas and more:
*Fiction
*Poetry
*Spoken word
*Zine making
*Comic making
*Journalism
*Scriptwriting
*Publishing
*Design
*Stencil art
*Filmmaking
*VJing

Or seminars on:
*A career in writing
*Applying for funding
*Marketing and publicity
*Event management

We also work with a number of performance poets and spoken word artists who can perform at your event.

There's more information below or contact Bel Schenk at artisticdirector@expressmedia.org.au for a full brochure, or quote.

"Thank you for publishing my poem in Voiceworks. You made me feel like a real writer not just another angst-ridden teenager.”
Damien, aged 16 Blackwood, SA

The contents of Voiceworks depend almost entirely upon the unsolicited contributions of young Australians. We do not censor the work that we receive unless it contains racist, sexist or homophobic material. We believe that by encouraging young people to read the range of work published in the pages of Voiceworks magazine that we are enabling young people to recognise the difference between literary merit and shock value, between poorly written and well-written.

By giving young people the chance to read widely and well, we empower them, and provide them with the ability to make informed choices for themselves.

In 1998, the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs released a report exploring the portrayal of youth in the media. The report found that young people are constantly vilified by the media, that youth issues are reported in a way that generally denigrates young people, and that the voices of young people are missing from media coverage about themselves. Even when young people are the topic of discussion in the media, all too often they are the subject of debate rather than being allowed to speak for themselves.

Nor is the media solely responsible for such oversights and distortions. The arts community invariably see young people solely as potential audience members rather than equal participants and creators. There are exceptions, such as Victoria's St Martin's Youth Arts Centre, and Corrugated Iron Youth Arts in the Northern Territory, but these institutions are usually dismissed as mere 'training grounds' rather than being home to young people who are practitioners of the arts in their own right.

One of the main goals of Express Media is to ensure that young people receive more than just token representation in Australia's artistic and media communities. Although Voiceworks is our must visible project, we also strive to achieve this goal through the provision of a range of workshops, mentorship schemes and special artistic events.

If you would like Express Media to visit your school or library, or you would like to be added to our events database and be kept up-to-date on all express media workshops and projects please contact the office on (03) 9663 4155 or info@expressmedia.org.au.

Although based in inner Melbourne, we have a range of tutors and contacts in many areas, and would be delighted to assist you in planning a workshop program tailored to the needs of your students.

Workshop topics we have presented in the past have included:

- Zine making
- Poetry
- Spoken word
- Writing and producing a school newspaper
- So you want to write a novel?
- Song-writing
and many other topics of interest to students and other young people.

Express Media's standard rates are very competitive. Some packages include a subscription to Voiceworks and a pack of the last 12 months back-issues, as well as the tutor’s fees and project management costs.

ENCOURAGING CREATIVITY & VALUING YOUNG PEOPLE

“I was most impressed with the high quality of writing in Voiceworks magazine and have used passages as models for my senior English students. Students have also been informed of the possibility of submitting work for publication. Hopefully they will.”
Ms Wendy van Kalken,
S.O.S.E. Coordinator,
Mitchell Secondary College, Wodonga

Voiceworks magazine is an ideal way of encouraging young people to write creatively and well. Instead of their work having nowhere to go other than the short circuit to your desk and back, you can encourage them to submit their best stories, poems and artwork for publication in the magazine. Your students will receive an invaluable boost to their self-esteem by having their work published in the pages of Australia’s leading youth culture magazine. They will also be paid professional rates for their work, showing them that their work is valued as highly as that as their adult peers. Please see the Voiceworks page for our submission guidelines.

Come celebrate the launch of Voiceworks #74 (Innuendo) - featuring contributor readings, burlesque performance, cheap subscriptions and back issues, and a door prize of a stencilled vintage cherry... >> read more

BUZZCUTS 2008
Applications are now open for volunteers for this year’s Buzzcuts. If you are under 25 and you would like to write reviews as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival (September 24 –... >> read more

Wednesday September 24th, 6-8pm.

Cost: $22 for E(x)_m members or $25 for non-members.

This workshop will cover the process of editing your own work, from first draft through to working with... >> read more