Tracks: Brisbane

Express Media is delighted to present Tracks a travelling pop-up program for young writers that brings the best of Express Media’s workshops, masterclasses, networking opportunities and special events to communities across Australia.

In 2017 we’re bringing the Tracks program to Brisbane, partnering with Queensland Writers Centre and Backbone Youth Arts to take the best of Express Media right to your backyard.

If you’re aged 14 to 25 and have a love of writing and storytelling, Tracks: Brisbane is an exciting weekend event just for you. Across the day, you’ll learn from some of the best writers in Queensland, and expand your skills to develop and crafting captivating stories, find out what opportunities there are for you in Brisbane and beyond, and discover what happens when you’ve been selected for publication.

Tracks is free for Express Media members to participate in and attend. If you’re not a member already, Tracks: Brisbane costs $25 and includes joint membership to Express Media and Queensland Writers Centre (normally $55).

Plus, the first ten participants to register will also receive a free one-year print subscription to Voiceworks (normally $60).

Voiceworks #109 Launch

Join Express Media for the launch of Voiceworks #109 ‘Sprawl’ at Backbone Youth Arts’ Future 30 Festival. Hear some of Queensland’s best young writers share their words as they reflect on home and the future in this special lineup featuring Mindy Gill, Sarah Neilsen, Lech Blaine, Raelee Lancaster, Mitch Cave, and Anna Jacobson.

5.30pm to 7.30pm, October 20
East Brisbane Bowls Club
38 Lytton Road, East Brisbane

Drinks and magazines will be available for sale at East Brisbane Bowls Club. This event is free to attend but book your ticket now

Tracks: Brisbane

Join Express Media for a big day of workshops, word-games, and panels for Tracks: Brisbane.

Registration

8.30am – 9.00am

Hi, Hey, Hello

9.00am – 9.30am

Grab a cup of coffee and join us to meet other young writers like you.

Plot, Plan, and Deconstructing Your Story with Krissy Kneen

9:30am – 11:00am

Stories always have a beginning, middle, end – right? Not quite. Get ready to map the existing narrative form in your work before we dive headfirst into deconstructing and creating non-traditional storytelling structures.

Crafting Character & Representing Real Life with Steph Bowe

9:30am – 11:00am

Character is a key element of successful writing. What makes a memorable character in fiction and do you represent real-life people ethically? Do we have to be able to relate to all characters as a reader? How can you get inside your characters’ heads – when they came from yours? Explore strategies for creating believable, fleshed-out figures in your own work.

Place, Space and Perspective in Your Story with Krissy Kneen

11:00am – 12:30pm

Explore the use of place and geography in storytelling, as we work through strategies to research, create, and communicate setting to increase its impact in your writing.

Paths to Real Life Storytelling with Nayuka Gorrie

11:00am – 12:30pm

Everyday is brimming with real-life stories that need to be told. Join Nayuka Gorrie to learn the importance of working with truth and how you can construct, research, and write stories grounded in real life.

Lunch

12:30pm – 1:00pm

After a big morning of writing, join us for a bite to eat before firing up your brain again for a jam-packed afternoon.

Poetry and Voice with Mindy Gill

1:00pm – 2:30pm

Join Mindy Gill and learn how to craft poetry that bridges the gap between poet and reader, and develop your poetic voice to communicate intimacy, urgency, and authority.

Don’t Delete Your Browsing History: Research & Write Informed Work with Sam George-Allen

1:00pm – 2:30pm

How do you ensure your writing is accurate and realistic? Earn the trust of your reader and learn how to find all the answers you need with Google, real-life sources, and beyond to make sure your writing is filled with the correct, colourful details.

Pens and Pathways

2:30pm – 3:30pm

Where do you start when you want to write? How do you get your work in front of a reader? Join Express Media and a line-up word-nerds from publications and organisations to find out what opportunities there are for you in Queensland and beyond.

With Mindy Gill (Peril Magazine), Sam George-Allen (Scum Mag), Yen-Rong Wong (Pencilled In), Jerath Head (Griffith Review), Alex Bayliss (Playlab), Katherine Quigley (Backbone Youth Arts), Megan McGrath (State Library of Queensland), Jackie Ryan (Queensland Writers Centre), and Fiona Dunne (Express Media).

Afternoon Tea

3:30pm – 4:00pm

Next Steps: Editing and Publishing with Jerath Head

4:00 – 5:30pm

What happens once you’ve finished writing your story? Is an editor just a grammar-pedantic wielder of a red pen? Unpack the relationship between writers and editors, how to prepare your writing for submission, and what to expect when you’re selected for publication.

Next Steps: Ready to Read: Performing Your Work

4:00pm – 5:30pm

Sharing your work with other people is always nerve-wrecking, but what happens when it’s also off the page? Join us for a crash course in how to perform your work aloud to build your confidence, build your community, and improve your writing.

Excited? Book Now!


ARTISTS

Anna Jacobson is a Brisbane based poet, writer, and artist. Her poetry has been published in literary journals including Cordite, Rabbit, Australian Poetry Journal, Tincture and Verity La and is forthcoming in Meanjin. Anna is currently shortlisted for two categories in the 2017 Queensland Literary Awards: her unpublished memoir How to Knit a Human is shortlisted for the Emerging Queensland Writer – Manuscript Award and she is also shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Young Writers and Publishers Award. In 2016 she was shortlisted for the Scribe Nonfiction Prize and the University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize and in 2015 she was shortlisted for the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize. Anna is undertaking her Master of Philosophy (Creative Practice), specialising in poetry at QUT. Anna’s website is www.annajacobson.com.au

Alexander Bayliss is a playwright from Brisbane. Currently, Alexander is writing the book and co-writing lyrics for the musical On the Docks which had a work-in-progress showing as part of the Griffith University Conservatorium of Music’s 2015 concert series, and Formaldehyde (formally titled: Jack) was developed as part of Playlab Lab Rats program in 2014. Alexander holds a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Drama) and a Master of Creative Industries (Creative Writing) from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), as of 2015 was mentored by Saffron Benner as part of ATYP’s Fresh Ink National Mentoring Program. Alexander is currently Artistic Coordinator at Playlab. His other writing credits include Learning to Love Gravity (Anywhere Theatre Festival, 2015), Caution: Wet Floor (2High Festival, 2011).

Fiona Dunne is the current Creative Producer of Express Media, joining the organisation in 2014. Previously, Fiona has worked with literary journals, festivals, and arts organisations focused on the production, publication and support of new Australian work across both literature and theatre. In 2016 she was selected for Footscray Community Arts Centre’s Emerging Cultural Leadership program and was a delegate of the Australia Council’s India Literature Exploratory supported by UNESCO Melbourne City of Literature.

Jackie Ryan holds a PhD in history and political science from The University of Queensland, where she is an Honorary Research Fellow. Her thesis topic is also the subject of her debut book, We’ll Show the World: Expo 88 and Brisbane’s Almighty Struggle for a Little Bit of Cred (UQP in 2018).

Jackie makes the Aurealis Award-winning Burger Force comic series and founded the comedy writing collective the Fanciful Fiction Auxiliary, which had a sold-out Brisbane Powerhouse show in 2016, appeared at BWF in 2017, and has also had its website archived by the National Library of Australia as a site of cultural significance.

Jerath Head is assistant editor at Griffith Review, and was co-editor of the recent Millennials Strike Back edition. He’s also a research assistant for Griffith University’s Policy Innovation Hub, and writes sporadically – most recently for Kill Your Darlings and Griffith Review.

Krissy Kneen is the award-winning author of the memoir Affection, the novels Steeplechase, Triptych, The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine, and the Thomas Shapcott Award winning poetry collection Eating My Grandmother. She has written and directed broadcast documentaries for SBS and ABC television. Her most recent novel is An Uncertain Grace.

Lech Blaine is a writer from regional Queensland. He divides his time between Bundaberg and Toowoomba. In 2017, he was awarded a Griffith Review Queensland Writers Fellowship. He has been published by literary journals such as Griffith Review, Scum, Seizure, The Lifted Brow, Tincture and Voiceworks. Black Inc. will publish his first book Car Crash: A Memoir in 2018.

Megan McGrath works in State Library of Queensland’s Reading and Writing team and aims to foster and grow a supportive community for young Queensland writers through collaboration with arts organisations and community partners including Queensland Writers Centre, Brisbane Writers Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival and The Stella Prize. Her key projects include the annual Young Writers Award and Young Writers Conference, and the Queensland Literary Awards. She is a former winner of the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award and has written for Griffith Review, Meanjin, Seizure and the New York Times.  

Mindy Gill’s poems have appeared in Australian Poetry Journal, Hecate, Mascara Literary Review, Island Magazine, Award Winning Australian Writing, and elsewhere. She has won the Tom Collins Poetry Prize, a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship, and has been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Young Writers and Publishers Award. Her manuscript, August Burns the Sky, was shortlisted for the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize. She is Peril Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief.

Mitch Tomas Cave is based in Brisbane. His most recent work has appeared in Australian Poetry Anthology, Cordite, Rabbit, The Daphne Review (US) and Impossible Archetype (UK). In 2016, he was selected to participate in Australian Poetry/Express Media’s inaugural ‘Toolkits’ program for emerging poets. He studies Bachelor of International Studies at the University of Queensland, majoring in peace and conflict analysis and Spanish.

Raelee Lancaster is a poet and research assistant based in Brisbane. Her work has been published in Rabbit Journal, university magazines, and she was part of the 2017 Toolkits: Poetry program through Express Media and Australian Poetry. Born and raised on Awbakal country, she is a descendent of the Wiradjuri people. You can find Raelee on Twitter @raeleelancaster

Sarah Neilsen is a writer and artist from Townsville, who moved to Brisbane in 2014 to chase her dream of entering the Australian literary industry. She studied her BFA in Creative and Professional Writing at QUT, and was co-president of the QUT Literary Salon during her degree. She is now studying her Masters at UQ, and has worked with young writers as a creative writing tutor at QUT. Her writing has been published in Voiceworks, and was a runner up in the 2016 Michael Collins Prize.

Sam George-Allen is a Brisbane-based writer and musician. Her essays and cultural criticism have been published in Kill Your Darlings, Overland, the Griffith Review and the Lifted Brow. Her first book, Witches: What women do together, is due out in 2019 through Penguin Random House.

Steph Bowe is a 23-year-old YA author whose novels include Girl Saves Boy, All This Could End and Night Swimming. She grew up just outside Melbourne and now lives in South-East Queensland. She was one of triple j’s inaugural 25 Under 25 and won Express Media’s award for Outstanding Achievement By A Writer Under 25 in 2010. Steph is a Stella Schools Ambassador.

Yen-Rong Wong is a Brisbane-based writer, and the Founding Editor of Pencilled In, a magazine dedicated to showcasing work by Asian Australian artists. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, Overland, and more. She is currently working on a manuscript which explores the impacts of growing up Chinese and Christian on her attitudes towards sex, drugs, and music.

Voiceworks #109 Launch
5.30pm to 7.30pm, Friday October 20

Tracks: Brisbane
9am to 5pm, Saturday October 21

East Brisbane Bowls Club
38 Lytton Road, East Brisbane

Tracks: Brisbane is presented by Express Media in partnership with Queensland Writers Centre and Backbone Youth Arts.