Tracks: Perth

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

In 2017 we’re bringing the Tracks program to Perth, partnering with Westerly Magazine 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: Perth is an exciting weekend event just for you.

Across Friday and Saturday, you’ll learn from some of the best writers in Western Australia, taking part in hands-on workshops, finding out what opportunities there are for you in Perth and beyond, and discovering what happens when you’ve been selected for publication. You’ll also hear the work of some of Western Australia’s most exciting young writers, and meet the people and organisations that make the arts and literature community thrive.

Best of all, Tracks is free for Express Media members to participate in and attend. If you’re not a member already, Tracks: Perth costs $25 and includes membership to Express Media (normally $25). Plus, the first ten participants to register will also receive a free one-year print subscription to Voiceworks (normally $60).

Young Writers Showcase & Voiceworks #108 Launch 

Join us for the launch of Voiceworks #108 ‘Retrograde’ and hear some of Western Australia’s best young writers share their words and artwork as they reflect on home in this special line-up featuring Zainab Syed, Gabby Loo, SJ Finch, Kim Lateef, Wesley Robertson, and Charlotte Guest

This event is free and open to the community, but bookings are essential.

Tracks: Perth

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

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.

Plotting, Planning, and Deconstructing Your Story with Annabel Smith

9.30am –  11am

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 and Representing Real Life with Jennifer Down

9.30am –  11am

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 Writing with Jennifer Down

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 Elizabeth Tan

11.00am – 12.30pm

Everyday is brimming with real-life stories that need to be told.  Join Elizabeth Tan 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.

Graphic Narratives with Gabby Loo

1.00pm – 2.30pm

Explore the world of illustration and comic writing and find out how you can communicate the stories that matter most through visual language.

Don’t Delete Your Browsing History: Research & Write Informed Work with Jennifer Down

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: Opportunities for Young Writers

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 Western Australia and beyond.

With Matt Norman (Said Poets Society), Cecile Vuaillat (Propel Youth Arts), Catherine Noske (Westerly), Belinda Hermawan (WritingWA), Rosanne Dingli (KSP Writers Centre), Julian Hobba (Blue Room Theatre), Robert Wood (Centre for Stories), Lucy Adams (Voiceworks), and Fiona Dunne (Express Media).

Afternoon Tea

3.30pm – 4.00pm

Next Steps: Editing and Publishing with Lucy Adams

4.00pm – 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 and Perform Your Work with Finn O’Branagáin

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 Finn O’Brannigain for a crash course in how to perform your work aloud to build your confidence, build your community, and improve your writing.

BOOK YOUR SPOT NOW

Annabel Smith

Annabel Smith is the author of The Ark, Whisky Charlie Foxtrot, and A New Map of the Universe, which was shortlisted for the West Australian Premier’s Book Awards. Whiskey Charlie Foxtrot, published in the USA as Whiskey & Charlie, has sold in excess of 60,000 copies and was shortlisted for the Small Press Network’s Most Underrated Book Award. In 2012 Annabel was selected by the Australia Council as one of five inaugural recipients of a Creative Australia Fellowship for Emerging Artists, for her interactive digital novel/app The Ark. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Edith Cowan University.

Belinda Hermawan

Belinda Hermawan works in Digital Communications for writingWA, Western Australia’s peak body for literature. She currently sits on the committee for the 2018 Australian Short Story Festival, and is a former president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA. She is also a writing group facilitator at the Centre for Stories and serves as the current Studios Manager at artist-run-initiative Paper Mountain.

Catherine Noske

Dr. Catherine Noske is a lecturer in Creative Writing and editor of Westerly Magazine at the University of Western Australia. Her research focuses on contemporary Australian writing of place, and has been awarded the A.D. Hope Prize from the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. She has been a committee member for the Australian Short Story Festival, a judge of the WA Premier’s Book Prize, and is a board member for writingWA and A Maze of Story. She has twice been awarded the Elyne Mitchell Prize for Rural Women Writers, and her current manuscript, a novel, was shortlisted for the 2015 Dorothy Hewett Award.

Charlotte Guest

Charlotte Guest is a Western Australian writer and Publishing Officer at UWA Publishing. Her writing has appeared in Griffith Review, Overland, Voiceworks, Westerly, Australian Book Review and elsewhere. Her debut collection of poetry, Soap, is forthcoming with Recent Work Press in 2017.

Elizabeth Tan

Elizabeth Tan is a Perth writer and a sessional academic at Curtin University. Her work has been published in Voiceworks, The Lifted Brow, Westerly, Overland, The Sleepers Almanac, Pencilled In, Tincture and Best Australian Stories 2016. Her first novel, Rubik, was released in 2017 by Brio.

Gabby Loo

Gabby Loo is an active Perth artist, curator and workshop coordinator of the Belonging project. Gabby’s practice involves documenting and reinterpreting fragments from her personal history and localities. Her work is of an expressive nature that bears the sentimental quality of past memories and thoughts. Having recently graduated from a Fine Arts major at the University of Western Australia, she is currently focusing on drawing, comics and illustration. Her work has been published in The Lifted Brow, Voiceworks, and Pelican Magazine.

Finn O’Branagáin

Finn is a playwright, storyteller, director and dramaturg. A 2012 graduate from NIDA’s Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Arts (Playwriting), her work has been presented nationally, at The Women in Theatre and Screen’s Festival Fatale, The World Theatre Festival, National Science Week, ATYP, Metro Arts, JUTE theatre, Mudlark Theatre, Corrugated Iron, the National Young Writers’ Festival, Wordstorm, 2High, Tease Festival, the Nightwords festival at the Sydney Opera House, the State Library of QLD, THAT Production Company, and the Darwin, Sydney and Melbourne Fringe Festivals, Bondi Feast and The Blue Room Theatre.

Her recent 2017 works include a reading of ‘Medusa’, which she wrote as part of the Black Swan Theatre Company’s Emerging Writers Group, ‘War Games’ which she wrote and directed a development with Spare Part Puppet Theatre’s First Hand program, ‘Interrupting a Crisis’ which she directed and dramaturged for Georgina Cramond at The Blue Room, ‘Tamagotchi Reset and Other Doomsdays’ (co-writer and producer; director and dramaturg: Joe Lui) at The Blue Room (developed at Bundanon Trust with support from JUTE Theatre Company), and ‘The Election’ (playwright) at WAAPA as part of ‘Petite Fours’, a WAAPA and Playwriting Australia co-commission.

She has dramaturged for theatre, dance, circus and contemporary performance work including ‘Salon’ (dir: Timothy Brown) for the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, ‘Apples and Eve’ (dir: Lucas Jervies) for Expressions Dance Company, ‘First Steps’ (writer: Future Destin Fidel, Dir Timothy Wynn) for THAT Production Company and many independent collectives.

As a former co-Artistic Director of Crack Theatre Festival (part of This is Not Art), she also supports and champions emerging and experimental performance artists.

Fiona Dunne

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.

Jennifer Down

Jennifer Down is a writer, editor and translator. Her debut novel Our Magic Hour (Text Publishing) was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Award for New Writing and commended in the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. She has been published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, The Saturday Paper, Australian Book Review, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, Overland, The Big Issue, Sleepers Almanac, The Stinging Fly and New Mexico’s Blue Mesa Review. Pulse Points, her short story collection, will be published by Text in August 2017.

Julian Hobba

Julian is currently Executive Director at The Blue Room Theatre. He was previously Artistic Director of Aspen Island Theatre Company in Canberra, which he established in 2013 for the creation of contemporary Australian theatre in the national capital. He was Program Manager: Arts and Culture, for the Centenary of Canberra – a yearlong city-of-culture style festival under the creative directorship of Robyn Archer AO – and, before that, Company Manager at Malthouse Theatre. Julian has maintained a playwriting practice throughout his career, with work performed independently in Melbourne and Canberra and working with directors and performers including Wesley Enoch, Geordie Brookman, Ann Phelan, Max Cullen and Luke Mullins.

Kim Lateef

Kim Lateef likes to uncover and write about hidden histories. She has a BA with First Class Honours from the University of Western Australia. Her writing has appeared in Voiceworks and Southerly. In 2016 Kim was selected to take part in Express Media’s Toolkits program.

Lucy Adams

Lucy Adams is the editor of youth literary journal Voiceworks. She has previously edited Buzzcuts and produced podcasts for the Melbourne International Film Festival. She hails from Perth, where she was a neuroscience writer and brain mapper.

Matt Norman

Matt Norman is a young poet, writer and educator. His work has appeared in Voiceworks and Overland magazines, and he has self-published two poetry chapbooks; Like a Wild Thing and Red Book. He has appeared as a feature poet at Perth Poetry Club and Spoken Word Perth, and as a state finalist in the Australian Poetry Slam, and this year he’s a feature poet at the Perth Poetry Festival. Matt is the founder and director of the nonprofit Said Poets Society, who run performance poetry workshops with young people in Western Australia. Matt’s aim is to empower others wherever he can through the art of storytelling.

Robert Wood

Robert Wood is a poet and essayist from Perth whose work looks at suburbia, history and myth. He has edited for Overland, Peril and Cordite, and worked for Australian Poetry. He now works for Centre for Stories. You can find out more at: www.rdwood.org.

Rosanne Dingli

Born and raised in Malta, award-winning novelist Rosanne Dingli has authored four novels, six collections of short stories, and a poetry collection. After working with Australian and international traditional publishers since 1991, Rosanne became a hybrid author after independently releasing her out-of-print books in 2009 with Yellow Teapot Books. She now provides typesetting, formatting, design and editing services to other authors. Rosanne has also acted as judge for a variety of Australian fiction competitions. Currently, Rosanne is the Scribe Tribe after-school creating writing tutor and mentor for the KSP Writers’ Centre.

SJ Finch

SJ Finch is a community artist, writer and arts worker. Finch was the managing editor of the creative journal dotdotdash from 2009 until 2013, and a founding member of Aunty Mabel’s zine distro. In 2015, Finch co-directed the award-nominated Fringe World show Friendquest; was the recipient of a CAL Writer in Residence Award from the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA; curated an exhibition of floriographic poetry entitled Anthologia with local artist Alina Tang; conducted a temporary poetry shop (The Poesy Merchant) with Westerly magazine; ran the charity campaign Meowvember raising for SAFE WA; and launched an ongoing nomadic residency project (grr) where he lives in a self-made travelling yurt.

In 2016 as part of with The Blue Room Theatre’s Summer Nights program, Finch hosted a mini-festival of theatre shows in the Grr called Grr Nights. He also wrote and co-produced Five Petals with Alina Tang, a 1-on- 1 performance for the Crack Theatre festival; was a featured writer at the National Young Writers Festival; curated a solo show of visual art entitled GRRowl; and with Claire Bushby co-curated Words Beyond Grammar, a group exhibition at Spectrum Project Space. Recently, Finch was selected for the Young Social Pioneers program run by the Foundation for Young Australians; and the Perth International Arts Festival Artist Lab. He was the Project Officer for Propel Youth Arts WA, producing the KickstART Festival 2017, the official WA celebration of National Youth Week.

Wesley Robertson

I’m Wesley, but you can call me Wesley. I live in Perth with my wife and our dream of one day having dogs to look after in a grand country manor with a library. Right now, though, we stay in a cozy apartment with a balcony surrounded by trees, fifteen minutes away from the sea, where I divide my time between studying literature and the million things that I still need to write. I am interested in people and think that the best writing comes from a sense of the people involved, the characters, how they can become real and insinuate themselves. The best writing develops empathy, helping the reader to feel with the characters. I’ve published stories in The Ranfurly Review and Aerodrome, and I’m participating in the 2017 Toolkits: Fiction program. You can find me on Twitter (@WesleyPRobably).

Zainab Syed

As an internationally touring Pakistani Spoken Word Artist, Zainab has performed & taught workshops at venues in the US, UK, Europe, South Asia and Australia. She has also facilitated workshops on writing as expression, healing and empowerment at the women’s prison in Rhode Island, to trauma victims in Pakistan, and currently works with migrants and refugees in Australia. In 2015 she was a finalist in the National Australian Poetry Slam and won the Brown University Slam in 2012. She is also a teaching artist at the Red Room Company and Said Poets Society. In 2017, Zainab joined Performing Lines WA as an Associate Producer.

Zainab is passionate about curating events and facilitating spaces that celebrate creative expression while elevating and inspiring people to become the best versions of themselves. In 2016, she co- founded WORD Ink, launching Pakistan’s first poetry slam as well as other workshop & lecture programs creating safe spaces for the youth to respond to the insecurity around them in a non-violent manner. She also co-founded illUMEnate: U+Me For Humanity, a safe space for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse people in Australia to celebrate their diversity, commit to change & spread the love through creative expression & critical conversations at events held periodically.

Zainab graduated from Brown University in May 2014 with a degree in Political Science. Her scholarship and poetry focuses on the Middle East and South Asia, with specific attention paid to humanized politics, spiritual cultivation, reclaiming narratives & reimagining communities. Her first full length manuscript weaves the history of the Pakistani Partition with personal narrative in an attempt to reconcile memory and the act of remembering. Her poetry has been published in Recoil Magazine, Peril Magazine, Uneven Floor, Visions Magazine, The Missing Slate, Awaaz and other literary journals at Brown University.

Cecile Vuaillat

Cecile is the Project Development Officer at Propel Youth Arts WA. Her key role is running Propel’s young artist funding program, Drug Aware YCulture Metro which awards up to $3000 for 12 successful applicants each year. She also works on developing Propel’s other core programs including MOSAIC and the annual KickstART Festival.

Prior to Propel Cecile has obtained a degree in Arts (Arts Management) at WAAPA has worked at several arts organisations including Perth Theatre Company, WASO, PIAF and Co3 Dance Company.

Young Writers Showcase
6.30pm, Friday, August 11
Centre for Stories
100 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge

Tracks: Perth
9am to 5pm, Saturday, August 12
Blue Room Theatre
53 James Street, Northbridge

 

Tracks: Perth is presented by Express Media in partnership with Westerly Magazine and KSP Writers Centre