25 April 2022

Announcing the 2022 National Editors and Writers (NEWS) Conference Program

The National Editing and Writing Students Conference (NEWS) is an annual event presented by Express Media for student editors, publishers and contributors across Australia. This year, The NEWS Conference will be presented on Thursday 19 and Friday 20 May entirely online, streaming on Express Media’s YouTube channel  and Express Media’s new online event space.

The National Editing and Writing Students Conference (NEWS) will be a purely digital, two-day event aiming to bring together student editors and writers from across Australia. This is one of the only professional development opportunities available to new student editors, and we’re excited to be able to present a busy program of workshops, panels and presentations online. 

Participants learn the nitty-gritty of publishing and editing from the best in the business, including journalists, writers, media professionals and former editors, and have the chance to network with student editors and writers from around Australia.  

The NEWS Conference is the perfect opportunity to ask all your burning questions and get valuable advice so you hit the ground running. After the completion of the conference, student editors are better equipped with the tools they need to succeed in their new roles, and leave the conference feeling confident and ready to tackle the upcoming year of publishing.

Download a PDF version of the full program here.

THURSDAY MAY 19

KEYNOTE: FUTURE TENSE PUBLISHING
5:30pm AEST | Express Media’s Online Event Space

Working in Australia’s present literary landscape can be joyful, exciting and rewarding, as well as tiring, stressful and upsetting. How can we work to make our industry a better place? How does the internet change the way we read, write and share our work? How can we learn, work and look after our community as we live through disaster? Join writer and former Voiceworks Editor Adalya Nash Hussein as she opens the 2022 NEWS Conference with discussions of ethical publishing practices, digital literature, writing and editing through upheaval and more.

WE’RE JUST GETTING STARTED
6:40PM AEST | Express Media’s Online Event Space

Are you just starting out in writing and editing? We’ve all been there! Join Jinghua Qian and Maddee Clark as they discuss their experiences of starting out in the industry and give tips on things they wish they’d known.


FRIDAY MAY 20

 

INTERVIEWING THE INTERVIEWER: ELIZABETH FLUX & LEAH JING MCINTOSH
11.00AM AEST | Express Media’s Online Event Space

Join Leah Jing McIntosh (LIMINAL) and Elizabeth Flux (Melbourne City of Literature Office) as they share their tips and tricks for writing and conducting interviews. As a budding writer, interviewing a subject can be an intimidating skill to master. Elizabeth and Leah will share their experiences and the do’s and don’ts of talking to interesting people.

GRAPHIC DESIGN AS WORLD BUILDING
12.00PM | Microsoft Teams

Join Selena Repanis for a workshop about world building through graphic design. Selena will take you through the tiny but fruitful history of her career as a graphic designer, she will share her secrets about how she makes Voiceworks Magazine make sense, and then she will show you how she makes authentic and creative work. What a big docket! She will (maybe) not disappoint.

BOOK HERE

OR

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? INTRODUCTION TO PODCASTING
12.00PM | Microsoft Teams

Join broadcaster and audio-producer Beth Atkinson-Quinton for an introductory workshop into audio storytelling. This will cater to those wanting to tell non-fiction stories through sound but with no idea where to start. Beth will introduce you to the craft of audio producing with a focus on structuring your stories for podcasts.

BOOK HERE

LET ME CHECK MY CALENDAR: PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR PUBLICATIONS
1.30PM | Microsoft Teams

Join Roz Bellamy (Archer Magazine) and Catherine Noske (Westerly Magazine) as they discuss all things editorial cycles and project management for publications. They’ll cover everything from scheduling and deadlines to following a style-guide, the ethics and legal aspects of publication, managing a team of editors and writers, and dealing with all aspects of digital publication.


COMPUTATION EXPERIMENTATION 
2.30PM | Microsoft Teams

Can computers help us write better? In this workshop, Carly Stone will talk about digital writing tools and how we can use them to write more experimental, engaging and accessible pieces. We’ll also have a crack at writing our own pieces of digital literature.

BOOK HERE

OR

WOULD RECOMMEND: WRITING AND EDITING CRITICISM
2.00PM | Microsoft Teams

What does it mean to engage with the works of other artists? How does criticism contribute to a healthy arts ecosystem? How do you craft a review? In this workshop, magazine editor and film/culture critic Claire Cao will run you through her process of researching, writing, and editing critical pieces – for both print and online audiences. Participants will engage in discussion about what artists can learn from critics, and how to improve their own critical writing.

BOOK HERE

 

ASK THE EXPERTS: HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING
3.30PM | Express Media’s Online Event Space

Join Joanne Painter and Ian Cormick from Icon Agency for an ask-me-anything session about working in the media and communications industry.

 

ARTISTS

Beth Atkinson-Quinton 

Beth Atkinson-Quinton is a Triple R broadcaster, audio producer and Co-Director of podcast network Broadwave. Beth’s work has been published widely including by ABC Radio National, The Guardian, SBS, The Wheeler Centre and more. Recently, Beth co-produced season two of Tender which won the AIDC award for Best Audio Documentary. Currently, Beth is working as the Series Producer on a new narrative nonfiction show for SBS, and a producer for Guardian Australia’s book show Book It In. 

Roz Bellamy

Roz Bellamy (they/them) is the editor-in-chief at Archer Magazine, a writer and a PhD candidate researching the impact of life writing on young LGBTQ+ people’s mental wellbeing. Roz’s memoir, Mood, which explores the intersections of mental illness, queerness, gender and Jewish identity, will be published by Wakefield Press in September 2022. 

Catherine Noske

Catherine Noske is a senior 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 judged the ALS Gold Medal, the WA Premier’s Book Prize and the TAG Hungerford Award. She has twice been awarded the Elyne Mitchell Prize for Rural Women Writers, has received a Varuna fellowship and was shortlisted for the 2015 Dorothy Hewett Award. Her debut novel, The Salt Madonna (Picador, 2020), was shortlisted in the 2021 WA Premier’s Book Awards.

Claire Cao

Claire Cao is a writer and critic from Western Sydney, with a focus on screen, literature and contemporary art. She is the current Small Screens editor for The Big Issue and Kill Your Darlings’ 2022 New Critic. Her work can be found in publications such as The Guardian, ArtReview, Filmmaker, Voiceworks, Meanjin and more. She is one of eight screenwriters for the film HERE OUT WEST (Opening Night Film, SFF 2021).

Carly Stone

Carly Stone is a writer and editor based in Narrm. You can find their work in Meanjin Quarterly, The Threepenny Review, Australian Poetry and Going Down Swinging, among others. They are an Editor at Voiceworks Online and a 2022 Axinn Fellow in Creative Nonfiction at New York University.

Ian Cormick

Ian is an Account Executive at Icon Agency. He has worked in a number of sectors including mental health, financial services, technology, and construction. He has experience in stakeholder communications, media relations, and content writing. As part of his role at Icon, Ian regularly writes in a range of styles, ranging from corporate media releases to blogs to social media posts and more recently his role has evolved to support the content production team.

Joanne Painter 

A leader in Australia’s communications industry, Joanne has over 25 years’ experience across media, strategic communications and public relations. Formerly a senior journalist with The Age, Joanne now consults to government and corporate clients in Victoria and nationally, including, Schneider Electric, the Department of Defence, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Education, Regional Development and Communications and the National Library of Australia. Working across Icon’s extensive corporate and government client portfolio, Joanne has led hundreds of strategic communications, PR and change management projects.

More recently, she led the digital communications strategy for the National Library of Australia and has been advising Melbourne Polytechnic on various strategic and tactical PR briefs since 2018. Joanne also takes an industry leadership role, mentoring young public relations professionals and sitting on several PR industry advisory and professional boards.

Jinghua Qian

Jinghua Qian (ey/eir/em) is a Shanghainese-Melburnian writer often found worrying about race, resistance, art, desire, queerness and the Chinese diaspora. Ey has been a performance poet, a radio broadcaster, a television journalist, and an arts critic. Eir work has appeared in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Morning Herald, Overland, Meanjin, and Peril; on ABC TV’s China Tonight; and once on a brick wall. Jinghua lives in Melbourne’s west on the land of the Kulin Nations.

Maddee Clark

Maddee Clark is a writer, editor and researcher. In 2021, he completed a Ph.D examining Indigenous Futurisms in Australia, and he is a widely published arts critic and reviewer. His writing has previously been published in ABC, SBS, NITV, Overland, The Saturday Paper, and Un Magazine. In 2018, he was co-editor of Un Magazine alongside Neika Lehman, and in 2020, he co-edited a special issue of Archer magazine which focussed on LGBTIQ First Nations people. He is a member of the First Nations arts collective this mob and is widely published as an arts critic. 

Leah Jing McIntosh

Leah Jing McIntosh is a critic, researcher, and the founding editor of Liminal, an anti-racist literary project. As part of her work for Liminal, Leah has published books, produced literary events, created mentorships and fellowships, and established national literary prizes, to create new spaces and opportunities for community. In 2020, she co-edited fiction anthology Collisions (Pantera Press), and in 2022, she is co-editing Against Disappearance, a collection of essays on memory by First Nations writers and writers of colour (Pantera Press). 

Elizabeth Flux

Elizabeth Flux is a freelance writer and editor. Her nonfiction work has been widely published and includes essays, interviews and feature articles, and her fiction has won and been shortlisted for numerous awards and been featured in multiple anthologies including New Australian Fiction 2020, Collisions, Best Australian Stories, Best Summer Stories and The Big Issue Fiction Edition. She is also a past Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow. She is editor-at-large for the Melbourne City of Literature office and is the editor of The Victorian Writer. In 2019 and 2020 she was a convening judge for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, and is a past editor of Voiceworks and On Dit.

Selena Repanis

Selena Repanis is a graphic designer living in Melbourne, Australia on Wurundjeri Country. She currently designs Voiceworks Magazine, and collaborates with Liz Luby and James Meadowcroft making work under the name Amici.

Adalya Nash Hussein

Adalya Nash Hussein is a writer and editor. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Overland, Ibis House, Liminal and more. She has been an Emerging Writers’ Festival Melbourne Recital Centre Writer in Residence, a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow, and shortlisted for the Scribe Nonfiction Prize. She is the outgoing editor of Voiceworks, and has also edited for Liminal and The Lifted Brow.

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Registration for The NEWS Conference is $25, and includes membership to Express Media. Registrations are now open, so you and your team can book your spot early.

 

Book Now! (non-members)

 

Members book here!

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Email Express Media’s Creative Producer, Magenta Sheridan, on creativeproducer@expressmedia.org.au if you have any questions.


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