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 2016 we’re bringing the Tracks program to Adelaide, partnering with SA Writers Centre 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: Adelaide is an exciting day-long event just for you.

Best of all, Tracks is free for Express Media members to participate in and attend. If you’re not a member already, Tracks: Adelaide costs $25 and includes membership to Express Media (normally $25) and SA Writers Centre (normally $44).

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

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.

Fiction Masterclass with Rebekah Clarkson

9.30am – 12.30pm
Join Rebekah Clarkson and explore the building blocks of the fictional form and learn how to create effective and compelling short stories through strong characters, tight plots, and evocative atmosphere. You’ll also learn what makes a story authentic, and how to best edit your work and the work of others.

Nonfiction Masterclass with Royce Kurmelovs

9.30am – 12.30pm
Spanning a range of forms, nonfiction can be broad and unwieldy. Join journalist and author Royce Kurmelovs to unpack the fundamentals of good nonfiction storytelling, exploring how to frame the narrative and represent character, as well as explore the role of the writer in the work. You’ll delve into the ethics of writing real-life, and be introduced to the arsenal of skills a good nonfiction writer has up their sleeve from interviewing sources to gathering research.

Lunch & Lit-Olympics

12.30pm – 1.30pm
After a big morning of writing, join us for a bite to eat before firing up your brain again for lit-olympics – who’ll take home the gold?

Pens and Pathways: Opportunities for Young Writers

1.30pm – 2.30pm
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 South Australia and beyond.
With Alysha Herrmann (Carclew), Farrin Foster (CityMag), Lou Heinrich (Subtext Collective), Emma McGuire (The Hearth) Caleb Sweeting (Yewth Mag), Daniela Frangos (Broadsheet Adelaide), Sarah Tooth (SA Writers Centre), Annie Waters (National Young Writers Festival), Phoebe Paterson de Heer (Voiceworks), and Fiona Dunne (Express Media).

Ready to Read: Sharing Your Work

2.30pm – 4.00pm
Sharing your work with other people is always nerve-wrecking, but what happens when it’s also off the page? Join Alysha Herrmann for a crash course in how to perform your work aloud to build your confidence, build your community, and improve your writing.

OR

Editing and Publishing: First Times and Best Practice with Ilona Wallace

2.30pm – 4.00pm
What happens once you’ve finished writing your story? Is an editor just a grammar-pedantic wielder of a red pen? Join Ilona Wallace to unpack the relationship between writers and editors, how to prepare your writing for submitting, and what to expect when you’re selected for publication.

Showcase Event & Literary Networking

4.00pm – 5.00pm
Hear some of South Australia’s best young writers share their words in this special line-up.

BOOK YOUR SPOT NOW

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Aimee Knight | @siraimeeknight

Aimee’s words appear on and in The Big Issue, Little White Lies, Kill Your Darlings, The Lifted Brow and more. She digs gender equality, sexual diversity and mental health. She froths for pop culture comment, creative non-fic and the kawaii life. After dancing on stage with Bruce Springsteen, her life’s all downhill from here.

Alysha Herrmann | @lylyee

Alysha Herrmann is a proud parent, writer, theatre maker and cultural organizer working across disciplines in the arts, community development, social justice and social enterprise. As an artist, Alysha makes performances, installations, experiences, presentations, poetry, digital exchanges and small moments of connection in public places. Her work is described as simple yet sophisticated, intimate yet distant, personal yet remote, familiar yet unusual. Alysha has won numerous awards for her work using the arts to interrogate and explore community concerns and aspirations including most recently the 2015 Australia Council Kirk Robson Award. Alysha blogs about living a creative life at alyshaherrmann.wordpress.com.

Annie Waters | @captainmidget

Annie has been told in every writing exercise she’s ever done that she needs to put more of herself into the work. Luckily, she wants to become an editor when she grows up. She is a Co-Director at the National Young Writers’ Festival and has worked with Adelaide Writers’ Week for three years running. Currently, Annie works in an independent bookshop and contributes to writerly events in Adelaide, such as the Quart Short reading nights. She likes good books and soft textiles, little dogs and bright colours, writing that makes you double take and art of all kinds.

Caleb Sweeting | @CalebSweeting

Ever since his first by-line in Collect magazine when he was 15, Caleb Sweeting has wanted to write for a living. Since then his passion for journalism and love of fresh print led him to start his own youth culture publication, Yewth. Caleb self-published the first issue on a shoestring budget during his final year of high school in 2014. Now, Yewth is a professionally printed 80 page tri-annual magazine and “the only street press of its kind in Adelaide, documenting the grassroots activity of local and emerging artists and musicians.” – Celeste Aldahn, Art Gallery of South Australia.

Daniela Frangos | @danielafrangos

Daniela is a writer, editor and recovering publicist. She is currently the editor of Broadsheet Adelaide. 

Emma Maguire | @emma_scribe

Emma Maguire researches girlhood and autobiography by day. But by night she writes Australian gothic murder stories set in the Adelaide Hills. Emma is co-founder of The Hearth Collective, a group of rad literary babes who host regular reading events in Adelaide to support emerging writers and artists. In addition to publishing work in several academic journals, she has also written for Kill Your Darlings, Feminartsy and Empire Times.

Farrin Foster | @CityMagADL

Farrin Foster is the founding editor of independent magazine CityMag. At 30-years-old she has had careers in traditional media, politics, the arts and public relations. A few years ago she stumbled blindly into the world of small business ownership and is yet to find a way to extract herself. Specialising in telling individual stories that reflect larger truths, Farrin has worked on projects as far afield as Los Angeles but is dedicated to contributing to the conversation in her hometown of Adelaide.

Fiona Dunne | @ffgeorgie

Fiona 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.

Ilona Wallace | @ilaon 

Ilona Wallace is an IPEd-accredited editor who works in the publishing industry. Her writing has appeared in Killings, Broadsheet, The Adelaide Review and more. She was named after the star of a “not very horrible” film, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).

Lou Heinrich | @Shahouley

Lou Heinrich is a writer and critic from Adelaide. Her work has been published in The Weekend Australian, Guardian Australia, The Lifted Brow and Kill Your Darlings. She is the co-founder of Subtext Collective, an organisation that encourages emerging non-fiction writers.

Phoebe Paterson de Heer

Phoebe Paterson de Heer is a writer and organic farmer from Adelaide. She is a current Nonfiction Editor for Voiceworks and an upcoming SA Writers’ Centre resident. Phoebe likes writing about biology, relationships and bicycles, and has been published in Archer, Scum Mag and Voiceworks and appeared at the National Young Writers’ Festival. She co-facilitates a monthly meetup for emerging nonfiction writers in Adelaide called Text Talk.

Rebekah Clarkson | @Abrekah

Rebekah Clarkson’s debut novel-in- stories, Barking Dogs (Affirm Press) has received critical acclaim since its publication earlier this year. The novel is set in Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills, where Rebekah lives. Her award-winning short fiction has been published widely, most recently in Griffith Review, Best Australian Stories, Australian Book Review and Something Special, Something Rare: Outstanding Short Stories by Australian Women (Black Inc.). She has a BA in Aboriginal Studies and an MA and PhD in Creative Writing. She works as an editor, tutor, mentor, and creative writing teacher in schools, libraries and universities, including the University of Adelaide and the University of Texas at Austin.

Royce Kermelovs | @RoyceRk2

Royce Kurmelovs is a journalist and author of The Death of Holden. He has previously written for Vice, The BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian and other publications.

Sarah Tooth

Sarah Tooth is the Director of the SA Writers Centre. She has worked in writing for more than 20 years as a literary curator, a screenwriter and arts producer for the ABC, and the co-director of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. Sarah is a sits on many peer assessment panels and arts advisory committees, including the Adelaide Writers Week Committee, and is the fiction convener for the Adelaide Festival Literature Awards. She was a recipient of an Australia Council Artistic Leadership Grant to explore literary communities in Malaysia and Singapore and is part of their 2017 Arts Leaders Program.

Tracks: Adelaide is presented by Express Media in partnership with SA Writers Centre.