Penguin Plays Rough is a monthly night of short fiction. Each month they programme five writers to read short stories, novel extracts and scenes from plays or film scripts from a red velvet chair on top of a coffee table which used to be in the big front room of a flat on King St, Newtown, but since they were evicted in May 2010 it can now be found in a warehouse on Lackey Street in St Peters. They’ve been running since December 2008 and have programmed writers such as Craig Silvey, Tommy Murphy, Michael Sala, Luke Carman, Fiona Wright, Josephine Rowe, Vanessa Berry and comedian Nick Sun amongst many others, and generally squeeze crowds of 50 – 90 people in the room each event. They were programmed as part of the 2009 Sydney Writers’ Festival, the 2009 Imperial Panda Festival, and have helped launch magazines, zines and self published books.

If you’re a writer and you’d like to read at Penguin Plays Rough, here is what you need to know.

• You don’t have to be published. Don’t worry.
• Your work should be short fiction, and it should be no longer than one side of one A4 page in length.
• They’ve had people read scripts, long poems and other things rhere as well.
• There are drinks. And cushions.
• Writers get a cut of the door fee, so the more people you bring along, the better it works out for everyone.
• If you’ve got any other questions, email them.