NEWCASTLE POETRY PRIZE
The Newcastle Poetry Prize is one of Australia’s oldest and most important literary competitions and boasts a distinguished list of past winners and judges. The association with Newcastle is no accident. The Hunter Region has a long history of fostering poetry and an active community of local poets who punch above their weight nationally in awards, publication and events. In the words of the late Novocastrian poet, Bill Iden, “Newcastle’s environment makes its poets”. The Newcastle Poetry Prize is a significant cultural achievement and is a testament to the commitment of its sponsors to celebrating artistic excellence in Australia.
“The Newcastle Poetry Prize has brought many fine Australian poets to national attention… It not only gives much needed financial reward to the winning poet but increases their media profile and likelihood of achieving further publication.” Mike Ladd, Poetica, ABC Radio National
The Newcastle Poetry Prize has now closed but keep an eye out for details of the anthology in October.
The 2009 winners will be announced at the Prize Night on Friday 27th Novemeber in the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery. www.newcastlepoetryprize.com
SITESOUNDMIN(E)D
SITESOUNDMIN(e)D is a word and sound scape exploration of the history of usage of the current James Fletcher Hospital site from pre-invasion to present day. A number of HWC members who are poets and/or songwriters were each paired up with a composer. Each team was asked to ‘respond’ in word and composition to a specific time period of the site. The writers included: Ray Kelly, Clark Gormely, Judy Johnson, Ivy Ireland, Kylie Rose, Keri Glastonbury and Rod Smith. Composers included Solange Kershaw, Justin Wolthers and Stephen Wye. Artistic co-ordination was undertaken by Richard Vella, Head of the Newcastle Conservatorium, University of Newcastle and Brian Joyce, HWC Director.
The project has produced quite startling and diverse results, capturing in their own way such times as; Indigenous gatherings pre invasion, first garrison settlement, the Reform school for Wayward Girls through to the current mental health services. Different work methods were explored, in some cases co-creation, in others simple direct exchange of work, through discussions that allowed individuals to bring evolving work to a dialogue of creation. While use of the word ‘song’ in the beginning caused some problems – teams have developed work that ranges from traditional song formats, accompanied recitative, to contemporary lieder. Planning is underway for a full live performance at the Newcastle Conservatorium toward the end of 2009 with the intention of a live-to-air broadcast. The finished work will be recorded and available as a CD. We will announce dates later in the year. In the interim we will make a couple of the pieces available for listening on our website. Projects such as this, where the HWC develops a project that can provide commissioning or employment for local writers, are an important part of our operations. We keep looking for opportunities such as this to assist writers earn an income through their work and expand their experience.
2306 - in our own words
2306 is an Oral history and Creative Writing project at Windale and is the first stage of a longer term Community Cultural Development Project. Windale is a government community housing initiative from mid last century which was recently singled out to represent all that can go wrong with such projects by sociologist Professor Tony Vinson. It has been infamously reported in the media as being ‘the worst postcode in Australia’. The project aims to explore practical ways in which the arts can be utilised to rebuild and regenerate the identity, environment and community spirit of a degraded sub/urban community. This is a partnership between: Windale Community Group, Department of Housing, Rotary Club of NSW, University of Newcastle, Department of Schools Education and Hunter Writers Centre. Initial funding is being used by HWC to run a program of oral history gathering and creative writing activities which includes training local Windale residents. This involves the development of the stories and histories gathered into more polished pieces of prose and/or creative fiction for publication through the existing local newsletter. A further dissemination of the work will also occur via a series of broadcasts through a local community radio bandwidth operated in the suburb.
www.onefifty.com.au
Microfiction, also known as mini or flash fiction, is generally considered to be a short story of no more than 250 words, although there are the purists out there who think 100 will do. This area of creative writing has been around for a while but has gained increasing attention since the Internet and mobile phones crash-tackled communication ten years ago. www.onefifty.com.au has been set up with funding from the Australia Council for the Arts via its ongoing Write in Your Face Program, and is an initiative aimed at developing emerging forms of writing practice by young writers. At the HWC we have noticed that younger writers have a tendancy to want to put all their ideas down on paper, and then often get stuck trying to work out what to cull. An emerging writer has much to gain from practicing micro fiction, which requires the distillation of ideas, a discriminating eye and multiple edits. www.onefifty.com has therefore been created to get young people writing micro fiction as well as promote the form more widely. Australian writers aged 30 and under can submit work for inclusions via email or mobile phone.
Newcastle Writers’ Walk
The Newcastle Writers’ Walk is an HWC initiative to bring attention to the many writers of standing of both fiction and non-fiction who have lived in Newcastle or who have written about Newcastle. A committee of local historians and writers, led by HWC Board member Cathy Baker, produced a brochure for a self-guided walking tour of places of literary interest in Newcastle. The long term aim of the project is to install plaques along the walking tour. Please call in to the HWC for a free copy of the Writers’ Walk map and take your time exploring the literary history of the inner city. Why not come back into the centre to write about the walk? Your experience could be recorded here.
