Six Essentials for a Great Writing Masterclass

What you should get from a Masterclass
or in other words *beware of Windbags!*

There are murmurings in the Perth writing community that the oft-touted "Masterclasses" - especially during the Perth Writers Festival - fail to live up to their espoused title. Marsha Durham, author, academic and linguist, has an excellent article on her blog 'Writing Companion' where she details exactly what writers should expect to get from a "Masterclass". If you don't receive all of the quantifiable benefits, then you are wasting your time, and your money. See her article here Six Essentials for a Great Writing Masterclass

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Helen Hagemann is back at the Fremantle Arts Centre with a class on "Australian Short Fiction".

Writing at the Centre

Helen is back at the FAC for the final two classes in 2011 [2/12 & 16/12/11] 

The upcoming Friday Prose class on 2nd December will look at "Australian Short Fiction". 

Texts used to stimulate writing exercises will be Peter Cowan's The Red-backed Spiders, Patrick White's Clay, Barbara Baynton's The Chosen Vessel and Cate Kennedy's short story Sleepers. 

10.00am til noon, Room 9, Fremantle Arts Centre, 1 Finnerty Street, Fremantle. 

$20 OOTA : $25 NON-OOTA member. All welcome!

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The First Facebook Short Story Writing Competition

The Writing Lab is proud to announce that they are hosting Australia’s first Facebook Short Story Competition. With a super-tight word count, public votes deciding the winner, and everyone’s favourite object of desire as 1st prize, this should be lots of fun. So get scribbling, get your friends to like your story – and good luck!

Find out more here...

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2012 Saturday Poetry Classes at the Grove, Cottesloe

Saturday Poetry Workshops were successful at the Grove Library in 2011 and OOTA will again offer this after-hours course in 2012. Tutor, Helen Hagemann.

It will consist of fortnightly Saturday Poetry Workshops for casual participants. Each Workshop will introduce contemporary poetry for those poets wanting to write contemporary poetry.  

Participation in the Workshops will cover the study of poems, discussion and several writing exercises. In a recent survey the consensus was that most writers wanted to continue with the same 2011 format, with a minor introduction of the classics and traditional poetry and its forms. Poets wishing to attend can view the times and dates here on this blog (under "Classes") and also on the Writing at the Centre blog. Classes are earmarked to start in 2012 on Saturday 4th February. 1.30pm-3.30pm.  

The Grove Library now has a coffee shop and we will continue to incorporate this social side of our poetry group after class. 

Venue: The Grove Library 1 Leake Street (Corner Stirling Highway) Peppermint Grove 

The venue is also close to the Cottesloe station with just a short walk along Napolean Street. 

Writing at the Centre Classes 

Biography of Helen Hagemann

Helen Hagemann's poetry is published in major Australian literary journals, including Westerly, Blue Dog, Famous Reporter, Southerly, Island and Overland. In 2008, she won a Varuna Macquarie/ Longlines Poetry workshop in Katoomba, NSW. In association with the Australian Poetry Centre's New Poets Program her collection Evangelyne & Other Poems was published in 2009. Helen has an MA in Creative Writing, and teaches prose each Friday fortnight at the Fremantle Arts Centre. She also runs a poetry class at the Grove Library, Peppermint Grove (2012). Recently, Helen spent time in Ireland at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre Annaghmakerrig, completing a new poetry collection.    

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Creative Writing at the Fremantle Arts Centre

Final Prose Class in Creative Non-Fiction, this Friday 18th November with Rosemary Stevens. Learn ‘Creative Non-Fiction’ by using such fictional devices as scene setting, dialogue and the use of sensuous detail. 10.00am – noon. Casual class, no booking required. Cost $20/$25 (non-OOTA). For more details click here...

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Videos of the Australian Poetry Symposium

Take a look at the videos of the Australian Poetry Symposium, Newcastle October 2011. Papers read by Lucy Dougan, Jaya Savage, Martin Langford. Some insightful and controversial discussions from Peter Minter and Michael Sharkey!

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Novel Manuscript Development Opportunity

The Australian Literature Review is seeking expressions of interest for a 20 week novel manuscript development program beginning mid Feb 2012. (If there is enough demand for the program by mid Jan the program will go ahead in one or several Australian locations.)
More here...

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Liana Christensen's Book Launch Pics

A large crowd enjoyed Liana Christensen's book launch of Deadly Beautiful on Saturday 5th November at Mattie Furphy House, Swanbourne. You can also go to Flickr to view larger slide show. Photography by Meredi Ortega

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Amanda Curtin's Judge's report for Spilt Ink Competiton

Creative non-fiction is sometimes thought to be a ‘new’ genre of writing, but it’s been around for a while in the form of travel writing, memoir, some feature journalism and the kind of biography in which the biographer steps into the story and inhabits that space between the objective and the subjective. Think Helen Garner, Inga Clendinnen. Go even further back and think Truman Capote with In Cold Blood. Two of my favourite examples of the genre, Janet Malcolm’s The Silent Woman and Hanifa Deen’s Broken Bangles, both date back to the 1990s. What’s ‘new’ about the genre now, other than the shiny new term ‘creative non-fiction’, is its popularity. Perhaps, in some measure, this has been fuelled by the reading public’s interest in true stories told with the use of fictional techniques, their interest in writers as players in the stories they tell, and a growing acceptance that boundaries between genres can be blurred and nobody will get hurt—although Kate Grenville might beg to differ there. Read more here ..

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