Thursday, April 29, 2010
Literary agents - not as scary as you might think
Perilous Adventures has published the feature I wrote about literary agent Pippa Masson. It's in the second issue for 2010 at www.perilousadventures.net/1002/carey.html
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Profile of Wendy & Rebecca James in today's Herald
My story about Wendy and Rebecca James, Armidale's writing sisters, is a two-page spread in the Sydney Morning Herald today (Spectrum, p.30-1). The photo of them is lovely but slightly misprinted. Never mind - the words are great!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
swanning off to a tropical island
Yesterday, the school bus reappeared after two and a half weeks absence and whisked away my kids, leaving me free to sit at my desk and pick up the threads of my thesis. I read through the nine pages of fragments that constitute the chapter I need to transform into a coherent whole, and decided to start by filling in the bit at the top that said 'Insert brief introduction here'.
I'd typed two sentences when the phone rang.
It was Linda Hawryluk, one of the creative writing lecturers at CQUniversity in Rockhampton. Young (well, 30ish), an emigre from Sydney to her first academic appointment, Lynda has retained a trendy black look (clothes, hair, glasses) but is not as out of place up there as she might initially seem. She lives on the coast at Yeppoon and regularly flings off her inner city image and takes to the water with her board. She's become a passionate surfie and even presents on the topic at academic conferences. Somehow she's also snaffled the role of coordinating the writing retreats that CQU hosts on North Keppel Island and - unbelievably - that's why she's ringing me.
Her arrangements with the workshop presenter for a three day 'Memoir and Memory' retreat have fallen in a heap. Would I be interested in being writer-in-residence? It's quite relaxed, she assures me. Lots of free time built into the schedule, and a mixed-age group of people who fancy combining a holiday with doing a bit of writing on the side.
I'm alarmed on several fronts. I'm running out of time to finish my thesis - how many more side-tracks can I afford? I'd need to do a lot of reading up before I could spout about memoir - I actually wrote mine intuitively, applying the creative nonfiction principles I use in writing other people's stories. And although becoming a journalist has taught me to mask my shyness in order to get the job done, it's still there underneath and I'm not certain that even a tropical island will make standing up in front of 35 people for hour-and-a-half long sessions FUN.
But I'm unlikely to get this kind of opportunity dropped into my lap again, and who knows? I might like it. So from May 7-9 that's what I'll be doing. Impersonating a writer-in-residence.
I'd typed two sentences when the phone rang.
It was Linda Hawryluk, one of the creative writing lecturers at CQUniversity in Rockhampton. Young (well, 30ish), an emigre from Sydney to her first academic appointment, Lynda has retained a trendy black look (clothes, hair, glasses) but is not as out of place up there as she might initially seem. She lives on the coast at Yeppoon and regularly flings off her inner city image and takes to the water with her board. She's become a passionate surfie and even presents on the topic at academic conferences. Somehow she's also snaffled the role of coordinating the writing retreats that CQU hosts on North Keppel Island and - unbelievably - that's why she's ringing me.
Her arrangements with the workshop presenter for a three day 'Memoir and Memory' retreat have fallen in a heap. Would I be interested in being writer-in-residence? It's quite relaxed, she assures me. Lots of free time built into the schedule, and a mixed-age group of people who fancy combining a holiday with doing a bit of writing on the side.
I'm alarmed on several fronts. I'm running out of time to finish my thesis - how many more side-tracks can I afford? I'd need to do a lot of reading up before I could spout about memoir - I actually wrote mine intuitively, applying the creative nonfiction principles I use in writing other people's stories. And although becoming a journalist has taught me to mask my shyness in order to get the job done, it's still there underneath and I'm not certain that even a tropical island will make standing up in front of 35 people for hour-and-a-half long sessions FUN.
But I'm unlikely to get this kind of opportunity dropped into my lap again, and who knows? I might like it. So from May 7-9 that's what I'll be doing. Impersonating a writer-in-residence.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Shortlisted for Calibre
MEDIA RELEASE – CALIBRE PRIZE 2010
Announcing the shortlist for Australia’s premier essay prize
Australian Book Review is pleased to announce that seven essays have been shortlisted for this year’s Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay.
Calibre is sponsored by Copyright Agency Limited’s Cultural Fund. The winner will receive $10,000.
SHORTLISTED ESSAYS
Lindsay Barrett: ‘The Shadow on the Steps’
Janene Carey: ‘Retreat to the Castle’
Eleanor Collins: ‘Ill-Timed Remarks: A Pathographical Essay’
Lorna Hallahan: ‘On Being Odd’
David Hansen: ‘Seeing Truganini’
Colin Nettelbeck: ‘Kneecapper: A Trip to Happiness’
Jessica White: ‘Hearing in Other Ways’
Announcing the shortlist for Australia’s premier essay prize
Australian Book Review is pleased to announce that seven essays have been shortlisted for this year’s Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay.
Calibre is sponsored by Copyright Agency Limited’s Cultural Fund. The winner will receive $10,000.
SHORTLISTED ESSAYS
Lindsay Barrett: ‘The Shadow on the Steps’
Janene Carey: ‘Retreat to the Castle’
Eleanor Collins: ‘Ill-Timed Remarks: A Pathographical Essay’
Lorna Hallahan: ‘On Being Odd’
David Hansen: ‘Seeing Truganini’
Colin Nettelbeck: ‘Kneecapper: A Trip to Happiness’
Jessica White: ‘Hearing in Other Ways’
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Made the ABR Calibre prize longlist!
I'm on the longlist for the Calibre essay prize with one of the stories from my book manuscript, A Hospital Bed at Home.
Even getting this far is a huge honour - the competition attracts some very impressive writers and previous winning essays have been exemplars of beautiful, subtle, insightful prose. One I particularly loved was Rachel Robertson's piece on family life and autism.
First prize is $10,000 and publication in Australian Book Review.
Even getting this far is a huge honour - the competition attracts some very impressive writers and previous winning essays have been exemplars of beautiful, subtle, insightful prose. One I particularly loved was Rachel Robertson's piece on family life and autism.
First prize is $10,000 and publication in Australian Book Review.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Upcoming SMH story
Susan Wyndham, literary editor at the Sydney Morning Herald, has just accepted my feature about Armidale's writing sisters, novelists Wendy and Rebecca James.It will be in the Spectrum / Books / Interview section late April or early May. Rebecca's book Beautiful Malice is being released in Australia on May 3rd. She's the million-dollar-mum from the SMH story I had published in November.
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