Image by Michael Easterling
Dear writers, readers and friends,
Happy New Year to you all! This past year has made online communities more important than ever and seeing the Visual Verse writing community strengthen and thrive has been an inspiration. Thank you to all of you for supporting each other by reading, sharing and tweeting. It warms our hearts to see how generous and encouraging you are. Though we can’t be sure what 2021 will hold, we’re honoured that we can provide a space where you can be creative, experiment and express yourself. We’ll be here for you in 2021, no matter what.
We’re beginning this year with a pop of colour courtesy of Michael Easterling. And, a special treat – four wonderful writers from Mirrabooka Writers (https://mirrabookawriters.com/) , a new online writing school founded by VV’s Deputy Editor, Lucie Stevens. Lucie moved back to Australia mid-2020 and she has continued to be an invaluable member of the Visual Verse team while also starting up this new venture. From mid-January, Mirrabooka Writers will offer workshops for novelists, memoirists, children’s and YA writers, poets and beginner writers across all fiction genres. It also has a special creativity workshop to help you become happier and more productive in your writing life. Lucie has kindly offered the VV community a 10% discount on all upcoming courses. Enter the discount code VV121 at the checkout when you enrol. It goes without saying that we cannot recommend this, or Lucie, enough!
Each of our lead writers will be teaching at Mirrabooka Writers in the months ahead and span different genres. On page one, we have a touching story of love and loss by Christine Piper (http://www.christinepiper.com/) . Christine is an Australian writer, editor and teacher. Her debut novel, After Darkness (Allen & Unwin, 2014) won the 2014 The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award. It is now being studied by Year 12 students in the state of Victoria. She also won the 2014 Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay and the 2014 Guy Morrison Award for literary journalism. Her short stories have been published in several anthologies and journals.
On page two, poet Toby Fitch unpicks some of the anxieties and fears our new year brings. Toby is poetry editor of Overland and a sessional academic in creative writing at the University of Sydney. His most recent book of poems is Where Only the Sky had Hung Before (https://vagabondpress.net/products/toby-fitch-where-only-the-sky-had-hung-before) while his next, Sydney Spleen, is forthcoming with Giramondo in 2021. He lives in Sydney on unceded Gadigal land.
Page three features a tale of reflection by Ashley Kalagian Blunt (http://ashleykalagianblunt.com) , author of the memoir How to Be Australian. Her first book, My Name Is Revenge, was shortlisted for the 2019 Woollahra Digital Literary Awards and the 2018 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award. Her writing appears in Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more, and she co-hosts James and Ashley Stay at Home (https://jamesandashley.libsyn.com/) , a podcast about writing, creativity and health.
On page four, Term 2 tutor Emily Paull (http://www.emilypaull.com) explores something many of us have become familiar with in 2020 – inaction. Emily is a former bookseller and a future librarian from Perth, Western Australia. Her stories have appeared in Westerly and several of the Margaret River Press anthologies, and she is the author of the short story collection Well-Behaved Women, published 2019. When she’s not writing short stories and historical fiction, she can often be found with her nose in a book.
And so, dear writers, it’s your turn now. What will you make of the first image in our new year? As always, you have until the 15th to write 50-500 words, in one hour. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Wishing you all a safe and happy new year,
Kristen, Preti, Lucie and Luke.
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