KSP WRITERS’ CENTRE 2013/14 RESIDENCY PROGRAM
KSP WRITERS’ CENTRE
2013/14 RESIDENCY PROGRAM
Applications closing soon
2013 Young Writers-In-Residence
Applications for 2013 Young Writer-In-Residence must be post marked on or before 5pm, Friday July 26 2013
Three Positions are available for the ten days of Monday 2 December – Wednesday 11 December 2013. Three Young Writers, up to the age of twenty-five years, will be selected for a 10-day residency at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Greenmount. The residents will receive a salary of $650 and be given writing space and time to concentrate on, develop or complete a work in progress. The writer will also be invited to participate in Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Writers’ Centre activities.
The Selection Committee will be looking for talented young writers able to show application to the craft of writing. It is expected that the writers will have some published material in the print, visual or broadcast media. Ideally, applicants should be working towards achieving their first major full-length publication. Applicants may conduct a workshop at the Centre during their residency. If the applicant wishes to do so full support will be given to that endeavour by the Centre. However, applicants who do not want to present a workshop will NOT be penalised.
2014 Established Writer-In-Residence
Applications for 2014 Established Writer in Residence must be post marked on or before, Friday, June 14 2013 (pending funding)
One position, Full-time period of four (4) weeks, or equivalent part time. Salary: $3500.
The Established Writer-in-Residence should have achieved major publication and have demonstrated a commitment towards furthering the status and practice of writing among his/her peers and the community in general. Experience in preparation for and conducting of workshops and seminars is desirable.
2014 Emerging Writer-In-Residence
Applications for 2014 Emerging Writer in Residence must be post marked on or before Friday August 30 2013 (pending funding)
Three positions, dependent on funding. Full-time period of four (4) weeks, or equivalent part time. Salary: $2250.
Emerging does not mean beginner. Preference for one position will be given to a WA regional writer or a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse writer. The Selection Committee will be looking for talented writers able to show application to the craft of writing. It is expected that selected writers will have some published material, in the print, visual or broadcast media. Ideally, applicants should be working towards achieving their first major full-length publication.
For guidelines and application forms, please visit our website: www.kspf@iinet.net.au / Residency Program / Residency Program Application Information OR ring 9294 1872 OR email kspf@iinet.net.au
My time as Emerging Writer-in-Residence at the KSP Writers’ Centre
My time as Emerging Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre has been an extremely busy and enormously productive one. I did a short, five day stint over Easter and then a longer, three week block from April 15th to May 5th 2013. My major goal for this period was to produce 40,000 words on a new novel, Dan: A Cautionary Tale. I actually didn’t start writing the novel at all over Easter, so I left myself just 21 days to write this amount, setting myself an ambitious target of 2000 words per day. I’m happy to report that as of today, May 2nd, I’ve written 36,000 words and foresee no problems in reaching my target on or before May 5th. I’ve also had the opportunity to read from Dan at several of the regular KSP groups, including the Tuesday morning group, Writefree women’s group. Thursday Night Group and Speculative Fiction group. I found these writers very welcoming and enthusiastic about Dan, and I got plenty of confidence from that.
I needed it, too, as one of my other tasks was to read from the novel on RTR FM’s ‘Artbeat’ program. This was only my second time appearing on the radio (the other was last year on York FM) and I was very nervous. I had earlier read a chapter from Dan at the Thursday Night Group that had seemed to go down especially well, so I chose this short, 1000 word chapter to read on the radio. The chapter features our protagonist Will attempting to get his forklift ticket so that he can drive the forklift legally at the bottleshop where he works. I managed to read the excerpt live without any major mishaps, and in the end I was glad to have done so. You can listen to this reading here:
http://rtrfm.com.au/story/what-a-busy-guy/
In my first stint over Easter, before I got started on Dan, I was busy working on a project called The Tobacco-Stained Sky: An Anthology of Post-Apocalyptic Noir. In 2012 I had been invited by author Andrez Bergen to write a story for this themed collection, set in post-apocalyptic Melbourne, and for this I had written a story “The Dying Rain”. As it transpired, however, the anthology was short a prose editor, and so when I was offered the opportunity to take on this role I jumped at the chance. Thus I had 60,000 words of prose to tweak, as well as an introduction to write, which consumed my attention during this Easter period. The anthology will be out from US publisher Another Sky Press later this year.
Wedged between my Writer-in-Residence stints was KSP’s ’2013 Writers and Performance Festival of the Asian-Australian Voice’, which I’ve written about more extensively here:
https://guysalvidge.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/wrap-up-on-ksps-festival-of-the-asian-australian-voice/
This was an amazing weekend and a great opportunity to meet and mingle with a whole host of talented writers including Benjamin Law, Oliver Phommavanh, Lily Chan, Nadine Brown, Jackson and plenty of others. The festival ended on Sunday April 14th, meaning that I was literally moving into KSP the day those talented writers were moving out.
Writers-in-Residence at KSP are treated very nicely: they are afforded accommodation in one of three newly-built retreats: Aldridge, Clarke and Phillips. I stayed in the Aldridge chalet and I found this to be a very cosy writing space indeed. For cooking, not that I did a tremendous amount of it, I had the use of the main kitchen up at Katharine’s house. During my stay, I also had the opportunity to attend several book launches in Perth and Fremantle, including those for Lee Battersby’s novel The Marching Dead and Bruce Russell’s Reunion. This Sunday I’m also off to Rockingham to meet author Kaaron Warren, who will be in Perth hosting a number of events, including one organised by the very same Lee Battersby, himself previously a Writer-in-Residence at KSP.
One of my major tasks as Writer-in-Residence was to prepare and run a three hour workshop. My workshop, “Sail into Publishing: Charting a Course for Your Writing Career”, was held on Saturday 27th April and by accounts it went well. I went a little overboard on the slides (83 in all, even though a lot of them were pictures) and thus I had to rush through my presentation toward the end. I covered an awful lot about what I’ve learned about publishing in this presentation; if you’d like to download it, you need only to paste this link into your web browser and the presentation will start downloading:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53426575/Sail%20into%20Publishing.pptx
Earlier today, I had the opportunity to assist Dr Melissa O’Shea in running the third day of this year’s Write-a-Rama, a workshop for 10-15 year-old students. I first participated in this program last year, so I knew pretty much what to expect. My task today was to assist students in learning how to properly edit their own work, although I did manage to work some theory on writing into my talk as well. I was very impressed with the calibre of writing on display and I thank Melissa for giving me the opportunity to work with these students again.
Lastly, on Monday I gave an interview to students from Eastern Hills SHS who had come to KSP to make a documentary film for a school assignment. I spoke to them about my time at KSP and also provided a little history about Katharine Susannah Prichard and Hugo Throssell. Here I was assisted by KSP stalwart Chris Oakeley, who helpfully produced some speaking notes for me. I’d also like to acknowledge the amazing work done by KSP’s Co-ordinator Shannon Coyle and its Chairperson Renee Hammond. While I’m at it, thanks must also go to Treasurer Robert Perks and Management Committee members Danika Potter, Karen Treanor and Mardi May. Each of these people has assisted me in some way over these past weeks and months, and I thank them for their tireless efforts in working for the benefit of KSP.
I’m nearly done now: I have just 4000 more words to write on Dan, as well as a Literary Dinner to read at this coming Tuesday. This will be one of KSP’s series of literary dinners for the year, at which the Writer-in-Residence reads for three lots of ten minutes. I’ll be reading excerpts from my soon-to-be-published third novel Yellowcake Summer, “The Dying Rain” and Dan. My final task as a Writer-in-Residence will be to mentor a promising KSP writer, and for this I have chosen to assist Tuesday morning group regular Franci Leibenberg. Franci and I have been competing of late to see who can hit 40,000 words on their novel the quickest, and my plan is to assist Franci in structuring her work-in-progress over the coming weeks and months.
I think that’s it. For exercise I’ve been walking up Old York Road, quite a steep climb, and on occasion I’ve made it to the nearby John Forrest National Park. But frankly, a lot of the time I’ve been too busy to stray far. It’s not often in life that one gets the opportunity to do what one truly wants to do for an extended period of time, but that’s exactly how it’s been for me here at KSP. It’s been an amazing time.
A VERY BUSY GUY << RTR FM // THE SOUND ALTERNATIVE
FROM THE BLOG
Friday 26th April / posted by Rhian Todhunter
A VERY BUSY GUY
Literary prize-winner Guy Salvidge is a busy man.
With two stories being published this year, a sequel underway, and plans to start a crime novel in the near future – writer in residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Guy Salvidge joins me to treat us to a live reading and look at his busy schedule.
CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN
Wrap-up of KSP’s Festival of the Asian-Australian Voice
Last weekend (12-14th April) I had the pleasure of participating in the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre ‘Festival of the Asian-Australian Voice’. The event kicked off on Friday evening with an Open Mic event at Darlington Hall, just around the corner from KSP. My job was to collect one of our special guests, YA writer and comedian Oliver Phommavanh, (whose titles include Thai-riffic! and a whole swag of others) from KSP and bring him the short distance to Darlington Hall. How hard could it be, right? A few wrong turns later we arrived safely, and then we were treated to readings not only from Oliver but a host of other talented Open Mic-ers, not least among them the WA poet Jackson, whose performance was amazing. The event was hosted by up-and-comer Jake Dennis, who sings astonishingly well in addition to his numerous other talents. One of the other readers was the second of our special guests for this festival, Lily Chan. Lily is the author of the memoir Toyo and she’s a talented author in her own right. We also had readings from Maj Monologue winner Nadine Browne and a host of others. I’m not an Open Mic-er myself but I was really enthused by the talent on display. ‘Twas a good night.
Saturday saw me hosting Oliver at KSP as he presented his workshop ‘Humour: It’s Not That Ha Ha Hard.’ Under normal circumstances I have an aversion to ACTUAL WRITING EXERCISES which involve me ACTUALLY WRITING WHEN TOLD TO but Oliver effortlessly cut through all that. He’s a teacher himself and an old hand on the workshop circuit, and I guess he’s used to mollycoddling recalcitrants like me. Flicking over the notes I made in my journal now, I find to my surprise that I took no less than five whole pages of words of wisdom! Oliver was chock full of acronyms: MAP (Material, Audience and Performer); THREES (Target, Hostility, Realism, Exaggeration, Emotion, Surprise!) and the three Ps (Profession, Personal and Private). The guy knows his stuff. More than that, he can actually teach. I’m sure we all left Oliver’s workshop more knowledgeable about how to write comedy than when we started. I know I did.
Then it was time to get ready for the main event, the literary dinner at the Cadaceus Club at Gloucester Park. Before that I had the pleasure of meeting the delightful Benjamin Law, author of The Family Law and Gaysia. At the dinner itself, my wife Georgie and I were lucky enough to be seated with KSP’s Chairperson Renee Hammond, Oliver and Benjamin. That was where the action was, let me assure you. Oliver, Benjamin and I spoke for what must have been hours on topics such as Amazon’s recent acquisition of Goodreads and a whole host of other Secret Writers’ Business. I was delighted to buy a signed copy for The Family Law from Benjamin, and he was delighted for me to buy one too for it meant he could afford to buy himself a drink (he’d misplaced his wallet somewhere). After his commanding performance in his half-hour keynote address, people were queuing up to buy books from Benjamin, presumably allaying any concerns he may have had about his ongoing beverage needs. I don’t use that word ‘commanding’ lightly here. Benjamin spoke passionately and articulately (hard to do at the same time) about what it was like to grow up Asian-Australian on Pauline Hanson’s stronghold Sunshine Coast. I was sad, finally, to have to leave.
All in all, it was a great weekend. I met a whole swag of talented writers, something that I find just keeps happening when you hang out at KSP. I didn’t make it to the Sunday events (I was starting my Emerging Writer-in-Residency gig at KSP the next day) but I heard that went well too. There was a livestream of the event so I had a look at keynote speaker Yan Zhang explaining the subject of her PhD. Thanks not only to the writers mentioned above, but also to KSP’s Management Committee ably led by Co-ordinator Shannon Coyle. I can’t wait to see what we’re planning for next year.
The 2013 Writers’ and Performance Festival of the Asian-Australian Voice
The Tobacco-Stained Sky: An Anthology of Post-Apocalyptic Noir has a new editor!
Exciting news – upcoming anthology The Tobacco-Stained Sky: An Anthology of Post-Apocalyptic Noir will now be edited by myself and Andrez Bergen for release in the second half of 2013. The book will be published by Another Sky Press, and publisher Kristopher Young has kindly given me a share of the editorial reins alongside Andrez. The Tobacco-Stained Sky is a themed collection of post-apocalyptic stories set in the universe of Andrez Bergen’s novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. The new collection includes a story of my own, “The Dying Rain”, which features the same protagonist, Tyler Bramble, as my recently-published “Blue Swirls” in Tincture Journal. The collection features 16 stories and 8 comics, and now it’s my job to edit these works for publication and put them into a sequence. I’m enormously excited about the task and I can’t wait to get cracking – which I’ll be able to do as early as the upcoming Easter weekend when I’ll be at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre doing the first part of my Emerging Writer-in-Residence gig.
Oh, and I have another exciting piece of writing news that I’ll have to keep under my hat for a week or two yet. This regards Yellowcake Summer, sequel to Yellowcake Springs.
