Byron Writers Festival is offering a two-day workshop for NSW writers with disability or who are d/Deaf, as part of their Restart program. The Restart program is funded by Create NSW.

The workshop teachers/mentors will be: Asphyxia, Gaele Sobott, Kerri Shying and Alan Close.

Each mentor/teacher will offer a two or three-hour workshop on various aspects of writing.

Applications are currently open for Zoom places and limited face-to-face places.

DOWNLOAD APPLICATIONS GUIDE WORD DOC

Workshop Details

Dates: Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 May 2021
Time: 8.30am – 3.30pm
Where: Lennox Head Cultural Centre, Lennox Head, northern NSW

Morning tea and lunch will be catered

Guidelines and eligibility

If you identify as a writer with disability, or as a writer who is d/Deaf, Byron Writers Festival encourages you to apply. We are interested in NSW writers of all genres and styles, in any stage of their career. Successful applicants will be chosen by publishing industry professionals who also identify as writers with disability or d/Deaf writers.

For writers who prefer not to travel to Lennox Head, we are offering online inclusion via Zoom. There are 5 face-to-face places and 10 zoom places. Please apply as below.

Writers who are able to travel to Lennox Head will be assisted financially within the limits of the grant funding, at the discretion of the Byron Writers Festival administration. Please include a brief summary of the costs you will incur to travel to Lennox Head and participate in the workshop, within your application. This may include fees for transport, access, support worker, or other such requirement; the workshops will have Auslan interpreters.

How to Apply

Please submit 1 x PDF file, including:

• Your contact details
• Evidence of your residential address in NSW: a current rental agreement, rates notice, utilities bill, drivers licence. Please put this at the beginning of your PDF
• A summary of funds required to enable your participation in the workshop
• A sample of your writing – no more than 20 x A4 pages, 12 point, double-spaced
• A short bio/cv – no more than 150 words

Submit to: [email protected]

Please email this address with any queries, or call, or text Zacharey Jane on 0432 922 381.

In partnership with

About the Mentors

Asphyxia

Asphyxia is an artist, writer and public speaker. Author of the much loved junior fiction series, The Grimstones, Asphyxia has also been a circus performer and puppeteer. An avid art-journaler, she who loves to share her process to help others benefit from this amazing tool for self-expression, problem-solving, planning, goal-tracking and self-esteem. Deaf since the age of three, Asphyxia learnt to sign when she was eighteen, which changed her life. She is now a Deaf activist, sharing details of Deaf experience and raising awareness of oppression of Deaf people and what we can do to change this. Her free online Auslan course (www.asphyxia.com.au) has over 15,000 students. Asphyxia is kept busy with her small farm where she combines food growing with art – creating a magical aesthetic with plants and natural elements. Her new book, Future Girl, combines these passions.

Alan Close

Over a thirty-year career, Alan Close has published fiction, memoir and poetry and been a freelance feature writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. He has published a collection of linked short stories: The Romance Of The Season, a ‘dramatised biography’: The Australian Love Letters of Raymond Chander and his most recent book is Before You Met Me: A Memoir Of One Man’s Troubled Search For Love. He also edited the anthology Men Love Sex, a collection of stories and essays by men about love, sex and relationships. He has written widely on men and relationships in the national print media and was a columnist on men’s issues in Good Weekend magazine. He has a MA in Creative Writing from QUT and has been a tutor in Creative Writing at QUT and Southern Cross University. When not writing, he works editing and assessing manuscripts and as a writing mentor and teacher, both face to face and online. He lives in Mullumbimby with the writer Sarah Armstrong and their young daughter.

Kerri Shying

Kerri Shying is a poet of Wiradjuri and Chinese family, publishing across many journals and anthologies. She is the author of a bilingual pocketbook of poems ‘sing out when you want me’, 2017, Flying Island Press; ‘Elevensies’, 2018 Puncher and Wattman; and ‘Knitting Mangrove Roots’ 2019, Flying Island Press.

Kerri  held the Varuna Dr Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship for 2019 for her current collection  ‘Know Your Country’ 2020, Puncher and Wattman, and was shortlisted in 2017 for both the Helen Ann Bell Prize and the Noel Rowe Award. Kerri has been convenor of Write Up for five years, a free arts/writing group for people living with disability.

She lives with disability in Newcastle, NSW with her famous dog Max Spangly.

Kerri is a nominee in theaspireawards.com.au 2020, an activity of the Human Rights Commission, for disability activism in the arts, and has an art practice in fibre arts.

Gaele Sobott

Gaele Sobott is a disabled writer living in Sydney, Australia. Her published works include Colour Me Blue (Heinemann), My Longest Round (Magabala Books) and recent short stories in Hecate, Verity La, Meanjin, Prometheus Dreaming, New Contrast and the anthologies, Botswana Women Write (University of Kwazulu-Natal Press) and Not Quite Right For Us (Speaking Volumes UK). Her poetry is published in Disability Arts Online and Verity La. She currently serves on the Accessibility Committee of the State Library of NSW and the Blacktown City Council Arts Committee. She is the founding director of Outlandish Arts; a disabled-led, not-for-profit arts organisation. Gaele has a PhD in literature from the University of Hull, UK.

Other initiatives

Applications are now closed for the following retreats.

Open Writers and Illustrators Residential Retreat

The writer or illustrator will be working on a major work; it may be at any stage of progress. They need to submit:

• A description of your major work of fiction, narrative non-fiction, memoir, poetry or book illustration, no more than 250 words; illustrators may submit a storyboard or narrative outline
• A major work is considered to be a novel, novella, anthology of short stories or poetry, picture book or graphic novel illustrations
• A sample of the major work, 20 pages (double spaced, 12-point font) for writers
• A rationale describing what you hope to gain from this retreat – no more than 250 words
• A short bio/cv – no more than 150 words
• Evidence of your residential address in NSW (rental agreement, rates notice, utilities bill, drivers licence)
• You must be available to travel to Byron Bay to take up the residency from 4-8 May 2021
• Applicants must be over 18 years of age
• Artists will be paid a professional fee of $1000 for retreat participation pro rata

First Nations Australia Writer/Illustrator Residential Retreat

• A description of your major work of fiction, narrative non-fiction, memoir, poetry or book illustration, no more than 250 words; illustrators may submit a storyboard or narrative outline
• A major work is considered to be a novel, novella, anthology of short stories or poetry, picture book or graphic novel illustrations
• A sample of the major work, 20 pages (double spaced, 12-point font) for writers
• A rationale describing what you hope to gain from the retreat – no more than 250 words
• A short bio/cv – no more than 150 words
• Information of the First Nations community/ies to which you have connections
• Proof of your residential address in NSW (rental agreement, rates notice, utilities bill, drivers licence)
• If your application is successful, you may be asked to provide evidence of your status in your First Nations community
• You must be available to travel to Byron Bay to take up the residency from 9-13 May 2021
• Applicants must be over 18 years of age
• Artists will be paid a professional fee of $1000 for retreat participation pro rata

On completion of each retreat, participating artists will be invited to submit their work/manuscript for assessment from a publishing industry professional.

In partnership with