The Pearl Prize 2025: Celebrating Queer Voices

Two copies of 'The Pearl Prize' anthology, featuring queer writing from across Australia, displayed on a wooden surface. — The Pearl Prize 2025 (Osborne and Fawkner)

Celebrating The Pearl Prize 2025 at Midsumma Festival

We’re enjoying reading the stories in The Pearl Prize 2025 – An Anthology of Queer Writing from Across Australia. This year’s theme: Queerness beyond the ML and AI in (A) ARTificial space.

Barry was one of the fifteen finalists in this year’s prize, so his story ‘Who Was Avery Rottedean?’ is included in the book. He wrote a blog post about the prize in January – a wonderful start to the year, for him and the group.

We were taken with the softcover and hardback versions of the anthology, and really couldn’t decide between them, so chose to get both. And why not! They’re handsome additions to any bookshelf. If you’d like to get your mitts on a copy, follow these links to Readings, or Hares & Hyenas, or get it direct from the publisher.

The Pearl Prize is presented with Osborne and Fawkner Publishing and supported by Midsumma Festival.

Congratulations to Barry and the other finalists, and big-ups to the winner, Niko Satria, and runner-up, Julien Furnace.

Happy reading,

Elwood Writers: New Year, New Adventures Ahead

Happy New Year from Elwood Writers.

That sentence counts as January’s post – we’re feeling a bit lazy. No, just kidding. But January has always been a month off for the group. It’s a chance to gather our thoughts in readiness for what promises to be a dynamic twelve months ahead. The diary already looks busy, holding such delights as a writing retreat and planning a new radio gig. Perhaps there will even be a fresh look for the website. If you want to hear more, you’ll have to stay tuned.

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That’s it for now, a sweet and simple message, no tags. Let’s ease in to 2025 nice and gently.

Best wishes,

Helen McDonald: Poetry on Cover to Cover, Episode 552

A selection of Helen’s poetry and haiku, read by Helen herself, was broadcast recently on Vision Australia Radio’s weekly literary program Cover to Cover. Episode 552 went to air on Friday 22nd November, repeated Sunday 24th November. Fabulous, Helen – what a treat!

In case you missed the program, the podcast (published Nov 26, 2024 at 2:11 PM) is available below:

Also included in this program are Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Sister of the Baroness’ and Damon Runyon’s ‘The Broadway Financier’, both read by Barry Leviny.

A sound file of the recording can be accessed by clicking here.

Cover to Cover is produced in the studios of Vision Australia Radio in Kooyong. The program is presented each Friday evening by Tim McQueen, and repeated on Sunday afternoons.

Happy listening!

A ‘How To’ re-post for late November

How to Write a Book in Five Easy Minutes*

As we move towards December, when the end of another year will be within touching distance, I’m again feeling that time marches on faster and faster and faster. I once met someone who claimed to know the secret to slowing things down. Make a cup of tea, they said. That was it, no elaboration, and I didn’t probe. I think I see where they might have been coming from. Like the watched pot never boiling, the carefully crafted and considered cuppa never cools. Maybe.

Anyway, with time at a premium, this September post from Margaret McCaffrey seems particularly apt. Five minutes to write a book. Tell us more, Margaret. Oh, hang on, does that asterisk point the way to a disclaimer? No, apparently not, it’s marking a shout-out to the film that suggested the title for the blog post. I’m going to make a cup of coffee (I don’t like tea) and dive into the post and learn the secret to writing that five-minute book.

Nevertheless, for a few glorious moments in my quest for sightedness, I’d experienced that rare writerly feeling of accomplishment. And it had all been so easy.

Happy reading and writing and tea or coffee drinking. Or whatever your poison is.

Cover to Cover | Episode 548| 25 October 2024

Here’s the podcast of last week’s episode of Vision Australia Radio’s Cover to Cover, a special edition of the weekly literary program featuring the work of Elwood Writers:

Elwood Writers presents: The Writers’ Choice

‘Elwood Writers Presents: The Writers’ Choice’ features memoir by Margaret, fiction by Barry, and poetry by Helen – all read by the writers themselves.

This episode can also be found over on Spotify, or wherever you choose to get your podcasts. If you’d rather access the recording via a sound file, we’ve got that covered – just click here.

Don’t forget, one of the best ways of supporting our work is to give it your time. So sit back, relax and enjoy being transported by our stories.

Happy listening!

Catch the repeat!

Listen up!

If you didn’t catch Cover to Cover on Vision Australia Radio (VAR) last night for ‘Elwood Writers presents: The Writers’ Choice’, there’s another opportunity to hear the program tomorrow afternoon. The repeat airs at Ipm Sunday in Melbourne, but you can check out local times at the VAR website, here. You don’t need a transistor radio, either: wherever you are, you can listen online at the VAR website – just click here and hit the ‘Listen live’ button.

We were moved by Margaret’s memoirs, unsettled by Barry’s ghost story, and carried to a place of peaceful introspection by Helen’s poetry.
EW

If you missed Friday’s broadcast, and you can’t make Sunday’s, don’t worry: we’ll be posting a podcast and recording of the program on this website sometime next week. Make sure you don’t miss any updates by clicking the ‘Subscribe’ button at the end of this post.

Happy listening!

Listen up!

🎧 Tune in to Cover to Cover on Vision Australia Radio this Friday evening – it’s another Elwood Writers special! 🎧

Elwood Writers presents: The Writers’ Choice, includes:

📖 Memoirs by Margaret McCaffrey
📚 A new short story by Barry Lee Thompson
🖋️ Selections of poems and haiku by Helen McDonald

Don’t miss this literary showcase!
Vision Australia Radio

Check varadio.org for program times near you. If you can’t join us on Friday, catch the repeat broadcast on Sunday. And if you can’t make that either, we’ll be sharing a recording or podcast of the program on this site next week. So if you haven’t already, subscribe to Elwood Writers below to stay in the loop – it’s completely free and will remain free forever. How fab is that!

Happy listening!

P.S. Do subscribe if you haven’t already – it’s a really good way to support our work, and we promise you won’t be disappointed. That subscribe button is coming up again at the end of the post. Here it comes …

What happened to September?

Why are we writing?

from barryleethompson.com

Here at Elwood Writers we usually like to publish one blog post per month, at least. But we’ve been so busy putting together our new program for Cover to Cover on Vision Australia Radio, among other things, that we missed September. Oh well, consider this September’s post, an interesting piece from Barry about the joys of writing. Or the pain of writing. Or both. Maybe sometimes it’s just easier to read. So, happy reading.

Coming soon: Elwood Writers on Cover to Cover

Stories on your radio

from barryleethompson.com

I was enjoying a Marie biscuit and strong lungo yesterday morning when a new blog post from Barry’s website popped into the Elwood Writers mailbox. In the post – linked over there👉– Barry writes about an upcoming episode of Vision Australia Radio’s weekly literary program Cover to Cover, featuring the work of Elwood Writers. We don’t yet have a broadcast date for the program, but it’ll be sometime after the material goes to Cover to Cover‘s producer/presenter Tim McQueen in early October.

Elwood Writers has been contributing stories to Cover to Cover since 2015, featuring in roughly one special episode each year. Our first program, appropriately titled ‘Starting Over’, was broadcast in episode 38 of Cover to Cover on 11 January 2015. If you fancy a bit of a blast from the past, you can listen to that or any of the episodes featuring our work by clicking here. We’re always grateful for the invaluable support of Tim and the Cover to Cover team, and everyone at Vision Australia Radio.

Until my coffee break was pleasantly interrupted by the happy ping of that email notification yesterday, October had felt a long, long way away. And now? Well it’s closing in, but is still six weeks away – and I remember the six-week school holidays used to go on and on and on. We’ll be sure to provide more info about the radio program between now and October. To stay in the loop, make sure you’re subscribed – it’s free, and means you’ll never miss any content.

On writing retreats, and more

Barry Lee Thompson is no stranger to the writing retreat. He wrote an essay for US-based journal Working Writer about his experiences of retreats in the Blue Mountains of NSW and on the Indonesian island of Bali. Barry’s blog post below includes a link to the July/August edition of the journal, as well as details of how to subscribe to Working Writer. If you’ve ever wondered what happens on a writing retreat, or what doesn’t happen, then please dive right in and find out.

Strange June

After reading all about it, Elwood Writers is more than ever in the mood for our very own group retreat. We’ve discussed it once or twice during our fortnightly meetings, with great enthusiasm, but so far haven’t been able to finalise a plan. We will definitely make it happen, one of these days. Maybe next year, even. It’s high on our agenda. In the meantime, there’s always Barry’s article to transport us without having to leave the considerable comfort of our very warm and cosy armchairs …

Happy reading,