Elwood Writers and Cover to Cover: Happy 500th Episode!

On 24 November last year, Cover to Cover on Vision Australia Radio reached an important milestone: episode 500 of the program. In the introduction to that week’s broadcast, producer and presenter Tim McQueen points out that over the last ten years approximately 1500 stories have been read on Cover to Cover, by about 500 different authors.

Tim and the team are always keen to promote Australian authors, and Elwood Writers has enjoyed a tremendous amount of support and encouragement almost since the program began. We’ve created the material for a number of special themed episodes, starting with, appropriately enough, ‘Starting Over’ for episode 38. On many occasions we’ve had the opportunity to visit the studios and read our work on-air. And we even get a mention in this anniversary episode. And, our very own Helen McDonald gets her very own shout-out as the program’s most-read author in 2020. Quite an achievement – well done to Helen!

We wrote a blog post to publicise episode 500 last year but in the end-of-year festive flurry we neglected to share the podcast of the program after it had been broadcast. We’re remedying that right now – you’ll find all the links you need below.

Click here to go to the podcast of episode 500. You can listen directly, or download the audio file for later, should you so wish.

Click here for an audio file of the episode.

For more information about the work of Vision Australia Radio, click here.

If you’d like to revisit our November 2023 blog post about episode 500 of Cover to Cover, click here.

You’ll find recordings of all the themed episodes that Elwood Writers has created for Cover to Cover by clicking this link here.

Thanks as always to Tim and the entire team at Cover to Cover and Vision Australia Radio for all their valuable support – it means a great deal and is very much appreciated. And huge congratulations to you all on reaching 500 episodes. Here’s to many more episodes, and many more milestones.

Happy listening, reading, and writing to everyone.

Elwood Writers feature in 20 Artists Handwritten Issue

Within these pages, you’ll find a rich tapestry of short stories, satire, touching poetry, local snapshots, heartfelt memories, and even contemplative spiritual prose. These stories reveal the profound roots of creativity, which run deep within our community.
20 Artists | Handwritten Issue One

We were delighted to be approached earlier this year by 20 Artists in Melbourne, Victoria, to contribute to their first ever literary edition of the magazine. This issue is their fourth publication – previous magazines have featured visual arts and photography. 20 Artists is supported by the City of Port Phillip Cultural Development Fund.

This is a wonderful way to cap off the year for Elwood Writers, and we’re thrilled to be included in this beautiful publication.

More information on the 20 Artists project, including biographies of the contributors, will be available soon at the 20 Artists website, here.

Happy reading!

A Life Celebrated On Radio

Do tune in to Cover to Cover on Vision Australia Radio (VAR) this Friday evening at 8:00pm (AEST) to hear our tribute to Jennifer Bryce, our friend and colleague who co-founded Elwood Writers in 2007. Jenny died in April, and we were invited by Tim McQueen, presenter and producer of Cover to Cover, to put together a one-hour program honouring her life and work.

Our program focusses on Jenny’s literary and musical achievements, and features recordings of Jenny reading her stories ‘Memories of Adelaide’ and ‘So This Is Winter’. Barry reads Jenny’s short-story ‘Benjamin’, and Helen reads Jenny’s essay about the music she commissioned for the trio Ensemble Françaix. There are tributes and musical interludes, and Margaret does the honours in holding the program together with her wonderfully informative intros and links.

We reached the edge of the old Luna Park – mainly ruins – a few broken fences where it had once been secured because the structure was unsafe. Sure enough, the waters were receding quite dramatically. We stood and watched as the man-in-the-moon mouth sucked up the waters and regurgitated them out to sea, wheezing and gurgling to the beat of some unknown subterranean rhythm. Towers still tottered over the entrance, barely supporting a few fragile wooden slats – all that remained of the scenic railway. A wind sprang up, further agitating the swirling water, and for just a moment I could hear a clattering like the old train, and squeals as the carriages swooped through a tunnel.
from ‘So This Is Winter’ by Jennifer Bryce

You can listen to the program online from anywhere in the world – just hit the ‘listen live’ button on the VAR homepage. Or if you’d prefer going old-school, the radio frequency and tuning details are also on the website. You’ll find everything you need at the link below:

https://radio.visionaustralia.org

The program will be repeated on Sunday afternoon at 1:00pm, and we’ll share the podcast on this site as soon as it’s available.

Why not lose yourself for an hour in stories and music – we’d love you to join us in celebrating Jenny. Whenever and however you choose to listen, you’ll enjoy the warmest of welcomes …

Huge thanks go as always to Tim McQueen and the team at Vision Australia Radio for promoting and supporting the work of writers everywhere.

Literary Fortnight

The Best Of Cover To Cover 2022: on Vision Australia Radio over two weeks from Monday to Friday at 1:00pm (AEST) 26 December to 6 January. That’s ten of the best episodes from this year.

We don’t know for sure which day the Elwood Writers ‘Adelaide’ program will re-air, but a little bird tells us it might be Thursday 29 December.

To avoid missing out, make this a literary holiday season and listen to all the broadcasts. What better way to transit from one year to the next than by immersing yourself in stories and the soothing sounds of spoken words.

Listening details and further info can be found at the link below:

https://radio.visionaustralia.org

However you choose to spend it, have a safe and peaceful festive period.

Happy writing, reading, and listening.

The Gift of Reading

It’s that time of the year again. How quickly it comes around. Maybe you’re on the lookout for some original festive gift ideas? For the reader in your life, might we suggest a copy of the Elwood Writers anthology Every Second Tuesday? We think there’s something in the book for everyone. But don’t just take our word for it:

The anthology Every Second Tuesday hangs together well. It covers periods from the First World War to the far-too-soon future, with a variety of poetry, memoir, fact and fiction. The evocation of place, from the 1916 trenches near Boulogne to Luna Park in St Kilda is marvellous. Each of the authors has their own distinct voice – the voices blend together like a great choir.
Tim McQueen | Producer and presenter of Cover to Cover, Vision Australia Radio

You can order the paperback from most online platforms. Book Depository offers free worldwide delivery, and they currently have 10% off their list price – find them at the link below:

Every Second Tuesday at Book Depository

If ebooks are preferred, Every Second Tuesday is available from all the major retailers, including the one below:

Every Second Tuesday Kindle Edition

Why not share the wonderful gift of reading this December? Books make great stocking fillers, and you’ll also be supporting Australian writing.

Happy December,

Currents: What I’m working on, by Helen McDonald

In recent weeks I have been aware of a light tap-tapping on my shoulder, sporadic but consistent, that I’ve been trying to ignore. Waving it away like a bothersome fly, I finally began to tune in after receiving my fifth, albeit encouraging, rejection from a literary journal.

I hasten to add that I have been fortunate enough to have had a number of my poems published, in Australia and overseas, so I know that the tap on my shoulder is not a gentle suggestion to pack away my pens and give it all up. My thinking has changed from the years when a ‘no’ from a publication would send me into a spiral of rejection with thoughts of ‘I’ll never be good enough!’ My mantra now, thanks to experience and the unwavering support of Elwood Writers, is: ‘this poem hasn’t found a home yet’. I’ve come to realise that it can all come down to a suitable ‘fit’ – whether the publisher or journal editor can find a place for this particular poem. It might not complement other work chosen for the collection, or indeed may not be what the editor has in mind. Of course we won’t always hit the jackpot. I’m jostling for recognition in a field of highly talented and creative poets. The way I write won’t appeal to everyone, and – this is an important point – one editor might love the piece, while another won’t be moved at all. In many cases it comes down to an individual’s choice.

I think the message I’m now receiving from the universe, is maybe it’s time to step back and reflect on exactly what I have been saying for all these years. I write because I have to and there’s always more to say. It’s my way of making sense of where I fit into the whole chaotic turbulence that is life. Affirmation is incredibly important to all artists, but so too is trusting in oneself.

So I’m taking time now to gather my poems into a collection that will say: this is me – my work, my thoughts. This is how I navigate this world. And I hope to learn something about myself along the way.

Retreat

Barry published this short post yesterday on his blog. It’s about the writing retreat he attended recently in the Blue Mountains. A house in the mountains, a roaring log fire, and a ghost story. Sounds idyllic.

At the beginning of September I joined a group of writing friends for a week-long retreat at a rented house in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The five of us originally met on a writing residency at Varuna in 2016, and have stayed in touch since then.

The Sunday before leaving Melbourne, I sent off a grant application I’d been working on, and I had no other outstanding deadlines looming. I had a clean slate and a clear head, and decided I’d start a brand new short story in my week away. I wanted it to be an unsettling tale, with elements of the unexplained. A ghost story, perhaps, or a chiller – something supernatural in keeping with the mood and atmosphere of a quiet old house in the mountains. At the centre of the story would be a character who’d gone away to a rented house for…

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Currents: What I’m working on, by Jennifer Bryce

A couple of months ago I finished the manuscript of my second novel, working title Edith Ascending. Finished? I think we all know that a piece of writing is never ‘finished’. Even after my first novel was published and stacked on shelves within its beautiful cover, there were bits I wanted to rewrite – things I could have left out, things I could have added. But with Edith, I’d reached a stage where I needed to do something more than re-reading and tweaking. Fortunately this stage of my writing coincided with a program of Virtual Literary Speed Dating organised by the Australian Society of Authors (ASA).

Writers are aware that it is extremely hard to get commercially published in Australia if you are not well-known. But I wanted to give it a go. Get a literary agent? There are not many agents in Australia and most of them, it seems, don’t have room to take on new clients. The alternative is to trundle your manuscript around to publishers, hoping that one of them won’t assign your work to the slush pile.

If you are brave, Virtual Literary Speed Dating is another pathway to a publisher’s door. The ASA sets up a three-minute time-slot (on Zoom) where you can ‘sell’ your book to a publisher you’ve selected from a list of about 12 provided by ASA (some of these may not be suitable, for example if they mainly publish YA or children’s picture books). You have to be a member of ASA to participate.

I’d never before done any kind of speed dating, but the similarity with the more usual kind of dating is clear. Is this my kind of match? Do we like each other? Could we get along together?

I found the ASA very supportive. I attended a preliminary online workshop where there was advice about preparing for the three-minute presentation, including a suggested template for structuring your pitch. Spend 1½ minutes outlining what you want to pitch: genre, word count, brief synopsis and a selection of three or four similar books – I tried to select titles from the list of the publisher I was pitching to. Then 30 seconds on why you wrote the book: I was inspired by a particular composer, etc. And finally, 45 seconds about yourself (the most difficult): previous publications, writing courses you’ve taken, other publicity such as radio interviews.

I don’t know how many times I recorded myself practising my pitch, timing the presentation to within a microsecond! I discovered that you can look at the camera on your laptop whilst reading from notes stuck to the side of the screen – better than glancing down the screen to read a document and thus not looking straight at the camera. My colleagues from Elwood Writers were a huge support, both in suggestions for my synopsis and bio, and also in keeping the presentation enthusiastic.

It was all worthwhile. I think I was fortunate that the publisher’s representative who heard my pitch is interested in music and asked to read the whole manuscript, which is the best outcome I could hope for. This doesn’t mean that they will take on the publication, but it’s a step in that direction – a very pleasing result.

Currents

One of the longer pieces I’m currently working on takes a fresh look at the dynamics of ease/unease in online spaces such as those described in ‘Twitch’.
from “The story behind ‘Twitch'” at barryleethompson.com

In Barry’s recent blog about the background to his short story ‘Twitch’, he talks briefly about a story he’s currently writing that shares similar themes. It’d be interesting to hear more about this new story sometime. Come to think of it, it’d be great to hear a little about what other members of Elwood Writers are working on at the moment. But only those who want to share. Writers don’t always like or feel comfortable discussing current work, for a variety of entirely understandable reasons. Oh, hang on just a moment, there’s a call coming in … why, it’s Jennifer Bryce – what a nice surprise! What’s that, Jennifer, you’d love to tell us about a project you’re working on? Well, we’d love to hear about it, so please go right ahead, in your own time. Absolutely no rush.

And now that a forthcoming blog post has been successfully solicited, let’s continue with the current project of spending this wintry Melbourne Saturday afternoon in the warmest way possible, all cosied-up with a good book. The Evenings by Gerard Reve, if anyone’s interested. But first let’s pop the kettle on and open up the cookie tin.

Have a peaceful weekend, everyone.

Writing or Penning?

From time to time we like to share blog posts from our members’ individual websites. This, from Margaret’s blog, is a recent piece that resonates. “Writing is our craft, and we must do it our way. That is in the best way we know how. Sometimes that takes time, space … and reflection.” Hear, hear. You can enjoy Margaret’s post below (including a recording of our latest program on Vision Australia Radio, just in case you missed it). Happy reading, from a wet and grey autumnal Melbourne.

WRITINGS AND MUSINGS OF MARGARET MCCAFFREY

Do people ask you how your writing is going? I’m sure we all get asked that. Who knows what the right answer is. One acquaintance of mine enquired further: ‘But are you penning or writing?’ he said. I didn’t know the difference.

‘Well,’ he replied, ‘ C. (his partner) tells me she’s been writing during the day, though not been “penning”.’ By this she means she’s wandered about the house, begun the cooking even, or taken herself off for a walk. But in her head she’s puzzling over how to better render her screenplay. This, he says, is writing. “Penning” on the other hand, is when C. puts her thoughts down on paper. Or gets cracking on the laptop.

For me his commentary illustrates that we writers can be way too hard on ourselves. We may make excuses about why we are not actually penning. It’s more than likely that…

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