Tag: writing

Explore the Woodend Haiku Festival 2025

Thanks to Helen for letting us know that the Woodend Haiku Festival is taking place throughout April around the town. Festival director Myron Lysenko is the Victorian representative of the Australian Haiku Society, and also founder and convener of Chamber Poets.

Various events are occurring throughout this month, coinciding with International Haiku Day on April 17.

… include a month-long haiku contest with an autumn theme, pop-up haiku poetry recitals, a free haiku picnic from 10am–1pm on April 2 at the Woodend Children’s Park, and a haiku-focused Chamber Poets event from 1–4pm on April 12.

Star Weekly 01/04/2025

The full program is detailed below:

WOODEND HAIKU FESTIVAL PROGRAM

1—30 April. Haiku contest on the theme of autumn. 

1—30 April Pop-up Public Haiku Poets. 

2 April 10am-1pm Haiku Picnic. Woodend Children’s Park.

12 April 1pm-4pm Chamber Poets #109, Woodend RSL. Featuring internationally renowned poets from the Victorian based haiku group The Fringe Myrtles, plus Open Section and haiku music by Black Forest Smoke. 

17 April 10am-midday Woodend Library. Free. Celebrate the magical, wonderful world of haiku. Listen to readings or be guided into writing your own. 

17 April 1.30-3.30pm Woodend Neighbourhood House. Free. Poets will read haiku to you, write one about you or help you write one. 

30 April 6pm- 8pm Haiku Dinner at the Victoria Hotel, Woodend. $22 for meal and a drink.

Local poet and festival director, Myron Lysenko, is a representative of the Australian Haiku Society and has organised a range of activities to celebrate all things haiku, coinciding with International Haiku Day on April 17.

Midland Express 26/03/2025

Two press articles feature the festival: Star Weekly‘s current edition has a piece on Chamber Poets, including interviews with Myron and some of the collective volunteers, including our very own Helen McDonald. You can read the article by clicking here. And read the Midland Express feature by clicking here.

Star Weekly 01/04/2025: Chamber Poets convener Myron Lysenko, and collective volunteers Jenny Zimmerman, Helen McDonald, Wendy Purcell, Talon Gostelow and Linda Stuart at the Woodend RSL. (Damjan Janevski). 466737_01

Margaret talks ‘procrastination’

Back in November, Margaret wrote a very interesting blog about procrastination on her website. It’s a fresh and alternative look at an issue which is said to dog many writers. But rather than being troubled by procrastination, Margaret suggests that we might take comfort in the words of an Irish poet, and embrace or reframe the phenomenon.

… David Whyte says that procrastination for writers is really about them finding a way through. ‘Before a book can be written,’ he says, ‘most of the way it cannot be written must be tried first … in our minds, on the blank screen, on the empty page … or staring at the bedroom ceiling at four in the morning.’

The Procrastination of Writers, Margaret McCaffrey

The post concludes that procrastination is fine, maybe even necessary, as long as the writer doesn’t lose sight of the original idea that drove them to the page in the first place.

It’s well worth reading Margaret’s post in full, and you’ll find it via the following link:

The Procrastination of Writers, by Margaret McCaffrey

Thanks for the reassuring words, Margaret. And happy reading to everyone!

EW

Tonight’s stories

Tonight on Cover to Cover:

Jennifer’s ‘Teleférico’;
Helen’s ‘The Lake’, poems ‘In deep blue’ and ‘New’, and haiku inspired by Japan and Australia;
Margaret’s ‘The White Woman’ and ‘Home and Away’;
Barry’s ‘The Longstanding Arrangement’ and ‘Tongue’.

Thanks again to Alison Davies and Tim McQueen for reading the pieces, and to Tim for producing the program.

For all the information you’ll need to listen to the stories, click here.

Every Second Tuesday, update

The publication of Every Second Tuesday, an anthology of our writing from over the last ten years, is being held back until early November. By that time we anticipate seeing a little more stability in the literary landscape as new and exciting models of delivery are embraced.

In the meantime, here’s a peek at the book’s back cover:

And before the anthology arrives, we have the release of Barry’s collection of fiction to look forward to. Broken Rules and Other Stories is coming out on 1 September. More information is available at the Transit Lounge website, here.

So please stay tuned – there’s a lot happening this year, and we’ll be providing plenty more updates along the way.

Happy reading and writing.

Winter

Here in the room, the fire crackles, and in the distance, the clatter of the roller-coaster.

So This Is Winter, Jennifer Bryce

In our corner of the southern hemisphere the weather is turning colder and the nights are drawing in. And so, a year on from its first broadcast, our special wintry edition of Cover to Cover has been scheduled to hit the Vision Australia Radio airwaves again on 10 & 12 July.

We hope you’ll be able to join us, wherever you are, and whatever your season. We’ll provide listening information closer to the broadcast date. In the meantime, stay safe and sound.

Back to School

Go back to school this week as Vision Australia Radio repeats a favourite episode of its weekly literary program Cover to Cover from January 2018, featuring stories written and in some cases read on air by Elwood Writers. You can hear the show in Melbourne at 8:00pm this Friday, repeated Sunday at 1:30pm. For timings in other cities and locations around Australia, check the VAR website. And as usual the show can be heard online from anywhere in the world by using the ‘listen live’ feature on the VAR website:

https://radio.visionaustralia.org/

Happy listening!

2019: Another Year Over

It’s been another lively year for Elwood Writers, both individually and collectively. There are too many highlights to pick and choose for an end-of-year wrap-up. But this might be a good opportunity to say special congratulations again to Jennifer, whose first novel Lily Campbell’s Secret was published in May, and launched at Readings in Carlton by Toni Jordan in June. And a happy hooray for Helen, whose poems were published far and wide this year, including two in the US. Two excerpts from Margaret’s full-length draft manuscript were published in American Writers Review (San Fedele Press). Well done, Margaret. And Barry had a short story included in the winter issue of Roomers magazine, and has also contributed to the brand new summer issue.

For a more comprehensive picture of all we’ve been up to, we’d invite you to take a look back at our posts over the year. You can access all our previous posts in the archives section on the right-hand side of this page.

Thanks very much for your company here on the website. We look forward to seeing you again in 2020. There are a couple of exciting projects lined up, and we’re itching to share more on these in the coming weeks. For now, happy reading and writing, and all the very best wishes of the season from Elwood Writers.

Winning Poetry

Poetry Matters | Issue 36, July 2019

Helen McDonald’s poem ‘In deep blue’ is a prize winner in July’s Poetry Matters competition. That piece, along with Helen’s ‘A Friday, like any other’, is published in the always excellent Poetry Matters journal (Issue 36, July 2019). The theme of the issue is ‘runaway world’. More information on the work of Poetry Matters is available here.

Many congratulations to Helen!

A peaceful weekend and happy reading and writing to everyone.

Winter 2019 Cover To Cover, Vision Australia Radio

Wintry stories and music can be enjoyed whatever the season, wherever you are. Listen to Elwood Writers read their winter-themed work on the recent special edition of Cover To Cover, Vision Australia Radio’s weekly literary program, originally broadcast 12 July 2019.

The program is available on the Podcasts & Recordings page of this site, linked here. Happy listening.

Thanks for dropping by the Elwood Writers website. See you again soon.

Cover To Cover is recorded in the studios of Vision Australia Radio in Melbourne.
Producer: Tim McQueen.