Free Workshops and an Evening Showcase in Hamilton
11th May 2024
10am - 4pm at Hamilton Institute of Rural Learning
6pm - 9pm at The Roxburgh
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Day Events at Hamilton Institute of Rural Learning
10am - Welcome
10:30am - Workshop "Writing as Activism" with Sissy Austin
11:45am - Workshop "Writing Short Stories for Young Adult and Middle Grade readers" with Michael Earp
12:45am - Workshop "It's your writing" with Coral Reeve
2pm - Workshop "Writing as Therapy" with Lou Green
3pm - Workshop "Generating Autobiographical Performance" with Andrew Sutherland
10:30am - 11:30am
Writing as Activism
with Sissy Austin
11:45am - 12:45pm
Writing Short Stories for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers
with Michael Earp
Stuck for ideas or want to kickstart your writing? Short stories are great way to try things out and play around. In this workshop we'll look at ways of approaching short stories that teens or middle grade readers would love.
Michael Earp is a non-binary writer and bookseller living in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia), the editor of Everything Under the Moon: Fairy tales in a queerer light, Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories, Out-Side: Queer Words and Art from Regional Victoria and co-edited Avast! Pirate Stories From Transgender Authors with Alison Evans. They have a teaching degree and a Masters in children’s literature and have worked between bookselling and publishing for over twenty years as a children’s literature specialist. Their role managing The Little Bookroom saw them named ABA Bookseller of the year. Their writing has also appeared in Archer, The Age, PopMatters, The Victorian Writer, Aurealis and Underdog: #LoveOzYA Short Stories.
12:45pm - 1:45pm
It's Your Writing
with Coral Reeve
A workshop dedicated to helping you understand your writing expression and extension to self.
Coral is a proud Gunditjmara woman who lives on Wadawurrung land. She has studied writing and its form for over ten years, just finalising their Masters and have had the pleasure of being published in Out-side (Q-Lits first anthology) and Etchings Indigenous to name just a few areas. Writing is important no matter the form as its an expression and extension of oneself to share a message.
2pm - 3pm
Writing as Therapy
with Lou Green
We will be delving into written expression for the purposes of exploring identity; gender, sexuality, neurobiology, culture. You can have a go at some free writing to get the creative juices flowing and then create a self portrait using words.
Lou is a queer writer and amateur illustrator. She writes poetry, songs, and children’s books. Lou founded an online art therapy hub for queer folk to have a safe space to access healing and expression through art.
3pm - 4pm
Generating Autobiographical Performance
with Andrew Sutherland
Queer theatre and performance is fundamentally enmeshed with the autobiographical experiences and personhoods of its writers, devisors and performers. In this workshop, we will explore some techniques for safely and creatively generating scenes and performance structures from our personal experiences, in ways that move away from traditional representational playwriting methods.
Andrew Sutherland (he/they) is a Queer Poz (PLHIV) writer and performance-maker currently residing on unceded Wurundjeri land. His debut poetry collection Paradise (point of transmission) was published by Fremantle Press in 2022 and shortlisted for Small Press Network's Book of the Year Prize, and he has been widely published including with Westerly, Overland, Running Dog, Australian Poetry Journal, Best of Australian Poems, Contemporary Theatre Review, We'll Stand in That Place (Margaret River Press), and EXHALE: an anthology of Queer voices from Singapore. As a performance-maker, Andrew has been a director, playwright, dramaturg, devisor, actor, and mentor across many new works between Western Australia and Singapore over the last decade. He has been an arts educator/teaching artist for numerous organisations including the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, WA Youth Theatre Co., Black Swan State Theatre Co., Centre for Stories, the University of Western Australia, and SingLit Station.