Writing Workshop 2009
UNE Writing Workshop 2009
A One-Day Workshop, sponsored by the School of Arts and the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, University of New England.
Date: Monday, 30 March: 9 am to 5 pm.
Venue: Oorala Centre , University of New England.
Objectives:
- to strengthen skills in conducting and using research for writing across a range of genres. The workshop is designed for writers and researchers at every level of experience and expertise
- to facilitate greater understanding of, and access to publication in Australian literary and scholarly journals
- to provide hands-on instruction in working towards publishing in Australian journals for creative writers and researchers in the arts and humanities
- to offer an opportunity to broaden existing networks, and break into new scholarly and literary networks
The workshop will feature speakers in a variety of disciplines who conduct research in order to write for a variety of audiences.
The workshop is designed for:
- scholars in the arts and humanities
- writers who want to advance their skills in research and writing for a broad audience
- writers engaged in biography, autobiography and memoir
- writers and producers of documentary films
- writers of history and narrative non-fictio
- fiction writers
- investigative journalists
Planned Schedule
Welcome 9 - 9.15 am
Director of Oorala Centre, Ms Diane Mumbler
Head of the School of Arts, Professor Jennie Shaw
Convenors
Session 1: 9.15-10.15 am
Professor Jane Goodall, Writing and Society Program UWS, and award-winning author of novels The Walker (2004), The Visitor (2005) and The Calling (2007). Jane is also the author of Stage Presence: The Actor as Mesmerist (2008) and a variety of other scholarly works.
Topic: Opening out the research frame
Conventional critical scholarship requires exact knowledge within a highly specific frame of reference, but sometimes more experimental approaches to commentary and analysis can arise from lateral moves in the reference points. I'll offer some examples of this from my own experience writing for academic publication, or in the form of the literary essay and fiction. Participants will be invited to put forward cases from their own work in which they feel the research frame is in question.
Coffee 10.15-10.30 am
Session 2: 10.30-11.30 am
Dr Leigh Dale, Senior Lecturer UQ, and Editor of Australian Literary Studies. Leigh is also author of The English Men: Professing Literature in Australian Universities (1997, with Alan Lawson, Helen Tiffin and Shane Rowlands), Post-Colonial Literatures in English: General, Theoretical, and Comparative 1970-1993, and a variety of other scholarly works. She co-edited The Body in the Library. She was a judge of the Nita B. Kibble Award for Women’s writing in 2007.
Topic (TBC): Leigh will present a workshop reflecting on her own approach to research and writing, the new directions for Australian Literary Studies and the current climate for fiction and non-fiction in Australia.
Coffee 11.30-11.45 am
Session 3: 11.45am-12.45 pm
Professor Jenny Hocking, Director of Research, School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences, Monash University. Jenny is a well known biographer and highly regarded scholar and commentator on Australian politics, counter-terrorism and security matters. Along with other edited books and many publications in scholarly journals and newspapers, she is also the author of the two award-winning political biographies – Lionel Murphy (1997, 2000) and Frank Hardy (2005). Her most recent political biography is Gough Whitlam (2008).
Topic (TBC): Jenny will speak about research and writing for her recent biography of Gough Whitlam and her earlier biographies of Lionel Murphy and Frank Hardy.
Lunch 12.45-2.00 pm
Sesson 4: 2.00-3.00 pm
Ms Lorina Barker, Associate Lecturer, School of Humanities, and film-maker
Screening of A Shearer’s Life
Seminar: ‘The PhD, the book, the film’
Lorina will speak on her experience of making a documentary about some family members as a part of her doctoral research.
Coffee 3.00-3.30 pm
Sesson 5: 3.30-5.30 pm
Ms Wendy James, award-winning author of Out of the Silence (2005) and The Steele Diaries (2008)
Topic: "Accusations of Autobiography ..."
On being asked to comment on whether his work was autobiographical in nature, the American novelist Wallace Stegner made the following observation on the process of writing fiction: "You break experience up into pieces and you put them back together in different combinations, new combinations, and some are real and some are not, some are documentary and some are imagined.... It takes a pedestrian and literal mind to be worried about which is true and which is not true. It's all of it not true, and it's all of it true." When and why do we define fiction as fiction? Memoir as memoir? And does it really matter? This workshop will examine, through practical writing exercises, the myriad ways in which experience can be transformed by writing. Into fiction - or not. Early registration would be appreciated as related reading will be provided.
Concurrent Session: 3.30-4.30pm
Associate Professor Melanie Oppenheimer, School of Humanities, joined UNE in 2009 after thirteen years at UWS. Her books include Volunteering. Why we can’t live without it (2008); Australian Women and War (2008); Oceans of Love (2006); and All Work. No Pay (2002) that was short-listed for the NSW Premiers’ History Awards in 2003. She produced the radio documentary, Narrelle: Nursing for Empire for the ABC Hindsight Program in 2004. In 2007-8, she created the radio series Vita Activa as part of ABC Radio National's Life Matters program. A third series is scheduled for May/June 2009.
Topic: Writing and Researching for Radio
This session will focus on how academics can engage in the process of researching and writing for radio and the skills required to move from the printed word to the medium of radio. Melanie will outline her experiences of producing a radio documentary as well as the challenges of writing and producing the ongoing series Vita Activa. Both projects stem from her varied research interests.
There will be a Conference Dinner. Time, venue and cost TBA.