UWS Young Writers' Day Workshops

Student workshops at the UWS Young Writers' Day include:

Writing the News – Barbara Alysen, has worked in commercial and public radio and television in Canberra and Sydney, as a reporter and producer. She is a senior lecturer in Journalism at UWS and is a co-winner of a Carrick Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning. Her workshop will show students how to write the news and influence people.

Wild Writing: adventures in fiction – Jesse Blackadder is an accomplished novelist and has been a writer in residence in Alaska, Antarctica, outback NSW and Byron Bay. This workshop will tap into students' passion and excitement for writing, work through their fears and blocks, and cut to the heart of writing from a deep and creative place.

Fictional Beings – Bernard Cohen, the founder of 'The Writing Workshop' and award-winning author of four novels and a children's picture book, will run a workshop on developing effective characterisation and narrative voice.

Writing for Performance: from idea to script – Jan Cornall began her performance career as an actor, becoming writer in residence at The Pram Factory in Melbourne in 1979. Awarded numerous grants and fellowships, her written works include plays, musicals, a feature film script, a novel and three CDs of songs. Jan has taught creative writing at UWS and UTS, writers' centres and community colleges and leads annual writers' retreats in the Asia Pacific. In this workshop students will learn how to use a central image/idea to create the foundation for a short dramatic script.

Spinning a Story – Jen Craig is the author of Since the Accident (a novel) and short stories that have appeared in publications such as HEAT, Redoubt, Hermes and Southerly, as well as Shrieks, an anthology of women's Horror stories. She is a PhD candidate at the UWS Writing and Society Research Centre and also teaches writing at the UTS. This workshop will teach students how a short story, and even a novel, might be spun from a single, charged but puzzling incident.

Poetry and Things – Tom Lee, who writes poetry and fiction, has just submitted his doctoral thesis through the UWS Writing and Society Research Group. Tom will show students how our capacity to reason, argue, and make sense of the world, are informed by imagination and metaphor, and that consequently, writing poetry is a good way to enliven and fortify thought.

Persuasion and Advocacy – Emily Maguire, the author of three novels and two non-fiction books, and a 2010 Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year, will teach students the skills of writing to change minds, defend ideas and incite action.

Process and the Poem – Kate Middleton is the author of Fire Season (Giramondo, 2009) and was awarded the Western Australian Premier's Award for Poetry in 2009. She is currently undertaking a Doctorate of Creative Arts at UWS. Kate's workshop will discuss the putting together of a poem, tackling first ideas and the process of revision.

Experiments in Writing: games and play – Dr Rachel Morley lectures in Communications and Creative Writing in the UWS School of Humanities and Communication Arts. She teaches across a range of subject areas including autobiographical and biographical writing, experimentation in poetry and fiction, creative non-fiction, and creative process and reflection. Her workshop will introduce participants to a series of experimental writing techniques that will seek to stimulate new and unusual approaches to starting and developing a creative work.

Write Where You Are From: creating worlds in fiction and non-fiction – Vivienne Stanton is a writer and journalist who specialises in writing about travel and other cultures and has worked for newspapers and magazines, most recently in Latin America where she was a contributor to publications such as National Geographic Traveller, Esquire, Marie Claire. She is currently working on a novel set in Latin America, as part of a UWS Doctorate of Creative Arts. This workshop will show students how to draw on place – from the familiar to the far away – to create writing that's alive with colour and meaning, through tapping into their own unique view of the world.

What If, Not What Is? Turning real life into powerful fiction – Catherine Therese has worked extensively within the arts as an award-winning designer, educator and writer. She is also a prized public speaker and has presented nationally and internationally at literary and arts events, writers' festivals and radio programs. Her workshop will explore the processes and techniques involved in taking fictional inspirations from the real world to create high-impact fiction.