Get out your pens, pencils, paper or typewriters, computers or laptops, it is time to enter the Estelle Pinney Short Story Competition which closes on July 31st, 2019.
For more details and to print out the details of the competition click on the link below.
What a great meeting with Karen Tyrrell giving us so many ideas about marketing our books!! So much information which is of great value to our members. Thank you Karen, and lovely to meet Steve too.
Women Writers at the March Meeting
Karen is very busy these days promoting her books, doing workshops, and presenting at Writers Festivals.
Indrani Ganguly also introduced us to her new book, The Rose and the Thorn. For more information click here.
Keep up to date with Karen via her website here.
Also at the meeting, the next Estelle Pinney Writing Competition was announced. This competition is open to Australian women writers – and .the entry form can be found here – Estelle Pinney Short Story Comp
The closing date for the competition is July 31st. So get your computers out and get working. Don’t forget to read all the rules.
Do you start the new year with some goals? We used to call them “resolutions” but that terminology is fading. I am sure many of us start the new year with some key things to achieve. Writers do! Perhaps it is to write more words each week or day. Perhaps it is to finish that story languishing somewhere in your computer or note pad. Maybe to enter some competitions this year. One a month? Or if you’ve never done that, put your toe into the water for a competition or two.
Do you know who this is? Is it a man or a woman? OK, before you go to Google to check, I have already done so. Steven King is reputed to write 2000 words a day! But no, it’s not him.
Surprisingly, or not surprisingly I guess, women have done well in the list of most prolific writers. The number one on the list is Corin Tellardo, reputed to have written over 4000 published works. Enid Blyton was also up there in the top 20, with 762, just a few more than Barbara Cartland.
I can’t find a list of Australia’s most prolific writers on Google, but it does have a list of the Top Australian Writers.
(And there’s more to read here.)
Have you read any of them? All of them? So there’s a goal for 2019 – to see what top Australian writers have written.
One very interesting article in Wikipedia is this one about Australian Literature. We certainly have some wonderful writers in this country.
I wonder if any of our members will find themselves in the best seller list this year. Next year?
‘Always keep a pole handy.’ This from Marj Wilke, a woman who is to the Society of Women Writers of Queensland what Alan McGilvray was to cricket. ‘A light one,’ she adds, ‘but long enough to hang onto when you’re up a ladder.’ It turns out that grasping said pole secures one’s balance when inspecting a light bulb or washing the ceiling. Marj is one of the Society’s great treasures, and the pole advice is one of her many pearls of wisdom. Here’s another: ‘Throw your shoulders back when you walk, that’s the way to amble; you can go all day like that.’ Marj has a chest full of these gems.
Marjorie Wilke joined the Society of Women Writers Australia in 1977, when Queensland was a ‘magazine branch’ attached to the parent body, founded in NSW in 1925. The magazine had been established the year before with Bridget Godbold as coordinator. Marj and husband Gus had a farm in Gayndah, and between milking and childcare, Marj conducted writing classes in Mundubbera. When the family moved to Brisbane in 1981, she placed a notice in the paper calling for interest in forming a Queensland branch of Women Writers. National President Kathryn Purnell came to the inaugural meeting in Marj’s home, and SWWQ was formed. Mocco Wollert was President of the first executive (1982-84) and Marj was Vice President. Other founding members include Shirley Lawrence and Jill Slack. Marj was President 1984-86, Vice President 1986-88, and President again 1995-97. She was Magazine Coordinator from 1979 to 1985, during which time the original Morialta membership expanded and was divided into three magazines. Early meetings were held in various venues including St Andrew’s Church in Ann Street.
The federal executive of Women Writers moved from state to state every two years, and conferences were held biennially in that state’s capital until the federal body disbanded in 2000. Having attended her first conference in 1978, Marj went to the Adelaide conference in 1982 with Jill and Mocco, representing the newly-formed Queensland branch. Mocco remembers the Queensland contingent smuggling cartons of wine into the CWA, where they were staying, and Adelaide women admiring their tans. Marj came in as Federal President in 1988, and the Queensland conference was held at the Banyo Seminary.
In the 1980s, the Fellowship of Australian Writers of Queensland began lobbying for a state writers centre, and SWWQ representative Marj Wilke was present at the first meeting of the official steering committee in October 1988. A membership fee of $10 was established and Marj, as newly-appointed Treasurer, put in the first $10. She opened the brand new receipt book and wrote her name on receipt No. 01, going down in history as the person to officially ‘start’ the Queensland Writers Centre. SWWQ member Adele Moy was also on committee in her role as Arts Queensland’s Literature Advisor. Adele notes that a press photograph taken around this time includes SWWQ members Betty Birksys and Joan Priest, indicating the important and vital role the Society played in the establishment of an organisation that has gone on to support thousands of members and establish countless Queensland writers.
Marj’s WritingMarj’s writing includes a hand-bound historical novel called Firehand and the Callum Thomas series. Members grew attached to the great-nephew at the heart of the latter, and Callum’s death during the 2016 Bribie Island retreat was a blow to all. But writing has taken a back seat in recent years. Marj has four grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren, and each receives a hand-knitted heirloom quilt that can weigh up to three kilos. The family estimates that Marj has produced enough knitting to cover a tennis court. Now working on her 39th quilt, she reckons that three great-grandchildren arriving in one year was a bit rich: ‘I wonder why I’m not writing.’
As a writer, Marj is well connected, counting Banjo Paterson and Barbara Blackman among her rellies, but when pressed for a short introduction at a recent SWWQ meeting, she said this: ‘When the worst thing possible happens when you’re little, you can put up with anything.’ Another pearl. Marj was eight when her mother died as a result of airborne kapok in the furniture factory where she worked as an apprentice upholsterer. Marj and her sisters then worked like slaves on a property in Millmerran that was ruled by the one-legged Aunty Flo who features in many of Marj’s tales. This childhood shaped, but did not embitter, a woman who, if I had to sum her up in one word, is ‘unflappable’. At SWWQ, Marj has seen presidents come and go, plans fly and fail, and logos and names for newsletters pop up and disappear. These days she rarely bats an eyelid.
Looking back over 40 years of membership, Marj cherishes the lifelong friendships she has made. Mocco Wollert, Jill Slack and Shirley Lawrence are still SWWQ members. Jill writes, ‘I have known and loved [Marj] since she drew me into the magazine membership in, I think, 1981. She has always had an amazing nothing-is-impossible attitude.’ Marj counts as other highlights the Bribie Island retreats and the Society’s numerous publications, and she looks forward to a member one day winning the coveted Alice Award. Marj is a life member of SWWQ and it is fitting that 2017 saw the Society’s annual writing prizes renamed the Marj Wilke Awards.
Born in 1930, Marj is an exponent of what might be called ‘old wisdom’ but in many ways she’s ahead of her time. She chose to give up her car over a decade ago. She is never without a hat out of doors and is a great exponent of the petticoat: ‘You’ll never leave the Ladies with your skirt caught in the back of your undies…’ I witnessed another benefit of this garment after the final meeting for 2017, when Marj stopped abruptly as we entered the foyer. Her skirt was around her ankles. The waistband elastic had suddenly called it quits. Having revealed nothing, Marj whipped the skirt up and tucked the top into her underwear. She shot me a knowing sideways smile that said, ‘petticoat,’ and ambled on.
One day during the drought of the 1960s, Marj said to Gus, ‘If I’ve got to dairy til the day I die, I want to die tomorrow.’ Gus opened the gates and let the calves out. Marj’s dairying days were over. ‘You never know when you do anything for the last time, do you?’ Another pearl from Marj Wilke.
Some early players Helen Horton, Katherine Davis, Adele Moy, Betty Birskys, Joan Priest, Mike Ahern (then Premier) Nick Earls, Barbara Lilek, Donna Greaves, Marjorie Wilke, Craig Munro, Gerry Stiller
***
Thanks to Marj Wilke, Trudy Graham, Adele Moy, Mocco Wollert and Jill Slack for their help with this history.
This is for members – we have asked members who attended the last meeting and Bribie Island Retreat to complete this form, and give us feedback or ideas.
If you could complete the form, and send it to secretary@womenwritersqld.org.au, it would be much appreciated. You should be able to click on the link below and fill it in and email it. We hope.
My journey with writing began with reading. I had always felt comfortable with words and language and read voraciously from a very young age, working my way through most of the classics before I was a teenager.
In my mid-teens, I knew I wanted to be a writer. If you are young and have decided the same, I urge you to begin right now. Don’t, like me, find all the reasons why you can’t. I had reasons – left school at fifteen, married, had children, and had a ‘real job’ – but no excuse. To satisfy the writing urge, I kept extensive journals and wrote long letters to family members throughout the next 30 years.
My children were grown and living their lives when I returned to my dream of ‘becoming a writer’. I also began a Bachelor or Arts degree in English Studies, with a minor in Writing.
For the next ten years, I thought of myself as an ‘aspiring writer’ and wondered when I would become one. I wrote and sent my stories out into the world, but more of my work was returned to me than was published, so I didn’t feel I had made it yet.
I became involved in the writing world in other ways, joining committees for writing groups such as the Fellowship of Australian Writers and the Society of Women Writers. I was the State Literature Officer for Perth for a three-month period and was also instrumental in establishing the Peter Cowan Writers Centre on the Joondalup campus of Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. I mixed with writers of all genres, some famous some not. I wrote book reviews for a West Australian publication and had a literary competition named after me. I published more work, compiled and edited newsletters, set up a niche publishing press with three writer friends, and yet still did not feel that I could honestly call myself a writer.
One day, I asked myself who I was writing for and realised that everything I ever wrote was for myself. I didn’t have to care what anyone else thought. I didn’t have to be famous. I had every right to call myself a writer, so that’s what I began to do.
You don’t have to dream of being a writer; you can be one right now. How? Call yourself a writer and just do it. Just write.
Wouldn’t it be good to even be on the shortlist for the prestigious award – Prime Minister’s Literary Awards!
Entries to the 2017 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards are now open. The 2017 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards mark 10 years of celebrating great Australian literature. Here are the details from the website. Entries close on Friday, June 2nd.
The 2017 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards are open for entries to Australian authors, poets, illustrators and historians for books published between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2016.
Journals, magazines, websites, documentaries and other screen formats can be entered in the Australian history category.
The winner of each category—fiction, non-fiction, Australian history, poetry, young adult fiction and children’s fiction—is awarded $80,000 tax free. Shortlisted entries each awarded $5000 tax free.
Entries are sought each year for books of high literary merit, and in the case of the Prize for Australian History, scholarly accomplishment.
The book must be professionally edited and published. Digital books will be accepted only if they are also available in printed (bound) form.
You must be a citizen or permanent resident of Australia to enter the Awards. Non-book entries to the Australian history prize must be made by a registered Australian company.
All entrants are required to read the 2017 Guidelines below.
Entries for the 2017 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards close on Friday, 2 June 2017.
On Wickham Terrace, in what used to be the specialist medical precinct of Brisbane, stands the historic Inchcolm building. These days there are medical practices in the precinct, but other businesses have replaces some of the older businesses.
I remember going to my medical specialist way back in 1974. I remember the building and especially the old lift – with its metal gate that one had to open to enter the lift, and close to enable to ancient lift to move to your destination.
In 1880 when it was originally built it was the private residence of Dr John Thomson. As well it was a medical practice. Around 1910 – 20 it was a private hospital. In 1925 the premises was purchased by the Wharf Street Congregational Church. They planned to build a church on the site. However, hey sold the property in 1929.
Part of the site was purchased by Inchcolm Ltd a group of medical practice and the other part was purchased by a group of medical practitioners and became Lister House.
Incholm became a hotel in 1998 and was renovated in 1914. I had no idea that it had become a hotel until recently- I still see it in my mind as the building of medical practitioners.
It is now Inchcolm Hotel and Suites. I visited this building a week ago, as the SWWQ is looking for a venue for an event in July. Several of the committee members visited to see what it was like – and we fell in love with it. The decor is wonderful and the 1920’s type music in the background helps create a great atmosphere.
Read about the history of Inchcolm here.
In the Function Room
Our ‘Let’s Talk About Alice’ panel began with words from M.K. Hume’s King Arthur: Dragon’s Child. “Now, in the twenty-first century, Karl Marx’s grave in a London cemetery is no longer a rallying cry to the poisoned idea that the end justifies the means…’
Lauren Elise Daniels at Brisbane Square Library November 26th, 2016
Marilyn Hume, Kristina Olsson and Shelley Davidow, all three mothers, teachers and acclaimed authors, were introduced through the polished diamonds of their words. On Saturday, 26 November 2016 at the Brisbane City Square Library, the ‘Let’s Talk about Alice’ panel discussion on women’s voices and gender-specific awards launched with stellar prose.
Kris Olsson’s excerpt from her multi-awarded family memoir, Boy, Lost illustrated writing as profession: ‘I worked to an uninterrupted rhythm…as I trawled through the notebooks and drafts in the warm salt air, I found this: I’d like to think the pain meant something…That pain is a crucible. That it is something that merely wants to be understood.’
Shelley Davidow’s memoir, The Eye of the Moon, exemplified the role of woman writer: ‘…I read Middlemarch, Lolita, and a hundred others, and found my secret reiterated in numerous versions. It was then that I became aware of something far larger than my individual life, some truth that played itself out again, and again, mercilessly through the ages. I live with the knowledge that this story will quite certainly be told again.’
As the discussion commenced, common ground between authors emerged. These are brave women whose writing explores complex societal taboos, violence and cross-generational grief and displacement along sweeping historical, emotional and geographical terrain. The denouement of their life’s work comes to rest in its endurance; in its tremendous strength and hope for the future.
Our panel explored how women write more books than men but are still underrepresented in literary circles; how women are considered ‘domestic writers’ and ‘uninteresting’; a confounding conclusion when these stories of warring battalions, cultural exorcisms and global migrations are actually read. We discussed how we intend to break the cycle of training both men and women to look only to male voices. Recognition, collaboration and community for emerging and established women writers, as we discussed, are the pillars which lift our voices from obscurity.
As Clarissa Pinkola Estés wrote on social media in the wake of the US election: ‘We were made for these times.’
Our panel exemplified this faith with authors who shared their wisdom with the greatest of generosity and compassion.
Let’s do it again sometime.
‘Only greatness of heart lasts…’
More photos from “Let’s Talk about Alice”
The Alice Literary Award was the inspiration for a presentation at The End Room of the Brisbane Square Library. While a little late starting, the panel session was most interesting. Laurel Daniels set the tone with readings from the works of each of the panel members, followed by a details ‘bio’ of their achievements. As well, she presented statistics on the low recognition of women writers in a range of awards.
Laurel’s presentation was delightful and enlightening as she managed the three speakers giving them ample time to deliver their stories and thoughts on the value of female specific writing awards.
Interestingly Marilyn explained that because she wrote about the violence of the days of the mythical King Arthur, she has had negative comments, suggesting that it was unsavoury for a woman to write such material. Her work was not acceptable by Australian publishers, and so all her work has been published in the UK. Despite being well recognised for her many works in the UK, her work has not once been reviewed in Australia. Can we change that?
The Courier Mail did this article about her in 2013. Click here. http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/brisbane-mk-hume-writer-revisits-camelot/story-fnihsrf2-1226660567011
