Sydney Writers' Centre blog

Visible Ink 2011 now open and calling for short stories and poems

Visible Ink 2011 is a great publication opportunity for writers, as an unthemed journal with no restrictions on content or genre. So if you have a short story or poem that you would like to see published, make sure you submit it to the team at Visible Ink by 6 July 2011.

All submissions must be original, unpublished works that have not won any other competitions or prizes. Short stories must be under 2500 words, and poetry must be under 50 lines.

They also publish images in their journal. For more info and to submit your work, head to their website.

Meanland Blogging Competition open

The Meanland Project (online blog for the Meanjin and Overland Journals) is holding a competition to find two bloggers to write fortnightly for the Meanland Project.

The winners will receive a one-off prize of $200, and be paid $75 per week to blog and tweet. One runner-up will receive $100 and have their entry published online.

Meanland, ‘reading in a time of change’, is dedicated to looking at the ‘what’ and increasingly the ‘how’ of the digital revolution and its impact on publishing. They've included topics such as the collapse of the distinction between readers and writers as more people become involved in creating content; the cultural and political impact of the unparalleled monopolies emerging in the digital landscape; and the psychological consequences of reading and writing online.

Deadline: 5pm 16 May.
Word limit:1000 words.

Head to the Meanland website for more details on topics and entry guidelines here.

 

Finalists announced in Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition

The finalists in the Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition were announced by the Sydney Writers’ Centre today.
 
23 bloggers have made it to the finalists round of the hotly contested competition. Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition Coordinator Rose Powell said: “We were very impressed by the quality and quantity of the entries. It’s been difficult to short list the finalists so I’m sure the judges are going to have a tough job to pick each category winner.”

You can view the full list below or on the official announcement page.

With 570 blogs in the running, winners will come from four categories:
    •    Business – judged by Joel Norton, boosthq.com.au
    •    Commentary – judged by Valerie Khoo, director of sydneywriterscentre.com.au
    •    Lifestyle/personal – judged by Brenda Gaddi, www.mummy-time.com
    •    Words/writing – judged by Angela Meyer, blogs.crikey.com.au/literaryminded
 
In addition, bloggers could also choose to participate in the Best Australian Blogs People’s Choice Awards. Voting for this Award continues until Thursday 5 May. Already, the first 5 days of voting has seen almost 8000 unique votes with more streaming in each hour.
 
The on Friday 6 May, the Sydney Writers’ Centre will announce:
    •    the four category winners
    •    the winner of the People’s Choice Awards
    •    the overall winner who will be announced as Best Australian Blog 2011
 
“It’s been such a popular competition which really shows how much interest and activity there is in blogging,” said Rose. “We’ve also seen a huge range of blog topics from fashion and parenthood to politics, religion and urban planning.”
 
Winners of each category and the People’s Choice Awards each receive $1000 worth of prizes from the Sydney Writers’ Centre our of a prize pool of $7500.
 
FINALISTS IN THE BEST AUSTRALIAN BLOGS COMPETITION
 
Business Category:
    •    Global Copywriting by Sarah Mitchell: www.globalcopywriting.com/blog
    •    Her Business by Suzi Dafnis on behalf of Australian Business Women’s Network: http://blog.abn.org.au/
    •    Kite Power by Jo Hegerty: kitepowerqld.com.au
    •    PR Warrior by Trevor Young: prwarrior.typepad.com
    •    Styling You by Nikki Parkinson: www.stylingyou.com.au
 
Personal/Lifestyle Category:
    •    All Consuming by Kim Berry: www.allconsuming.com.au
    •    Bike Exif - Chris Hunter - www.bikeexif.com
    •    Gora!Gora!Gora! - Jason Staines - www.gora-gora-gora.com
    •    Not Drowning, Mothering  - The NDM  - www.notdrowning.wordpress.com
    •    Not quite Nigella - Lorraine Elliot  - www.notquitenigella.com
    •    Miscellaneous mum - Karen Andrews - www.miscmum.com
    •    Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum- Lori Dwyer - www.rrsahm.com
    •    Tune into Radio Carly - Carly Findlay - www.carlyfindlay.blogspot.com
 
Words Category:
    •    Bothersome Words by Abigail Nathan: www.bothersomewords.com/blog/
    •    Call My Agent! by Agent Sydney (anonymous): www.callmyagent.blogspot.com
    •    Creative Penn by Joanna Penn: www.thecreativepenn.com
    •    Graham Storrs by Graham Storrs: grahamstorrs.cantalibre.com
    •    Musings of a Literary Dilettante by John Boland: www.musingsofaliterarydilettante.wordpress.com
 
Commentary Category:
    •    Darcy Moore by Darcy Moore: www.darcymoore.net
    •    The Failed estate by Bob Denmore: www.thefailedestate.blogspot.com
    •    The Skeptic Lawyer by Katy Barnett and co: skepticlawyer.com.au
    •    News with Nipples by Kim Powell: www.newswithnipples.com
            (No relation to Rose Powell, who is coordinating the competition.)
    •    MolksTVTalk by Steve Molks: www.molkstvtalk.com

Honourable mentions
As there were so many excellent blogs entered in this competition, we have included Honourable Mentions for blogs who just missed out on being Finalists but are worthy of being recognised for quality blogging. These are listed on the Best Australian Blogs website. www.bestaustralianblogs.com.au
 

Eastwood Hills FAW Literary Competition

While this isn't a big competition, sometimes all you need is a deadline and a goal to force you to keep writing through those awkward patches where you feel stuck. The Eastwood Hills Fellowship of Australian Writers is open for submissions for their Literary Competition until the 31st of May.

You can enter your work in following categories:

Short Story – Max 3,000 words 1st $200, 2nd $100
Free Verse Poetry – Max 80 lines per poem 1st $150, 2nd $50
Traditional Poetry – Max 80 lines per poem 1st $150, 2nd $50
Memoir – Max 1,500 words 1st $150, 2nd $50
Pauline Walsh Award for  Short Story – Max 800 words 1st $100, 2nd $50

Head to their website for more details and to submit your work here. 

Boree Log Award for Bush Verse competition

Are you a poet or a bush verse writer, or do you know one? Then you'll probably want to enter the Eastwood Hills Fellowship of Australian Writers'  Boree Log Award for Bush Verse competition.

Australian Bush Poetry or Verse is defined by the Australian Bush Poets Association as "poetry having good rhyme and meter, written about Australia, Australians and the Australian way of life."

So if you want to submit a traditional rhyming bush verse (80 lines maximum) for your chance to $100 and a trophy, as well as connecting with community of like-minded poets, then head over to the Eastwood Hills Fellowship of Australian Writers' to enter here.

Text Publishing is looking for outstanding kids/YA manuscripts

The Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing is an annual prize awarded to an outstanding unpublished manuscript. It aims to discover more wonderful new books for young readers, by Australian and New Zealand writers. The winner will receive a publishing contract with Text and a $10,000 advance against royalties.

The Publisher at Text, Michael Heyward, hopes this award “will unearth some brilliant new writing for young readers, which we can take to the world as we have done for many adult writers on our list”.

Both published and unpublished writers of all ages are eligible to enter with works of fiction or non-fiction. Judged by a panel of editors from Text Publishing, the winner will be announced at the Australian Booksellers Association Conference to be held in Melbourne on 24–25 July 2011.

The 2011 entry form is available now to download here. Submissions will openon 2 May and close on 3 June 2011. To find out more about Text, have a look at their website.

Outstanding travel writing mentorship opportunity, and a trip to Turkey!

If you've got itchy feet and twitchy hands and you're ready to be a travel writer, then this competition may be the best possible catalyst around.

The Rough Guide travel book is offering a month long trip to Turkey for an aspiring travel writer, to be mentored by Terry Richardson who writes the Rough Guide books. You'll even be tasked with your own assignment in Turkey, for publication in the next Rough Guide to Istanbul.

To enter you need to submit a 500 word travel essay on one of the nominated topics and tell the team behind Rough Guides why you should be awarded the scholarship.

It looks awesome - and a few of the team here are also considering entering. So get to it!

What's new at the Sydney Writers' Centre

2010 was a huge year for us, and 2011 is set to be even bigger. So much so that we've decided to do regular video updates to keep everyone informed about the new opportunities to hone your writing skills, jump right into the Australian writing community and win stuff!

 

If you've got ideas about what you would like to see at the centre, give us a call on (02) 9929 0088 or email us at courses [at] spindriftmedia.com.au

We've launched our February Facebook Photo Competition!

As many of you know, we ran a Facebook Photo competition in January. You can read more about the competition and the winner of the $100 voucher here.The Facebook Photo competition for this month has been uploaded to Facebook, so if you haven't "liked" us yet head over straight away and get involved. 

The competition:

Writing can be a lonely activity. Less so when you know that there are hundreds of other writers hunkered over a laptop or notebook somewhere battling with words too.  Post a photo of where you write and your favourite writing tip (maximum 100 words) to our Facebook Page, or email your entry to courses [at] spindriftmedia.com.au. The best entry as voted by the Sydney Writers’ Centre team wins a $100 voucher towards a Sydney Writers’ Centre online or face-to-face 5-week course or one-day business seminar. Competition closes at 5pm on the 25th of February, 2011.

We're looking forward to seeing where our members of our community get their writing done, and all the tips they'll share.

Win $5000 in a short story competition by Country Style Magazine

We were very excited to discover that Country Style Magazine is running a short story competition in February and March this year. Many of you will remember the Women's Weekly short story competition, and how exciting it was to see a major Australian magazine encouraging creative writing.

We can't give the full details away here, because you'll need to buy the February issue of the magazine (pictured above) to get all the critical details but we strongly recommend you use this opportunity as the incentive to sit down, and write a short story. They do have a theme, but it's a very flexible one. Oh, and first prize is $5000.

Submissions close on the 30th of March - so get writing!