“The Festival has hopped into the Year of the Rabbit and there’s a spring in our step and a heightened enthusiasm about this year’s program. Our audiences came in record numbers last October and the interest at this early stage is intense." - Janet de Neefe, Festival Founder and Director
The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival for 2011 will be held from the 5th until the 9th of October this year.
A stellar lineup of more than eighty writers representing the gamut of genres and nationalities will converge on Ubud, in a lavish celebration of literature.Readings, panels, workshops, lunches, debates and performances are all on the very busy program. Held in beautiful Ubud, complete with cafes, temples and a culture all it's own, the Festival will cultivate the glory of the written word, over four magical, unforgettable days.
Participants and program details are tightly guarded at present, but bookmark www.ubudwritersfestival.com for all updates and ticket details.
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!
One of the wonderful things about writing these days is the vast range of styles and opportunities out there for writers. We discussed blogging on our Twitter and Facebook page recently, about whether it's an encouragement or a distraction to finishing that novel, or batch of articles.
We've got some very exciting plans for celebrating blogging that we're still working on, but you can win a Feature Writing Stage 1, or Creative Writing Stage 1 course, either face-to-face or online from a wonderful blog called The Pink Fibro written by Allison Tait.
Allison is celebrating her first year blogoversary, and if you're interested in reading a great blog and entering the competition, click here.
Congratulations to Jenny Wight, one of our Facebook friends who has won our descriptive Facebook Photo competition. We had so many wonderful entries, and it was hard to select just one winner. We loved Jenny's because her description evoked a range of senses, and had a interesting narrative in the description. Jenny has won a $100 voucher to any 5 week course or business writing seminar. Congratulations Jenny!
This was the first of many Facebook competitions, so if you haven't found and liked us yet, we recommend you do! It's also a great place to ask your writing questions and share quality resources.
We want to thank everyone who entered, it was great to see some of the holiday photos, and writing of several gradauates again. You can see their photos and evocative captions here.
Jenny's winning entry:
New Year’s Eve on the Great Ocean Road.
We spent many happy a moment wondering whether the ocean was great or the road. Both, we decided, in the end. We’d spent the afternoon hiding from gusting northerlies that blown us off the beach, coated our sandwiches and filled our lungs with red sand. We headed inland, following a riverside path in a steep wooded valley to the beautiful Mariners Falls. After our dip, The Norwegian and I along with assorted fellow tourists were stunned to silence as the valley rang with a resounding crack and long chaotic crash. One of the mature eucalypts on the peak above, after fighting valiantly with the wind, had bent at the waist, split in two and shot down the slope to join us in the valley floor. It ended its descent with a puff of dust meters away from us. Australia - the lucky country eh? That evening the temperature dropped. On the veranda overlooking Apollo Bay fireworks, we tucked our blankets over our knees, toasted the New Year and our lucky escape with Australian's first Prosecco and strawberries. Perfect. By Jenny Wight
