Applications close Friday 18 May 2012. For more information, please visit our website <http://www.asauthors.org/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=ASP0016/ccms.r?PageId=10377> .

If you are young, write things, and are living and breathing anywhere in Australia right now, then YOU should be a part of the 2012 National Young Writers’ Festival.

Each Labour Day long weekend, hundreds of emerging and established young writers from around Australia fill Newcastle’s empty spaces to take part in the National Young Writers’ Festival, before limping home with a trillion new brain cells and a mild hangover.

This year, the festival welcomes two new directors to the team: sports writer, poet and Going Down Swinging editor Geoff Lemon, and writer and Penguin Plays Rough curator Pip Smith. Geoff and Pip, together with 2011 veteran co-director Ben Jenkins, are gearing up to curate a programme which will have its punters buzzing with new ideas, stocked up on new skills, and clued in to what’s happening right now in Australia’s writing and publishing communities.

But in order to put together the best festival they possibly can, they need your submissions and ideas.

In addition to the festival’s usual smorgasbord of panels, readings and events, the directors of the 2012 NYWF are going to throw the spotlight on what’s getting Australia’s many writing communities most excited, with the inauguration of four new initiatives:

·      an umbrella event in the streets and windows of Newcastle, showcasing the work of Australia’s most exciting young book designers and the best 300 words from every writer in the festival;

·      a radio stream which will showcase the best of Australia’s storytelling nights, new writing for radio, and aural history projects.

·      a scratch stream where established young writers of poetry, performance and prose will read fresh drafts alongside you reading yours;

·      a full-to-bursting practical stream featuring intimate submissions-based masterclasses run by young writers at the top of their fields, larger open workshops, commissioned collaborative writing projects and a Co-Lab of residency opportunities for writers and interstate artist, musician, or performer collaborators with showings on the final day;
If you have any ideas for events, projects, workshops, or discussions that might support or compliment the above, or if you’d just like to be considered as a participating artist, please fill in our online submission form before March 31 at youngwritersfestival.org, and help make the 2012 National Young Writers’ Festival everything you want it to be.

It’s time for us to build our 2012 team!

We’re looking for comrades to head up our Marketing, Staple Manor (NYWF hub), Volunteers’ and Production teams, and we’re also recruiting for our next Festival Coordinator to steer the good ship NYWF in 2013/14. The new Festival Coordinator will come and work along side Zoe Norton Lodge this year, before taking over the wheel.

If you’d like to know more about the roles above, please write to zoe@youngwritersfestival.org for position descriptions.

All the best,

The 2012 NYWF Team.

Two things:

First of all, we at NYWF are excited to welcome Geoff Lemon and Pip Smith to the team for 2012 and 2013. Geoff and Pip will be our excellent co-directors and we can’t wait to see what  they come up with.

Secondly, submissions are now open for NYWF 2012!

You can fill out the form here, which has all the details, and get it back to us by the 31st of March.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

The NYWF Team.

We have been blown away by the response to our Co-Director call out. Thank you so much to those who have been in touch. We’ll get back to you shortly.

To the rest of you, start thinking about what you might submit for our artists proposal callout in 2012.

Happy Friday,

The NYWF Crew

Best Collaborative Zine – won by ‘Femonsters’ published by SCAR Studios.

Best Zine Series – won by ‘Conversations With Punx’ by Bianca Valentino.

Zinemaker of the Year – won by Bianca Valentino.

Best Zine – won by ‘Bird Habit’ #1 by EJ ‘Filka’ Zyla.

Well done to everyone who participated in this NYWF night of nights and a special congrats to our winners!

The National Young Writer’s Festival is looking for two brand new co-directors to join the team for 2012-13!

If you’ve got your finger on the pulse of the Australian writer’s scene, a burning desire to curate an engaging and inspiring festival, and a near masochistic love of prolonged Skype meetings, then this is the job for you.

Email info@youngwritersfestival.org for a position description.

Sunday Fair will be held in the NCC King St Carpark. Yes that big concrete structure in the heart of Newcastle!! It’s a great space with lots of room to chat, trade ideas and just take in the atmosphere of passionate people who love what they do!!

Level 7 on the roof has fantastic views of the city and will be made into a chill out space to eat yummy food listen to music and check out some performance.

Interested!? If so, send us at least 5 images of your work or a link to your website or blog to:

thisisnotartsundayfair@gmail.com

Typographic art is the place where words and design come together to make sweet love. This exhibition showcases some of Australia’s best young typographers and the way they shape language into form.

Curated by Georgia Perry

Staple Manor
Upstairs from Bagga’s Pharmacy, 178 Hunter Street Mall, Newcastle

View NYWF Venue: Staple Manor in a larger map

View NYWF locations 2011 in a larger map

A twist to an old favourite: student editors choose the most significant and striking covers in their magazine’s or newspaper’s history to create a visual feast of the controversies, rebellions and policy-changing power that student media is renowned for.

Artists Farrago & On Dit & Tharunka

Staple Manor
Upstairs from Bagga’s Pharmacy, 178 Hunter Street Mall, Newcastle

View NYWF Venue: Staple Manor in a larger map

View NYWF locations 2011 in a larger map