In the spirit of providing an encouraging and useful site for writers, Waxings is branching out into literary journalism.

We do not pretend to have the resources to be a comprehensive news service, but Waxings will make the occasional foray into writers festivals, author interviews and any other areas we deem interesting to those with a fondness for words.

Waxings’ focus will be on the needs and interests of our subscribers so our articles will not reflect standard news style. We’re just friends passing on useful tidbits about writing as we come across them.

Our first such undertaking will be coverage of the Perth Writers Festival (see below). If you are attending a writers festival in your part of the world and are willing to send us a few words about what’s happening, or if you come across any useful advice or intelligence in any forum, please contact us at waxings.blog@gmail.com , we’d love to hear from you.

***

Perth’s Festival of Words

The 2011 Perth Writers Festival program was officially launched this week and it looks awesome.

The festival will run from March 4 to 7. Offerings include face time with international drawcards such as Annie Proulx (The Shipping News), Armistead Maupin  (Tales of the City), Anjali Joseph (Saraswati Park), Raimond Gaita (Romulus, My Father and Gaza), Man Asian Literary Prize winner Miguel Syjuco (Illustrado) , Man Booker nominees Damon Galgut (In a Strange Room) and Andrew O’Hagan (Our Fathers, Personality)Joanne Harris (chocolat), British poet and novelist Simon Armitage (Kid, Book of Matches, The Dead Sea Poems) and Jeff Lindsay (Dexter).

The importance of words to democracy will be examined in sessions with Chinese author Yan Lianke, British writer and film-maker Tariq Ali (Clash of Fundamentalisms, Bush in Babylon, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Duel), former Supreme Court judge Ken Crispin, political writer John Keane, journalist and author Antony Loewenstein, and Raimond Gaita.

And the Australian ‘voice’ and landscape features in sessions with poet Les Murray, Margo Lanagan, Anthony Eaton, Will Elliott, Kim Scott, Ron Elliott, Roger McDonald, Victoria Laurie and Ian Lowe.  

The workshop series offers something for every writer – or everything for one, intellectually greedy, writer (ahem).  Session topics include: ‘show not tell’, building fantasy worlds, working through writing obstacles, screenwriting, crime writing, ‘getting out of your own way’, writing for children, memoir writing, Jane Austen’s techniques, creating villains, writing your own life story and researching in the State Library. 

For those interested in getting published, Melanie Ostell from UWA Publishing will provide marketplace insights, submission tips and individualised feedback on manuscripts. A separate day-long seminar tackles ‘The A-Z of Getting Published’, with input from Random House Publisher Meredith Curnow, Text publishing senior editor Mandy Brett, UWA Publishing director Terri-ann White and agent Lyn Tranter.

There’s a Family Day, a Feast of Words and much more. Waxings will try to bring you as much news and writing advice as we can from the festival. We can’t wait!

*Congratulations to Jacqueline Wright, winner of the 2010 T.A.G. Hungerford Award for her manuscript, The Telling. The award was announced at the PWF launch and followed by an evocative reading from The Telling which revealed clear, powerful writing and a voice that is authentic to Australia’s north-west. Jacqueline receives a $12,000 cash prize from writingWA and New Edition bookshop and her manuscript will be published by Fremantle Press.