Torino, Italy. EACWP 21-24 September 2016

October 4, 2016

I went to Torino [Turin] for the seminar and conference of the European Association of Creative Writing Programs. A delight to be with a range of writers and teachers from several countries, attending sessions then talking and drinking a lot of good wine into the night. I gave two papers at the conference, attended many more as well as some workshops and especially enjoyed the playful yet serious, imaginative and broad-ranging approaches to Creative Writing teaching of the participants, a contrast to the publication-oriented academic approach. After the conference the final day in Turin was spent in an excursion to the nearby Venaria Reale, for a taste of olden splendour, and a Mike McCurry photographic exhibition.

July 5, 2016

New email newsletter will come soon. Soon. Currently traveling
Meanwhile, you can see the first newsletter here
http://createsend.com/t/i-14E5F99B15DAB725
and sign up to receive future editions (they are infrequent) here:
https://confirmsubscription.com/h/i/C93C69C8134D3B4F

“Transcultural Space and the writer” in Humanities journal

May 12, 2016

My essay “Transcultural Space and the writer” has been published in the journal Humanities.

Abstract: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/5/2/28/
HTML Version: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/5/2/28/html
PDF Version: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/5/2/28/pdf
ABSTRACT:
As a long time writer, I always found, even before I began to publish, that my work was difficult to categorise, even while categories seemed essential for publication, reception and visibility. In this personal essay, I apply the notion of the transcultural to a short writing [auto]biography. The methodology adopted for this purpose is a form of autoethnography: “a form of self-reflection and writing that explores the researcher’s personal experience and connects this autobiographical story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings”1 to explore how my immigrant background and transcultural lived experience is reflected in my creative writing, and to give an account of how my literary output has been placed in various but always restrictive pre-existing categories. I am also encouraged by Mikhail Epstein’s proposed “scriptorics”, the study of the one who writes Each section of the essay is divided into two: the first sections provide a succinct version of the issues in a developing writer’s life, framed by the need for the practice and production to “belong” somewhere; the second sections take them to a posited “Transcultural Space” where the work seems more authentically to have originated and in which it seems to be more perceptively read. The result is not so much a conventional academic article as a fiction writer’s reflection on her work in the embrace of an inclusive and meaning-making realm.

New email newsletter for Local Time Publishing

April 12, 2016

I’ve sent out the first of an occasional newsletter about my writing and publishing activities.
Here is a link where you can view the newsletter: http://createsend.com/t/i-14E5F99B15DAB725

CAL support to attend Barcelona conference; Borders and Belonging

January 11, 2016

I am happy to acknowledge a grant from CICF (Creative Individuals Career Fund) of the Copyright Agency (CAL) of Australia (http://copyright.com.au/culturalfund/) which enables me to attend the interdiscipllinary conference called “Go Between, In Between:Borders of Belonging” to be held 18-22 January at the University of Barcelona. I will be on a panel with two other writers … conference site here http://www.ub.edu/dpfilsa/Conference2016/borderstheme.html