Logo of a person's face with hair that reads the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction

The Body Remembers on Lip Mag

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‪My short story The Body Remembers is now available to read online a Lip Mag, along with a Q&A. This story placed second in the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction!

***Read the story and Q&A here**

(Best viewed landscape on your phone or on a computer.)‬

Here’s a little example of the Q&A:

What does this year’s theme, ‘fragments’ mean to you?
In The Body Remembers this theme is reflected in the fragmentation of memory and how those memories are recaptured and reclaimed by the body: the fractured self as snippets of recollection and body-memory.

And an example of the story itself:

Your words are spliced and springing half-form from your slim-line mouth: Pink gutters. Clogged walls. Lichen lichen blanket. We don’t have the cruelty to wake you and tell you the house on Pearl St no longer exists, pink-painted walls knocked down in the ’90s to make space for a high rise. It’s okay, we chitter like a chorus of budgerigars. We pull the stiff standard-issue blanket up to your neck; tuck it neatly behind your shoulder bones. It’s okay.

Colour image of animals swimming through coloured smoke, with the text: A Celebration of Poetry, People and Cultures. Deep Listening QPF2019

Queensland Poetry Festival 2019

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The incredible Queensland Poetry Festival program ‘Deep Listening’ has been launched! I’ll be part of two awesome events this year:‬

‪☀️ Reading Queensland with Liam Ferney, Shastra Deo and Angela Gardner. We’ll be reading from, listening to and enquiring about each other’s work in a friendly and insightful in-conversation. 

‪🎭 Cirquetry – a collaborative work between award-winning local poets and Vulcana circus artists, directed by Celia White and conceived by Chloe Callistemon.

** Check out the full program on the QPF website **

Colour image of animals swimming through coloured smoke, with the text: A Celebration of Poetry, People and Cultures. Deep Listening QPF2019

A photo of a visual poem incorporating shells, polaroid photos and white sticker labels on a rainbow tie-dye background. The text of the poem reads: 'clear skies' for M seashells picked & palmed swelling lips sunkissed like glinting waves i cup conch between fingers & drink you in today we are sunbeams

New visual poems

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Last month I had two new visual poems published! I’ve been exploring what poetry means to me and how I can best express that, including playing with other art forms and pushing my own boundaries.

I was so proud to have my blackout poem ‘flourish, viola’ published at Honey & Lime Lit.

And my visual poem ‘clear skies’, which incorporates seashells, polaroid photos and printed labels, appeared in Baby Teeth Journal.

Logo of a person's face with hair that reads the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction

My story placed second in the 2019 Rachel Funari Prize!

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Last week I won my very first fiction prize! My short story, The Body Remembers, placed second in the 2019 Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction!!!

Big congratulations to the winner of the Prize Jane O’Sullivan for her story Limpet Teeth and to Emily Dang for How to Cook Pho, which placed third. And a huge thank you to the judges Alison Evans, Danielle Binks and Melanie Joosten.

You can read more about the prize at Lip Mag.

The Body Remembers follows the close relationship between a non-binary protagonist and his grandparent with Alzheimer’s disease. The story employ poetic devices while exploring themes of family, transition, and memory (of both the mind and the body).

The winning stories and author Q&As will be published at Lip Mag in the coming weeks!

Review of Milk Teeth in Cordite

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Adam Ford reviewed Milk Teeth and Anders Villani’s Aril Wire in Cordite!

** You can read the full review here **

I could honestly quote the whole piece, but here’s one of the most striking paragraphs re: what I’m trying to achieve in my work:

But while gender identity is at the fore of some poems, White also challenges the potential assumption that a non-binary activist poet can or should only write about their activism. This point is successfully made by poems like ‘Plants my exes gave me’ and ‘Enraptured’, which depict experiences like gardening and falling in love that are common to all humans. In doing so White validates and celebrates the continuum of gender with other modes of experience, and hopefully educates those who believe they can only experience non-binary life vicariously.

And my absolute favourite lines:

There’s an appealing messiness, a futz and clutter, a chaos to the world White writes … Milk Teeth is an eclectic mixtape of a book, a stellar debut exhibiting equal parts ‘fuck that noise’ and a visceral love of life.

Thank you Adam and Cordite for such an insightful and eloquent review!

Milk Teeth commended in the Anne Elder Award!

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This week Milk Teeth was commended in the 2018 Anne Elder Award! Winner of the award was the fabulous Eunice Andrada for her book Flood Damages. Many big congrats to this wonderful writer! My book was commended for the award alongside fellow poets: Maryam Azam – The Hijab Files; Marjon Mossammaparast – That Sight; and Lindsay Tuggle – Calenture. Thanks to his year’s judges: Gig Ryan, Des Cowley and Bonny Cassidy. For more info about the award, visit the Australian Poetry website.

This week I got my very first YouTube review of Milk Teeth from Six Minutes For Me as part of #AussieApril! In this video Jaclyn also reviewed Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton. You can check out the video here.

Photo by Josefin on Unsplash.

Sydney and Newcastle events

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I’m really looking forward to heading to Sydney and Newcastle next week for some poetry readings and a workshop! If you want to come along, here’s all the details:

I’ll have books available to buy at all these events, so please say hi to me and get a signed copy of Milk Teeth 🙂 (eftpos and cash payments are both fine!)

Photo by Marion Michele on Unsplash.