Print and play versions of Architype, the dwelling-inspired poetry game I made with Ray Cox, is now available to purchase in 3 cool places! #ArchitypeGame
Author: Rae White
I'm a non-binary poet, writer and zinester living in Brisbane. My poetry collection Milk Teeth won the 2017 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and is published by the University of Queensland Press.
Recently published work and award nomination!
I’m honoured to be nominated for a Trans Community Award in Brisbane!
MX 2019 Award:
This award recognizes being seen within the community, being approachable and raising awareness of the visibility of the trans, gender diverse, non-binary, sistergirl and brotherboy communities by their actions.
Voting is now open!
In other news, I’ve recently had 3 non-fiction pieces published in Archer Magazine, Sydney Review of Books and the brand new Wellbeing Wild Magazine.
- Writing for catharsis: The art of reworking negativity – Archer Magazine
“…storytelling always has me glowing with adrenaline as if, all at once, I’ve done twenty sit-ups, eaten chocolate and kissed my crush.”
- Language Queered – Sydney Review of Books
they as they
visible and voice
listening and
listen and listen
- Feeling fluid and free – WellBeing Wild Magazine
Aside from house decorating and exploring haunted forests, Free Realms also had a significant impact on the way I perceived, and performed, my gender identity.
I also wrote a poetry board game called Architype with Ray Cox from [insert quest here], a real play RPG podcast. Grab a copy of the game on itch.io!
A Poetry Game.
Explore houses with your friends.
Build rooms out of prose.
Make architectural poetry
together.
Finally, my short story ‘Bodies Needed’ is part of an audio series ‘Urban Internet Myths’ at Digital Writers’ Festival 2019! Check it out here.
EPISODE 1: BODIES NEEDED, BY RAE WHITE
A temporary reception job at a funeral home takes a turn for the permanent.
Overland poetry reviews
This month I had the pleasure of reviewing 6 poetry collections for Overland Journal! These included new work by Franny Choi, essa may ranapiri, Tricia Dearborn, Zenobia Frost, Caitlin Maling and aj carruthers.
For kicks I wrote my reviews in a slightly experimental way: by threading the 6 books together in a circular form – e.g. the last line of one review informing the review of the next book and so on.
Review of Cirquetry at QPF
Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane reviewed Cirquetry at Queensland Poetry Festival! Huge thanks to Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane for this attentive and insightful review.
I was proud to be part of this performance alongside Maddy Grant, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Georgia Bale, Raelee Lancaster, and Chloe Callistemon, directed by Celia White.
“The showing explores the ideas of the emotional and physical risk-taking in the bodies and minds of poets and circus performers. Instead of keeping to their art form of choice, the performers incorporate the skills of their peers into their pieces. The circus artists wax lyrical while climbing over each other and bouncing off bungy cords. Poets dance, play on aerial silks and balance off each other. The rhythms of spoken word replace music and give voice to the unspoken of circus. Movements give new layers of gravity, meaning to the poetry. It is a truly of a collaboration of art forms.”
“Highlights were the first two pieces, building the world of the show, as the performers repeated words to Georgia Bale performing on lyra. These words formed the core the first spoken word pieced performed by Rae White, while they were being moved and cocooned by the rest of the ensemble, and ending in the group moving in synch.”
Upcoming Events!
I have a ton happening over the next couple of months! If you want to hang out with me in Newcastle or Brisbane, check out these events I’ll be doing:
- Sat 14 Sept 2019 – ‘Your gender, your story: find your creative voice through poetry’ – workshop at Our Lives, A Gender Diversity Conference @ Newcastle
- Sat 28 Sept 2019 – Stuff and Cirquetry – Vulcana Circus @ Brisbane Powerhouse, 6.30pm
- Thurs 3 Oct 2019 – Debate: Is Flash Fiction Just Bad Poetry? – National Young Writers’ Festival @ Newcastle City Library, 6.30pm
- Thurs 3 Oct 2019 – Cuplet Carnival – National Young Writers’ Festival @ Newcastle City Library, 8pm
- Fri 4 Oct 2019 – Panel: How to Handle Feedback – National Young Writers’ Festival @ Newcastle City Library, 4pm
- Fri 4 Oct 2019 – Zine & Heard – National Young Writers’ Festival @ Newcastle City Library, 7pm
- Sun 6 Oct 2019 – NYWF Zine Fair – National Young Writers’ Festival @ Newcastle City Library, 11am-4pm
QPF roundup – I won a prize!
This weekend at the Queensland Poetry Festival (QPF), I won the Best Queensland Entry for 2019 XYZ Prize for Innovation in Spoken Word! Fable Goldsmith won first place and I love their work so much! Heck yes to more non-binary poets winning things 🙂 Both our poems will be published on Melbourne Spoken Word later this year.
I also had a new poem published in the Concrescence special QPF issue ‘Deep Listening’. It’s about deep sea creatures lurking in wait for humans to destroy the world so they can take over. Yikes!
The Body Remembers on Lip Mag
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.
Queensland Poetry Festival 2019
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 **
New visual poems
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.
My story placed second in the 2019 Rachel Funari Prize!
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!
Rae White 