During this strange year, one of the positive highlights has been writing regularly for WellBeing WILD magazine. This month in their latest Issue 4, I have a piece about how the binary of ‘real life’ versus ‘online’ is full of grey areas (especially during COVID) and far more fluid than we think. Big thanks to Rory Green, Tegan Webb and Kieran Bicheno for their interviews for this piece 🙂
My poem ‘<title>gender options</title>’ (from my book Milk Teeth) has been republished at the awesome Backslash Lit!
Have a read of Backslash Lit’s new Issue II: Hex.
I’m so grateful to be nominated for Non-Binary Activist/Advocate of the Year in the 2020 Trans Community Awards! I super appreciate folks acknowledging all the work I do, including editing enbylife.net, a journal for non-binary and gender diverse creatives; and facilitating an online workshop series called Let’s Talk Stories for Hunter Gender Alliance, which gave young transgender and gender diverse people the tools and skills to express themselves through writing.
For my full bio and to vote for me and/or other amazing trans and gender diverse folks, go to the Many Genders One Voice voting page.
I have a bunch of upcoming events, including two new gentle creative co-works/write-ins, and two events at National Young Writers’ Festival! (All events online, of course!)
Architype Augmented is now up on my itch store!
A guided digital poetry experience and
building game designed by Ray Cox and myself.
Explore a decomposing house together,
build its rooms out of prose,
and create strange architectural poetry.
**Buy your copy of Architype Augmented here**
My poem ‘Sabbatical’ is in this amazing digital Animal Crossing Zine by Pretty Cool Poetry Thing!!! (‘Sabbatical’ was originally published in Milk Teeth and Ibis House.)
“I don’t think I could write without pushing the boundaries of form and language, without pushing myself as a writer. Perhaps because experimenting feels like play, and that’s both enjoyable and also something we don’t often get to do as adults. It’s one of the reasons I love poetry so much – the capacity it has for play and exploration.”
I’m running a webinar on 7 Sept from 6-7pm AEST! Are you finding it hard to write at the moment? Me too. Hopefully this event helps 🙂 ‘Write together, gently’ is a soothing write-in/creative co-work over 1 hour with gentle writing prompts on the theme FOCUS.
Payment is on a sliding scale – I know a lot of us are struggling with money at the moment. And once you’ve paid for the webinar, you have unlimited replay access, so you can watch it whenever you want! This is great if you can’t make this exact day/time.
I have a piece about navigating polyamory in a pandemic in the latest WellBeing WILD! Big thanks to my partners for letting me write about them. And thank you to Felicity Plunkett for encouraging me to write more about polyamory a number of years ago.
I’m also a regular contributor for WILD, so if you want to keep reading my articles (and this amazing magazine) regularly, I’d definitely encourage you to subscribe.
I am very proud to announce my poem ‘The last tourist’ (for the birds at Tangalooma, Moorgumpin) won Highest Queensland Entry in the 2020 Queensland Poetry Festival Val Vallis Award. Congratulations to first place winner Helen Lucas for ‘Heirloom’ and second place winner Sarah Rice for ‘My Time in Govie Housing Draws to a Close’.
In their comments, judges Judith Beveridge and Kirli Saunders said of ‘The last tourist’:
This poem’s vernacular immediacy, imagistic freshness and perspectives give it an immediate appeal. Tone and voice are used both humorously and incisively to create memorable portraits that reflect both animal and human foibles in an energetic way.
Thank you so much to Queensland Poetry Festival, Arts Queensland and Cordite Poetry Review, and of course to the judges Judith Beveridge and Kirli Saunders for choosing my poem.
Read my poem ‘The last tourist’ (and watch the accompanying video) on the Cordite website.
Read more about the Val Vallis Award here.
Photo by Kerin Gedge on Unsplash.
Architype Augmented (@ArchitypeGame on Twitter) is a digital poetry experience at Red Dirt Poetry Festival created by myself and Ray Cox.
Explore a decomposing house, build rooms out of prose, create strange architectural poetry together.
Play the game at the Red Dirt Poetry Festival website.
And engage with the Twitter bot at @ArchitypeGame.
