Please note:
- Due to the Library’s extensive renovations, these events will be held in the Michael Crouch room, on Level 1, instead of in the Dixson Room. Level 1 is accessible by lift or stairs at both ends of the building.
- The cafe has been temporarily relocated to the Dixson Room – it is open for coffee etc but limited food is available.
Workshop
Time: 10:15 am to 12:00 pm
Place: Michael Crouch Room, State Library of NSW
Cost: Members $40, non-members $55
Patti Miller: Travel Memoir
This short course will explore the popular genre of travel and sojourn memoir and show you how to ‘pack your travel-writing suitcase’ so that you include unique perception, well-informed observations and intriguing storytelling. We will look at the rich origins of travel memoir and see how it can expand to include personal inner journeys as well as history, politics, nature, culture and ideas.
Patti Miller is the author of ten books including life-writing texts: Writing Your Life, The Memoir Book and Writing True Stories, a novel Child, and non-fiction: The Last One Who Remembers, Whatever The Gods Do, The Mind of a Thief (long and short-listed for a number of prizes, winner of 2013 NSW Premier’s Prize for History), Ransacking Paris, The Joy of High Places, True Friends and a new edition of Writing True Stories 2024. She is published regularly in national newspapers, magazines and literary journals. She gives memoir courses in Sydney, Paris and London each year.
Literary Event
Time: 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Place: Michael Crouch Room, State Library of NSW
Cost: Members $25, non-members $40
Annual General Meeting
The Society’s AGM will be held on Wednesday 13 August, commencing at 1:00 pm. The order of business will include acceptance of the President’s Report and Treasurer’s Report, and election of a new committee for 2025-26.
Come along and show your appreciation and support of the outgoing committee and the incoming one – you might even like to contribute your expertise and advice to their deliberations by becoming a committee member.
The AGM notice, minutes of last year’s AGM, Treasurer’s Report for 2024-25 and Nomination Form can be found in the Members Area of our website: Annual General Meeting 2025 | Members Area | The Society of Women Writers NSW Inc.
Member Spotlight
Vanessa Proctor: The Search for Wonder
Vanessa Proctor will speak about her book of poetry, On Wonder, Walleah Press (2024) and the need for wonder in all its forms in our daily lives. She will explore how the natural world can ground us and ‘reveal this moment, this place, this now’. She will discuss the power of imagery and how poetry can help shape our perceptions of the world and our place in it.
Vanessa Proctor is an award-winning Australian poet. She has an MA in Creative Writing and her work has been widely published in Australia and overseas for the last thirty years. She is a foundation member of the Australian Haiku Society and served as its president from 2016–2020. Her poetry has been translated into several languages, including Croatian, French, Hungarian, Japanese and Romanian. Her work has also been set to music and is represented on public art installations in New Zealand and Australia. Her previous haiku publications are the chapbook, Temples of Angkor, Sunline Press (2003), the eChapbook Jacaranda Baby, Snapshot Press (2012) and Blowing up Balloons: baby poems for parents, Red Moon Press (2017) co-written with Gregory Piko. On Wonder is her first collection of free verse.
Vanessa Proctor writes poetry of the small, the still, the lucid. Each poem encompasses the luminosity of finely-honed sensory perception, an intimacy of living with minutely observed details of nature and time. In these poems, language crackles with life, and understated observations glean quiet, satisfying metaphors. On Wonder is a fine, deeply rewarding first collection.
Marcelle Freiman
Guest Speaker
Denise O’Hagan: Poetry and the Language of Seduction
Delving into the ingredients of poems that most move us to explore poetry’s special alchemy – and how they conspire to work on heart, mind and spirit.
Denise O’Hagan is a Sydney-based poet and editor, born in Rome with a background in academic book publishing. She was Poetry Editor (Australia/New Zealand) for The Blue Nib until 2020. Her poetry is published internationally, and her recent awards include the NSW Poetry Prize and the Monica Taylor Poetry Prize. She is currently writer in residence at Don Bank Museum, Sydney, where she is working on her third poetry collection, What the Mirror Tells.
Book and pay:
Members, you can book for yourself and a friend at member pricing, if purchased at the same time.
Workshop: Members $40, non-members $55
If you have a Workshop Voucher, please email Julie Thorndyke, Workshop Coordinator, to advise your intention to attend.
Literary event: Members $25, non-members $40
Discount for full program (Workshop and Literary Event) when booked together:
Members $60, non-members $85
By Credit card: https://www.trybooking.com/DCRVL
or by Direct debit:
The Society of Women Writers NSW Inc
BSB: 062 018
Account: 00950433
Code: VM
Email Amanda and include
your name, receipt number and date of event
Zoom ($10) will be available for this function – please click here to book: https://www.trybooking.com/CYAIN