Please note:
Due to commencement of 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.
Workshop
Catherine Cole: How to Fictionalise True Events
Time: 10:15 am to 12:00 pm
Place: Michael Crouch, State Library of NSW
Cost: Members $40, non-members $55
This workshop explores the ways in which writers often struggle with a range of concerns when writing from real life. Whether writing memoir, creative nonfiction or fiction such as short stories or novels, feeling bound by a duty to truth often hampers a writer’s creativity. How do we manage these concerns while remaining true to our ethical position but also wanting to harvest a great story from real life?
Catherine examines the key questions of ethics, adaptation, hidden characteristics, unreliable memory or narration, using photos or family artefacts – all of which can inhibit a writer’s approaches.
A series of discussion points and writing exercises will address each of these concerns and participants will be asked to bring along relevant material, ideas and concerns to discuss with the group.
Catherine Cole is an Australian author and academic who has taught creative writing in Australian and UK universities. She is currently an Honorary Professor at UTS and University of Wollongong in Australia and Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. She has been the recipient of writers’ residencies in Australia, France, Vietnam, China and the UK. She is a reader for a number of publishing houses in the UK including Cambridge University Press and she has judged leading Australian literary awards and mentored writers and students. She has published 11 books including novels, short stories, memoir, non-fiction and academic texts. Her soon to be published memoir – A French House – will be released in the UK in July.
Literary Event
Time: 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Place: Michael Crouch Room, State Library of NSW
Cost: Members $25, non-members $40
Member Spotlight – Roslyn McFarland: Writing the Real
Roslyn will outline the approach she took when fictionalising the life of Stella Bowen, the Australian WWII artist.
She lives in the Blue Mountains. While working for many years as a secondary teacher, she wrote and co-edited a series of successful HSC English Course books. Roslyn has spent a great deal of her time in France and, as a lover of the arts, she was naturally drawn to the colourful life of the Australian WWII artist, Stella Bowen. The result is Foreign Attachments, her second novel.
Her debut novel, All the Lives We’ve Lived was also published by Ginninderra Press in 2019, while her novella, The Privacy of Art was a Bronze Medal Winner in 2016 Global Ebook Awards.
Roslyn has an MA in Creative Writing from UTS, Sydney, and several of her poems and short stories have appeared in various online and print publications.
Guest Speaker – Sue Williams: Shining a Light on Women
We’re half the population, but only 20-25 per cent of books are about women or written by women. So in honour of our 100 Years Strong celebration, Sue will talk about the huge potential to bring more women into the light, through real-life stories or fiction based on real-life women or fiction in total. She’ll talk about her mission of elevating women’s stories to show how courageous, gutsy, enterprising and resilient we are, have been and always will be.
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/CYAJD
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/DADCG