"So what's it all about then?" Bringing a whole bunch of people together and talking. ~ Cutting through the bi-lines and the jingles and the categories of "young writers and seeing each other face to face - on our own terms (whatever they might be). ~ Debating what the hell "contemporary Australian Culture" is, and whether anybody should really want anything to do with it. ~ Cutting across networks, social circles, cliques, and associations, and putting people together in unexpected combinations. ~ Beer. ~ Learning about what other people do, have experienced, are aiming for and how that relates to what you're doing (or what you wish you were doing). ~ Seeing the faces beyond the words. ~ Seeing the feces behind the words. ~ Getting to know Newcastle. ~ Hearing people read their stuff. ~ Launching into new friendships and associations. ~ Laughing at the saying "you have to know the rules to break the rules". ~ Learning how to use a spray-can. ~ Finding out how to get money from funding bodies. ~ Critical discussion. ~ Taking the piss. ~ Buying zines. ~ Writing manifestos. ~ Exploring the possibilities of "etc." ~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


spiel

You should come...
   Writing a "spiel" about the National Young Writers Festival is like trying to describe the flavour of your favourite food. You can give material explanations of it, but it never comes close to what it's like to actually eat it. So we can tell you all the things that this year's festival wants to be when it grows up (5-9th October - it turns three!) but, you're only going to know when you're here - in Newcastle, drinking beer with a zine maker from Brisbane, a published author from Perth, and a spoken word artist from Melbourne (which sounds like the beginning of a dirty joke - which it could be... maybe...?).

The festival is about seeing how many people we can stuff into the category of "Writer" - like clowns in a mini. It's not necessarily about who writes and why, and it's definitely not about drawing lines in the sand between readers and writers. The festival is about ideas, and how they are recorded and communicated. Poety, zines, theatre, novels, comics, short stories, television, journals, newspapers, self-publishing, spoken word, cartoons, films, graffiti, internet publishing, comedy, activism, academic writing, design,
shopping lists... -

 
 

 

ABOUT US:
The National Young Writers Festival is in its third year, under new management and ready to take on a myriad of new media, ideas, famous and not so famous people. As always, the Festival is incorporating the National Student Media Conference bringing together student newspaper editors from all over Australia. This year the festival will see Newcastle invaded by zine makers, comic artists, playwrights, novelists, culture jammers, activists, internet and self-publishers, short story writers (yes, they still exist!), columnists, publishers, journal and magazine editors and anybody else who writes, has written or has an opinion on the state of culture in Australia today. This year's program holds over 100 panels, workshops, performances and readings, and pccirs alongside thre other events under the banner 'this is not art'.

 

ANYTHING ELSE TO DO WHILE I'M IN TOWN?

The National Young Writers Festival is occurring alongside....

Electrofringe: a festival of electronic media,
the National Independent Radio Conference and
the National Independent Electronic Labels Conference.

All these events are united under the title 'This is not art'. Newcastle will be literally swarming with hundreds of the country's innovative thinkers and do-ers.

You can also watch the ships come into the harbour while drinking ginger beer (a special Newcastle pastime).

Checkout evolving websites through http://www.octapod.org.au/thisisnotart