Bundanon

The South Coast Writers Centre aims to support writers of all stages via its program of creative events and professional development, and to promote the South Coast’s emerging and established writers through the development of audiences. The Centre supports these aims through its literary events and workshop program.

In residence at Bundanon

This week-long retreat at Bundanon Homestead will allow eight emerging or established south coast writers to focus on developing or completing works. While participants will be primarily spending their days working on individual projects, this retreat is also designed as a supportive group retreat that will enable writers to work and learn together via daily peer-led discussion. There will also be a public forum at the Bundanon Art Museum on the afternoon of Sunday 1 May 2022 where participants will read from and discuss their work.

Linda Godfrey is a writer, poet, editor and teacher. She has a Masters of Professional Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney. She won the 2021 AAWP First Chapter Prize, one benefit is that her complete manuscript was sent to UWAP for consideration to publish. Linda has a chapbook of prose poetry, ‘Count the Ways’, published in 2021. She has had poetry and short stories published in anthologies and online. Linda was Program Manager of the Wollongong Writers Festival, 2015 to 2018. She curated monthly sessions of poetry readings, Rocket Readings in Wollongong, 2007 to 2018, that were included in the Sydney Writers Festival. She has been a recipient of a Varuna Residency and an Australian Society of Authors manuscript. She has taught writing, both poetry and short stories in writes centres and the community for many years.

Emily Gray is a writer and a lawyer at a community legal centre. She was recently selected as a recipient of the South Coast Writers Centre Emerging Writers Mentor Program and will soon have a short story published in ‘Legacies: the South Coast Writers Centre anthology of writing 2021. Emily has a first class honours degree in English Literature, and she attended The Writers’ Voice writing workshops in New York. More recently, she has been a regular attendee of workshops at the South Coast Writers Centre.

Elanna Herbert’s primary focus is on poetry, she also writes short fiction and narrative non-fiction. In 2021 she shortlisted for ACU’s Prize for Poetry, and the Queensland Poetry Awards Emerging Older Poets mentorship, for which she was runner up in 2020 and 2018. In 2020 she won the June Shenfield National Poetry prize and was awarded a Varuna ‘Writing Fire Writing Drought’ Fellowship.Other shortlists include Booranga Prize (poetry 2019), Storyfest (prose 2021), other awards include winning the SCWC ‘Writing in Colour’ poetry competition (2018), 2nd and Commended in the Ethel Webb Blundell Literary Award (Poetry 2018, 2020) and other commendations. Elanna’s work appears in Science Write Now (forthcoming), Westerly, Axon (9.2, 10.2), Not Very Quiet, Meniscus, StylusLit, Australian Poetry Anthology (6, 8), Four W (28, 30, 32), Poetry New Zealand and anthologies Brushstrokes II (2021), Grieve (2019) and Never Heard of Them (2019) among others.

Elizabeth Walton received an Anne Edgeworth Fellowship in December to develop her manuscript. Eliza has contributed a long form journalism to The Weekend Australian, Penguin Books and The New York Times, as well as newspapers and magazines in Sweden, India, Greece, Hong Kong, and Singapore. She contributes long form journalism to Oz Arts magazine, and review for Arts Hub. During a 2021 mentorship with Kathryn Heyman, Eliza completed her first novel of 120,000 words and her second collection of short stories. Her fiction is based on the Black Summer fires and will be published by the London Reader in January. Elizabeth’s work was featured in a 30 minute ABC Radio interview with artist Lucy Culliton in October 2021.

Judi Morison is member of the Ngana Barangarai (Black Wallaby) Indigenous Literary Project and editorial assistant for Dreaming Inside: Voices from Junee Correctional Centre. She led South Coast Writers Centre’s 2021 Emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers Mentoring Program. Morison’s writing has been published in several literary journals. Her historical novel manuscript won a 2020 Queensland Writers Centre’s Publishable mentorship and the 2022 Writing NSW/ Text Publishing Boundless Mentorship.

Gwen Wilson started writing her memoir ‘I Belong to No One’ in her fifties. Published in 2015, it is a classic ‘triumph over adversity’ tale, set in the context of Australian social history pre-Whitlam and the women’s movement. Those who lived through those times will relate, and those who followed will find a window into the thinking and social attitudes of the era. Florence & Lucy, a hybrid memoir/novel based on her grandmother and great-aunt is currently seeking publication. ‘Louisa’s Legacy’, a work-in-progress novel, shines a spotlight on one woman’s struggle to survive in a time when society dictated how women should lead their lives. Gwen also blogs as Garrulous Gwendoline, The Reluctant Retiree.

Denise Young has published and authored two books: ‘The Last Ride’, 2004 and ‘HarperCollins’, which won a HarperCollins Varuna Award for MS Development in 2002, Jim Hamilton Award for Best Unpublished MS in 2003, then the UTS Prize for Best First Novel in 2005 at the NSW Premier’s Literary Award. It was turned into a film starring Hugo Weaving in 2009. The second book was published earlier this year by Penguin Random House and was a shared memoir with Denise’s daughter, Nina Young, called ‘My Father, the Murderer’. She has written an essay in Meanjin and stories in the NSW School Magazine over the years. Denise has been to Varuna many times, twice on a fellowship, and loved the combination of solitary focus in the day time and group discussion over dinner.