Festivals

SPOKE Festival - Cross Genre Performances

From Tuesday 13 to Saturday 17 March SPOKE Festival will occupy The Shimmering West – the lawn area in front of Adelaide College of the Arts (39 Light Square, Adelaide) – and Higher Ground. Watch out for a visual and spoken word smorgasbord, including giant budgies, inflatables and a garden shed full of performances and displays. This free event includes cutting-edge spoken word performances, slams, open-mikes, performance workshops, interactive displays, original music, cross-genre activities, multicultural and indigenous performers and more.

More details at the SPOKE Facebook page.

Spoke are also on Twitter.

2011 SA Writers' Festival

The Festival runs over 10 days between 2-11 September and showcases a feast of writing and reading, including the Friendly Street Poets, the Wirra Wirra Short Story Competition and Anthology, the Storybook Walk, the Wakefield Food & History Writing Forum, Back to the Future – Writing for New Technologies and Poets and Pizza. September 10-11 sees the Writers at Wirra Wirra Weekend kickoff. On Saturday there are the People's and Children's Choice Awards and two Masterclasses on screenwriting and playwriting with Andrew Bovell. Sunday is chock full of goodies. The morning sees the Launch of the Wirra Wirra Short Story Anthology, Future Writers – the Next Generation and a Panel Discussion on fact and fiction entitled 'Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story'. Sunday afternoon has the Anne Marie Mykyta Lecture delivered by Melvin Mansell the editor of The Advertiser, the Great Debate hosted by Peter Goers and entitled 'Books are so yesterday'. 'Taking it to the Streets' is a program of writing events in Onkaparinga libraries. Costs, dates and booking details, plus the full program can be found here.

Salisbury Writers' Festival

Over the ten days between August 19-28 the Salisbury Writers' Festival will run an action-packed program. On Saturday 20th writers will be able to 'Speed Pitch' to two publishers, children's publisher Jon Appleton from Hachette Australia and Caro Cooper from Text Publishing, followed later in the afternoon by the 'First Page Publishers' Panel' where Jon Appleton, Caro Cooper, Susan Rintoul and Gary MacRae will respond to actual first pages submitted by audience members.Lia Weston, author of The Fortunes of Ruby White, will give the opening address. The following successful local authors and industry professionals will also be taking part in the main program: Anne Bartlett (workshop: Writing a Life: Memoir and [Auto]Biography); David Conyers (workshop: Getting Started Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy); Astrid Cooper (workshop: Writing on the Wild Side); and Amelia Walker (workshop: Writing for Beginners). Vikki Wakefield's young adult novel All I Ever Wanted will be launched, as will Richard Maurovic's Samphire & Stone. 'Meet the Writers' author is Lauren Fugue, whose first novel True Colours was written when she was fourteen. For program details go to www.salisbury.sa.gov.au

The registration and application guidelines for the Publishers' Speed Pitch and the First Page Publishers' Panel page can be found on pages 15 and 16 of the program.