big story small

My recent Word Me Up text incubator at ArtSpace, Realm was a great success…

I’m in the midst of a big few weeks of off-the-page microlit activities. Over the last fortnight I’ve produced two works for Community Stations at Ringwood Station in Melbourne’s east. The first saw stencilled stories installed in various locations around the station.

The second was a performance writing project in which my alter-ego, Walter Wild (Word Wrangler) sought stories from passing commuters during 90 minute performances each morning for a week. (photo, thanks to Arts in Maroondah).

In a couple of weeks I’ll be heading up to Newcastle for the wonderful Newcastle Writers Festival where there’ll be more public stories in collaboration with Spineless Wonders. I’m looking forward to what should be a bit of a writing reboot in the Hunter Valley.

Over the last few years more and more of my time has been taken up with text-based projects that cross over into visual art and, more recently, performance. These projects range from video production through to schools programs and public installations. I’ve now brought this part of my writing life together under a single banner; WriteOff. You can find out more at writeoff.co or read about some of what I’ve been doing in the Dec/Jan edition of Victorian Writer.

My short story, The Dead Line, has just been published in issue eight of the Irish Literary Review, available now on line. There’s some great fiction in the issue. I always feel, when stories are placed in publications, as if they have found a home. Looking at the other pieces in this edition I’m particularly pleased with where this story, which I’ve been refining for a couple of years, has finished up. You can read it through the link above. And, of course, I’d love any feedback so let me know if the story strikes a chord.

Text Me is 3 weeks of interactive installations, workshops, performance and projections I’ve produced for ArtSpace in the new Realm facility in Ringwood. It will run from April 1 until April 22. Presented by Maroondah City Council, Text Me is the first in a series of arts incubators that will allow resident artists to explore a variety of creative genres. As the name suggests, this one is all about words. For more information download the TextMe brochure.

A prominent theme at this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival has been storytelling. I signed up for one of the open mic spots at yesterday’s 5 minute story slam hosted by Story Peddlers in their fantastic story tent. The event, which raised funds for the 100 Story Building project, was a huge success, showcasing storytelling in its many guises, from joyous and irreverent to heart felt, with an emphasis on personal reflection. I reworked a couple of decidedly non-autobiographical pieces, and was happy with the results. Ultimately the star of the night was the was the beautiful Story Peddlers tent and the warmth, on a cold Melbourne evening, of shared stories.

During July, Spineless Wonders celebrated Microlit Month by releasing readings of selected micro stories. My story, The Swimmer, taken from the collection Stoned Crows and other Australian Icons, is read admirably by Eleni Schumacher and is taken from a live reading as part of the Little Fictions series.

Last year I was privileged to read a selection of stories at the National Flash Fiction day event in Bristol, and to have one of my pieces, The Working Man’s Struggle, selected for the annual anthology. NFFD has just passed again (how time flies!) and though I wasn’t able to travel to the UK to enjoy it I am thrilled to be represented in this year’s collection, Landmarks, by my story, The Gambler (a reworking of the Kenny Rogers song of the same name). I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of my copies as the annual NFFD publication is invariably one of the best collections of microfiction published in any given year.