ZineWest 09 Competition Judge

New Writers' Group Inc is happy to announce that Fiona Wright has agreed to act as judge for ZineWest 09. Fiona works as an editor for Giramondo publishing and is deputy editor of HEAT Magazine. Her works have been published in journals and anthologies in Australia, Asia and the USA. Her poems feature in Best Australian Poems 2008 (Black Ink) and the Toilet Doors Project (2004). In 2007 she was awarded a residency at the Tasmania Writers' Centre.

There's not much time left to submit entries! See bottom of post below for downloads of the information sheet and the guidelines/submission form.

ZineWest 09 entries due 20th June, 2009

"We are looking forward to your exciting entries for ZineWest 2009. Send us your original, previously unpublished, short works in any word-based genre we can reproduce in a print zine: stories, poems, song lyrics, memoir, drama, cartoons and comics. " Editor of ZineWest Sue Crawford

You need to live, work or study in Western Sydney, and be 16 years or over. We will publish around 30 short pieces in ZineWest 09 from the entries submitted and these selected entries are in the running for prizes:

First: $400 cash.
Second: A year's subscription to HEAT Magazine.
Third: A book from the Giramondo imprint.
Plus there are nominations including best story and best poem.

Entries are selected for the publication list by ZW editor Sue Crawford (president New Writers' Group Inc) and guest editors Lyn Leerson (president FAW Parramatta) and Felicity Castagna (ZW08 winner). These entries are then forwarded to the Writing and Society Research Group of the University of Western Sydney for judging. Please read the information sheet and guidelines carefully before sending us up to 3 pieces with completed entry form to NWG Inc at
Editors' Email (subject ZW09) or post to:
ZineWest c/- NWG Inc, PO Box 1339 Parramatta 2124
Please don't hand in at a gathering. Your entries should bear a title but not your name.

Information Sheet ZW09
Guidelines/Entry Form ZW09

ZineWest Winners 2008

Thank you to all ZW writers who attended the launch - almost everyone made it except writers who were obliged to be out of Sydney on the day. That was a wonderful show of support for the project and gave the eighteen readers an audience right til 5:00 pm. Many thanks also to their friends and family and to other entrants who helped celebrate our second ZineWest.

The photo above is of the first prize winner, Felicity Castagna, having a quick chat to the judge, Dr Mridula Chakraborty, during the coffee break at Mars Hill Cafe. Felicity won with her prose piece "DEV" - an intimate exploration of just what might be the story behind a couple you see sharing the weekend paper at a coffee shop... Felicity's prize was $400 - provided by New Writers Group Inc and the Writing and Society Research Group, University of Western Sydney.



Writers who volunteered to read at the launch had their place on the reading list decided by a draw. First up was Kathleen Steele with her poem "Mourning Conversation "- an intense, one-sided "exchange" with someone reading the headlines and ignoring the pain. Kathleen won second prize, a year's subscription to HEAT Magazine provided by the Writing and Society Research Group, University of Western Sydney.



Luke Rule was awarded third Prize ($25 Book voucher from NWG Inc) for his story "The Theory of Gravity" - Luke got plenty of laughs when he read his piece, however one member of the audience on congratulating Luke added - "Now you've given me one more thing to worry about!"

Dr Chakraborty also added four nominations to the awards list - all of equal merit:

David Bofinger "Of Mice and Men and Goldfish"
Barbara Fern "Birth of the Bagpipe on Brignall Banks"
Lauren Alison Maher "Shoebox"
Diana Tjoeng "Few and Far Between"

In addition to her merit nomination, Lauren Maher won the door prize - $25 Book Voucher from NWG Inc

CONGRATULATIONS to all on the award list and also to all the Western Sydney writers who gave us the privilege of reading their work. Hope to see you back in 2009...

Launch - 22nd November, 3pm Mars Hill Cafe

Professor Ivor Indyk, Whitlam Chair, Writing and Society Research Group (College of Arts, UWS Bankstown Campus) will speak about writing and publishing at the ZineWest 2008 Launch.

The launch will open with readings from the zine followed by Prof Indyk's talk and announcement of the prizewinners by our judge, Dr Mridula Chakraborty (see earlier post).

Our venue hosts are Kevin and Lisa Crouse at Mars Hill Cafe, 331 Church St Parramatta.

There'll be time for coffee and socialising plus more readings.

NWG Inc members and ZW entrants are invited to bring any self-published works to display (or offer for sale) at our publication table.

Copies of ZineWest will be on sale at $5 each.

Prof Ivor Indyk's current research projects include the history of Australian literary publishing, and the expression of awkwardness and embarrassment in Australian literature. He is the founding editor of Heat Magazine and publisher of the Giramondo book imprint, now housed within the Writing and Society Research Group. The most recent publications of Giramondo include Alexis Wright's Miles Franklin Award winner Carpentaria (2006), Brian Castro's The Garden Book (2005), and Jennifer Maiden's poetry collection, Friendly Fire (2005). A critic, essayist and reviewer, he has written a monograph on David Malouf, and essays on many aspects of Australian literature.

Ivor's areas of postgraduate supervision include Australian literature and literary publishing.

Judge for ZineWest 2008

We are delighted to announce that Dr Mridula Chakraborty, who has recently joined the Writing and Society Research Group at the College of Arts, University of Western Sydney as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, will judge the prizes for ZineWest 2008. The prizes will be announced at the launch Saturday 22nd November at Mars Hill Cafe, 331 Church St Parramatta. See Mridula's bio below.

Meanwhile....

Just to remind you how it works:
ZineWest editors are selecting a publishing list from 110 entries. The list will be posted online 3rd October and all entrants notified by email or snail mail as soon as possible.

The writers on the publishing list will have one of their entries included in ZineWest 08. These entries will be sent to Dr Chakraborty who will nominate prizes and awards. Like last year, the overall standard of entry shows skill, passion and experience.



Mridula Nath Chakraborty’s twenty-years’ old association with literature and publishing has found a new home in the Writing and Society Research Group, which she has joined as a postdoctoral fellow. She recently completed her doctoral work at the University of Alberta, Canada, on five postcolonial feminists. Trained in a classical English literary canon at Delhi University, India, Mridula's research interests include postcolonial and diasporic literatures, studies in nationalism and feminism, translation theory, culinary cultures, public intellectuals, global English and Bombay cinema. She has worked at the intersection of English and regional language publishing in India with Penguin Books and Katha. In 1997, she won the A K Ramanujan Award for translation from two Indian languages and has translated and co-edited, with Rani Ray, A Treasury of Bangla Stories (Srishti 1999). In 2006, she curated an exhibition on Alberta Women Making History and produced a catalogue for it, The Blue Sky Their Horizon, as also a digital, oral narrative history of academic women at the University of Alberta as part of a special project on Institutionalising Feminism.

ZW 08 Countdown

After a slow start, the entries are piling up. We're seeing many new names which means a big thank you to all of our friends who've passed the word on. Carol Amos (NWG Inc President) has the task of anonymising (I can never pronounce this non-word) all the entries and then it's over to myself, Lil Scully (former NWG Inc President) and Lyn Leerson (FAW Parramatta President) to select up to thirty pieces for publication in ZineWest 2008.

As soon as that's done we'll put up a list and invite those writers to attend editing workshops if they can. (It is a painless procedure aimed at giving writers a chance to fix up any little mistakes themselves rather than have the editors doing it.) Meanwhile we'll forward the entries (unedited, unnamed) to our judges at the Writing and Society Research Group at University of Western Sydney.

Good luck
Sue Crawford
Editor ZineWest

ZineWest 2008 Entry Form

ZineWest 2008 is now open! Closing date for entries is 31st July, 2008. Free Entry

Poetry, prose, lyrics, short stories, memoir, cartoon...

See Invitation to writers and writing groups

See Entry form

News Update

Professor Ivor Indyk (Whitlam Chair, University of Western Sydney) has agreed to support the second edition of ZineWest as co-sponsor through the Writing and Society Research Group.

This will be a great help to the New Writers Group Inc in organising and funding ZineWest 2008!

ZineWest 2008

Good News. The New Writers' Group Inc committee has voted to host another ZineWest competition and publication in 2008. This year the publication will be printed (rather than photocopied) and wirebound. At $5 we calculate it will pay for itself based on our most recent Anthology zine. Editor will be Sue Crawford, with two other editors yet to be nominated. We plan to open the competition in May/June have it judged in August and published/launched/performed in October. We hope all our supporters from last year will send us some great entries. More news soon.

Parramatta Sun article by Isabell Petrinic

Isabell Petrinic's interview of Jane Goodall was published after the launch, but was good publicity for ZineWest. Here's the link, while it lasts! Parramatta Sun article