Melbourne-bound

So Rosemary Cameron, the Director, can be pleased with the Brisbane Writers’ Festival. Now she has an equally big challenge, as the new Director of the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, which appointment was announced a few days later. Ms Cameron was chosen from a field of more than thirty candidates. Clearly, her experience in running her own arts management company and as the events manager for the Queensland Conservatorium, at Griffith University, appealed to the MWF board. She starts work this month.

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From the heart of the bush

The Miles Regional Arts Council and the Murilla Shire Council have just launched the 2006 Dogwood Playwright’s Initiative. The organisers say: ‘It’s about giving a voice to people with struggles, problems and successes that are unique to rural and remote Australia.’ The first prize is worth $5000, and both runners-up will receive $500. The four judges include Ian Callinan: it’s not every day you get to be judged by a Justice of the High Court of Australia. The competition closes on 30 June 2006. The plays must be new, unperformed and fifty to seventy minutes long, with no more than six cast members. More information and entry forms are available at www.murilla.qld.gov.au.

Beveridge’s annus mirabilis

It has been quite a year for Judith Beveridge (pictured below), one of our finest and most likeable poets. Earlier this year she received the prestigious Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Literature. Last month, the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts announced that Ms Beveridge is the recipient of the 2005 Writers’ Fellowship. She receives $20,000 to finish ‘a collection of poetry in the form of dramatic monologues’. But it doesn’t stop there. During a UQP-sponsored reading from The Best Australian Poetry 2005 at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival, Bronwyn Lea announced that Ms Beveridge (who has a poem in this year’s edition, selected by Peter Porter) will edit next year’s volume. Ms Beveridge told ‘Advances’: ‘It’s a great opportunity to get in touch with the wealth of poetry published over the last year. I know the selection will be difficult, but I’m looking forward to making a contribution towards UQP’s excellent series.’

Largesse

The Australian Centre has been most munificent of late, awarding five prizes worth a total of $32,000. Alexander Brown is the recipient of this year’s Kate Challis RAKA Award for indigenous poets; Jane Williams of the D.J. O’Hearn Memorial Fellowship for emergent writers of fiction, poetry and drama; Robert Kenny for the Peter Blazey Fellowship ‘to further a work in progress in the non-fiction fields of autobiography, biography or life writing’; Eva Sallis of the Asher Literary Award ‘for women writers with an anti-war message or theme’; and Bronwyn Lea (mentioned earlier) of the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize.

Brenda Niall on biography

This month, lovers of biography around Australia will have three opportunities to hear Brenda Niall deliver the inaugural HRC Seymour Lecture in Biography. This is an initiative of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, and has been established through a gift from Dr John Seymour and Dr Heather Munro. Brenda Niall is the biographer of Martin Boyd, Judy Cassab and others. The title of her lecture is ‘Walking upon Ashes: The Footsteps of a Modern Biographer’. The dates are as follows: November 2 (National Library of Australia); November 17 (the University of Western Australia); and November 22 (the University of Adelaide). For further details, contact Leena Messina at the HRC: (02) 6125 4357.