Capital Letters: the NGA #zine fair – Proudly organised by the Sticky Institute #Canberra #Australia #geekgirl

nga-zine-fair

Saturday, October 30 · 11:00am – 4:00pm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Parkes Place
Canberra, Australia

A zine fair of over 30 zinesters from around Australia at the nation’s capital, in conjunction with the NGA’s mighty launch of their street art exhibition, Space Invaders.

Organised by the Sticky Institute:
Sticky Institute are ardent defenders of zine culture based in Melbourne’s underground. We are home to the docucenter III C3100 copier, a typewriter pool, badge machines, long arm staplers, and an online mail order department. Go nuts.

TWLOHA – To Write Love on Her Arms – Sept 25th #Australia #love #geekgirl

http://www.twloha.com.au

On the 25th of September, 2010 there will be an Australia-wide To Write Love On Her Arms Day.

What is To Write Love On Her Arms? (TWLOHA for short)

TWLOHA is a movement dedicated to helping the fight against depression, addiction, self-harm and suicide. A non-profit, non-commercial and non-religious. TWLOHA is people helping people, nothing more and nothing less.

What do I have to do?
Quite simply; write the word LOVE on your arm. That is all we ask of you. If you’d like to take a photo of it and post it to our group, we’d love that. We’d love you to tell your friends and family why you’ve written it there, and we’d love you to help them write love on their arms as well.

If you’re in Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart or Launceston and wish to get more involved, then please seek out the TWLOHA representatives in your area.

Can I get more information?
Yes you can! Check out our website at http://www.twloha.com.au/, post a comment on the wall of this event or the TWLOHA Australia group, or email support@twloha.com.au

Wanna get involved, help us out, offer your services, or be in one of the groups on the ground? Let us know and we’ll help you out.

–

The vision is the possibility that your best days are ahead.

The vision is the possibility that we’re more loved than we’ll ever know.

The vision is hope, and hope is real.

You are not alone, and this is not the end of your story.

Remember; Love is the Movement.

IQ2 live debate: #Feminism Has Failed #Melbourne #geekgirl

As Australia assesses the vote for its first female prime minister, Intelligence Squared tackles its most controversial debate yet: Has feminism failed?

After generations of effort, women still bear a disproportionate burden of domestic labour. Women are under-represented in the senior ranks of politics, business and the professions. If the minority government doesn’t hold, Julia Gillard’s prime ministership may be the shortest in our history. What role did her gender play at the ballot box? Statistics show women continue to be denied equal pay for equal work and young women are less likely to identify as feminists than their mothers. What does this say about feminism? Has it failed to mobilise and inspire? Or should feminists be celebrating a deeper victory in which a new generation of young men and women take equality for granted?

Intelligence Squared is a provocative and informative series of live debates on hot-button issues, offering a sometimes fiery, often controversial and always entertaining forum for healthy argument. The format is the traditional Oxford-style debate, with one side proposing and the other opposing a sharply framed motion. Three speakers argue on each side of the motion. After the formal rguments, the debate is thrown open to the floor for moderated questions. The live audience votes both before and after hearing the arguments, so each debate has a clear measure of how far people have actually been swayed.

Intelligence Squared in Melbourne is a project of the St James Ethics Centre and the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas.

More about the speakers:
Virginia Haussegger is a journalist, author and social commentator. Her writing includes a seminal article on feminism and childlessness, and the book Wonder Woman: the myth of “having it all” She currently presents News on ABC TV, Canberra.

Gay Alcorn is a Walkley award-winning journalist who joined The Age in 1989.  She was Washington correspondent from 1999-2002 and was appointed editor of The Sunday Age in 2008.

Stephen Mayne is a Walkley award-winning journalist, shareholder activist and founder of Crikey and the Mayne Report. He has also run as an independent in State and Federal elections.

Jennifer Byrne has 26 years experience in television, radio and print journalism and over this time, has interviewed many world leaders, international thinkers and writers. She is currently presenter of the First Tuesday Book Club on ABC TV.

Monica Dux is a Melbourne writer. She has published widely on women’s issues and co-authored the book The Great Feminist Denial. She is currently working on a book about modern motherhood.

Wendy McCarthy was a founding member and co-convenor of the Women’s Electoral Lobby in 1972. She has been an educator, advocate and social commentator, and a company director for the past forty years.  

Debate date: 22 September 2010
http://tinyurl.com/333mmfq

IRREGOLARE (Irregular) a #cyberpunk science fiction novel #geekgirl

IRREGOLARE (Irregular) a cyberpunk science fiction novel by the young Italian writer VINCENZO BOSICA

Irregular is a cyberpunk novel, a dystopian sci-fi noir, with a strong personality, which leaves no roads to the benevolence and traps the readers with his adrenalinic speed. The work revive the legendary Blade Runner locations in futuristic thriller / detective story. The technological implications are extremely detailed and based on careful research, while the protagonists are complex and imperfect, always on the Razor’s Edge. The plot unfolds through a murky and dangerous investigation of a brutal murder, which ends to interweave events and personalities at a dizzying pace, in a world polluted by violence and corroded over limits, where the average life expectancy has surpassed the century through advances medical and cybernetic implants.

In this plausible and not so distant future, the demographic collapse was averted through a rigid birth control managed by a permanent identification for each person who does not allow a new life without a previous death. In this claustrophobic scenario, the detective Shaun Morrison, awaiting a promotion to sergeant and always on fighting with his superiors for his unorthodox action, investigating the case with all technological means available arriving at what seems an illegal trade of cybernetic parts. But the survey escapes completely out of hand when is discovered someone who goes beyond the law, beyond the normal, beyond the rules: an irregular.

Thus began a hunt relentlessly, which accompanies the reader until the end of the novel, through reversals of scene, never trivial. Irregular is a “one breath book” despite the constant and massive technological presence. It is a book for everyone, not just for sci-fi fans, which offers dazzling action interludes, a plot worthy of the best yellow story and above manages to give a breath of freshness to the Italian narrative.

http://irregolare-sf.blogspot.com/
IRREGOLARE by Vincenzo Bosica

Jay Rosen in #Melbourne, 3pm, August 17 #journalists #pressthink #geekgirl

Jay Rosen teaches journalism at New York University and is a former chair of the department. In 1999, Yale University Press published his book, What Are Journalists FOR? which is about the rise of the civic journalism movement in the 1990s. He is the author of PressThink, a weblog about journalism and its ordeals, which he introduced in September 2003. In July 2006, Rosen announced the debut NewAssignment.Net, his experimental site for pro-am, open source reporting projects. In 2007-08 he was the co-publisher, with Arianna Huffington, of OfftheBus.Net, collaborating NewAssignment.Net and the Huffington Post. In 2009 he founded the Studio 20 program at NYU, which is focused on innovation. He lives in Manhattan. He blogs at http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrosen_nyu.

Jay Rosen is also guest speaker at the What’s the Story? Walkley Media Conference 2010

Jay Rosen will deliver lectures to journalists and students in Sydney and Melbourne. Rosen will speak at the ABC in Sydney at 10am, August 16. He’ll be at Australia Post in Melbourne at 3pm, August 17. For more info or to register email events@walkleys.com.

Wagwords a new multi-media wordgame and fiction adventure by Philip Redhead

Australian first, author, Philip Redhead, has launched an all-new multi-media wordgame and fiction adventure featuring Wagwords™ – a tongue-in-cheek story with the challenge of solving missing words which also go in a luxury crossword, combined with an eclectic mix of humour – making it a perfect gift on any occasion.

Grizbut and the Amazonians is the hilarious and witty tale of Grizbut, a hip Amazonian woman with supreme perception and power. By following Grizbut’s adventures, the reader will also have the additional challenge in solving the Wagwords™ along the way, and enjoying Phil Redhead’s satirical sense of humour as well.

For a sneak peak, take a look at www.wagwords.com

Five Wounds written by Jonathan Walker and illustrated by Dan Hallett #graphicnovel

A breathtakingly original, deep, dark story reminiscent of Patrick Suskind’s Perfume and Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

Inspired by Italo Calvino, Jeanette Winterson, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Uncanny X-Men, this surreal, darkly beautiful and unsettling graphic novel is by turns hilarious and horrific, grotesque and tender.

Five Wounds is the story of five wounded characters, all orphans: Gabriella, a crippled angel; Cur, the leader of a sect of dogs; Cuckoo, a gambler with a wax face; Magpie, a thief terrified of going blind; and Crow, a leper trying to distil an antidote for death. Via a series of mutilations, murders, kidnappings and dramatic escapes, everyone gets exactly what they deserve – or do they?

2010 Emerging Writers Festival – Friday 21 – Sunday 30 May #Melbourne

Venues: The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas Melbourne Town Hall ● State Library of Victoria ● City Library ●Federation Square  

Bookings:  www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au

New Festival Director Lisa Dempster is thrilled to announce the the program for the 2010 Emerging Writers’ Festival, Australia’s only literary event dedicated to writers of all ages and styles.

2009 saw 6000 people attend the festival’s 15 sell out events with 300 writers, performers, publishers and mentors contributing to the event. In 2010, the EWF will double in size, curating 30 events and featuring 350 writers and artists as the festival stretches the definition of writing styles to include song writing, copywriting, poetry, prose fiction, comedy, writing for video games, journalism, screenwriting, theatre, experimental writing forms, memoir, blogging, opinion, comic writing and more.

2010 Emerging Writers Festival highlights will include:

First word – BMW Edge Theatre, Federation Square, 7.30pm, Friday 21 May
The Emerging Writers’ Festival burst into life by presenting the best of the festival – exciting new works by emerging writers, a Call to Arms by romantic fiction writer Toni Jordan, and a comic debate asking  ‘Love Vs Angst – what makes a better writer?’ Come and feel the love!

Zine Bus – various locations, 11am to 5pm Saturday 29 May NEW EVENT 
All aboard the world’s first mobile zine fair! Travelling the streets of Melbourne and culminating in a guerrilla zine market  at Federation Square, the zine bus will be fully stocked with independent emerging zines, with the most innovative displays of art, creativity and DIY ever to take to the streets!

Twitterfest – twitter.com/emergingwriters – May 24 – 28 , 2pm daily  NEW EVENT
Taking the Emerging Writers’ Festival to the world. Daily throughout the festival, Twitterfest will host discussions and interview writers… on Twitter! It’s social media mixed with literary debate – jump online to join the discussion. Hosted by writers from across Australia.

Wordstock – BMW Edge – 7.30pm Thurs 27 May
New work inspired by the songs of AC/DC. With songs, comedy, short plays and performance pieces, rock n roll will be given a different sort of spotlight. A one night only event and a performance highlight of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Wordstock will reveals a whole new side of AC/DC. It will blow your mind (like dynamite.)  Hosted by iconic Melbourne rocker Clem Bastow.

You Can’t Stop The Musing: Disco Lecture – Horse Bazaar, 397 Little Lonsdale St Tues 25 May, 6pm NEW EVENT
Everybody knows disco is fun. But is it good for you? Now that Disco is back (trust us, it is), the time has come to determine, once and for all, whether it’s part of the problem or part of the solution. *Triple J’s Craig Schuftan *presents the case for and against in You Can’t Stop the Musing – the world’s first Disco-lecture. Expect to hear from The Silver convention, The Chic Organisation and the Frankfurt School

48-hour play generator – Malthouse Theatre – 5.30pm, Sunday 24 May
Six (somewhat) rehearsed readings. Six emerging playwrights are given just two days to write a new play each. Teamed with an established director and team of actors, the results are presented on a Sunday evening of madcap and totally raw theatre. Previous 48 hour plays have developed into full length works.

In the Pub series – 26 May 7.30pm, The Workers Club Fitzroy
I Write What I Want, When I Want. We lift the shroud on the mystery of freelance writing. Our freelance experts talk about their journeys as freelancers, the ups and downs as well as their secrets to success. From journalism to comedy, our panellists will entertain and enlighten. Panellists: Chris Flynn, Ben Pobjie and more. Hosted by Joanna Brookfield. 

The Page Parlour – The Atrium @ Federation Square, 12 to 5pm, Sunday 23 May
Featuring over forty stalls selling everything from posters to books, literary journals to hand-crafted stories – all the good stuff that you won’t find in Borders. The Page Parlour is an independent press fair gathering the undiscovered, the underground, the obscure and the amazing all in one convenient market location.

Town Hall Program – Melbourne Town Hall, 9am to 5pm, May 29 – 30
A range of panels, interviews and conversations about the art, craft and business of being a writer.. Covers all styles of writing, from prose fiction, to song writing, theatre, video games, copywriting, poetry, comedy and more! Guests include: Michi Girl, Guy Blackman, Benjamin Law, Patrick Cullen, Jill Jones, Sean Riley, Julian Shaw, Katherine Charles, Declan Fay, Tom Taylor, Mel Campbell, Jeff Sparrow, Steph Bowe, Jan Sardi, and many, many more!

Kissing frogs by Andee Jones. Finding #love online over 40 – is it possible?

Once upon a time, using a social dating website would have labelled you as ‘desperate’ or ‘lonely’. Now it’s a rite of passage for singles on their journey to find another. An influx of men and women, 40 and above, are braving the dating market ­constituting what is now a movement,  courtesy of the computer age. According to Australia’s largest social dating website, Oasis Active, men and women over the age of 36 years make up over 30% of those signed up and looking for love online.

But is love really just a mouse click away?

At 50-something, Australian psychologist Andee Jones found out. Looking for companionship with a view to love, but not marriage, Andee did what other single people seemed to be doing and launched herself into the wide world of online dating. What transpired was Kissing Frogs ­ a true but cautionary tale of the pleasures and pitfalls of the online dating scene.

About the author

Andee Jones is a Melbourne-based psychologist. She holds a PhD and has worked as an educator at both secondary and tertiary levels .

A psychologist goes looking for love online – and finds trouble!
$24.95, 176 pages, paperback (208mm x 148mm)
ISBN 9781921462191
Publication: July 2010
Category: Relationships

Glissando by David Musgrave, #Sleepers #Publishing

A little bit about Glissando:
        When it comes to looking back over his life, Archie Fliess has got some understanding to do. So begins a sprawling reflection on his life during the early twentieth century, starting the day the fortunes of Archie and brother Reggie change when they are taken to be the rightful owners of the property built by their grandfather in country NSW. Along their journey, they are introduced to an odd collection of family and caretakers who don’t always have the best interests of the boys at heart. Archie becomes embroiled in the mystery surrounding his grandfather’s life, and as the two stories “ Archie’s and his grandfather’s“ unravel, we see familiar themes of disappointment and failed ambition. Glissando is a tale that travels along many threads, told in a playful, philosophical voice reminiscent of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, with shades of Patrick White’s Voss. It’s an Australian classic, a satirical romp of epic proportions.

Melbourne launch details:
+ Friday 16th April
+ 7pm
+ The Wheeler Centre: 176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
+ Being launched by poet, teacher and literary man-about-town, Kevin Brophy

Sydney launch details:
+ Friday 23rd April
+ 5.30 for 6pm
+ Woolley Building Common Room, University of Sydney
+ Being launched by associate professor, Will Christie

Buy Glissando
If you can’t make it to the launches and you haven’t already got this gorgeous book in your chocolate-warmed hands, step into our online store
http://www.sleeperspublishing.com/shop.html