Express Media – We're here for young writers

The Emerging Writers Festival is looking for an intern to help produce the next installment of their annual Reader. This is a fantastic opportunity, not just because those guys are awesome and really know what they're doing and so on, but because their office is right next to ours. I would go so far as to say that the main benefit of the position is proximity to us. If that sounds like something you need in your life, see below for more info.

As many of you may know the Emerging Writers’ Festival is going on right now and there’s so much great stuff happening. Last night I made it to the Wheeler Centre for the first of the 15 Minutes of Fame launches. It’s a fun little event that will launch or relaunch 16 books, journals and zines over four nights. What’s more it’s hosted by Estelle Tang, a young woman with many skills including a most resonant and alluring voice. It’s on at 7pm every night until Thursday. And did I mention they serve lovely wine! The first in the spotlight last night was the ever-charming Karen Andrews and the 'landmark' book of blog writing she published, Miscellaneous Voices. Her project of publishing blog-writing in a book is a deceptively simple idea but very innovative. I find the process and the problems she had to solve endlessly interesting and the metaphors that come out of it translate so well to all sorts of writing and publishing. I was struck by the imagery in a phrase one reviewer used to describe the editing process the posts went through as ‘gussied-up’. It’s quite vivid and I think I’ll keep it in mind when editing my own and others' writing.

Some of us are doing things for the Emerging Writers' Festival this week. If you aren't already booked out with EWF coolness, it would be nice to see you. Sam Cooney is hosting a panel on writing family history on Monday night. Maddie Crofts is running a writing workshop on Wednesday night. I'll be talking about pitching on Saturday night.

The Emerging Writers' Festival program is now available online, or you can email by April 30 with your name and address to get a totally unique, hand screen-printed copy sent to you. Gosh. Lots of neat stuff scheduled, including a day of skill share workshops run in partnership with Express Media. Get your bookings on.

The new Emerging Writers' Festival website/blog is so damn hot, it's like design porn or something. The folks being exploited by this unabashed fetishism are People Collective, who are also the reason it feels like you are being rude when you look at Voiceworks. EWF will run from 21-30 May, the program goes up 22 April. Expect more coverage then, but for now, just look at those colours and be soothed.