Bundanon Group Retreat Emerging & Established Writers
The week-long retreat at Bundanon Homestead begins on Monday 25th of April to Sunday 30th April. The retreat allows the seven selected emerging or established south coast writers (listed below) to focus on developing or completing their works.
Bundanon is located on 1,000 hectares of bush and park land overlooking the Shoalhaven River, in the Shoalhaven. Bundanon’s mission is to operate the property as a centre for creative arts and education, to scientific research and a place to explore landscape and Indigenous culture.
Bundanon is a place for research, creativity and connection to living cultures. The gift of Bundanon was driven by Arthur and Yvonne Boyds’ bold vision—a celebration of art and ideas, promoting the value of landscape in all our lives. A place charged with inspiration.
While participants will be primarily spending their days working on individual projects, this retreat is also designed as a supportive group retreat that will enable writers to work and learn together via daily peer-led discussion.
There will also be a public forum at the Bundanon Art Museum on the afternoon of Sunday 1 May 2022 where participants will read from and discuss their work.
We are excited to announce that the seven South Coast writers chosen to attend the retreat were:
Linda Godfrey, Emily Gray, Elanna Herbert, Elizabeth Walton, Lani Watt, Gwen Wilson and Denise Young.
They will be joined by SCWC Writing Program Leaders Judi Morison and Helena Fox, and SCWC Director Sarah Nicholson.
ABOUT THE WRITERS
Linda Godfrey is a writer, poet, editor and teacher. She has a Masters of Professional Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney. She won the 2021 AAWP First Chapter Prize, one benefit is that her complete manuscript was sent to UWAP for consideration to publish. Linda has a chapbook of prose poetry, ‘Count the Ways’, published in 2021. She has had poetry and short stories published in anthologies and online. Linda was Program Manager of the Wollongong Writers Festival, 2015 to 2018. She curated monthly sessions of poetry readings, Rocket Readings in Wollongong, 2007 to 2018, that were included in the Sydney Writers Festival program, 2015 to 2018. Linda has edited three award-winning books, including the ‘Miles Franklin’ winner for 2016, ‘Black Rock White City’ by Alec Patric, Elizabeth Hodgeson’s ‘Skin Painting’, David Unaipon Award winner, 2006 and ‘Jen Craig’s Panthers’ and the ‘Museum of Fire’, longlisted for the Stella Prize 2016. Linda is a fiction reader for Overland and review books for the Newtown Review of Books. She has been a recipient of a Varuna Residency and an Australian Society of Authors manuscript. She has taught writing, both poetry and short stories in writes centres and the community for many years.
Emily Gray is a writer and a lawyer at a community legal centre. She grew up on Dharawal country and lives in Austinmer with her wife and three sons. She was recently selected as a recipient of the South Coast Writers Centre Emerging Writers Mentor Program and will soon have a short story published in ‘Legacies: the South Coast Writers Centre anthology of writing 2021. Emily has a first class honours degree in English Literature, and she attended The Writers’ Voice writing workshops in New York. More recently, she has been a regular attendee of workshops at the South Coast Writers Centre. She has a long history of activism in human rights, labour rights and LGBTIQ equality. In her spare time, Emily loves ocean swimming and will one day master the art of freediving.
Elanna Herbert was born and raised in Canberra, she has lived in Gundaroo, Perth and now lives at Conjola Park, south coast NSW. While Elanna’s primary focus is on poetry, she also writes short fiction and narrative non-fiction. In 2021 she shortlisted for ACU’s Prize for Poetry, and the Queensland Poetry Awards Emerging Older Poets mentorship, for which she was runner up in 2020 and 2018. In 2020 she won the June Shenfield National Poetry prize and was awarded a Varuna ‘Writing Fire Writing Drought’ Fellowship.Other shortlists include Booranga Prize (poetry 2019), Storyfest (prose 2021), other awards include winning the SCWC ‘Writing in Colour’ poetry competition (2018), 2nd and Commended in the Ethel Webb Blundell Literary Award (Poetry 2018, 2020) and other commendations. Elanna’s work appears in Science Write Now (forthcoming), Westerly, Axon (9.2, 10.2), Not Very Quiet, Meniscus, StylusLit, Australian Poetry Anthology (6, 8), Four W (28, 30, 32), Poetry New Zealand and anthologies Brushstrokes II (2021), Grieve (2019) and Never Heard of Them (2019) among others. Her short story collection Frieda and the Cops (Ginninderra Press, 2005) was Runner up ACT Writing and Publishing Awards. This manuscript won the 2001 Marion Eldridge Award. Elanna holds a Communication PhD (UC).
Elizabeth Walton received an Anne Edgeworth Fellowship in December to develop her manuscript. Elizabeth has contributed a long form journalism to The Weekend Australian, Penguin Books and The New York Times, as well as newspapers and magazines in Sweden, India, Greece, Hong Kong, and Singapore. She contributes long form journalism to Oz Arts magazine, and review for Arts Hub. This month she has contributed reviews on artists Joan Ross and Imants Tillers. During a 2021 mentorship with Kathryn Heyman, Elizabeth completed her first novel of 120,000 words and her second collection of short stories. Her fiction is based on the Black Summer fires and will be published by the London Reader in January. Elizabeth’s work was featured in a 30 minute ABC Radio interview with artist Lucy Culliton in October 2021.
Lani Watt is an emerging writer from Worrigee, NSW. She recently completed a Master of Creative Writing and is writing her first novel, an LGBTQIA+ YA story entitled c u l8tr. Her first publication was a creative nonfiction tribute to the late Robin Williams entitled, Oh, Captain! My Captain! In 2016, Lani won First Place Prose in the SCWC’s “Empty shells are full of stories” competition. When she’s not writing, Lani works with the Rehab team at HMAS Albatross, and enjoys reading, drinking tea, listening to music and podcasts, and spending time with her family and furkid, Bonnie. After living in Scotland for two years and marrying a Scotsman, she loves all things Scottish and enjoys including elements of Scotland in her stories. As a chronic illness warrior, she is interested in using her writing to advocate for better awareness, acceptance, and support for those who live with chronic illness, chronic pain, and disability. Lani’s genres of interest include LGBTQIA+, low fantasy, and historical fiction. She aims to create Australian stories that champion LGBTQIA+ Pride and equality or highlight life with chronic illness or disability. Her writing goals include finishing her manuscript and hopes to undertake a PhD in creative writing.
Gwen Wilson is a Wollongong-based author. She started writing her memoir ‘I Belong to No One’ in her fifties. Published by Hachette Australia in 2015, it is a classic ‘triumph over adversity’ tale, set in the context of Australian social history pre-Whitlam and the women’s movement. Those who lived through those times will relate, and those who followed will find a window into the thinking and social attitudes of the era. Essentially self-educated, Gwen worked as a motel receptionist, dental nurse and switchboard operator until at nineteen, in the exciting days of the pre-container era, a chance opportunity saw her land a role in customs clearance on the male-dominated Port Adelaide waterfront. A stable marriage and successful career in shipping and logistics followed until she retired; after which Gwen entered university for the first time and now holds a Master’s Degree in Electronic Commerce. Since then, writing has become her passion. Florence & Lucy, a hybrid memoir/novel based on her grandmother and great-aunt is currently seeking publication. ‘Louisa’s Legacy’, a work-in-progress novel, shines a spotlight on one woman’s struggle to survive in a time when society dictated how women should lead their lives. Gwen also blogs as Garrulous Gwendoline, The Reluctant Retiree, http://garrulousgwendoline.wordpress.com.
Denise Young has published and authored two books: ‘The Last Ride’, 2004 and ‘HarperCollins’, which won a HarperCollins Varuna Award for MS Development in 2002, Jim Hamilton Award for Best Unpublished MS in 2003, then the UTS Prize for Best First Novel in 2005 at the NSW Premier's Literary Award. It was turned into a film starring Hugo Weaving in 2009. The second book was published earlier this year by Penguin Random House and was a shared memoir with Denise’s daughter, Nina Young, called ‘My Father, the Murderer’. She has written an essay in Meanjin and stories in the NSW School Magazine over the years. Denise has been to Varuna many times, twice on a fellowship, and loved the combination of solitary focus in the day time and group discussion over dinner.