We asked editorial assistant and emerging writer, Ilana Gjurovska to tell us a bit about herself, what she does when she needs inspiration for her own writing and the role she will be playing in the upcoming Ashfield Sound Bites project which is part of the Inner West Council Ashfield EDGE Festival (Sept 13-15). Meet Ilina.
My name is Ilina Gjurovska and it’s a pleasure to be working with Spineless Wonders this Winter. I’m a 22-year-old student who was born in Skopje, Macedonia. raised in Sydney, Australia and lived for a year in Tübingen, Germany at the age of 21. This year I’ll be completing my fifth and final year of a Bachelor of Communications and Bachelor of Arts in International Studies at UTS where I’m majoring in Creative Writing and German respectively. I speak 3 languages; English, Macedonian and German, soon to get a crack on learning Spanish. For work I’m currently a waitress where I’m unintentionally living the starving artist’s stereotype yet once I graduate I aim to pursue my passion for writing full time. I love being silly, dancing, being outdoors, camping, reading, hiking, yoga and have set an intention to learn how to skateboard.
When I’m in need of inspiration for writing I stop looking for it and just start looking. I try to dissociate my knowledge of objects and sounds and try to see them as something new and foreign. Only when I distance myself from how I’ve come to understand thoughts/feelings/objects/sounds/how the world works do I start formulating a fresh, abstract understanding of these things with my own words in my writing! Do you need some inspiration? Look out for the Ashfield Sound Bites writing prompts like this one below. You can find them on the Spineless Wonders Facebook and Instagram.
My role as the co-curator of the call out for the Ashfield EDGE festival is to be assistant editor to Spinel
ess Wonders’ publisher Bronwyn Mehan. During the submission period I will be helping select and edit the pieces of writing sent in by you to then exhibit at the EDGE Festival. All kinds of genres are welcome but in particular we are looking for writing that adheres to the theme of SOUND and has a distinctive tone of reflection on how sound can characterise daily life as well as memories of the past. Submissions can be made through our Submittable link here, in either a written format of up to 500 words or an audio file; a spoken form of writing (highly encouraged!).
I’m so excited to engage and be inspired by local talent throughout all stages of the Ashfield EDGE Festival and can’t wait to read/hear all of your submissions! Writing and music have always been two big passions of mine so I consider myself very lucky to be part of this sound inspired writer’s festival!
If you have any questions about Ashfield Sound Bites or would like to know more about how to get involved in Ashfield EDGE, contact us at info[at]shortaustralianstories[dot]com[dot]au