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In case you missed it, please enjoy the highlights of our online micro-lit event, Travel, featuring readings from several of our authors including Helen Hopcroft, Melina Thompson, PS Cottier, Angela Costi, Susan McCreery, Anne Elvey, Seetha Nambiar Dodd, Heather Mackenzie
Danielle Baldock, Paul Venzo, Peter Johnson, Richard Holt, Shady Cosgrove, Stuart Barnes,
Sandra Renew, Gayelene Carbis, Rananda Rich, Lynette Hinings-Marshall, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Catherine Moffat, Jonathan Penton, Dominique Hecq, Arna Radovich, Penelope Layland, Brenda Proudfoot, Beth Spencer, Tony Barrett, Alyson Miller, Dominic Symes, Moya Costello, Holly Inglesias, Christine Howe and Kathleen Bleakley.

You can watch the video on our Youtube channel here where you can find lots of other online literary events and author Q&As. Or just click the play button below.

 

 

 

‘Emotive and profound, these bits of lit evoke travel at its best: that which transports and transforms. Zaragoza, Saghez and Brayakoolong Country are among the stop-offs on a journey that also shows travel to be crucially internal: without moving, we can be moved. This is one surefire ticket to ride.’
Dr Amelia Walker

‘Like scenes glimpsed through the open doorways of winding back lanes, this is an anthology of intense moments and suggested possibilities – the ecstasies, tragedies and strange banalities that travel inscribes deep into memory.

Romance, death and toilets. War, butterflies and freefall. Homecomings and banishments. Bikes, trains and spacecraft. From Earth to Moon to Mars. From this room to the next. From bright lights and into the desert these compressed worlds will absorb you in journeys, the real and imagined, the remembered and longed for, the never now more than ever missed.’
Gareth Sion Jenkins, Recipes for the Disaster

From the editor, Cassandra Atherton

Congratulations to the winners and finalists in the 2022 Newcastle Writers Festival/joanne burns Microlit Award and thanks to all of the writers who entered the competition. The response to this year’s theme was unprecedented. We tapped a vein of yearning and creativity which made shortlisting a finite number of pieces really challenging. And whilst the task was daunting, the opportunity to travel vicariously to so many places and times was welcome compensation for our locked-down existence.

Thank you to the commissioned writers from both Australia and the United States of America: Shady Cosgrove, Paul Hetherington, Richard Holt, Holly Iglesias, Peter Johnson, Alyson Miller, Jonathan Penton, Julia Prendergast, Dom Symes and Paul Venzo. Their wonderfully textured microlit ‘travel’ pieces certainly showcase the myriad possibilities for the short form.

Thank you to Bettina Kaiser for her evocative cover design. Thank you to joanne burns, after whom this award is named and who this year was co-judge.  joanne is a pioneer and ambassador of the short form and her luminous, witty and innovative microlit is enduring.

Contributors include:

Emma Ashmere | Eugen M. Bacon |Danielle Baldock |Stuart Barnes | Tony Barret |Kathleen Bleakley |Sue Brown |Gayelene Carbis |Liana Joy Christensen |Shady Cosgrove | Moya Costello |Angela Costi | PS Cottier | Seetha Nambiar Dodd | Anne Elvey | Dominique Hecq | Paul Hetherington | Hilary Hewitt | Lynette Hinings-Marshall | Richard Holt | Helen Hopcroft |Christine Howe | Holly Iglesias | Peter Johnson | Penelope Layland | Angela Lloyd-Jones | Heather Mackenzie | Susan McCreery | Alyson Miller |Scott-Patrick Mitchell | Catherine Moffat | Mube Nalbant | Jonathan Penton | Julia Prendergast | Brenda Proudfoot | Arna Radovich | Bahar Razaghi | Sandra Renew | Rananda Rich | Dettra Rose | Beth Spencer | Dominic Symes | Melina Thompson | Jo Tuscano |Paul Venzo