Contributors

Sunday, January 16, 2011

I’m grateful to be part of the writing community...


Living in Sydney at this time I cannot be part of the ‘Army of Volunteers’ working tirelessly to clean up the city of Brisbane and flood-affected suburbs and towns. But like many others who have donated to the official flood relief fund I still feel helpless and want to participate in any way I can. So I am thankful to be part of a proactive writing community that has created the opportunities below that allow me as a writer to do my bit. They are all initiatives that YOU TOO can be part of!

1.WRITERS ON RAFTS:
I’m grateful to Rebecca Sparrow and the Queensland Writers Centre’s "Writers On Rafts" initiative which aims to raise funds for the flood victims in Queensland. 100% of the proceeds will go to the Premier's Flood Relief Program.
For a small entry fee, YOU, your book club or school can go in the draw to win one of the following fantastic prizes:
* A personal visit to their book club OR school by the writer of your choice (in your State) OR
* A one-on-one writing workshop or mentoring session OR
* A character named after YOU in someone's next novel OR
* A lunch for YOU and a friend with the writer/s of your choice (and a QWC rep) OR
* A whole stack of book packs, signed copies etc etc etc OR
* a manuscript assessment from a literary agent or publisher
So far over 60 authors and literary agents have volunteered their services, books or time including Curtis Brown, Inkwell, UQP, Melina Marchetta, Markus Zusak, Di Morrissey, Emily Maguire, Sara Foster, Jessica Adams, , Mia Freedman, Kate Morton, Kim Wilkins (pictured above), Richard Glover, Tara Moss, Jessica Rudd, Venero Armanno, John Birmingham, Nick Earls and many more. Oh, and yours truly!

I’ll post more details here later this week on how you can WIN some of the above, so stay tune!

2. Writers Auction 4 Queensland Flood Appeal:
Writers all over the world are donating a variety of items and services to be auctioned for the Queensland Flood Appeal. Already there have been hundreds of offers of autographed books, mentorships, tickets to writers’ events, burlesque performances, magazine subscriptions and much, much more. Kudos to Australian authors Fleur McDonald, Kate Gordon, Katrina Germein and Emily Gale for such a fantastic idea which allows us all to help just that little bit more
As soon as the list of donations has been finalised I will post all the goodies and auction details here, please stay tuned.

3. 100 STORIES FOR QUEENSLAND: Administrated by Trevor Belshaw, Maureen Vincent-Northam, David Robinson and the 100 Stories for Haiti founder, Greg McQueen, along with a team of volunteer editors, 100 Stories for QLD is a charity anthology to assist the survivors of the Queensland floods. Stories are donated by writers from across the globe and 100% of the sales profit will be donated to the Queensland Premier's Flood Relief appeal. I’m grateful for the invitation to be part of this anthology but the editors are still seeking more submissions of stories 500-1000 words in any genre and for any age group. For details click here.

100 Stories for Queensland will be available in digital and print form, and is expected to be ready for release late February/early March and if you can buy a copy for yourself and maybe one to give away, that would be too deadly!

I’ll be providing updates on these initiatives as they come to hand, and you can always follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more immediate information.

2 comments:

Krissy Kneen said...

Hey Anita was trying to work out how to submit to the 100 stories. Their FB page was a bit overwhelming. Do you know the details?

Dr Anita Heiss said...

My contact is Jodi Cleghorn. I'll hook you up on Twitter and Facebook with her. On my way over there now.