CHRISTMAS PARTY

LES WICKS
Les Wicks’ eighth book of poetry is The Ambrosiacs (Island, 2009). For 35 years Les has been a substantial figure in the Australian literary community. He has been a guest at most of the nation’s literary festivals, toured widely and been published in well over 200 different newspapers, anthologies and magazines across 12 countries in 7 languages. Equally well known is his work as a publisher and editor. Most people will remember Artransit which put poetry and art into Sydney and Newcastle buses but that is just one of dozens of similar roles: some predictable like literary magazines while others range as far afield as publishing a poem on the surface of a river. The most recent publications are From this Broken Hill and Guide to Sydney Beaches. He runs workshops across the country.

http://leswicks.tripod.com/lw.htm

Les Wicks
leswicks@hotmail.com
http://leswicks.tripod.com/lw.htm

Wicks' 8th book of poetry "The Ambrosiacs" is now available from Island Press

http://islandpress.tripod.com/ISLAND.htm

ANNUAL PUBLIC READING
Annual public reading of members' works (prose, memoir, fiction and poetry) with a music interluse and afternoon tea.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

BWG MEETING

KAREL SEGERS
The Story Dept. was founded by OZZYWOOD Films Producer and Story Analyst Karel Segers, a Licentiate of Germanic Philology (that’s literature and linguistics).

Before I moved to Sydney in 2001, I headed Production, Programming and Acquisitions at the Digital Broadcasting Company (DBC) in London, I was a film buyer for Europe’s largest pay-tv group Canal Plus and a movie show host for MTV Europe. I started my career in the late eighties producing top rating radio shows in Belgium, my country of birth.

Since moving to Australia, I have produced three short films, co-produced two documentaries and two feature films. Alongside my production work, I have always enjoyed blogging, teaching and consulting. My clients have been writers, directors and producers and a few of them have won some cool awards. They’ve each told me they wouldn’t have won without my help. (I only take on very kind clients.)

My work as a Producer, Co-Producer and Exec Producer has resulted in a diverse range of projects finding development money, production funds, post-production investment, international sales, film festival wins, etc.

CHRISTINE GREENOUGH & SUZANNE GUNESEKERA

Christine Greenough
Experienced Actor/Director/Storyteller, Christine Greenough, has recent stage credits in "Navigating" as Bea (New Theatre), in "Seagulls" as Valery (Cat and Fiddle), Dawn in "Vicious Streaks" (Darlinghurst Theatre), as well as several plays in Short and Sweet Festival. She won the Best Actress award for Short and Sweet in 2004. She has appeared in "All Saints", "Home and Away" and several short films.

In recent years Christine has played several characters for ‘Shorter and Sweeter’ - the production of the top ten minute plays from the Short and Sweet Season. ‘Shorter and Sweeter’ has toured internationally.

Suzanne Gunesekera
Suzanne is about to complete her Diploma of Performing Arts [Acting] at The Actors Centre Australia in Surry Hills, Sydney. Her graduating showcase will be held in late June 2010. She has played Arkadina in Chekhov’s The Seagull and has performed in last year’s production of Julius Caesar. Suzanne is presently working with the great Australian director, George Ogilvie, and she is very much looking forward to working in Australian Theatre.

INFORMAL DAY

This month we have decided to have an informal day when members read aloud their work and the rest of the group gives feedback.

CATHERINE HAMMOND
Catherine Hammond is a full-time free-lance editor who holds Masters Degrees in Literature/Creative Writing and Philosophy. She has worked as an editor at Doubleday and Managing Editor at Millennium Books and now both assesses manuscripts and edits for publishers and writers. Catherine particularly enjoys her role as a lecturer at the NSW Writers’ Centre.

Catherine’s work has included a great variety of genres: popular fiction (thrillers, historical drama, chicklit, ladlit, romance, mystery, YA novels), and general non-fiction: business books, academic studies, self-help, philosophical, religious and social analyses, and biography. Some of the writers and publishers she has worked with are:

Felicity Pulman (Random House), Sue Williams (Allen & Unwin), Frank Coates (HarperCollins), Gary Corby (St Martins), Graham Kenny (Elsevier-Butterworth Heinemann), Maggie MacKellar (Melbourne University Press),) Paul Fenton-Smith (Simon & Schuster), Ken Sutcliffe (Allen & Unwin), Cam Lavac (New Holland), Ber Carroll (Pan Macmillan).

PATTI MILLER
Patti Miller is the author of five books including two writing texts, two memoirs and one novel. Her books are "Writing Your Life", "The Last One Who Remembers", "Child", "Whatever The Gods Do" and the latest, "The Memoir Book", released in 2007. She also freelances articles for newspapers and magazines, works on manuscript development for other writers, and teaches autobiography and memoir workshops in Australia and overseas – Fiji, Bali and Paris.

After lecturing in Writing and Literature at universities, she has specialised in the area of life writing since 1990. Nearly twenty of her students have been successfully published. She is currently working on both a memoir on the native title claim in her hometown, and on a novel.

NO MEETING