Emerging Writers Festival news

Thanks to all who put their hands up for the Panellist callout, as always we were stunned by the amount of interesting writers reading our newsletter, delighted with how many people were keen to be part of EWF 2009 and a little surprised by the amount of people who didn’t read the brief.

From here it’s a giant jigsaw puzzle of who would work well for which panel balancing the demands of each panel with the need to have writers of different styles and forms and genres on each panel. Don’t despair if you haven’t heard from us yet, we will be umming and erring for another month yet and as some of last years panellist call out people found out today, we have long memories.

Three quick notes to finish off with this week.

*/_(The event formerly known as)_/**_ Scrabble_*
Long time Emerging Writers’ Festival fans will know we do a performance event called Scrabble. Last year we did the works of Paul Kelly in a night of radical word based reinterpretations. This year we are…well let’s not give everything away.

Anyway the issue is we are changing the name. Not due to any multinationals telling us to do so but just because it confuses some people who come to the event and are annoyed they can’t see a triple word score anywhere.

What shall we call it? Well…surprisingly for such an innovative festival we are stumped. Thus we turn to you our loyal e-newsletter list.

We are looking for suggestions for the new name for the /(The event formerly known as) /Scrabble. It needs to be snappy, short, maybe linked to the fact we perform lyrics and of course original.

The winning entry gets a double pass to /(The event formerly known as)/ Scrabble on Thursday the 28^th of May at BMW Edge

Competition closes Friday the 20th of February. Email it to director@emergingwritersfestival.org.au with the heading ‘I’ve got a much better idea’

*_Program Booklet_*
Each year for the festival we print a wonderful little A6 booklet which details the whole festival, has wonderfully creative bios and occasionally even a vaguely inspirational message from the me. We see it as the passport to the festival and with this years festival being ten days with over twelve different events its going to be the must have item to plan your festival.

Unfortunately this wonderful tome rarely ends up in the hands of those who want it. We don’t know why but the 3000 or so we print disappear, with people who come to the festival thinking our two page download _is_ the program.

This year we have had enough and have put aside a little money for direct mailing. So if you would like the program mailed to you, arriving the day the ticket sales go online on April the 27^th , please email your name and postal address (with postcode) in the body of your email to info@emergingwritersfestival.org.au . Please title your email Program. (Also don’t reply directly to this e-newsletter. It doesn’t go anywhere useful when you do).

Also we will not be posting internationally.

*_Twitter_*
For those wanting to keep up with us as things happen, come join us on twitter at http://twitter.com/EmergingWriters.

And we are also on Facebook if you really want to go social media crazy http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=534231192&ref=name#/pages/Emerging-Writers-Festival/22221031271?ref=s

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David Ryding
Director

Emerging Writers' Festival
Friday 22nd - Sunday 31st May 2009
www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au