The National Young Writers’ Festival (NYWF) is the country’s largest gathering of young and innovative writers working in both new and traditional forms including zines, comics, blogging, screenwriting, poetry, spoken word, hip hop music, journalism, autobiography, comedy, songwriting and prose.
NYWF presents ‘writing’ in its broadest sense through panels, discussions, workshops, launches, performances and readings.
NYWF gives young writers a place to present their work and share ideas, to learn about the industry in which they write and to meet with like-minded people in a friendly festival atmosphere.
You can stalk us over at http://youngwritersfestival.org/
We are headed up this year by:
Talina McKenzie
Talina McKenzie is a writer, designer and editor who has worked on various magazines and books in Brisbane, Sydney and London. She was an editor of QUT’s Utopia magazine back in the golden pre-VSU days of student media, and a co-founder of Brisbane’s Vulture magazine. She is about to embark on a thesis on the history of student media. Wish her luck.
Bhakthi Puvanenthiran
Bhakthi Puvanenthiran is a Melburnian of Tamil origin. She has written for Crikey and Arena, held a brief stint as the new media columnist for Voiceworks and regularly makes community radio on 3CR. In 2009, she edited Melbourne Uni’s student paper, Farrago and maintained a blog about feminism. Aside from co-piloting the NYWF, Bhakthi will spend most of 2010/11 finishing her degree in Media and Communications/Law and earning her pennies at the State Library of Victoria.
Ben Jenkins
Ben Jenkins is a writer and comedian who lives in Sydney. He’s co-written three shows for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, been a national finalist for Triple J’s Raw Comedy, co-written a play performed at downstairs Belvoir, and edited Honi Soit, the student newspaper at Sydney University, where he has been an undergrad for a frankly ludicrous amount of time. Recently, he started a monthly storytelling night which will be featuring this year at the Sydney Comedy Festival in late April. He also co-founded Project 52, a production company supporting and unearthing young comedians. Ben is thrilled with the chance to be a co-director of the National Young Writers’ Festival and promises to do his best.
Zoe Norton Lodge
Zoe Norton Lodge has a Masters of Creative Writing from UTS. Publishing credits include the 2010 UTS Writers’ Anthology I can see my house from here, Seizure magazine (2011) and the Penguin Plays Rough Anthology (2011). She is a co-founder of independent theatre company Bambina Borracha Productions, with which she has produced four seasons of theatre, including her own one woman production of Under Milk Wood which recently toured Sydney and Melbourne. Zoe also co-produces Cut and Paste, a bi-monthly showcase of theatre scraps, scripts in hands and comedy in conjunction with the Tamarama Rock Surfers at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo.
