Showing posts with label competitions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label competitions. Show all posts
03 March 2010
Currently reading
Submissions for the Ada Cambridge Award. Great to see so many high quality stories. I reckon the authors are doing what they should: getting hold of previous anthologies and studying them, reading the judges reports, learning. It makes the whole judging process more enjoyable!
07 June 2007
Marking
Ah, it's that time of year that all teachers hate. My eyes especially hate it because I feel like I'm going cross-eyed marking grammar tests. Is that a comma or a semicolon? Is that comma inside or outside the quotation marks? Actually, the grammar tests are easy in comparison to the novels. We spend all this time, reading, assessing, thinking about what's down on the page and whether it's enough for the reader to create the scenery, whether the characters are alive on the page, whether the narrative is rising in tension and the writing compelling, how fresh and original it seems, whether there are POV violations or not, whether the dialogue is believable and what it adds -- myriad things to consider -- and craft our comments accordingly, and the student gets the paper back and focuses on the mark. The mark to me is the least important thing. But I know as a student I was the same. This mark will tell me whether he or she really likes it or not. And of course it doesn't necessarily -- especially if there are specific assignment criteria that haven't been met. But I guess that's part of the writing game as well as the student game. I had one friend who entered a short story in a big writing competition and said, "Oh, well, if it doesn't win anything I'll know it's a crap story and isn't any good." I was horrified and told him he must never think like that. And having done some judging I know that sometimes it's like comparing a good curry to chocolate: they both tast great but give you totally different experiences. But that's part of the fun of it all -- you just never know what's going to turn up in that assignment tray.
Oh, well, better get back to it!
Oh, well, better get back to it!
05 May 2007
Williamstown literary festival
What I'm reading: student assignments.
Today, I've spent part of my day at the Williamstown literary festival. I began by meeting Sherryl to help her set up the display for our course, but by the time I got there she'd already done it. There was still half an hour before the opening and the library, next door, was having a book sale so we meandered over. Writers should never meander over to book sales. Oh, the temptation. I did come away with three books: one on managing kids with ADD, which I'll give to The Gadget-Man, one on the Bible (Princess Sleepyhead has to study RE till Year 12, and we're not particularly religious, so it might come in handy), and James Frey's biography that turned out to be not so biographaphical at all. When I opened it, I noticed that none of the paras were indented, nor did any of the dialogue have quote marks. Hmm. Still, the writing looked lively, so I'll have to see how I go with that one.
We wandered back to the festival and took our seats. After the speeches, they had a fifteen-year-old guest speaker whose first novel is coming out with HarperCollins next month. This amazed me less than her poise, her confidence in standing up before all those people. At her age, I would've been a quivering mess. But she looked like she'd been doing it for years. Perhaps she had. She did mention she was in the debating club. She spoke with passion and enthusiasm and made the journey from no-one to published writer sound so easy. Pleasing to hear her talk about how she wants to grow as a writer, though. That to me is one of the great joys of writing: knowing that you can improve. She came across as being down-to-earth, very nice, enthusiastic.
Then I went home. Mr Gadget-Man was at work. His job finishes in about seven weeks (everyone's job there does), and yet they were offering them all overtime this weekend -- bizarre! So I had to get Princess Sleepyhead off to rehearsals, which is no mean feat. Rehearsals happened to be at the same venue as the lit fest, which was rather convenient. So I headed back in and saw half a session on the craft of writing. Seems I'd missed the editor speak, which was a shame. One of my students was there and said it was quite pertinent to what we'd been talking about in class. The writer was speaking about sentence structures, which is always going to interest me. One thing he said that I found intriguing was that he spoke about leaning against your strengths as a writer. About making your strengths your weaknesses. That would be one way of assuring growth, I would imagine. We all need to push boundaries.
My next session was about writing the city. Or more specifically about writing Melbourne. So really it was about place. I love thinking about place -- in real life place is one of my touchstones in life. When I left Clarion, I kept thinking, I'll see these people again, but I'm never going to see this room again, never going to enjoy this view. All I'll have are my photos. I don't think anyone else gave a shit -- they couldn't wait to get out of that sweatbox, but for me, well, I lost part of myself when I left there. That is perhaps hard to understand, but place inhabits my blood, it seeps in through the cracks in and pores of my skin. I am grounded by place. But I'm digressing, as I am so apt to do. This session was lively and interesting. Both authors read from their novels, and I remember being particularly impressed by the dialogue in one. And having a laugh when that author was questioned about one of characters and gave a colourful response.
Wanting a change of pace, I went and listened to the singers. I love listening to them sing -- the purity and clarity of their voices. Just lovely. Tomorrow they're singing in a choral festival at Montsalvat, and that will be a real treat because Montsalvat is incredibly beautiful. Last time I was there was for a poetry festival, years ago, and I remember being very nervous because I had to read. That was my pre-teaching days when standing up before an audience was an ordeal with a capital O, and every letter done in bold. Now, it's not nearly as bad.
When the singers finished it was time for the Ada Cambridge Award. Being shortlisting judges, most of Western Women Writers went, and the organisers thanked us and presented us with a free copy of the awards book, which was a really nice touch. I wasn't expecting that.
It's always interesting when you're shortlisting to see whether the story you thought was a standout was chosen or not. Our group was torn between two stories, so were the judges, though only one of these two was in our top two. Our second story was Highly Commended. (They didn't have second or third.) Anyway, from the comments made the judges found the final decision as difficult as we'd found it.
What I love about attending these events is catching up with old friends, aquaintances and old students. I love finding out how people are going -- that curiosity -- must be the writer in me.
Today, I've spent part of my day at the Williamstown literary festival. I began by meeting Sherryl to help her set up the display for our course, but by the time I got there she'd already done it. There was still half an hour before the opening and the library, next door, was having a book sale so we meandered over. Writers should never meander over to book sales. Oh, the temptation. I did come away with three books: one on managing kids with ADD, which I'll give to The Gadget-Man, one on the Bible (Princess Sleepyhead has to study RE till Year 12, and we're not particularly religious, so it might come in handy), and James Frey's biography that turned out to be not so biographaphical at all. When I opened it, I noticed that none of the paras were indented, nor did any of the dialogue have quote marks. Hmm. Still, the writing looked lively, so I'll have to see how I go with that one.
We wandered back to the festival and took our seats. After the speeches, they had a fifteen-year-old guest speaker whose first novel is coming out with HarperCollins next month. This amazed me less than her poise, her confidence in standing up before all those people. At her age, I would've been a quivering mess. But she looked like she'd been doing it for years. Perhaps she had. She did mention she was in the debating club. She spoke with passion and enthusiasm and made the journey from no-one to published writer sound so easy. Pleasing to hear her talk about how she wants to grow as a writer, though. That to me is one of the great joys of writing: knowing that you can improve. She came across as being down-to-earth, very nice, enthusiastic.
Then I went home. Mr Gadget-Man was at work. His job finishes in about seven weeks (everyone's job there does), and yet they were offering them all overtime this weekend -- bizarre! So I had to get Princess Sleepyhead off to rehearsals, which is no mean feat. Rehearsals happened to be at the same venue as the lit fest, which was rather convenient. So I headed back in and saw half a session on the craft of writing. Seems I'd missed the editor speak, which was a shame. One of my students was there and said it was quite pertinent to what we'd been talking about in class. The writer was speaking about sentence structures, which is always going to interest me. One thing he said that I found intriguing was that he spoke about leaning against your strengths as a writer. About making your strengths your weaknesses. That would be one way of assuring growth, I would imagine. We all need to push boundaries.
My next session was about writing the city. Or more specifically about writing Melbourne. So really it was about place. I love thinking about place -- in real life place is one of my touchstones in life. When I left Clarion, I kept thinking, I'll see these people again, but I'm never going to see this room again, never going to enjoy this view. All I'll have are my photos. I don't think anyone else gave a shit -- they couldn't wait to get out of that sweatbox, but for me, well, I lost part of myself when I left there. That is perhaps hard to understand, but place inhabits my blood, it seeps in through the cracks in and pores of my skin. I am grounded by place. But I'm digressing, as I am so apt to do. This session was lively and interesting. Both authors read from their novels, and I remember being particularly impressed by the dialogue in one. And having a laugh when that author was questioned about one of characters and gave a colourful response.
Wanting a change of pace, I went and listened to the singers. I love listening to them sing -- the purity and clarity of their voices. Just lovely. Tomorrow they're singing in a choral festival at Montsalvat, and that will be a real treat because Montsalvat is incredibly beautiful. Last time I was there was for a poetry festival, years ago, and I remember being very nervous because I had to read. That was my pre-teaching days when standing up before an audience was an ordeal with a capital O, and every letter done in bold. Now, it's not nearly as bad.
When the singers finished it was time for the Ada Cambridge Award. Being shortlisting judges, most of Western Women Writers went, and the organisers thanked us and presented us with a free copy of the awards book, which was a really nice touch. I wasn't expecting that.
It's always interesting when you're shortlisting to see whether the story you thought was a standout was chosen or not. Our group was torn between two stories, so were the judges, though only one of these two was in our top two. Our second story was Highly Commended. (They didn't have second or third.) Anyway, from the comments made the judges found the final decision as difficult as we'd found it.
What I love about attending these events is catching up with old friends, aquaintances and old students. I love finding out how people are going -- that curiosity -- must be the writer in me.
31 March 2007
How much help is enough?
Last night, Sherryl and Margaret (two Western Women Writers) and I attended the FAW awards night. FAW, for anyone who doesn't know it, is the Fellowship of Australian Writers. Sherryl and Margaret were both judges in this years awards (and have been for the last several years). The FAW awards cover a broad range of categories from unpublished manuscripts, to manuscripts by a writers' group to short stories and poems and screenplays. They also include a number of children's awards.
I'm always amazed at the poise and confidence of some of the children who win awards at these kinds of things. I suppose I remember my own adolescent awkwardness, the shyness that made me dread public speaking. But a lot of these children look as though they were born in front of a crowd.
Speeches are optional at the FAW awards, so some people make them and some don't. And this is true of the child as well as the adult recipients. Last night was interesting because one of the children who got up to speak thanked her mother and father for helping her to write the story. I started musing about this, wondering exactly what this meant. Did it mean they offered editorial advice -- looked at commas, spelling etc? Did it mean they offered structural advice? Or did they help shape the piece in some more substantive way?
My son recently entered a competition and asked me to look over his work. I was loath to do this because I worried that that might give him an unfair advantage over those who don't have parents for writers. But what about those whose teachers help them with their stories? What about workshopping that those of us in writing groups do?
Over summer, I do shortlisting for a children's writing competition, and there are invariably entries that don't feel like they've been written by children -- they show a sophistication not just of language but of ideas far beyond the child's age in years. Sometimes I've raised concerns with Margaret, who organises the competition, and who runs several children's writing groups. Sometimes she'll look over a story and say that, yes, she's seen kids do amazing things. So, ultimately, we have to take these stories on trust, but I'm still sometimes left wondering whether one particular child hasn't had a whole lot more help than the other children have had.
Perhaps I'm super sensitive because when my daughter was in Year 7 I got a rap over the knuckles from her English teacher for helping too much with a poetry assignment. My daughter had no idea how to do the assignment, how to write a poem. I spent more than twenty hours instructing her, going through all the different forms. In the end I did help shape the poems by leading her with questions. For example, she wrote a poem about anger, and I said things like: "If anger were an animal, what sort of animal would it be?" She gave an answer, and I told her to write it down. The actual ideas and words were her own. It wasn't about cheating, or getting a better mark, it was about my trying to teach her something. I told this to the teacher, and said I didn't care if she only got a D for the assignment, as long as she'd learnt something. The teacher marked her down because I'd helped her, and I thought that was fair enough. I'm still uncomfortable with what I did, but it was the educator in me stepping in. I don't know if I was right or wrong, but I've backed off from giving that kind of help ever since, and especially wouldn't do it in a competition where there is a monetary prize at stake.
So how much should parents help with writing for competitions or assignments? I guess we all have to find our own line here, and it will be different for each of us. I've had teachers suggest I help my kids with their work. I've been horrified at times to hear friends confess they do their children's assignments for them. What do their children learn from this approach? And as any kind of judge for a writing competition for children, I have to hope that I really am judging that child's work and not the work of their older brother or sister, or mother or father, or teacher or tutor.
I'm always amazed at the poise and confidence of some of the children who win awards at these kinds of things. I suppose I remember my own adolescent awkwardness, the shyness that made me dread public speaking. But a lot of these children look as though they were born in front of a crowd.
Speeches are optional at the FAW awards, so some people make them and some don't. And this is true of the child as well as the adult recipients. Last night was interesting because one of the children who got up to speak thanked her mother and father for helping her to write the story. I started musing about this, wondering exactly what this meant. Did it mean they offered editorial advice -- looked at commas, spelling etc? Did it mean they offered structural advice? Or did they help shape the piece in some more substantive way?
My son recently entered a competition and asked me to look over his work. I was loath to do this because I worried that that might give him an unfair advantage over those who don't have parents for writers. But what about those whose teachers help them with their stories? What about workshopping that those of us in writing groups do?
Over summer, I do shortlisting for a children's writing competition, and there are invariably entries that don't feel like they've been written by children -- they show a sophistication not just of language but of ideas far beyond the child's age in years. Sometimes I've raised concerns with Margaret, who organises the competition, and who runs several children's writing groups. Sometimes she'll look over a story and say that, yes, she's seen kids do amazing things. So, ultimately, we have to take these stories on trust, but I'm still sometimes left wondering whether one particular child hasn't had a whole lot more help than the other children have had.
Perhaps I'm super sensitive because when my daughter was in Year 7 I got a rap over the knuckles from her English teacher for helping too much with a poetry assignment. My daughter had no idea how to do the assignment, how to write a poem. I spent more than twenty hours instructing her, going through all the different forms. In the end I did help shape the poems by leading her with questions. For example, she wrote a poem about anger, and I said things like: "If anger were an animal, what sort of animal would it be?" She gave an answer, and I told her to write it down. The actual ideas and words were her own. It wasn't about cheating, or getting a better mark, it was about my trying to teach her something. I told this to the teacher, and said I didn't care if she only got a D for the assignment, as long as she'd learnt something. The teacher marked her down because I'd helped her, and I thought that was fair enough. I'm still uncomfortable with what I did, but it was the educator in me stepping in. I don't know if I was right or wrong, but I've backed off from giving that kind of help ever since, and especially wouldn't do it in a competition where there is a monetary prize at stake.
So how much should parents help with writing for competitions or assignments? I guess we all have to find our own line here, and it will be different for each of us. I've had teachers suggest I help my kids with their work. I've been horrified at times to hear friends confess they do their children's assignments for them. What do their children learn from this approach? And as any kind of judge for a writing competition for children, I have to hope that I really am judging that child's work and not the work of their older brother or sister, or mother or father, or teacher or tutor.
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