From the President
September 2010
Greetings fellow writers
I thoroughly enjoyed our August meeting at the Anglican Church Hall.
The book launch presented by the Southern Short Story Group was entertaining, innovative and extremely memorable. They brought along balloons and streamers, and even offered celebratory cakes that were colour coordinated with the book cover! Congratulations on a fabulous effort to all involved: Julie Baythorpe, Julie Boyd, John Clark, Owen R Clement, Douglas Fraser, George Lewis, Fay O’Neil and Joan Songaila.
Bev Ryan presented an informative talk on writing an effective bio and getting free publicity in print media. Bev also shared some fascinating stories about her experiences in the publishing world – setting up her own magazine Honestly Woman and the Women’s Publishing Network. www.womenspublishingnetwork.com.au
Bev also mentioned developing a good media database for yourself so when you have developed a newsworthy story you can easily send it to the media most likely to be interested in taking up that particular story. If any members have any stories to share about successful media releases, or have developed their own list of media contacts, I’d love to hear from you so we can all benefit from your experience.
Hope to see you all at our fabulous Anniversary Celebration – the Literary Luncheon on 11 September at Burleigh Bears. Please note that tickets sales close on the Tuesday prior to the luncheon as we must give them our final attendance numbers in advance.
Jeannie May Barker
August 2010
Greetings fellow writers
Katherine Battersby’s talk on writing for children at the July meeting was not only informative but also delightful. Writing a ‘picture book’ it seems can be just as complex and challenging as writing a novel.
Andy McDermott also shared some information on how you can get your book listed on Amazon and the magic of the Espresso Book Machine. Check out Andy’s site for more info: publicious.com.au/Espresso
Owen Clemen launched his book Highlights among the Shadows, a memoir that crosses time, social conditions, cultures and world events in England, India, Canada, Australia and Papua/New Guinea from the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first.
2010-1011 Committee Nominations
I would like to encourage all members, both new and old, to consider standing for a position on the committee. It can be a very rewarding experience and is a great way to 'give back' to the association, to make new friends and to simply be more involved in the running of the association. If you don't want to dive into the deep end and take on a defined role you can stand for a 'General Committee Member' position which means you will be involved in the committee and able to assist with tasks / projects as you wish. It's a great intro to being on a committee if you have never participated in one before.
A number of our current committee members will not be re-nominating for their positions, so please feel free to nominate for any position that appeals to you. Guidance and assistance will be provided for the role and other committee members are always just a phone call or email away. If you have any questions about any of the positions prior to nominating please contact me via email or phone on 0431 443 385.
As president and webmaster for the past 10 months I have learnt a lot, challenged my fear of public speaking, and enjoyed working with a group of dedicated individuals. It has been a pleasure to source guest speakers and truly exciting to have been able to contribute to the planning of the GCWA 20th Anniversary Celebration. It has been a great opportunity for me and definitely a most rewarding experience.
A copy of the 2010-2011 Committee Nomination form is attached to this newsletter. Please complete the form if you wish to nominate for any position and ensure that you return it to the association by 21 August.
Jeannie May Barker
July 2010
Greetings fellow writers
The highlight of our June meeting was the presentation of awards and prizes for our 2010 Children’s Writing Competition. The response to the competition was fabulous and it was lovely to see so many local writers come along to the meeting to receive their prizes.
Thanks again to our sponsors, the Queensland Theatre of Puppetry (QToP) for supporting the competition with their donation of the prize monies.
The complete results of the competition have been published on our website and can also be found on page 3 of the newsletter.
 Guest Speaker - Deborah Carlyon
It was lovely to see the return of Deborah Carlyon as our guest speaker, this time talking about her children’s book Loku and the Shark Attack. Deborah shared some fascinating insights into storytelling and the differences and similarities to be found amongst children’s stories from different cultures.
Deborah may be returning once again later in the year to present a workshop for us. If you are interested in attending please make sure you add your name to the expression of interest form at the next meeting.
Blogging?
It’s now almost two months since the Joanna Penn workshop on blogging and building your author platform. As promised, I am following up on the attendees progress and would love to hear how you are all going. Would anyone care to share a link to their new blog or some of their ‘lessons learned’ from the workshop?
New Logo
We will be unveiling our new logo at the July meeting so if you want to be amongst the first to see it, don’t miss the July meeting!
Jeannie May Barker
June 2010
Greetings fellow writers
May was such a fabulous month I’m not sure I can stick to my usual one page! I attended Joanna Penn’s awesome author branding and marketing workshop, the Show Me the Money workshop presented by Gold Coast City Council and AbaF and the fabulous Literati Festival, as well as enjoying our regular monthly meeting with guest speaker Christian Tamblyn.
May Meeting
Christian Tamblyn’s talk on mythology in sci-fantasy was fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the fact that he pointed out how you can lose the reader if your story isn’t believable since I have experienced that myself with some novels in the vampire genre which stepped too far from the traditional vampire mythology for me; and yet I loved how Dean Koontz took the Frankenstein myth to a whole new, yet totally believable, level with his trilogy.
Christian also gave us a fabulous example of self promotion with his professionally designed banner and he demonstrated one of the key marketing strategies that Joanna Penn spoke of at her workshop. To make it clear to the reader what his writing is like, his promotional banner stated: for the generation that grew up with Harry Potter. 
Darryl Greer made a great impression at the meeting wearing his promo Tshirt with The Election book cover image on the front and his website printed across the back. Daryl also arranged a book signing at the Borders bookshop at Robina. He is doing a fabulous job of marketing his first book.
Joanna Penn Workshop
Joanna Penn presented her author workshop to an avid group of would be bloggers and members interested in learning how to promote themselves in the first week of May. She extolled the virtues of blogging with Wordpress and encouraged us all to set up blogs and implement a schedule of writing / blogging short articles in order to promote ourselves and our writing.
I hope to see many of our members take on this challenge and share the links to their blogs with us.
On Joanna’s website you will find a wealth of information of relevance to authors and she has recently launched her How To Blog For Authors And Writers multimedia program www.thecreativepenn.com/blogging
Show Me the Money Workshop
I had the pleasure of attending this workshop at Southport presented by Gold Coast City Council and AbaF. Topics covered included grants, sponsorship and partnerships.
It was a great opportunity to network with other arts groups and individuals from the Gold Coast and to share ideas in the brainstorming sessions. In fact, they used our 20th anniversary for a whole group brainstorm which resulted in a lot of ideas and several offers of ‘in-kind’ support from fellow attendees.
Literati Festival
I attended the author encounter sessions at the Literati Festival and thoroughly enjoyed the day. I now have a new list of authors and books that I simply ‘must read’!
Here are a few standout quotes from my notes on the day:
All writing is driven by a question. Will they get together in the end? Will he get away with it? – Garry Disher
Take a long and hard look at the things that pain you when looking for a theme for your book. – Michael Robotham
Riding The Black Cockatoo gave me my voice in writing and allowed me to deal with issues with my father and uncle. – John Danalis
Writing gives you the opportunity to embrace the unexpected. – Frances Whiting
To be original in your ideas visit old ideas in new ways. – Dr Robyn Sheahan-Bright
Don’t be precious about your words – the delete button is your best friend. – Dr Karen Brooks
Write what you dare not say. – Dr Sally Breen
My congratulations on this event go out to Gold Coast City Council, Gold Coast Libraries, Friends of the Library, organiser Maryanne Hyde, and the individuals involved in presenting this event.
That’s it for another month. Hope to see you at a meeting soon.
Jeannie May Barker
May 2010
Greetings fellow writers
Our guest speaker last month presented
some interesting editorial challenges and it
was obvious that this was a hot topic with
members as they kept her lingering with
many questions. For those who missed it,
Desolie Page is one of a small group of
editors in Australia who has achieved the
status of Accredited Editor. If you wish to
learn more about Desolie or the services she
provides, visit her website:
www.perfectpages.net.au
One interesting point brought up during Desolie’s talk was the difference
between American, English and Australian English. Coincidentally one of our
members, Dr Michael Clancy, is writing a book which includes a table entitled:
Common Misspellings and Spelling Variants Between Australian, American and
British English. Michael has kindly offered to allow us to reproduce the table
from his (draft) book in this edition of our newsletter.
Competitions
May is a very exciting month. We have two competitions coming to a close with
some fabulous prizes on offer. Make sure you don’t miss out on your chance to
attend The Publishing Queen’s 3 Day Bootcamp for free by entering our
naming competition. Some interesting submissions have already been sent in
and we hope to receive many more this month. This competition is exclusive to
GCWA members and entry is free so you have no excuse for not giving it a shot!
The other competition closing on 31 May is our new logo design competition. I
am very excited to see what our members and external competitors come up
with for this competition.
The logo designs will be displayed online after the closing date and you will be
able to view and vote on them for the People’s Choice Award of $100. The
major prize of $500 will be selected by a judging panel made up of members of
the GCWA committee and an industry expert.
Committee News
Ceresse Gardner has been performing two roles on the committee since our
AGM last September, Publicity Officer and Secretary. Ceresse has stepped
down from the role of Secretary so she can concentrate more on her own
business and family commitments. On behalf of the committee and members I
would like to thank her for her wonderful effort as secretary for the past five
months.
I am pleased to announce that Dr Michael Clancy has taken over the position of
secretary as of this month. Michael is a relatively new member who you may
not have had the pleasure of meeting yet. Please take the opportunity to
introduce yourself to Michael at our next meeting as we welcome him to the
GCWA committee.
See you at a meeting soon!
Jeannie May Barker
April 2010
Greetings fellow writers
Our March meeting was a fabulous success with many people lingering and chatting well after the meeting close. Darryl Greer's reading from his new book, The Election, was very well received. You can read the first chapter of Darryl's book on his website for a taste of what you missed out on: www.darrylgreer.com.au
 Our guest speaker Annette Henderson had the audience spellbound as she told us of her time spent in Africa. I felt privileged to hear her speak of her life-changing experience and felt a range of powerful emotions as she spoke of her meeting with gorillas and the tragic death of the unfortunate baby gorilla.
Annette's story of how her book came to be published - a TV appearance and then the flood of calls from publishers - was inspiring. I am sure that we would all like to experience something like that!
Annette's book, Wild Spirit, is definitely one book you need to add to your 'must read list'.
20th Anniversary Celebration
As promised at the last meeting, I was able to reveal a little more about our upcoming 20th Anniversary Celebration. We will be holding a literary luncheon later in the year, and launching a fabulous new competition - a collaborative project between a writer and a visual artist.
In the lead up to the celebration we are running two competitions. A design competition for a new logo for the association which is open to all Australian residents. (See our competitions page for more details.) And a members-only competition to name the new writer / artist competition. Kylee Legge has donated a fabulous prize for this competition - a ticket to her 3 day Bootcamp in Brisbane valued at $1,188. Closing date for both these competitions is 31 May 2010
A big thank you must go to the first two sponsors to come on board for our anniversary celebration Jeff Allen, Transformation Coach and Kylee Legge, the Publishing Queen. Please see our sponsor page for more information or the contact page if you wish to support this event or the association in general. I hope you are all feeling excited about our anniversary celebration and are looking forward to it as much as I am.
See you at a meeting soon!
Jeannie May Barker
March 2010
 Greetings fellow writers
I have to say that the February meeting was an outstanding success. We had a record number of new visitors attend and a fabulous response to our guest speaker Joanna Penn.
Joanna’s talk on creating your author platform to market your books, even if you haven’t written one yet, was nothing short of inspirational. Her presentation was delivered so enthusiastically that it was impossible not to be engaged and excited about the possibilities to reach a dramatically wider audience via social media and online marketing.
From those new to the social media buzz there were many questions about twittering and blogging and why one would even do that! Joanna swiftly responded to most questions thrown at her, only limited by the lack of time available.
I received a lot of enthusiastic feedback after the meeting, including the following from a first time visitor, Amelia Willmer:
After reading a snippet in the local paper I went along out of curiosity to the meeting on 20 February. The experience exceeded my expectations and I look forward to the next meeting.
And from our editor Bill Turkington:
I was impressed with Joanna, her enthusiasm was infectious and she (almost) convinced me about blogs! It would be good to have her back for a workshop.
GCWA Vice President Angelika Heurich and I have submitted a grant application to RADF to fund a proposed workshop to be presented by Joanna Penn in May. If you have not added your name to the expression of interest list yet, please make sure you do so at the next meeting. This is sure to be a very popular workshop and numbers will be limited.
 Lastly I would like to remind you that Joanna has kindly provided a page for us on her blog with links to some of the resources and websites she mentioned during her talk: www.thecreativepenn.com/goldcoast/ and, that she is offering a discount for GCWA members on her Author 2.0 Online Course until mid March, so contact her ASAP if you are interested in enrolling in this program.
Don’t forget to encourage any children you know to enter our children’s writing competition, and help spread the word about the benefits of our association by taking some of our new flyers and sharing them with your friends and acquaintances. For those not ready to leap in and join us right now, they can easily subscribe to our eNewsletter to keep up with what’s happening and come along to meetings on a casual basis if they wish. (The subscribe form is on our website: www.goldcoastwriters.org.au/subscribe.)
Looking forward to seeing you at another meeting soon and sharing some exciting news about our 20th Anniversary Celebration.
Jeannie May Barker
February 2010
 Greetings fellow writers
It’s hard to believe that two months have gone by since the last edition of e-Writeabout. A break from the newsletter over the holiday season was great, but now there’s so much more I need to tell you in this edition!
2009 Christmas Party
Firstly, I have to mention the Christmas party and commend all the volunteers who contributed to making it such an enjoyable occasion. The food was fabulous, the atmosphere wonderfully festive and the entertainment provided plenty of amusement. A special thank you must go to our Christmas Party elf and Santa who charmed us all.
You can view the photos on our image gallery.
Nike Bourke
 I found our January guest speaker particularly inspiring. Nike Bourke from Olvar Wood Writers retreat provided a fascinating glimpse into her creative ‘studio’ and shared some of the techniques she uses to inspire her writing.
We hope to bring Nike back later in the year to present a workshop so please make sure you add your name to the expression of interest form at the next meeting if you would like to attend.
Check out the Olvar Wood website for more information about their upcoming retreats and worskshops: www.olvarwood.com.au
Writing Competition
We have just launched our first competition for the year – the 2010 Children’s Writing Competition. I hope that you will all support this competition by helping to spread the word and encourage young people to enter.
Please see the competition page for more information.
Australia Day
We participated in the Australia Day Celebration at Evandale Parklands by presenting a writing challenge in the park. Visitors were asked to express what Australia Day meant to them in words or pictures.
One of the highlights was seeing so many people embracing the spirit of the day by dressing up for the occasion. Flags, funny hats, printed T-shirts and crazy wigs were seen in abundance.
Sunni Clothes Hoists provided a couple of Hills Hoists (the great Aussie icon) to display the ‘artworks’ much to the puzzlement of some passers by and the Animal Welfare League donated ‘Aussie’ style clothing which were later donated to Set Free Care.
Thank you to Grace Ermer for suggesting we participate in this event; to Caren Sattler for organsing the clothing; and to all the members who helped ‘man’ the GCWA display on the day: Angelika Heurich, Donna Mroz Turcic, Carole Sulzer, Bill Turkington, Caren Sattler, Ceresse Gardner, Marion and Starla Martineer.
Looking forward to seeing you all at the February meeting. Joanna Penn’s talk is not to be missed!
Jeannie May Barker
December 2009
What a fabulous meeting we had in November! It was inspiring to hear our members share some of their writing at the Open Mike session. A great variety of topics and styles were presented and I would like to congratulate the following people for their participation: Robert Young, Donna Mroz Turcic, Richard Grant, Margaret Cornwell, Peter Jones, Caroline Glen and Angelika Heurich.
I encourage everyone to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in an Open Mike session when they get a chance. Yes, it can be daunting to get up there on stage, but the opportunity to practice speaking about your writing and reading out loud to a group of your peers is well worth the test of your nerves.
 Book Launch
Audie-Marie Pennefather launched her book “A True and Strange Story” The Life of Tueane Ann Tibbo to an attentive audience. A fascinating glimpse into the life of this talented artist whose unpretentious paintings were made popular in the sixties.
Member of the Month
Jill Smith was chosen as the recipient of our inaugural Member of the Month award. Jill has been an active member of the Gold Coast Writers’ Association for many years and her support of the recent initiative to create a history of the association was recognised with a certificate at the November meeting.
Jill will be our featured member on the GCWA website for the month of December and in our newsletter.
Online Networking
GCWA is now on Twitter, FaceBook and YouTube!
You can follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/gcwriters become a fan on FaceBook www.facebook.com/GoldCoastWritersAssociation or check out our video channel on YouTube www.youtube.com/goldcoastwriters
  
If you have created a book trailer video or have a slideshow promo you would like to share on the GCWA YouTube channel, please let me know.
Christmas Party
Our final meeting for the year is also our annual Christmas Party. Santa will be making an appearance and you will be entertained by some of our multi-talented members. If you would like to volunteer to be a part of our Christmas Jam entertainment, please contact Angelika Heurich or Grace Ermer.
On behalf of the committee I would like to wish all our members and their families a happy and joyous Christmas and a bright and prosperous New Year.
Jeannie May Barker
November 2009
Greetings fellow writers
My thanks to everyone who has welcomed me so warmly to the committee this year and now as president of the association for 2009-2010. I look forward to an exciting year of challenges and hopefully many successes for both the association and our members.
For those who don’t know me well my background is in education, instructional design, marketing, social media, web and graphic design. I write non-fiction, have been published in several print and online magazines and am currently co-authoring a book. I look forward to sharing my experience and using my skills for the benefit of the association.
 October meeting
We were very fortunate to have the entertaining and talented Peter Watt speak at the October meeting. The depth of his research and his passion for Australian history was truly inspiring. Peter also shared exciting news about a TV series based on two of his books, so keep an eye out for ‘Frontier’ in the future... hopefully it will air in Australia as well as the rest of the world.
Please make a note to buy tickets in the raffle at the November meeting as we have two extra special prizes of signed copies of Peter’s books to give away.
 Brainstorming
We have implemented a new feature for meetings: a mini brainstorm session. At the October meeting the topic was ‘Ideas’ and members were invited to brainstorm their ideas for the association on a large sheet of paper. One of the ideas was ‘do something different’ – I think the brainstorm session qualifies for that! Another idea was to hold a ‘poster design’ competition, and yet another was the GCWA history collaborative e-Book project.
To see the full list of ideas, to comment on them or to add your own, see the Brainstorm topic on the GCWC forum or email me direct if you prefer.
A new topic will be brainstormed at the next meeting so please come along ready to share your thoughts and ideas!
Member of the month
A new feature on the GCWA website will be our monthly featured member. Featured members will be chosen for their active contribution to the association: interacting at meetings, contribution to the newsletter, involvement with the online community website, etc. Di Morris has volunteered to interview the recipient of this honour and Ceresse Gardner will take a great publicity shot for you (or you can supply your own image if you prefer). Our first featured member will be announced at the November meeting.
Lastly, I’d like to personally welcome Bill Turkington to the committee as our new
e-Writeabout editor. This is a new challenge for Bill and I congratulate him for taking it on.
Best wishes
Jeannie May Barker
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