Angry Brown Men Are Gonna / Burn London to the Ground

Howl in picture

Photographs by Michael Reynolds, covering the Melbourne Jazz Fringe performance of 'Howl'

Kill Your Darlings Podcast

Kill Your Darlings has a new podcast up here featuring Romy Ash and myself talking to Jessica Alice, about literary prizes. I swear I'll shut up about it soon. Maybe.

Under-represented voices panel

Wednesday 19 June, 7.15pm (for 7.30pm start)
Hares & Hyenas
63 Johnston Street, Fitzroy
(b/w Nicholson & Brunswick Sts)

To celebrate the success of the CAL Connections series, Overland, together with Hares & Hyenas, invite you to an event about the need for more under-represented voices in the mainstream conversation.The panel will include: Founder of Queer Muslims in Australia Group and Chair of the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council, Alyena Mohummadally; Shanghainese/Melburnian writer and performer, Juliana Qian (aka Lia Incognita); writer and Director of the Emerging Writers’ Festival Sam Twyford-Moore; winner of the 2013 Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, Maxine Beneba Clarke, and Overland editor, Jeff Sparrow. It will be moderated by Overland publicist and 3CR broadcaster Bec Zajac. More information here

An innocent soldier, on a London street

the bystanders are saying
this is terrorism
at its most fundamental yet:
an innocent soldier
attacked
& murdered
in broad daylight
on a london street

the fundamentalists are saying
this is bystanding
at it's most terrifying yet
a soldier, innocent
attacks
a murderer
in broad daylight
on a london street

the semantics
of hatred
are never easy

Keep Left

The weight of the world

Full article available here.

Local press for 'Foreign Soil'

Ignoring the unfortunate headline below the article(!), I'm really pleased with this local coverage of my Premier's Award win. Click on this Maribyrnong Leader link for the full article.

The Premier's Award, The Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize & Three Poet's Journeys.

The last fortnight has been frantic. Just quickly, here's a round-up:

Victorian Premier's Award for an Unpublished Manuscript
On Thursday May 23, my short story collection Foreign Soil won the Victorian Premier's Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. The Emerging Writer's Festival covered the award announcement here on their festival blog, The Greenhouse. Blogger James Van Maanenberg said "...wow, that's all I have to say. She and her writing (are) enchanting. Find her book and buy it."
What followed the award announcement can only be described, at least in a writer's world, as a frenzy: six interviews in as many days, three photo-shoots, including one cringe-worthy but amusing instance of the photographer choosing to snap me in my backyard in front of my corn. Yes, corn. That's the kind of thing you agree to when you're ecstatic yet delirious with tiredness. I'll link to each of the the interviews when they're published later this week.

Cafe` Poet Residency Launch
On Thursday May 30, I launched my Australian Poetry residency at Journal Cafe' as part of the Emerging Writers Festival's Poetry Cafe`. It was wonderful to be back with poetry on my tongue, and sharing the stage with charismatic and talented Melbourne poet Randall Stephens, after talking non-stop about prose for seven days straight. We were extremely lucky to have the event covered by the articulate Elinor Mills over at Signal Express, who blogged:  "...Maxine Beneba Clarke got up to perform.‘Perform’ is the right word: her poems were all performed in varying degrees of what I can only describe as sing-song: a compliment from someone who listened to Andrea Gibson’s poem For Eli fifty times in a row just because the word ‘fire’ in her mouth sounded like church bells ringing.

ARTsmitten & the Emerging Writers' Festival

I'll be interviewed on SYNfm's ARTsmitten this afternoon, along with a broadcast of my reading of the short story Shu Yi from my Premier's Award acceptance speech. If you're in Melbourne, it's 90.7fm on your dial @4-5pm. If you're out and about though, I'll be reading at Abbotsford convent at 4.30pm as part of this Emerging Writers Festival pop-up reading. Swing by or tune in.

Catch me reading in Melbourne this weekend

If you prefer a glass of wine with your poetry then join me, Amanda Anastasi and Matt Hetherington tomorrow evening for 'Three Poets Journeys' a reading and Q&A at Williamstown Writer's Festival.

Saturday 1 June
5.30-6.30 LIBRARY AUDITORIUM
104 Ferguson St, Williamstown
Tickets available here

If prose is more up your alley and you want to know what it takes to get short-listed for the Premier's Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, join me, Naomi Bailey and Emily Bitto in a pop-up reading from our manuscripts at Abbotsford Convent on Sunday in an Emerging Writers Festival pop-up reading.

EWF Pop-up Reading
4.45pm Sunday 2 June
Rosina Auditorium
Abbotsford Convent

"Come join the winner Maxine Beneba Clarke and the shortlist Emily Bitto and Naomi Bailey for a reading of their works. From the contemporary struggle for refuge in Clarke's Foreign Soil to the compelling allure of Melbourne's 1930's avante garde art scene in Bitto's The Strays to the transporting starling in Bailey's A Field Guide to Birdwatching in Bad Weather, there's sweet relief in all kinds of fiction for the weary festival folk"

Cafe` Poet Residency

From now until the end of the year, I'll be the resident poet at Journal cafe` in Melbourne as part of Australian Poetry's Cafe` Poet program. I'm really looking forward to having a new writing space, and also to the free coffee(!) This residency will be launched this afternoon, as part of the Emerging Writer's Festival. Pop along and hear myself and Randall Stephens, The Moat's resident poet, read some of our work:

4pm, Thursday May 30
The Moat: 176 Little Lonsdale Street
Further details here.