Geelong authors to participate in Local Word Writers Festival

AUTHORS and book lovers will celebrate everything about writing as the annual Local Word Writers Festival returns to Geelong.

Running from August 23 until August 25, across a range of Geelong Regional Libraries venues, the festival will feature a diverse range of workshops, for both experienced and emerging writers.

The festival has a strong local focus, with many of the presenters coming from the Geelong region, including published poet Alex Creece who forms part of the panel for the “Decoding the Publishing Industry” session.

Creece is the author of Potty Mouth, Potty Mouth, and works as an editor for Archer Magazine and Cordite Poetry Review and has a wealth of knowledge.

Using her industry experience, Creece is able to talk to the selection process of getting work noticed and what the process of publishing towards a magazine or journal looks like.

“It’s a good opportunity for people to go and especially if someone’s an aspiring writer, or maybe has a good manuscript but doesn’t know what to do with it next,” she said.

“It can be a good opportunity to have some of those questions answered about how to get your work published.”

The author and editor understands the process of taking a piece of writing from a word document onto a page of a particular size and making negotiations and decisions around that.

“My book’s got some funky formatting and some interesting use of the page,” she said.

“I can talk to getting that more experimental work published and how that publishing process looks different when your pieces can be a little bit complex.”

This is the first time Creece has been part of a writing event in Geelong, previously participating on panels in Melbourne.

“This is my first time in my home city so I’m really keen to connect with the local talent and stuff like that.”

Liz Monument, Sarah Walkerden and Abbey Lay will join Creece for the panel discussion with Jen Kloester as the panel chair.

Questions can be submitted online or asked on the day.

The “Decoding the Publishing Industry” session will take part on August 25 from 4.30pm until 5.30pm.

For more information, head to events.grlc.vic.gov.au