Projects

Current Projects

2306 - in our own words
2306 is an Oral history and Creative Writing project at Windale and is the first stage of a longer term Community Cultural Development Project. Windale is a government community housing initiative from mid last century which was recently singled out to represent all that can go wrong with such projects by sociologist Professor Tony Vinson. It has been infamously reported in the media as being ‘the wort postcode in Australia’. The project aims to explore practical ways in which the arts can be utilised to rebuild and regenerate the identity, environment and community spirit of a degraded sub/urban community. This is a partnership between: Windale Community Group, Department of Housing, Rotary Club of NSW, University of Newcastle, Department of Schools Education and Hunter Writers Centre. Initial funding is being used by HWC to run a program of oral history gathering and creative writing activities which includes training local Windale residents. This involves the development of the stories and histories gathered into more polished pieces of prose and/or creative fiction for publication through the existing local newsletter. A further dissemination of the work will also occur via a series of broadcasts through a local community radio bandwidth operated in the suburb.

www.onefifty.com.au
Microfiction, also known as mini or flash fiction, is generally considered to be a short story of no more than 250 words, although there are the purists out there who think 100 will do. This area of creative writing has been around for a while but has gained increasing attention since the Internet and mobile phones crash-tackled communication ten years ago. www.onefifty.com.au has been set up with funding from the Australia Council for the Arts via its ongoing Write in Your Face Program, and is an initiative aimed at developing emerging forms of writing practice by young writers. At the HWC we have noticed that younger writers have a tendancy to want to put all their ideas down on paper, and then often get stuck trying to work out what to cull. An emerging writer has much to gain from practicing micro fiction, which requires the distillation of ideas, a discriminating eye and multiple edits. www.onefifty.com has therefore been created to get young people writing micro fiction as well as promote the form more widely. Australian writers aged 30 and under can submit work for inclusions via email or mobile phone.

Newcastle Writers Walk
The Newcastle Writers Walk is a HWC initiative to bring attention to the many writers of standing of both fiction and non-fiction who have lived in Newcastle or who have written about Newcastle. The short term aim of the project is to produce a brochure for a self-guided walking tour of places of literary interest in Newcastle and the long term aim is to install plaques along the walking tour. A committee of local historians and writers, led by HWC Board member Cathy Baker, has developed a short-list of writers and are looking to launch the walk early in 2008. Watch this space...