Ladies and Gentleman, you will find listed below the shortlists for our short story and poetry competitions. These shortlists were compiled by our judges, former editor Tiggy Johnson for short stories and MPU president Wendy Fleming for poetry.

And so, the names, in alphabetical order of the writers:

Short Story Shortlist 2011

‘The Other Guy’ – Emilie Collyer

‘Not My Son’ – Jennifer Goode

‘Luck of the Draw’ – Hayley Katzen

‘Wings’ – Kerrie McCure

‘Mandrake in the Marsh’ – Lachlan Plain

‘The Smiths’ – Eugene Yang

Poetry Shortlist 2011

‘The Space Between’ – Emilie Collyer

‘I Am The Lion on the edge of your bed…’ – Nathan Curnow

‘Remembering Laszlo’ – Greg Piko

‘Night Music’ – Kristen Roberts

‘Washington NYE’ – Anna Ryan-Punch

‘Half Empty’ – Marian Spires

‘Giraffes’ – Valerie Volk

As per our usual methods of torture here at page seventeen, we will not be revealing the winners and runners-up just yet. That’s the juicy bit left for our launch. Date and place are TBA on the launch at this point in time, but suffice to say that it will be early November and that it’s going to be a blast.

To everyone that made the shortlist, congratulations and I hope to see you at the launch. For all those who missed out this year, don’t be discouraged, and I hope to see you at the launch. Hell, anyone who’s stumbled onto this site from a writers blog or random facebook link, I hope to see you – wait for it – at the launch!

A big thank you to everyone who sent in work for the competitions. There’s always plenty of material that just misses the mark, that has a moment of bad luck and bows out without specific commendation. So, to anyone who didn’t get a story or poem into this shortlist: please keep sending your work out, whether it be to us or to the next available competition you come across.

The end of the submission window must feel very close this side of the seasons. We begin winter and we begin the home stretch for those of you who have been chiseling away at your prose and preparing your entry to the page seventeen smorgasbord.

So, if you have a short story or poem that you think we’ll like, send it in to our competition and it might net you some prize money (and publication to boot). If you have a photo that you think will look good on the front cover of Issue 09, send it in and that fancy might become fact.

And don’t forget about our inaugural non-fiction component, revolving around the ‘Craft of Writing‘ theme. It can be a feature piece on the Emerging Writers’ Festival, or National Young Writers’ Month, or a particularly illuminating workshop. It may be an interview with a writer or ambassador for writing and publishing. It may be a reflective piece on your own experiences with the craft of writing. There are a lot of angles that can be taken for this theme. So if you have a piece, or even just a pitch, then submit@pageseventeen.com.au is ready to receive.

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Got some free time this Sunday? Come down to Page Parlour at Federation Square. It caps of the Emerging Writers’ Festival and is a fantastic little market of magazines, journals and small presses. Of course, page seventeen will be there as well. So, I hope to see you there.

Only one week to go until the submission window opens … hope everyone’s getting just a little bit excited!

You’ll find the guidelines and entry forms for 2011 now available at Downloads. Also, our Submit page has been updated with details for Issue 09.

We also have our competiton running as usual:

The judge for the short story is none other than Tiggy Johnson, former editor of page seventeen. For poetry it’s Wendy Fleming, currently the acting president of the Melbourne Poets Union. For the cover competition we have Blaise van Hecke, of Busybird Design.

Don’t forget we have a new non-fiction section running – the theme is ‘The Craft of Writing’. Remember that this theme does not affect any fiction submissions or cover competition entries. See our submission details for more information.

So, lock and load for next week, everyone! We still accept email submissions for our general, non-comp entries at submit@pageseventeen.com.au. Postal entries have a new destination:

PO Box 8078, Tottenham, VIC 3012

Any questions at all, don’t forget about our enquiry line, enquire@pageseventeen.com.au.

Softly and Suddenly

by Sean M Whelan and the Interim Lovers

Softly and Suddenly sees Melbourne poet and performer Sean M Whelan reunited with long-time collaborator Andrew Watson and band – The Interim Lovers – to produce an album that settles somewhere between post-rock record and spoken word CD. In a series of six Fits we are presented the story of Ballard and Betsy, two inner urban Melburnians in the throes of a surreal affair, whose tale unfolds against the Lovers’ backdrop of sparse guitar, percussion and keening violin. Together Whelan’s words and Watson’s music carry the listener along in undulating waves towards the album’s haunting close.

The title comes from Lewis Carroll’s nonsense verse The Hunting of the Snark, in which the suite of poems has its beginning. Elements are freely and playfully borrowed, pressed into service either literally (Betsy gives Ballard a blank map) or metaphorically (Ballard at one point feels like he’s “wearing three pairs of boots”). Softly and Suddenly is not a retelling, and doesn’t require knowledge of the original (as Whelan himself discusses in interview), but will reward a (re)reading of Carroll’s work, which provides the key to much of the imagery (such as Ballard’s vision of “a Butcher and a Beaver… playing chess”).

Opening track The Landing is an instrumental, and sets the musical and emotional tone for what follows. A simple seven-note guitar figure loops over the squeaks and bleats of Watson’s violin and the lazy throb of bass guitar. Over several minutes these build in intensity to a triumphal peak, driven by snare and cymbal, before ebbing away again. The music shares a good deal with the unhurried, expansive instrumentals of bands such as Dirty Three and Explosions In the Sky, and is eminently listenable in its own right. From the second track (I Love The Things That Haven’t Happened Yet) these atmospheric arrangements make way for Whelan’s delivery. His voice sits a long way forward in the mix, in front of but not overpowering the accompanying tracks, clear and comprehensible. This clarity is testament both to Whelan’s skill as a performance poet and to the quality of production on the album.

Over the course of five tracks and twenty-five minutes Whelan narrates the exploits of the whimsical (or perhaps disturbed?) Betsy and her rather more prosaic suitor Ballard. The poems work as a continuous narrative, events and images recurring as the story progresses. Following his lover’s disappearance, a disconsolate Ballard (having spent the week “putting all the food in his cupboard into alphabetical order / because he didn’t know what else to do with himself”) struggles to make sense of their meeting and subsequent, sudden parting. Both characters seem more archetypes or embodiments than individuals (the mysterious, sensual feminine and the analytical, technological masculine), and Whelan leaves physical description to the imagination (save for Betsy being “all smiles and Fifties floral dress”). This doesn’t detract from the work – rather, it allows the focus to fall on what the couple do and how they feel, not who they are.

By contrast, the setting is unequivocally specific, taking in a swathe of Melbourne’s inner east (from Preston to Alphington) before winding up outside of Daylesford. Unreal things happen in these real places – this might be the Melbourne of a Marquez or Murakami, where birds and cars spell out secret messages, and women are mysterious creatures capable of disappearing at will. Then again, it could just be love, elevating the everyday into the extraordinary.

With his relaxed delivery and ability to slip in and out of rhyme with ease, it is hard not to be carried along by Whelan’s storytelling. Softly and Suddenly is a charming tale, a bedtime story of sorts for the lovelorn and poetic. The sentiment which lingers after the last bars have died away is one of hopefulness, if not happiness – a sense that there may yet be a little wonder left in the world.

Softly and Suddenly is available from Collector’s Corner, or by contacting Sean and the Lovers through their Myspace page. You can read Sean’s thoughts on the album in interview at the Overland blog.

By Tully Hansen.

page seventeen is taking a break over the Christmas and New Year period, so this will be our last post for a while. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas with lots of excellent reading and listening material and look forward to catching up in 2011.

Congratulations to the winners and shortlisted entrants of this year’s Short Story and Poetry competition, and thank you to everyone who entered. Contributor and pre-ordered copies will be posted during the coming week.

Poetry section

 1^st                   Shari Kocher-Campbell    Dreaming in Auslan: a Study in Yellow and Grey

2^nd                   Ian Gibbins                      Lullabies, Gardens Road Cemetery

Commended   Kristen Roberts                 Nothing Left for Holding You

Shortlisted       Bob Morrow                     Strandhill

Shortlisted       Bronwyn Mehan               Rosella Jam Doesn’t Make Sense

Shortlisted       Emilie Collyer                   touch

Shortlisted       Ian Gibbins                      Shuffle

Shortlisted       Kate Alder                      Gariwerd

Shortlisted       Marlene Marburg            Like Latin

Shortlisted       Nicola Scholes                Stolen

Shortlisted       Pam Joseph                    Benediction

Shortlisted       Simon Petkovich              Laughter

Shortlisted       Sue Bailey                        Forgotten

Short Story section

 1^st                  Leah Swann                  Streetsweeper

2^nd                  Jacinta Butterworth       Must see the bones

Commended   Kate Rotherham            Butterflies and Dragons

Commended   Wes Lee                        The Joy Chair Shockers

Shortlisted       David Spitzkowsy           Avalanche

Shortlisted       Debi Hamilton               Vertical Blinds

Shortlisted       Jacinta Butterworth        Homekeeping handbook

Shortlisted       Jeannie Haughton           Scarier than ’Nam

Shortlisted       Robyn Wylie                  Let me tell you

I can hardly believe we are launching Issue 8 in just 4 days.

I would probably feel the reality of it if I there were boxes of books beside me, but that won’t happen for a couple more days. Once (issue 6 I think) they weren’t ready for collection from the printer until 4pm the day before we launched. A guaranteed way to test the nerves, but this year, it won’t come to that and I have every belief they will be ready on time.

In case you’ve forgotten the details, here they are.

We’ll be kicking things off this Saturday, 13th November, with special guest Graham Nunn at 1pm, Burrinja cafe, 351 Glenfern Rd (cnr Matson Dve), Upwey. Come along for an afternoon of friendly faces, contributor readings, the announcement and presentation of the 2010 short story and poetry competition prizes, not to mention for a great cuppa.

If you’re catching the train, this map might help. Make sure you allow about 20 minutes to walk from the station, and an hour for the train (Belgrave line).

Copies of issue 8 will be available for just $15 (cash only). They’ll revert to full price ($19.95) after the weekend. If you can’t get to the launch, there’s still time to order a copy at the discounted price, but not long. So get to it. Limited copies of back issues will also be available.

I’ve just come off the back of being fiction editor for Issue 8 of page seventeen, having read a whole bunch of short stories. ‘You must be tired,’ people have said to me. ‘Here, have a pillow for you must be oh so exhausted.’

Well, yes and no.

I’m tired because of all the other jobs I do in addition to my role at page seventeen. Reading through submissions, however, was an absolute joy. Frustrating, yes. At times disheartening. But for the most part, there was a simple bliss in reading others’ words, visions, and stories as they searched for a wider audience.

 And what a range: I came across old ladies dying while hiking, time-obsessed mothers, writers who literally saved the world and a dog whisperer… and that was just in the first week. As time marched on, I read of masturbating mothers, pre-wedding jitters, a girl’s first period and some futuristic visions that would frighten George Orwell. All of these (excepting perhaps the sci-fi, which isn’t exactly page seventeen’s strong suit) had the potential to feature in the journal. What stopped them from making the shortlist, however, was an ailment more common than you might think.

I liked many of the stories I mentioned above, but they all needed a fleshing out of the themes, voices and characters within the story.

In Amanda Lohrey’s recent post on writing a short story (available here),  she suggests leaving a story for another month, or three, or six, before coming back to it, so as to ‘let it cook in the oven of your subconscious.’ While six months is a long time to let a story mature, I’d certainly advise at least a month, particularly between the first and second drafts. By doing this, you gain perspective on what is and isn’t working in the story. You sharpen the saw, and with said saw, slash away any characters that aren’t directly aiding the story. You change point-of-view if necessary, and you eliminate ‘that’, ‘however’, ‘to me’, ‘at me’, ‘inside of me’, and any other redundant phrases.

Some writers have told me they write perfect first drafts, so they don’t need to revise. These writers, quite frankly, are on crack. And they’re probably not getting published often.

Writing a great story is not easy. It will make you question your sanity. It will distract you when you’re trying to make love to a beautiful man or woman. But, it’s worth it, because you can always work on the story and then go make love to said beautiful man or woman.

I would have loved to have given feedback to each and every submission this year, but instead I’ll leave these three fragments as lessons learned on the short fiction highway:

1)      Never, ever, send your first draft to an editor. They can spot when a story hasn’t been developed.

2)      Join a writing group with writers that are at the same stage or slightly advanced from you. Sometimes you’re too close to the story to spot its most important flaws.

3)      Your story is done when you cannot do anything else to make it better. Challenge yourself before that point. Strive for excellence: change characters, add and delete scenes. Get an assessment from the VWC if you’re entering it for a big competition, and if not, then still get an assessment, or group feedback at the very least.

Editors don’t owe you the right to publication. You need to prove to them that you’re worth it. How much effort you put in is up to you, but if you don’t go the extra mile, then someone else will… and they’ll be the one getting published.

Thanks to all those who submitted their stories and congratulations to those writers selected. Thanks also to Peter Farrar and Vicki Thornton, my editorial committee for Issue 8. And finally, a special thanks to Tiggy Johnson, who does this every year while still working on her writing and raising three kids

Tiggy has helped foster the careers of any number of writers and poets over the years including myself, Ryan O’Neill, Vicki Thornton, Natasha Lester, Bronwyn Mehan, Nathan Curnow, Sean M Whelan, and Maxine Clarke. Their past contributor list reads like a who’s who of contemporary Australian writing, but at some point they were (and indeed, still are) just writers and poets, searching somewhere for an audience, a place to be published and respected.  And Tiggy has given us that, time and time again.

See you at the launch.

I’ve finished the final (line) edit for Issue 8 and I must say, I deleted a lot of exclamation marks.

I’ve been deleting most, if not all, of the exclamation marks in accepted pieces since Issue 1 and while I’m no longer surprised to see so many come in, and not only from the new writers, I am surprised that I still feel a little bad for removing them without necessarily referring to the author/s.

But just a little bad. For the obvious reason: the author might feel offended, one (or all) of those !’s may have been precious.

There are more reasons that don’t make me feel bad.

There’s that saying that the use of exclamation marks is a sign of a beginning writer. Sure, we want to promote work from new writers, and we do in every issue, but we don’t want to put their pieces out there like neon beacons: Look here, this is from a new writer!

I could also argue something about house style, and while this might sound a little weak, we did state in our guidelines for the first five issues that we would edit for ‘Australian spelling, punctuation and grammar’. (We removed this from the guidelines mainly for the poets, who were concerned we might ‘correct’ grammar/punctuation that was part of their piece, which was not at all the purpose of our statement, and not something we wanted to do.)

There are probably a handful of other reasons to support the deleting of exclamation marks, but there is really only one more I want to mention. The most important one.

Having an editor remove your exclamation mark/s (or for that matter, other excessive punctuation/formatting (ie. italics, font changes, use of capitals)) is actually the editor paying you a compliment. You see, if the editor believes the ! can simply be removed from the text, it means your choice of words (ie. your actual writing) is strong enough to portray the ! without actually using it. Not using the ! can also mean you respect that the reader might be intelligent enough to work it out for themselves, and I’m sure all writers would like to offer their readers at least that.

I’m back and I must admit, it feels really odd trying to organise myself after so long away. It doesn’t help that all of the hardcopy poetry submissions have disappeared in the Australia Post system. (Which means if you made a snail mail poetry submission, you probably haven’t heard back from us yet, so please be patient, and believe that we’re terribly sorry.)

Even so Issue 8 is shaping up to be one very impressive issue. As well as at least ten new writers (I don’t have a final figure yet), there’s also great work by some of your favourites, including Graham Nunn, Jane Williams, David Prater, Ivy Alvarez, Matt Hetherington, Anna Ryan-Punch, Jeremy Balius, Ryan O’Neill and of course, so many more.

So, set aside the afternoon of Saturday November 13th, allow enough time to trek out to the Burrinja cafe in Upwey, so you can be one of the first to check it out.

I must admit to enjoying the role of acting editor while Tiggy has been away on her holiday. There has been the joy of selecting work, of discovering new voices and enjoying the strength of known names. There has been the sorrow of turning down work, the juggling with pages and word counts.  As well as working with our competition judges, Graham Nunn and Amanda le Bas de Plumetot, our poetry editor, Ashley Capes, and the selection committee of Laurie Steed and Peter Farrar.

They have all been brilliant to work with. None of them minded (or appeared to mind) the emails that began with …ooops I think we have a problem.

There will be a short time when the Page Seventeen post will not be manned. I’m about to take a small holiday but before too long Tiggy will be back, reins tightly in her hand, answering any queries or questions.

I sincerely hope that I have responded to everyone that submitted to Page Seventeen, if not I apologise.  The paperwork I freely admit was the one area I dreaded.

However after reading the quality of work that has been selected,  I think we are going to have a great Issue 8 and can’t wait to see the final product.

We would love to see you at the launch

Saurday 13th November, Burrinja Cafe, 350 Glenfern Rd, Upwey, 1 pm.

Vicki Thornton

Acting Editor