short stories

Late last year, I was doing some editing for my old friend, queer rights activist and all-round good guy, Rod Goodbun, who I met as part of the first Queensland Pride Collective back in 1990. He mentioned he’d like to create an anthology of stories from a wide spectrum of queer voices, and that he’d like to call it Queersland. “Great title!” I said. “Let me know if you need some help editing.”

I mentioned Roddy’s idea to Matthew Wengert, the publisher at AndAlso Books that I’d worked with to create my first social history anthology Bjelke Blues, and he was keen. He also suggested we get an Arts Queensland grant to cover some of the costs and to enable us to pay contributors.

Fast forward past the arduous and odious days spend getting the grant together (that’s another book on its own!) and our great good fortune in securing funding for the project and… WHAM! We were on! Thank you Arts Queensland.

The process of collecting voices for the anthology began, with the aim of giving voice to as many of the different colours of the Queer QLD rainbow as possible, as well as covering some of QLD’s queer history (we have a story set during WW2) and the length and breadth and of this huge state.

An old photo of me and my old friend Stevie who has his first story in the collection!

TIPS FOR CREATING AN ANTHOLOGY

Here are a few tips for people wanting to create their own anthology around a topic/theme or subject.

COLLECT CONTRIBUTIONS

For Queersland both Roddy and I had a number of contacts who were either writers and/or had a good story to tell. We wanted to showcase established writers but also provide a forum for new and emerging voices and to record some of the history behind the queer movement that arose during and post the Bjelke-Petersen regime. We also wanted to ensure we had a strong First Nations voice and voices from cultures other than white Australia. Most importantly, we aimed to include a variety of writing and art.

Queersland includes poetry, song lyrics, memoirs, personal essays, fiction, photographs and artwork. After our initial call out, we realised we had some important voices missing, eg Transwomen, so searched for these missing voices. Luckily, in my teaching capacity I meet lots of lovely people in workshops, so found a few of our missing pieces in my classes and leapt upon them with the lure of publication. For Bjelke Blues, I’d put an advertisement up on Facebook to gather extra pieces, but we didn’t need to do that for Queersland. We were also lucky enough to score a foreword from one of Queersland’s most successful sons, Darren Hayes, who grew up in Logan but went on to international music stardom with Savage Garden.

SELECT & EDIT CONTRIBUTIONS

Most of the stories were requested which took away the need for any rejections – the worst bit of doing anthologies. So once we had our stories in, both Roddy and I rolled up our sleeves and helped each writer polish their contribution until it shone. Stories from established writers like David Kelly, Kris Kneen, Kelly Parry and Steve MinOn, were a breeze. Other stories needed a bit more tidying, or tone adjustment, and others from brand new writers attempting their first pieces, needed a lot of back and forth. Our story from Aunty Dawn Daylight, Blak Queer pioneer and respected elder, was a longer process, with my friend Sitara interviewing Dawn over a few sessions, then typing up the notes, which I then shaped into the story you’ll find in the book. Most stories took more than one edit, so it was a long process, but worth it in the end. And, thanks to the grant, each contributor was paid.

ORDER STORIES

When ordering stories, we decided chronology would be the main shaping force of the collection, with oldest stories first. I wanted a light touch and a sense of humour for the opening piece though so chose a short pithy memoir piece from Evalyn Eatdith where she tells someone, “Buy a girl a drink before asking personal questions”. This made sense to me, as Roddy and I had bought the drinks for all the contributors and inside the book was the answer to very personal questions.

In ordering collections/anthologies too, I always like to consider light and darkness, making sure any heaviness is tempered with a lighter story. We also wanted to have a good balance of masculine, feminine and non-binary voices. Our closing story is a timeless modern metaphor that resonates beautifully with Kris Kneen’s piece early in the book. Finding these echoes and resonance between stories is one of the joys of creating anthologies. Using these echoes and patterns to help order your stories also helps the collection feel more satisfying for the reader.

SELECT IMAGES

We were very lucky to have images from artists like Jackie Ryan, Garett Huxley, Ivan Dyke-Nunn andAnge Bailey. When inserting images, a lot had to be sorted out directly with the printer, as good quality white paper is needed for the best reproduction of the artworks. This limited the number of images we could use and also where they could be placed.

ANTHOLOGY LAYOUT

After several rounds of proofreading – Thank you Tuesday! Thank you Georgina! – the anthology then went to our designer, the wonderful Susi Blackwell, who was also an inaugural member of the 1990 QLD Pride Collective. Susi designed an eye-catching cover and wrangled with the interior and fonts, and everything involved in making the book a pleasant reading experience. If you are creating an anthology with a large trade publisher, then all this will be handled for you.

Being from FNQ I wanted a cassowary on the cover – colourful, uniquely Queensland and a little bit scary – but a bush turkey will do!

MARKETING AND EVENTS

Luckily, we’ve been able to use grant funding to employ someone to help with organising our Queersland launches. The book is being released at the first launch in Brisbane at Come to Daddy’s on Friday 5^th September – yup, not long! FULLY BOOKED.

This is followed by a Melbourne launch at Hares and Hyenas at the Victorian Pride Centre on 18 September.

On October 11, 2- 4 pm, we’ll be at Rosetta Books as part of the Rangebow Festival.

The happy crowd at the Bjelke Blues launch.

A fabulous panel led by Steve MinOn follows at the Brisbane Writers Festival on October 12 and then we’re at Avid Reader on Sunday 9 November at 3pm as part of the Melt Festival.

On 24 November we will be in Sydney at Qtopia for our NSW event, and to top them all off we have two events at Woodford Folk Festival right over the new year! WOWZA!

It would be wonderful to see you at any of these. Do come along and say hi!

Along with all these events comes marketing through reviews, interviews and articles etc. Whatever your anthology topic is, focus on that audience and do your own launches and talks/panels of voices from the collection at venues where you will find your readers.

I really enjoy creating these social history anthologies about aspects of Queensland that are often hidden or overlooked. It is a pleasure to provide a platform for voices that aren’t often heard and a publishing opportunity for emerging writers. I also get to publish stories of my own in them. Bonus! You can buy a copy of Queersland HERE – available now for preorder and from all good bookstores after September 5.

Have you got an idea for anthology? What topic, group or theme deserves multiple voices? What missing part of history needs to be recorded? Bear witness for your tribe.

I hope these tips will help you get started! Having a grant helps, but we didn’t have one for Bjelke Blues and the process was the same, just less money to play with!

In the meantime do get dressed up fancy and come along to celebrate Queersland with us at any of the events above!

Lots of love

Edwina 🙂 xx

I recently judged the Marj Wilkie Short Story Award for the Society of Women Writers Queensland. Being invited to do so was a great honour as empowering women is a huge motivator in all I do. Women’s stories are important and need to be told. Our truths. Our fictions. Our lives now at last have a chance of being seen, as never before.

As a writer also submitting to competitions, twenty-plus years after entering my first, with my own beginner’s luck well and truly expired, I took the job very seriously.

I’d previously judged the Gympie Writing Prizes and, every year as part of my work in the Creative Writing department at the University of QLD, I read and mark hundreds of stories, so I’m no stranger to the form, or to judging the quality of stories. My Masters thesis was on the short story and my first critically acclaimed novel, Thrill Seekers, started life as a collection of shorts. I’ve published over forty stories over the past twenty years, so I know how important every entry was to the writer who submitted it and was determined to do each one justice.

I was impressed by the quality of the 101 stories submitted. The writers made my job tough. I know the courage it takes to submit, the courage it takes to write at all. Committing our ideas to paper is an act of bravery. I wished I’d been able to give everyone a prize just for getting that far. As with marking students’ stories, I wished I’d been able just to give feedback without having to make judgements. But I was the judge! No getting out of it!

Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com

I was moved by many pieces, laughed and cried. I read every story all the way to the end and had to really steel myself to let some go. I thought the initial cull would be easier, I’d be able to narrow it down to thirty or so just by rejecting the stories that weren’t any good. Pity was, they were all good! I was really impressed with the quality. Only a very few were dropping out. On my first read through, I started just doing a Yes or No system, but then I hit the story that became the runner up and wrote a big YES in capital letters beside it.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

What was it that made it a big YES instead of a little one? Really it boils down to VOICE. This writer had a unique, strong and confident voice as a writer, so even though it wasn’t a genre I usually chose to read, this story SHONE. So, I started using the big YES culling method which got me to an initial long list of 30, then to a short list of 18. Some stories I read over and over before making a decision.

Many stories caught my attention and were beautifully written, some needed a little finessing, (formatting is something many entries needed to work on), others were too light or didn’t resonate with me fully. As objective as I tried to be, all reading is subjective, and my own tastes and leaning towards social justice and women’s issues came into play. Mostly by the third read through, I was looking for the stories that shone – and showed themselves to me, bright and shining. But I was still searching for my number one when I read story 100 – and before I’d even finished the first page, I knew I’d found her.

Many stories made me laugh, congratulations to the comedy writers – we all need a laugh right now. Others were deep and moving, exposing the multiple challenges faced by women now and in the past. But the stories that made it to the winning categories and indeed the shortlist had one thing in common – a strong and confident VOICE. For some this voice comes easily, though my guess is they’re journal writers, for others it takes a lot of practice and time writing, to find that confidence and trust in your own right to express yourself in your way. I found too that stories that were slightly more experimental or those with some unique twist, like the runner-up’s hazy dream of a haunted shopping mall and the winner’s interweaving of a writer’s fictional narrative with her own lived experience, were standing out.

Because of the way these experimental stories stood out from more traditional narratives, I’m adopting this as my strategy for story submissions – at least for the next few months (I try to have at least a few stories submitted at any time. See THE TEN POINT PLAN FOR PUBLISHING SUCCESS) – I’ll let myself play, experiment, try writing in different genres, letting in more magic, playing with the form.

So that’s my main tip, for those out there submitting to competitions, be brave, play with the words, the form, the story. Create something that grabs the reader’s attention and won’t let go! Above all, PLAY!

I know, I know. Easier said than done, but I’ve really been enjoying allowing myself more room to play with my writing. To really let go and just see what happens. I love a good traditional narrative that drives us forward, but with short stories we can toy with that blurred line between experimental prose and poetry, or throw a couple of stories together and see how they resonate, or chop the story up and change the order. Be brave!

I hope that tip will help us ALL get luckier in our story competition entries. Also see my THING ONE AND THING TWO story method for more short story tips.

Fingers crossed. But first you need to be brave enough to write, then put on your big girl pants and SUBMIT! Shine bright writers. Keep writing and expressing your truth. Your stories heal the world.

Have a go at writing something more experimental – you’ll have fun and, who knows, it may end up a winner!

All the gang at the Women Writer’s Awards ceremony! Lots of fun!

Thank you to Indrani, Jan, Bernadette and Trudy and all the wonderful members of Women Writers QLD.

My congratulations to the brilliant winners! Results HERE

Lots of love

Edwina xx

PS. If you’re looking for a supportive writing group with meetings, workshop and even a retreat – then do get a long to a WWQ meeting!

Edwina Shaw

WRITER / EDITOR / MENTOR / THE HEALING POWER OF STORY

WHAT MAKES A WINNING STORY? – Thoughts after judging the Marj Wilkie Short Story Award

TIPS FOR CREATING AN ANTHOLOGY

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