Turkish Food is Delicious

Yesterday, I was out with my friends enjoying what is the excitement of the Victoria Markets. We were all congregating around a table, eating our bratwurst (me) and börek (them). Both of these are insanely delicious by the way - as is gozleme, it must be the pastry! Just so you get a bit of context. Mmm, that pastry.

Anyway, there we were, lounging about when a swarm (okay there were two) of pigeons came out of nowhere and relieved themselves on my friend's head. It was quite amusing as you could imagine and she found it so too. But why is it considered good luck to have bird poo...somewhere?

Superstitions are a bit weird - here's some ones from around the world! And if you want to read about some guy's bird pooping incidents here. It's quite weird when you think of it how superstitions have become ingrained in our lives whether we believe them or not.

Here's a bratwurst

That's Not How You Spell Berry is it?

In life you need mini victories. For me, I derive that pleasure from finding typos and binding errors in books. Is that wrong? Just earlier on my break I was reading a book about baking and noticed that they had spelt a certain word wrong. Some raspberyy anyone? It makes you feel that tiny bit superior (sorry) and that's occasionally what you need.

In researching (if you can call it that) for this post I came across another blog post detailing a similar thing. WE ARE THE SAME PERSON!!! At least I know I'm not alone in the world.I was also at an exhibition a few months ago where process folios were being displayed as well. On one page was an annotation that made absolutely no sense! Tiny victory there - maybe that there's some hope for my folio. (Hers was amazing by the way.)

This book is quite hilarious for all your typo needs. Have fun!

The Last Strawberry

I have a weird friend. It seems that whenever she enters a competition, she'll win! In the past two month I'd say at least 3 free passes to films and events. It's incredible really because whenever I enter anything it seems very far from victory. So I thought I'd brainstorm some tips to winning tickets.

1. Scour publications for competitions. These may be from newspapers, websites or even from books! Keep your eyes peeled in store for comps with your brilliant new book.

2. The second is to enter them. This sounds obvious but probably why I don't win anything. It seems crazy how many tickets she wins but I suppose overall the hit rate is quite small. The official stats come out as approximately 10 applications per month! 

3. Don't be disheartened if you don't win the first, second or tenth time. IT WILL HAPPEN!! What if you stop just before the competition you could have won? As demonstrated (vaguely) in this film script:

Do you want the last strawberry?

  
Hmm...

  
Come on. This might very well be the
best strawberry in the whole world,
you wouldn't know
because you're not gonna eat it.

  
Fine, then.

  
Mmm!

  
You were right.

By the way, this is from High School Musical 3. Hard hitting psychological stuff. I actually do love this movie though. 

It's gotten  me through my studies. 

And final tip form the master (not me): Be a nice person and ask your friends along when you win!

Emerging Writers' Festival 2015

The Emerging Writers' Festival has just concluded for another year! I kind of forgot about it to be honest, but we can talk about it in retrospect.

You can visit their site here.

It's really a testament to Melbourne as a Literary City what with so many events and celebrations of the written word.

I had the pleasure of attending a 'Young Women in Writing' event at the Queen Victoria Women's Centre during the course of the festival. It was to create a place where young, like minded women with writing on their minds to meet, network and learn from other young writers before them. It began with a keynote speech from the hilarious Clementine Ford who shared the ridiculousness of abuse  received by feminists, and just women writers in general online and face to face, as well as how to deal with it personally. I also think Clementine Ford is an excellent name so kudos to her parents. It reminds me of a really sweet afternoon boating on a lake and driving an old Ford (of course). Sorry Clementine if you get that a lot. 
We were then split into two groups (the number of us wasn't that great to begin with) to have a casual and super candid Q&A session with Amy Gray, Megan McGrath and editor of Voiceworks Magazine (I'll share more later) Elizabeth Flux about being in the writing industry. Insightful it was and held in the atrium (level five) of the Centre was simply beautiful as well. I've never seen that view of Melbourne before and it's always exciting to find a new perspective on a city that you've lived in all your life. From there we moved back downstairs to another Q&A, but this time moderated with Lili Wilkinson, Kat Muscat and Rebecca Harkins-Cross, this time detailing how they got into the grand profession(s) of writing and being a woman in an often male dominated industry (again). Things like shine theory and the imposter syndrome were discussed - to be honest I've thought of these myself but it's nice to put a name to a thing. Well, not really nice because it's kind of something negative that happens. OH then we talked about the Stella Prize and the opportunity for women writers to be read as well as reach acclaim. This year's winner is Stephanie Bitto with The Strays. It is currently in my every growing 'to read' pile. Insert here a big rant by everyone) about the lack of female writers on VCE and school lists. I guess that's why it's so great to have events like this where future writers can be cultivated and inspired. 

To finish up, networking over cupcakes ensued and was thoughroughly (yes that much. I can spell.) delicious. Red velvet is...yum 

AS a part of the sessions we discussed ways to get your writing out there! If you are over 25 avert your eyes. 

Voiceworks, a magazine filled with writing from 18-25 year olds. Reviewed by a panel, anyone can submit and it is blind read and discussed. Anyone unsuccessful is given feedback as well so it's a great way to test the waters and improve your stuff!  Also helping you with pitching. 

Signal Express, a part of the excellence that are the Signal (free and government run) programs in which various awesome art endevours are taught in their Flinders Street Studio. The Express program has young writers contributing to an online magazine complete with skill workshop sessions, deadlines and obviously fun. I have heard many a good thing about Signal Express. 

And lastly is The Underage, if you are perhaps a little more journolistically inclined then this is for you! In conjunction with the Age newspaper, you're sure to learn and hone your skills here, you budding journalist you. 

It was great to discuss during the event the actual real life effects of being a writer I guess, and that you don't just have to be a journalist or fiction writer but there are so many jobs in between.

Happy Writing!

Is It A Picture Book or An Information Book? Why Not Both!

Infographics are an excellent way to learn new things! You'll be wishing you knew/had a child to buy these for if you don't already. Or you could just get one for yourself - we fully support you there! 

'But what are infographics!?' I hear you ask.  Well, they are an excellent part of communication design that works with the presentation of information in visual ways, often for ease of understanding. According to the fount of wisdom (Google) they are 'graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.'

Actually I didn't realise but there are a number of do it yourself info graphic websites available!
Here's one that I made about bestsellers

This is a cool site to get your daily dose of infograpichism... such as this one! 

See more here. I reckon these are pretty cool!