We had a blast at the Salisbury Writers Festival last month, and I particularly enjoyed meeting so many of you for one-on-one consultations. It was great to hear about the different things local writers are working on—the ingenious ideas, the fascinating plays with form and genre, and the generous tellings of your lives that have led you to be the writers you are today. I feel privileged to have spent the time with you and I can’t wait to see these writing projects develop. Thanks, too, to all the brilliant presenters at the festival, the staff at Salisbury Council, and to our wonderfully engaged audiences.

I am pleased to announce the first of Writers SA’s writer in residence as part of our Writers and Readers in Residence Project. Manal Younus will soon travel to Port Augusta, where she’ll work with the Port Augusta Public Library and other community groups to write and connect with local writers and readers. Manal will be focusing on writing a new collection of poetry, which explores youth, self, femininity, faith and migration. Look out for more info from us about Manal’s residency, and the other writers who will be heading out into the regions this year. The Writers and Readers in Residence Project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Keep an eye out for more news from Writers SA. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to bring you our final quarter program for the year, to be released in a couple of weeks, as well as details for member networking events and an end of year celebration. We also look forward to introducing you to new faces at Writers SA in the coming months as we fill some key roles.

In the meantime we’ve got some brilliant workshops coming up over the next few weeks and we look forward to seeing you there!

– Jessica Alice, Director of Writers SA