the alleyway project - winn lane next Tuesday night - Brisbane's 'Anywhere Festival'

Alright people of my fair city, this is a brief post to let you know that I've been asked to attend and review a super intruiging piece of theatre next Tuesday night as part of Brisbane's 'Anywhere Festival' - the basic concept of which is that the performance in question has to be anywhere apart from in a theatre. (Hence the use of the adjective "intruiging".) Check out their website for all kinds of kooky performance locations. I think I love this festival most of all because it's gonna make such good use of the city and its surrounds. I know that sounds a bit nanna of me, but seriously, I think I even heard one of the performances is going to be near a riverbed! How fresh is that!?!?! (I meant 'fresh' as in 'prince of Bel-Air' as well as in physically 'in-the-wild-kind-of' fresh.) As far as I know, Brisbane is the first place in the world to host a festival of this nature. Damn, we're cool. Go us. 

The particular show I've been asked to review is going to be in the oh-so-hip Winn Lane in Fortitude Valley, and it is aptly titled 'The Alleyway Project'. 

  

 

 

 

The team of crazy kids putting this one together is rather impressive and if you have the time, pop on over to their pop-up blog and have a browse. If you can't be fucked clicking your pointer on that link you lazy-ass, here are the details:

"Set in the heart of Fortitude Valley, four playwrights turn a dirty alleyway into the legends of nights out – where drunken youth roam free and the pavement becomes a stained and silent tapestry of history."

The Alleyway Theatre Project invites you to grab a milk crate and squeeze right up next to the stories of the Valley’s night animals.

This pop-up theatre can be glimpsed for two nights only and is filled with your favourite actors from Brisbane.

NB. Ticket price includes a drink on entry!

Playwrights: Dan Evans, Eloise Maree, Dan Maloney and Maxine Mellor
Director: Kat Henry
DATES: Mon 14th & Tues 15th @ 7:00pm ONLY
TICKETS: $20/$18
PLACE: Winn Lane, Fortitude Valley, 4005

Apparently tickets for the two evenings above are already sold out (read: ITS GOING TO BE AWESOME) but a third performance is certainly rumored - so keep your wiskers horizontal! (It's a cat thing, they started it on their blog then I got carried away thinking of cat puns. And now I'm rambling.) 

  

  

 

 

So yeah, stay tuned and try to make it to a riverbed before we talk next!!! Also, there is something here about free food. Yeah that's what I said - FREE FOOD.
You can thank me when we see each other there. 

 

The Queensland Literary Awards - helping out at Avid Reader

The betrayal of our Premier to the literary community of Queensland is already well-documented. It is a shocking and unjustifiable decision that makes me genuinely sad. What Mr Newman's cut means for the industry, for emerging and indigenous authors, and for people growing up in Queensland - what kind of shitty message this 'cost-cut' sends to the world. I can't believe I ever liked that guy. What a douchebag.
  

 

This is like, one quarter of what arrived each day I was helping out.

  
  
I don't want to dwell on it negatively like this for too long though, because from the burning rubble of Mr Newman's mindfuck, a movement has well and truly begun, and we're seeing a community come together. It's a sign of defiance and it's fucking fantastic. I spent two days at Avid Reader this week volunteering for the independant version of The Queensland Literary Awards - which will flourish this year.

In this month's Queensland Writers Centre newsletter, a note from Kate Eltham was included and she agreed that "the grassroots response of the Queensland literary community has been nothing short of astounding." She also singles out a few of Brisbane's most awesome writers/personalities, one of which is Krissy Kneen, with whom I've been working at Avid Reader with! Krissy is the bomb, and she's working so damn hard, it just renews my faith in the very essence of grassroots movements. I went to the post office with her and the wonderful Michelle (you know, to help lifting boxes, because I'm so strong and shit) and in just one day, we filled a whole car with boxes and boxes of submissions. Processing all the entries takes hours every day, and every day new volunteers turn up to help because they love books and they want to be proud of their community - and seeing all these people come together for this makes me proud of my community.
  
  

These are my favourite pants. Easily.

 

You should also know that the submission deadline for the awards has been extended to the 20th of May - so there's no excuse not to submit your work-in-progress. Especially because they're calling for more "emerging writers'" submissions.  This is their latest press release:

"There has been an extension to the deadline for submissions to the Qld Literary Awards. Originally slated to close at close of business on the 6th May, submissions will now be open till Sunday 20th May. The reason for the extension is a change to the rules of entry. After many queries from publishers we have decided to change the 'residing in Australia' status to clear up all confusion and to bring the awards into line with similar awards in other states. The guidelines previously stated that an author needed to reside in Australia for a minimum period of three years prior to the closing date of the award. This particular rule has caused great confusion for submissions and due to a high number of requests to bring this award into line with awards in other states we have agreed to adjust the rules and to extend the deadline for submissions.

The guidelines and entry form can be downloaded from queenslandliteraryawards.com and from www.avidreader.com.a

We encourage everyone to enter this year particularly in the Emerging Qld author and David Uniapon catagories which will continue to have publication support from University of Qld Press.

We have already received a huge amount of submissions to the awards and we welcome more submissions for all awards by the new 20th May deadline. Good luck."

The piles of processed entries ready to be judged - they're being stored
under the State Library of Queensland, and I got to go to this special underground
place where they store all the SUPER old newspapers.
IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME.

If you have any free time over the next  few days, I urge you to get in contact with Avid Reader or Krissy and help out however you can. As usual, buying books by Queensland authors is one of the best ways to put your money where your mouth is - and buying them from an indie bookstore like Avid is even better.

So I just want to conclude by saying thanks to my hometown. I'm so proud to be from Queensland and I'm pissing myself in excitement for the awards. Eloquent, I know. Wink.

New Balance Minimus Shoes - i swear on my life this isn't a paid promotion. are you kidding i wish.

I have a friend who is training for a half marathon. It's inspirational. She lives in Finland, too, so sometimes (read: often) she has to run through crazy-deep-snow to train. That's probably not that impressive to my Russian readers, but to us Brisbane kids, that's fucking insane.

I've always been a runner - but only, like 10km. Half marathons are 21km. Which is double what I can run when I'm fit. Which is half of what a real fucking marathon even is. What a KOOKY world we live in.

So anyways, that's what I was thinking about that when I bought these shoes.

And then yesterday I went to see The Avengers and decided I wanted to get super-duper fit like Black Widow, because lord knows I can't get super smart like Tony Stark or super green and monstrous like The Incredible Hulk or be from a different planet that likes hammers like Thor or learn how to shoot arrows like Hawk Eye or become the Captain of America.

And lord knows I love comic books being turned into movies. It's just about my favourite kind of movie. The Avengers was also made by Joss Whedon, and lord knows he's just about my favourite creator of just about anything.

I digress.

I was talking about running. And now I'm talking about 'barefoot running' and how just yesterday I saw a young man who wasn't wearing shoes step on broken glass and how I don't like feet, let alone dirty feet, and so I'm never actually going to run barefoot. I also don't like those shoes that look like gloves with little toes and everything. Call me old-fashioned, but I just like the idea of normal shoes and socks. Fuck I love socks. They keep your feet so nice and they keep everything clean and they're soft and comfortable.

These New Balance Minimus shoes are a good compromise (I hope/think/pray because fuck they were expensive). The soles are made by those Vibram people who do the wierd foot-glove shoes, and they're all thin and flexy and superfine. Most people have Nike Free's, and normally I like Nike shoes to run in, but I've hear so much shit about the Frees I didn't want to risk paying this big-ass pile of money on them.

Ummm so now I don't really know where I was going with this post. My apologies.