LATEST NEWS
May 2021: Our two anthologies, Dark Sky Dreamings: an Inland Skywriters Anthology edited by Merrill Findlay, and Outer Space Inner Worlds edited by David Reiter, will be launched in Dubbo as part of the Dubbo Fringe Festival on Saturday 8 May 2021, by Dubbo’s Acting Mayor, Clr Stephen Lawrence.
Bookings here >>
Press release here >>
October 2019: Our first Skywriters Anthology, published by Interactive Publications Pty Ltd (IP), was launched in Tamworth, NSW, on 31 October 2019. It includes works by fifty writers from inland NSW and beyond.
The works to be included were blind-selected by our curatorial team from submissions received following our call-out in late 2018. Congratulations to the authors of all the selected works.
Press release about the book launch >>
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CONTACT US: skywritersproject[at]gmail.com
Our Skywriters Project invites creative writers, aspiring writers and skylovers to author new stories, in any genre, about their own or other people’s (or other beings’?) relationships with celestial phenomena in our Southern Sky, as experienced from within the fuzzy borders of southeastern Australia’s rural and remote Inland.
September 2018
July 2018
12 April 2017
April 2017: We’ve now launched a dozen Skywriters Hubs in public libraries in Narrabri, Coonabarabran, Gilgandra, Dubbo, Warren, Parkes, Condobolin, Forbes, Cowra, Orange, Bathurst, and Grenfell, and registered more than 100 Skywriters ranging in age from late teens to 90 years young.
Members of our very dispersed community live in or near three regional cities (Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo), at least a dozen country towns (Blayney, Millthorpe, Cowra, Canowindra, Forbes, Grenfell, Condobolin, Parkes, Gilgandra, Coonabarabran, Warren, and Narrabri), and at least 13 townlets, villages and rural localities, including Neville, Quandialla, Bimbi, Lue, Robin Hill, Ravenswood, Nevertire, Bugaldie, Eumunggerie, Tooraweenah, Emu Swamp, Warroo and Gooloogong. We also have a few Skywriters living beyond our 700KA region.
Three new inland community writers’ groups have also emerged from our Project in Condobolin, Forbes and Orange, to join the many pre-existing writers’ groups in inland NSW. These include Dubbo’s Outback Writers, the Lambing Flat Writers Group in Young, Grenfell Writers, Bathurst Poets, Point Blank Writers Group in Gilgandra, and Author-ised in Parkes.
We have achieved all this in just one month (March/April 2017) with the in-kind support of library staff; our partner organisation Arts OutWest and other Regional Arts Development Organisations (RADOs), including Orana Arts, ArtsNorthwest, and Outback Arts; Dubbo’s Outback Writers Centre; local radio stations and newspapers; other in-kind sponsors, including ANU’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (with special thanks to Dr Brad Tucker for printing our Skywriters posters and postcards for smaller libraries); a very effective collaborative social media campaign by Skywriters and supporters on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms; plus our great guest speakers. Oh, and, of course, all the amazing sponges, slices, biscuits, tarts, fairy cakes, sandwiches and nibbles provided by our Skywriter librarians and their support crews!
We’ve all been part of something we can be very proud of over the past month. Again, congratulations! To all of us! … We can now begin our next big challenges: creating a solid and supportive inland Skywriters network, and producing some superlative skystories for publication in 2019!
Merrill Findlay, Project Coordinator, Forbes, 12 April 2017
HOW TO BECOME A SKYWRITER AND WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
You’re already a registered Skywriter if you’ve filled in one of our registration forms and returned it to Merrill, the project coordinator. This means you’ll be on our emailing list and should receive newsletters and invitations to our attend gatherings. You’ll also have access to the Skywriters Facebook group and other social media to connect with fellow Skywriters. You’ll be able to email or sms Merrill for support, updates and/or advice about your writing projects; and you’ll be able to enjoy many opportunities to engage face-to-face with fellow Skywriters, astronomers and other researchers in our region. Plus, of course, you’ll have an opportunity to be published in our Skywriters Anthology in 2019.
Download [pdf 348KB] SkywritersRegistrationForm_Online_vJune2017
By becoming a Skywriter you’ll not only be developing your own creative talents and research skills, but you’ll also be co-creating an inspiring, inclusive and, we hope, enduring inland literary community … And who knows where this might lead? Could it catalyse a literature-led renaissance in rural communities? An explosion of new ideas? Imagine …
To find your nearest Skywriters hub, click on the purple dots on the map below.
ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES
Outcomes of our Skywriters Project are expected to include:
- a dispersed community of rural writers within our 700 Kilometre Array region
- seminars, excursions and other opportunities for Skywriters to learn more about their craft, develop new skills, network, socialise and be astonished and inspired
- dozens of new stories by rural people set in southeastern Australia’s rural inland and/or in the sky above
- publication of Skywriters’ stories on this web site
- a Skywriters anthology published as an e-book and in print form
- links with other Big Skies Collaboration projects, and opportunities for Skywriters to contribute to them
- and many new friendships and serendipitous happenings – along with a great sense of achievement
- an enduring support network for rural writers
FINANCIAL & IN-KIND SUPPORT
Skywriters Project gratefully acknowledges the 
financial support from the Regional Arts Fund, through project partner Arts OutWest, and in-kind support from ANU’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Mount Stromlo; libraries and local government authorities within the 700KA region, as listed above; Bathurst’s historic Lachlan Inn; and from other individuals, groups and institutions who are contributing to this project. Our combined efforts will work marvels!
POSTER CREDITS
Launch poster designed by Arts OutWest’s Jo Dicksen, featuring the ESA/Hubble Telescope’s 2004 image of the Pleiades star cluster, also known as The Seven Sisters, NGC 1432/35 and M45. ESA/Hubble images, videos and web texts are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
The stars quotation is from the first stanza of Henry Lawson‘s 1888 ballad, ‘A May Night On The Mountains’, as shown on a mural in the corridor of Weddin Shire Council’s Community Hub, in Grenfell, New South Wales. Lawson was born in Grenfell in 1867. Read his entire poem here >>
Page created 3 February 2016. Last updated 6 May 2021.
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