Magdalena Ball

On the 24th and 25th of April, the Newcastle Writers Festival will be holding their inaugural Emerging Writers Program “Fresh Ink”.  This mini weekend festival is packed with great sessions on getting started with writing, juggling writing with parenting, memoir, launching a first book during the pandemic, publishing, the agent relationship, and the session I’ll be hosting, “Taking Risks” – how writes navigate the personal and the political, with the amazing Shu-Ling Chua, Bri Lee, and Omar Sakr.  Tickets are free (!) but must be booked in advance. Go here to see the full program and book:

https://www.newcastlewritersfestival.org.au/freshink-emergingwriters/

Two new poems of mine, “Help on Arrival” and “La Grippe” have been published in the latest issue of Burrow, which has an ekphrastic/mental health theme. Both of these are from a new work in progress about my great-grandmother Rebecca, and her migration to the US from the Pale of Settlement in 1907.  You can read the whole issue, which is really quite wonderful, here: https://oldwaterratpublishing.com/current-issue/

My poem, “The Lost Sister”, part of a new book I’m working on about my great-grandmother, has won first prize in the Hunter Writers’ Centre November Writing Contest. The contest was an ekphrastic in which we were given a series of prompts – visual and verbal – to choose from. My prompt was Picasso’s “Reading at a Table”.  The poem can be read at the Hunter Writers’ Centre webpage here: https://hunterwriterscentre.org/november-writing-submissions/

I’m delighted to have two poems featured in Swinburne University’s Backstory Journal Issue 10. Backstory is Swinburne’s history writing journal, and features all sorts of creative writing from poetry to fiction, academic articles, and reviews, all curated and edited beautifully. My two poems are “Empire Erased” and “Life Can Only be Understood Backwards”. You can check it out here: http://www.backstoryjournal.com.au/category/issues/issue-ten/

I am delighted to have a poem included in Red Room‘s Writing Water: Rain, River, Reef chapbook anthology. This beautiful little booklet is entirely hand-made and stitched, using all natural dyes, and features exquisite poems by the likes of Eunice Andrada, Tony Birch, Luke Davies, Georgine Reid, JV Birch, and Esther Ottaway. Copies can be purchased here: https://redroomcompany.org/goodies/writing-water-chapbook/

This Saturday, the 24th of October, 330-5pm, I’ll be one of nine poets performing at the Newcastle Library in the final event in the Stand up for Poetry program, The Language of Identity LIVE. Our work will reflect on the nature of identity and the role of language as an expression of identity. The event is free to attend, but bookings are essential: https://www.facebook.com/events/3586291861401561/  The event will also be livestreamed via the Newcastle Libraries Facebook page. The livestream is open to all and no bookings required for that.

Several of my poems have been published in the 2020 Sappho Anthology Sappho Lives! edited by Suman Lahiry and Heidi Chappelow.  The book, a beautiful collection of 40 poems by mostly local poets, has, as the title suggests, a focus on queer themes, with a striking cover designed by poet and artist Claire Albrecht.

Sappho Lives! will be launched on Monday the 21st of September at Poetry at the Pub, The Wickham Park Hotel, 61 Maitland Road, Islington. All are welcome. There may also be a possibility of attending by Zoom.  Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2310955502363048

I’m honoured to have a poem, “FKA”, included in the 2020 Australian Poetry Anthology, Vol 8, edited by Melinda Smith and Sara Saleh. The wonderful anthology, full of good work, is being launched on the 20th of July (that’s today at the time of typing!) online via Zoom, live-streamed to Australian Poetry’s Facebook Page at 7pm (AU EST), featuring readings from ACT poets Judith Nangala Crispin, Anita Patel, Isi Unikowski, and Merlinda Bobis, and from poets from across Australia including Laniyuk (NT + Vic), Shastra Deo (Qld), and Noemie Huttner-Koros (WA). There will be launch speeches by chair of Australian Poetry (ACT poet Martin Dolan) and the editors. The event also forms part of the Poetry on the Move Online festival and the ACT’s Where You Are festival. You can pick up a copy of the anthology here: https://www.australianpoetry.org/our-publications/the-members-anthology/