Program

10:00am - 12:00pm

Masterclass

Join us for a free masterclass with a leading expert. An unmissable opportunity. Come to the Crack House for more details!

10:00am - 11:00am

Everyday Flashers: Seizure

Themed flash fiction led by your favourite journals! Grab your pen and coffee and get your NYWF day off to a great start in a flash. Seizure

10:00am - 11:00am

Eggheads Like Their Booky Books

Ease into your Sunday with strong coffee and soft words from a slew of emerging writers and poets. Emily Stewart, Tara Cartland, Owen Kirby...and more!

10:00am - 12:30pm

Wind Beneath my Wings

Did these guys ever know they were your hero? Now's the time to tell them. This special paired mentoring program gives you the chance to spend some quality time learning from a pro. Advanced bookings required, please email info@youngwritersfestival.org by ...

10:00am - 06:00pm

Electrofringe Showcase

The Electrofringe 2013 Showcase brings together up to 30 of the most exciting and innovative new media and electronic art projects from around Australia and internationally. Held throughout the foyer, gallery and workshop spaces at Newcastle's Hunter Street ...

10:00am - 01:00pm

Pitches

Alysha Herrmann leads this workshop about elevator pitching, honing ideas and learning to collaborate. Using an Open Spaces format, attending writers will 'pitch' an idea they are currently working on, refine and present it to the group. Alysha ...

11:00am - 03:30pm

Zine Fair

With a new home in Staple Manor (The Kensington), the 2013 NYWF/TiNA zine fair is leaner, meaner, and curated by the talented Beef Knuckles crew. Come along for specialty coffee, cracking tunes on vinyl, and zines, zines, zines!

11:00am - 12:00pm

Does it Matter?

Celebrating their 10th year, Kings ARI curators and artists talk transformation, energy and matter, and consider the artistic potential of matter’s capacity to change as an arrangement of particles in flux. Anabelle Lacroix, Kate Warren, Benjamin ...

11:30am - 12:30pm

Tony Soprano is Dead

Sometimes we love a fictional character so intensely we become emotionally attached, or hate them to the point of disgust. What makes us like or dislike characters? Do we even need to like characters at all? Chair: Ronnie Scott. With Romy Ash, Amy Espeseth, ...

11:30am - 12:30pm

The Future in Review

A discussion on the state of review and literary criticism in Australia today and into the future. Facilitator: Angie Andrewes. With Bethanie Blanchard, Sky Kirkham, Grace Nye, Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Lizzie Stafford, Paul Donoghue

12:30pm - 02:00pm

(Prof.) Mischief Makers

Three papers look at the artistic opportunity of play, spontaneity and mischief, as creative provocations that subtly interrogate cultural prescriptions of thought and practice.

01:00pm - 04:00pm

Funnies

A workshop with a particular focus on writing comedy and how to be funny on the page as well as the stage, with The Sturgeon General's Patrick Lenton.

01:00pm - 02:00pm

This One Time...

For some it's a tea-soaked madeleine cake, for others it's a beer-soaked pub carpet. Memory is a funny thing, and in this series of presentations, three talkers take us through their best/worst/most memorable. Ellen van Neerven

01:00pm - 02:30pm

$$$$$

Cha-ching! In the digital age, more and more outlets are expecting writers to work for free. But you can't pay bills with social media shares. How much are you worth per word? Are there ever circumstances when we should write for free?

01:00pm - 02:00pm

#WTF: Writing in the Post-Internet Age

If you spend more time online than IRL, this presentation is for you. Touching on LOLspeak, coding language, ironic hyperlinks, screenshots and Snapchats, two presenters will attempt to rove over the many-sided terrain of writing post-world wide web.

01:00pm - 05:00pm

Yarns

Kaitlyn Plyley has trained in storytelling under teachers from New York's The Moth and LA's Upright Citizens Brigade. She'll share techniques and tips in this live storytelling workshop.

01:00pm - 02:00pm

In Summary: Romance

Your Friends have been researching for two years now, and it's time to present some findings. A participatory performance examining the mechanics of romance.

02:00pm - 03:00pm

Tell It To The Borgeoise

Why performing on the main stages may not be the height of a performance career. Context can make work great but what is the right context to make it truly incredible?

02:00pm - 02:45pm

PANIC

PANIC: A fresh new work exploring being young and anxious in a brave new world.

02:00pm - 03:30pm

Revolutionary Theatre

How can we create a space for militant political theatre in Australia? Two theatre makers present a provocative manifesto agitating for an engagement with the revolutionary moment.

02:30pm - 02:30pm

Why Awards?

Helen Garner recently said "Prizes are rather like wills. Terrible anxieties cluster around them." Do we need awards to motivate writers? Does awards culture help or hinder writing? Facilitator: Benjamin Law. With Anna Krien, Romy Ash, Alli ...

03:00pm - 04:00pm

Beaches Love Power

Using 400 years of history and the Bette Midler film ‘Beaches’, this show is a light and self-deprecating look at the backstabbing and general cattiness that can undermine relationships between women.

03:00pm - 05:00pm

Wings of Wax- An Oracle of Myth and Mind

Step behind the curtain, choose your cards and prepare to walk the labyrinth of a mind unbalanced. Here lie the tales of secrets, seductions and sorrows that pave the unpredictable path through mental illness.

03:00pm - 04:30pm

45%

45% of adults between 16 and 85 have had a mental disorder in their lifetime. We talk with artists exploring this in their work, their lives and experts to help you take the best care of yourself and those around you.

03:45pm - 05:15pm

From the Grass Roots to the Grand Gesture

How do you take a grandiose idea, no money, the political and the personal  and turn it into art? Join members of Sipat Lawan, David Finnigan and Boni Cairncross to delve into the profound mysteries and mundane realities of making charged performances ...

04:00pm - 04:30pm

The Set

What makes the places that define you? A daily interactive installation that creates, explores and demolishes the world around us.

04:00pm - 05:00pm

The Mayfly Project

An exploration of our relationship with time, combining live generative music, storytelling and lo-fi animation.

04:00pm - 05:00pm

We Don’t Speak Americano

Younger Australian radio producers have been accused of imitating This American Life or Radio Lab, while dismissing the culture and knowledge built up by older Australian radio greats. How can we retain an Australian flavour of radio, while employing techniques ...

04:30pm - 06:00pm

Linguistics, Social Politics and You

Watch what you say: four linguists discuss the social politics in language, viewed through the practical lens of objective language research.

05:00pm - 06:00pm

Crack on Crack

If you see nothing of the Crack Theatre Festival, which we hope isn't true, Sunday, 5pm we present for you everything (almost) in 2 minutes.

05:00pm - 07:00pm

Feelpinions

We've all got one, and they all stink. So why do news outlets dish out so many opinion pieces? And do these opinions get in the way of hard news that matters? Join a motley gang of media professionals from both sides of the opinion/news divide as they ...

05:00pm - 07:00pm

Lush 4 Lyf

William Faulkner couldn't write without it. Dylan Thomas killed himself with it. Dorothy Parker would rather have it than a frontal lobotomy. But is alcohol necessary to the writing life, or does the writing life drive people to drink?

06:00pm - 07:00pm

What the Fuck, Australia…

A forum of discontent which will trawl through the intrigues and scandals of ‘Election 2013’ and ask if there was any method at all in the madness. Ben Jenkins, Alice Workman, Bhakthi Puvanenthiran

06:00pm - 12:00am

Electrofringe TiNA Closing Night Party

For TiNA's 2013 Closing Night Party, Electrofringe brings some of the most exciting electronic musicians and sound artists from Sydney and Newcastle together for a flat out party of experimental music fun. Featuring 6 emerging electronic artists spanning ...

06:00pm - 06:15pm

Applespiel Presents A Theatrical Primer To Every Panel At Crack Theatre Festival 2013

Applespiel will take every single panel at Crack Theatre Festival, and put it on a stage. For you.

06:30pm - 07:30pm

Unfinished Business

A cataloguing and crucifixion of Crack: a ceremony of creation through destruction; a eulogy to the ephemerality of art.

07:30pm - 09:00pm

The Critical Animalia: A Decade between Disciplines

What does it mean to be a Critical Animal in 2013? We welcome all voices to discuss and discern the contemporary status of Criticality today. Registrations for mike time essential.

07:30pm - 12:00am

AFTER PARTY!

09:00pm - 11:00pm

Late Night Readings #3: Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

Finish your day with a bedtime story from some of the country's finest young writers.