White Night Melbourne

This Saturday I'm pretty amped to be taking part in the White Night festival in Melbourne. This basically involves the City of Melbourne being open all night long from 7pm - 7am with all manner of artistic activities all over the shop celebrating music, film, food, writing, art and light. And mostly free as far as I can tell. I'm part of the EWF Writing Camp at the Wheeler Centre. I'll be appearing alongside some of my very favourite writers in Melbourne. We'll be performing as well as hanging around to offer advice to anybody who wants it and have a bit of a chat. I'll be performing at 9pm. Check out the full program below.

8pm —

Eric Yoshiaki Dando was born in Tokyo in 1970. He has had stories, cartoons and poems published here and there. He is best known for his cult classic counter-culture novel Snail. He is currently writing his third novel called Beautiful Useful Things.

9pm —

Sean M Whelan writes poetry, fiction and works for performance. He also collaborates extensively with musicians. His band The Interim Lovers released an album called Softly & Suddenly and his latest book of poetry is titled Tattooing the Surface of the Moon, through Small Change Press. He is currently working on his first full length play and a collection of recordings made with electronic musician Isnod.

10pm —

Briohny Doyle is an award winning Australian writer, fan-grrrl and scholar of the apocalypse. Her writing appears in the pages of Ampersand Magazine, Going Down Swinging, Overland, Cordite, Voiceworks, The Lifted Brow and as meaningful pixels all over the internet.

11pm —

Jessica Alice presents and produces ‘Spoken Word’ and ‘Women on the Line’ on 3CR 855AM community radio, and edits poetry for Voiceworks.She made her debut at the Abbotsford Convent in 2008 and won The Spinning Room’s performers place in 2010.

MIDNIGHT DOUBLE FEATURE 1 —

Laura Jean McKay is an award-winning writer best known for smearing cat food all over herself on stage. Despite this, she is published in Best Australian Stories, The Big Issue, Women of Letters and The Lifted Brow, among others. Her short story collection Holiday in Cambodia will be published by Black Inc in July 2013.

MIDNIGHT DOUBLE FEATURE 2 —

Lawrence Leung is a TV writer, comedian and director. He created two ABC1 telly shows, ‘Lawrence Leung’s Unbelievable’ and the AFI-nominated ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’. He also wrote pranks for ‘The Chaser’s War On Everything’ and toured his award-winning stand up shows nationally and overseas. He once solved a Rubik’s Cube whilst skydiving.

1am —

Tom Doig is a writer, performer, editor, moron—has been published in The Big Issue, The Lifted Brow, Sleepers Almanac and Voiceworks. His plays include Survival of the Prettiest, Hitlerhoff and Selling Ice to the Remains of the Eskimos. Mörön to Mörön: two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure is his first book.

2 am —

YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!

3am —

Luke Ryan is a freelance writer, comedian and man about town. I write short-form non-fiction with a comic edge and am currently working on my debut book, I Guess You’re Only as Sick as You Feel, a comedy memoir about having had cancer a couple of times due for release through Scribe Publications in late 2013. Work has appeared in The Vine, Smith Journal, Crikey, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, Time Out and many others.

4 am —

YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!

5am —

Nick Modrzewski is a writer and painter.  His work has been published in The Lifted Brow, Helmet Magazine, Six Years Later, Rabbit Poetry Journal and Voiceworks. He has written for and performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival as well as ‘Short and Sweet,’ and the Edinburgh and Melbourne Fringe Festivals.

6 am —

YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!

7 am —

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

There will be coffeeeeeee! Bring a pillow or a rug if you like. Bring your writing equipment – lap top or pen and paper – and, best of all, bring your inspiring ideas that you’ve been waiting to test out way way late! Hope to see you on the night!

Big Feats - Little Feat 2013 Cabaret Fundraiser

From one Independent Theatre fundraiser into another. On Monday night, Feb 18th, I'll be one of many performers appearing at a special Cabaret fundraiser to try and raise some money for Little Feat Theatre. They have a great little performance space on St Georges Road. I've already seen some wonderful productions there and very happy to do my bit to ensure they put on many more.
Here's what they have to say about it:

Hi there, everyone and happy new year!
We are holding an exciting fundraising event for Little Feat Theatre on MONDAY February 18^th, and we’d LOVE to have your support!
It’s now been 2 years since Feat In Space (the company) began and a year of running our own venue, the Little Feat Theatre. During the past year we’ve had an exciting (and exhausting) range of events, including our first Friday play readings held every month, our own productions and some great visiting productions too.
We’ve got some wonderful plans for 2013, kicking off with a fantastic fundraising soiree party!
WHY A FUNDRAISER?
Running a theatre venue, you’ll appreciate its pretty hard to balance the books as its really a labour of love. This year we want to spread the word wider about Little Feat and hire a publicist – but first we need the money to pay them!
The soiree night will be on Monday, February 18^th at local Thornbury tapas restaurant, Perri on St Georges Road. There will be delicious tapas finger food and a variety of live entertainment for pleasure, as well as a silent auction of local businesses services and products. Put it in your diary, we’ll let you know more details soon. Tickets $50 (drinks not included but there is a full bar operating on the night).
We hope to make $2000 in total and have set up this Pozible account with an aim to make $1000 (the rest at the fundraiser event) for those who are keen to support us but can’t make it on the day. This way no donation is too small to make an enormous difference to us.

Mutation Theatre Fundraiser featuring The Interim Lovers

Tonight Sean M Whelan & The Interim Lovers will play our first live performance since early 2012. We're appearing at a fundraiser for my favourite Melbourne independent theatre company, Mutation Theatre. They're trying to raise some funds to aid staging their next production Love Me Tender, which the above picture of cast member Sarah Ogden is from. Sarah also happened to appear in my short play B.I.K.E which was put on for the 48 Hour Play Generator at the Emerging Writer's Festival a couple of years ago.
Also appearing at the fundraiser tonight will be Spender, Ainslie Wills, and Epps and Kwasi.
The Interim Lovers will be appearing in trio mode tonight. We'll perform a few older tracks from Sean M Whelan & The Mime Set days and a few newer ones with musical arrangements loosely arranged just a couple of days ago!Doors open tonigth at 7.30pm at the Travellers Bookstore at 294 Smith St Collingwood. $10 entry. And you can bring your own booze!