Words Out Loud is running a three-part Snapshot Series in conjunction with the Ballarat Foto Biennale.

This will incorporate two of our regular monthly editions as well as a special Saturday afternoon event, with headline performers at each as well as open mic opportunities (see below).

The series celebrates how photographs can trigger stories, both real and imagined. Writers, poets and storytellers are invited to contribute by delivering spoken word performances addressing photographs from their private collections, to a maximum of five minutes. Photographs should be selected according to theme.

The series consists of:

SNAPSHOT 1: WINDOWS TO THE PAST
Date: Thursday 19 September
Time: 7-9pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Theme: History
Special guest headliner: Alicia Sometimes

 
 
 
SNAPSHOT 2: MIRRORS OF OURSELVES
Date: Saturday 5 October
Time: 2-5pm (doors open 1.30pm)
Theme: Family
Special guest headliner: Jenny Valentish

SNAPSHOT 3: GATEWAYS TO ELSEWHERE
Date: Thursday 17 October
Time: 7-9pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Theme: Travel
Special guest headliner: Jessica Wilkinson

Venue: all events at the Printers Room, under Sebastiaans, cnr Lydiard and Mair streets, Ballarat; enter from Mair. Full cafe menu is available throughout each event.

Cost: all events are free, with a gold coin donation appreciated.

HOW TO BE INVOLVED

Those interested in participating in the Snapshot open mic event are invited to contact the organisers, Jason and Kirstyn, ahead of time, by emailing wolballarat AT gmail.com or through this website, with their contact details and ideally the image they wish to use (1 image per open mic).

If providing the image at the event, please bring it on a USB stick containing NO OTHER MATERIAL and use your name for the image file name.

GENERAL OPEN MIC: If time permits, at each event, we will run a non-themed, non-photographic open mic section. We will be taking sign-ups at the event — there is no need to register beforehand. Note: we will do our best to give everyone a slot, but time may mean some people miss out.
NOTE: open mic slots are strictly limited to five minutes.

Please note: that the Printers Room is a licensed venue and mature content may be aired.

OUR HEADLINERS

Alicia Sometimes is a writer and broadcaster. She has performed her spoken word and poetry at many venues, festivals and events around the world. Her poems have been in Best Australian Science Writing, Best Australian Poems, Overland, Southerly, Meanjin, ABC TV’s Sunday Arts and more. She is currently part of the Outer Sanctum podcast (ABC). She is director and co-writer of the science-poetry planetarium shows, Elemental and Particle/Wave.

Jenny Valentish is a Castlemaine-based journalist whose third book, Woman of Substances: A Journey into Addiction and Treatment, used her own misspent youth to create a bigger picture of women and drug use. She is the former editor of Time Out Melbourne and Triple J’s magazine, Jmag, and a regular contributor to The Guardian and the ABC.

Jessica Wilkinson is the founding editor of Rabbit: a journal for nonfiction poetry. Her first book, marionette: a biography of miss marion davies, was published by Vagabond in 2012 and shortlisted for the 2014 Kenneth Slessor Prize. Her second poetic biography, Suite for Percy Grainger, was published by Vagabond in 2014. In 2014 she received a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship to research her third poetic biography, Music Made Visible: a biography of George Balanchine, due out in 2019. In 2016, she co-edited Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry (Hunter Publishers). She is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at RMIT University, Melbourne.