Date: Monday 7th August

Time: 7pm for 7.30pm

Place: Comfy back room at the Crown & Sceptre Hotel, 308 King William Street, Adelaide.

Invited guests read their own work or writing that inspired them. Entrance was by gold coin donation at the door.

The first Wordfire salon event got off to a crackling start on Monday night with the crimson and tangerine colour

Steph Hester

scheme and glowing log fire putting everyone in the mood for a winter's evening of storytelling, poetry, and prose.

Stephanie Hester introduced readers with warmth, humour, and attention to detail, doing her utmost to make them feel comfortable as they stood before a packed house to read their own or other people's work.

One of the great pleasures of Wordfire, which we hope will increase over time, is the opportunity to hear of writers that we might otherwise not know about. This time around, Shen Cai introduced us to the work of emerging Chinese writer Xialu Guo and I'm sure that many

"...the glowing logfire..." Click here to expand

who heard her poetry for the first time will be interested to follow up this link to her website at www.guoxiaolu.com

The evening was such a resounding success, and the energy for wordfire is so high within the Creative Writing Programme at Adelaide University, that plans are already under way for future events. Regretfully, we have decided to abandon the 'open mic' segment, in the sense of 'turn up and read', but people should still contact us via email and we will do our best to arrange a slot for them.

Thanks to everyone for making the night such a success. Come and help us burn down the house with new poetry and prose on 4th September.

The invited readers were:

Sean Williams

Sean Williams

Sean writes full-time from his home in the Adelaide CBD, likes to cook curries, and DJs in his spare time.

 His current projects include a sexy space opera and a dark fantasy series for children, both due to be published in 2007.

Sean has an excellent website here.


Dominique Wilson

Dominique Wilson

Dominique is managing Co-Editor of Wetink, a magazine of new writing, and she's also doing a PhD in Creative Writing at Adelaide University.




Vivienne Lewis

Viv Lewis

Viv lives in the Adelaide Hills where she cares for her children, works as a gardener, plays her guitar and builds the occasional strawbale garden wall.

Viv is currently doing a Grad Dip in Creative Writing at Adelaide Uni and enjoying it immensely.



Bel Schenk

Bel Schenk

Bel is the author of the poetry book ^Urban Squeeze" and she edits Southern Write for the SA Writers' Centre.

She sings and plays guitar in the band 'New Year's Eve Cry Baby' but would like to be the drummer. And she makes a mean risotto.



Janet Harrow

Jan Harrow

Jan Harrow has worked as a baton-twirling teacher, a babysitter, a waitress, a bartender, a home-ec teacher, an editor, brochure designer, fundraiser, high school English teacher and University Lecturer.

She moved to Adelaide in 2001 to complete her first novel. She is now the convenor of the M.A. programme in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide. She finished her novel.


Shen Cai

Shenshen, from Beijing, is a PhD Creative Writing student at Adelaide Uni.

She introduced us to the work of Xialu Guo, reading several examples of her poetry. Xialu's website at www.guoxiaolu.com is well worth a visit.


Henry Ashley-Brown

Henry Ashley-Brown

Henry has had all sorts of jobs, including working for the Immigration Department, where he learnt how to pronounce names, met huge numbers of fascinating people from other countries and discovered food that wasn't three vegies and two chops. He also worked with the CSIRO in Canberra and met some very creative scientists who encouraged him to be logical. In the evenings he attended the Australian National University and studied literature in classes that were very small and conducted by inspirational teachers such as A.D Hope, Alan Brissenden, and Tom Inglis Moore.   He's also been a teacher and a counsellor and dabbled in debating and sculpture.  Currently he's re-engaging with writing.


Emma Carmody

Emma Carmody

Emma is a first year PhD candidate in creative writing and French at the University of Adelaide.

In addition to writing and translating poetry, which is the focus of her PhD, she is currently working on a series of papers on translingual creative writing - otherwise known as creative writing in a second language.


Jessica Sabatini

Jessica Sabatini

Jess lives in Adelaide and agreed to sacrifice her spoken word virginity for the salon's amusement.

People in the front row were warned that her ill-fitting false tooth might have, at any moment, launched itself from her mouth and attempt to copulate with their jewellery - they needn't have worried.

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