home salon writing writers university of adelaide contact August 2008 Wordfire has turned two! Many people joined us for a celebratory evening of poetry and prose on Monday 4th August 2008. As usual the venue was the Red Room, Crown & Sceptre, 308 King William Street, Adelaide. Details of the readers are below. Brian Castro Brian is the author of nine novels, including the award-winning 'Shanghai Dancing' and 'The Garden Book'. He has also published a volume of essays. His next novel, 'The Bath Fugues', will be published by Giramondo early next year. Matt Smith Matt writes mainly poetry & has self-published a book of his earlier poems. He has performed interstate with the Paroxysm Press crew, also to promote his own work. He is the organiser for the Hard Boiled poetry nites that he has run for almost 2 yrs now, also he coedits Beer Swill Romanticism. Stefan Laszczuk Stefan Laszczuk is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide. He recently won the 2007 Vogel award for his second novel, I dream of Magda. His first novel, The Goddamn Bus of Happiness, was the winner of the South Australia Festival of Literature Award for an unpublished manuscript. He also won the S.A. Writers' Centre short story competition in 2002, which resulted in the publication of a book of short stories entitled The New Cage. Stefan currently lives in Melbourne. Ioana Petrescu Ioana is a Romanian-born Adelaide poet and academic who, since she came to Australia in 1996, has published two collections of poetry, has edited six books, has produced a poetry CD, and has supervised numerous creative writing projects at the University of South Australia. See www.poetryandpoeticscentre.com Nicola Haywood Nicola's favourite movie is The Prestige. It didn't change her life but it sank into her soul and reinforced her against the madness of the world we've made. Her favourite last words are "Abracadabra". Her favourite book is "A Confederacy of Dunces" and if she ever met anyone like Ignatious, she would marry him in a heartbeat. She's currently speed writing her way through "The Cult of Dead Larry" in order to meet her July deadline. Peter Pugsley After a long and varied career in just about everything, Peter got himself off to uni, strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage as Macbeth, wrote a PhD on Australian Literature in China, and then veered off in the direction of media studies. He now teaches in media at the University of Adelaide. He has read at Hardboiled and at various Melbourne venues including the HiFi Bar (at an Allen Ginsburg memorial night), the Evelyn Hotel, the Greyhound Hotel (St Kilda) and various other cafes and pubs. One day he might even send something to a publisher. Rosemary Jones Ms. Jones is an Australian living and teaching in Connecticut, U.S.A. She holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and has been published in Australian literary magazines and anthologies. Her work has appeared in the Mad Hatters' Review, and last year she won the Cezanne's Carrot 2007 winter solstice short story competition, for a story that has also been chosen as a Notable Story 2007 by storySouth. Top