home salon writing writers university of adelaide contact December 2008 The Christmas Wordfire will be held on Monday the 8th December 2008, 7.00pm for 7.30pm. As usual the venue will be the Red Room, Crown & Sceptre, 308 King William Street, Adelaide. Details of the readers will appear below as they are confirmed Sam Franzway Sam Franzway is a traveller, ex-circus-clown and a writer for children and young adults. His early works include 'Beetle Bug', 'Beetle Bug Goes Driving' and 'The Battle of the Bears and the Squirrels'. Unfortunately, due to a lack of demand for entomology cross-overs, these were never published. Since then he has studied at Adelaide and Flinders Universities, reviewed books and even been published a couple of times. He has published a children's book with Scholastic in 2007 and made up/stole 300 jokes for the 2008 Camp Quality Joke Book. Melanie Kinsman Melanie Kinsman is a creative writing PhD student at the University of Adelaide. She got more than she bargained for when she enrolled at Adelaide, and now has a husband and a baby on the way as a result. In 2003 she won the Colin Thiele Literature Award and was a co-editor of Cracker! which was published by Wakefield Press. Her interests include young adult fiction, Australian fiction and representations of broken English in literature. Patrick Allington Patrick Allington's novel, Figurehead, will be published by Black Inc. in 2009. His short fiction has appeared in Griffith Review, Southerly and in anthologies, and his critical writing appears regularly in Australian Book Review and The Advertiser. Until recently, he was fiction editor for Etchings. Mandy Treagus Mandy has played in bands for over 30 years, doing everything from jug bands, cabaret and rock to satirical pieces on tv and radio. In her current musical incarnation, she plays solo in a folk vein about break-ups, losses and life. Despite this, life is fun when the day job doesn't take over. Sandy Verschoor Sandy is currently adjusting to her new life as student/mother/writer as she begins 6 months leave from her role as CEO of the Adelaide Fringe to complete her Masters in Creative Writing. Up until end of October she worked full time, was studying full time and has 3 children and a mother with Alzheimer's. She is not sure how she'll write when she actually has time to do it Gillian Britton Gillian Britton has been studying most of her life, it seems, working as a speech pathologist, musician, music teacher, opera surtitler and general dogsbody in order to support the study habit and simultaneously raise her family. She is currently writing a novel and working towards a PhD in creative writing at the University of Adelaide. She has published short stories widely, most recently in Meanjin, Island and Wet Ink. Blind Mary (Maire Dall) Mandy Treagus, Jane Copeland and Carol Lefevre play early and Irish Traditional Music in the ensemble Blind Mary (Maire Dall). Top