Event details
Date: Sunday 6th April 2014
Time: 11:15am to 12:45pm
Where: Mulubinba Room – Newcastle City Hall, 290 King Street Newcastle
Cost: FREE
This Sunday I’ll be doing a live reading of one of my ABC Open 500 word short stories from 2013-14, along with a whole bunch of local talented authors. Me? Performing at the Newcastle Writers Festival? Now, this is exciting!
It sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun. ABC Open has been running the 500 word projects for a while now, and I’ve been contributing stories for the last year. ABC Open chooses inspirational topics each month and writers from all over Australia send their stories in. The range of contributors is fantastic: from young budding writers talking about their complicated lives to 90-somethings reminiscing about the old days. They are all true stories and all written in first person.
I’ve found you can learn a lot about someone in just 500 words.
Here’s some of last year’s topics that stood out for me:
An act of rebellion – I wrote about how every Friday night my parents would play loud music, drink beer and consider getting tattoos when I wanted to do was study for my HSC
Failure – I wrote about how I thought my partner would love a bright blue ukulele for Christmas
The things we do for love – I wrote about the pain of having to drink a litre of water before an ultrasound but how it was all worth it when I saw what was on the black and white screen
If you’re in the Newcastle area on Sunday make sure you come along. The short stories you’ll hear are quirky, funny, heart-warming, heart-wrenching and absolutely unique.
Jessie Ansons 
Great way to promote the event, Jessie. I’m looking forward to it.
How exciting! I’d love for someone to get to do this in my area also. Well done.