KEITH JACKSON

AWARD-WINNING AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR Drusilla Modjeska is to lead a session on the development of fictional writing at this year’s writers workshop associated with the Crocodile Prize national literary awards.

The AustAsia Pacific Health Services Writers Forum was initiated last year to enable emergent and established writers in Papua New Guinea to come together to discuss and improve their craft.

This year’s event will be held at the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby on Tuesday 11 September.

Another leading writer to feature at the Forum is prominent blogger and social critic, Martyn Namorong, who will speak on turning personal experience into the written word.

Drusilla Modjeska, who is acknowledged as one of Australia’s best contemporary authors, spent some time in PNG in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a student at the University of PNG.

She recently published a novel, The Mountain, which draws from those experiences.

From those years she retains a strong friendship with PNG author and poet Russell Soaba [pictured], who will also present at the Forum on the subject of ‘poetry, trolls, toads & the curse of anonymity’.

Other PNG presenters include poet Jimmy Drekore (‘Connecting with the community’) and writers Emma Wakpi and Francis Nii and poet Michael Dom who will discuss the challenges writers face in reaching the nation from the regions.

Australian author, ex-kiap and Crocodile Prize organiser, Phil Fitzpatrick, will also lead a session on the future development of the Prize. Another Australian author and ex-kiap, Bob Cleland, will also be present at the workshop.

The Forum will be followed by the annual Crocodile Prize awards where national winners will be announced in Student Writing, Women's Literature, Heritage Literature, Essays & Journalism, Poetry, Short Stories and for Lifetime Contribution to Literature in PNG.

The subsequent reception at the Australian High Commission will feature the launches of The Crocodile Prize Anthology 2012, The Mountain and the Crocodile Prize website.

The evening before the Forum will see the inaugural annual general meeting of the PNG Society of Writers, Editors & Publishers.

The meeting will elect a wholly-Papua New Guinean board and also approve a constitution for the new organisation.

The Society already has over 70 members, including many of PNG’s most eminent writers.

It is still not too late to register for any of these events.  Email Keith Jackson here