Broken River Writers are a group of passionate story tellers from the Benalla region seeking to broaden and enrich our story telling horizons and make a difference in our community. To do this we are working under the umbrella of North East Artisans and with the Benalla Library. It doesn’t matter what your preferred genre is, all writers are welcome – among our number there are people who write poetry, science fiction, fantasy, memoirs, romance, horror so on and so forth.

We meet together on the last Wednesday of the month for Writers’ Corner at the Benalla Library, 5-6:30pm, where we chat about life and writing, share what we’re working on, ideas, ask questions, inspire each other, sometimes even learning something new.

Each month we set a theme or prompt of some kind and encourage people to have a go, which you can find on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/BrokenRiverWrtiers/  This month we have three different prompts to choose from.  It is hoped that through this exercise we can each choose a piece we’ve written to include in our very own Broken River Writers book of short stories which we hope to publish some time in 2018.

Discovery Workshops are our new project.  These supplement Writers’ Corner meetings by bringing in a variety of Guest Speakers on the 2nd Friday of the month to share their expertise in the art of story-telling, and stretch writers of all levels through a variety of skill building exercises.  During a Discovery Workshop, Guest Speakers will share their journey, inspire and inform, share from their wealth of knowledge and help us improve our story telling skills.

A Discovery Workshop will run for 2-3 hours and look something like this:

• Short welcome by BRW introducing Guest Speaker & other information
• Guest Speaker talks about “story telling journey”
• Guest Speaker introduces first Writing Exercise topic
• 10-15 minutes of creative writing
• 10-15 minutes of reading pieces out to the group (if you want to)
• Supper break & chat
• Guest Speaker introduces second Writing Exercise topic
• 10-15 minutes of creative writing
• 10-15 minutes reading pieces out to the group (if you want to)
• BRW wrap up.
• NB: a 3 hour session means at least 3 Writing Exercises, maybe more or something special, like a one act play.

Genres covered in Discovery Workshops will be as diverse as story-telling itself, which takes on so many different forms – plays, film, oral tradition, poetry, song, illustration, music, memoirs, theatre, journalism, young adults, children's, horror, historical, healing... There will be a small cost of $5 to help us cover the cost of a scrummy supper, and sometimes authors bring their books and do an impromptu signing, so come prepared.

If you know of any story-tellers who might be interested (local or otherwise), or, if you have any particular story-tellers you’d like to hear from, let us know and we’ll add them to our list. Thanks to the Tomorrow Today Foundation we have some funding to pay a small fee and contribute towards travel costs.
 
Our first Discovery Workshop is on Friday 11th August, 6-9pm with playwright Gabriel Bergmoser at North East Artisans, 122 Bridge St, Benalla.
 
A Writers’ Corner for younger writers (under 15) and three Discovery Workshops catering specifically for Children, Teens and Young Adults are also under development.
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Discovery Workshops are sponsored by Broken River Writers, North East Artisans and the Tomorrow Today Foundation.

Please contact Carla Gardner, NE.A Secretary and Events Coordinator/Broken River Writers Coordinator on 57666453 or email northeastartisans@gmail.com subject heading ‘Broken River Writers Discovery Workshops’ if you would like to be involved and for additional information.  





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​An Occasional Blog by Carla Gardner,
August 2017 

The Art of Youth Grant was funded by The Tomorrow Today Foundation.   NEA artists Tim Bowtell (part 1) and Edie Black, worked with students from the Benalla Flexible Learning Centre, mentoring them artistically and giving them the opportunity to try new techniques and increase existing skills.
 
Part 2 saw the creation of a Street Art Mural on the side of a building at the Flexible Learning Centre and the finalisation of the grant.

Edie Black, who also donated a wonderful stencil mural to Benalla as part of the Wall to Wall Festival, took the students through all aspects of the project from start to finish.
 
The project was designed by Edie with a range of learning outcomes including

• How to create effects of distance and proximity in landscape arrangements using colour, size and object placement.
• Sequence for effectively creating a landscape – undercoats, background, colour gradation, and most distant background objects first.
• Aerosol and hobby knife usage and safety.
• understanding of negative and positive space to create a stencilled image.
• Collaborative working skills such as negotiation and workload management.
• Solidifying students’ individual notions of home, belonging and a sense of agency and potentiality

​Edie was also a teacher for NEA’s ‘Door of Hope’ Project, ‘Subject/Object/1 – self mapping through art’ which was also largely funded by the Tomorrow Today Foundation. The ‘Door of Hope’ exhibition may be viewed in Gallery 2 at NEA until May 8th.

I would like to thank The Tomorrow Today Foundation for continuing to support and acknowledge the importance of art in fostering partnerships, self reflection, learning, growing and healing.
 
Occasional blog by Deb Dodd

**'The Occasional Blogger' is open for submissions by NEA members.  
​Send copy to northeastartisans.projects@gmail.com ​