2020 Finalists
Scroll down to check out the entrants from our 2020 festival. All of the content on our platform is open to the public and Free to View.
When is devotion stronger than disease?
Moments in Covid – to record what is important and deserves to be captured
Harold and Owen 1923
Harold and Owen 1923 is a series of reflective poems based on a real event. It examines the tragic deaths of the author's great grand uncles by accidental drowning in 1923. The trilogy – The Crossroads, 25 Chains and Lead Letters - explores both the author's genealogical relationship with the characters along with her response to the sources used for the works. The Crossroads is inspired by the boys' 1923 school photo and looks at the tangible link to the past created by the image. Similarly, 25 Chains is a response to newspaper articles about the event and how family tragedies are portrayed in the press cycle. The final poem, Lead Letters, is an interpretation of the immortality of the Marshall family gravestones at Marrawah cemetery. The descriptive yet fragmented, short reportage style reflects the nature of the images, documents and objects used as primary sources for the series.
Family Tree
A fictional biography that explores parenthood, with all its emotional hurdles. I wrote this story when i
The Market
A true story
Celtic jamming at the bottom pub
Celtic jam sessions have started up again after lockdown on the north west coast. The bottom pub in Wynyard (The Wharf Hotel) hosts a casual jam session on the third Sunday of every month. I spoke with one of the founding members of the group, a regular member and a first timer to ask about how the group began and their interest in Celtic music.
Flavour Swap
What happens when passionate home cooks from our migrant and refugee community share their favourite flavours with Tasmania's top restaurant chefs? Professional chefs and home cooks will meet, share stories and cook for each other. Vince Trim, Executive Chef at Mona, is matched up with Liberian refugees Judy and Victoria. While Oskar Rossi and Federica Andrisani from Hobart Italian bistro Fico get a crash course in Indian cuisine from Muslim mother and aspiring chef Sumaiya. Come and join us for food, art and joy in Tasmania.
Folding family and tradition into cooking
Gramma Wilma taught Toni Burnett Rands to bake a sweet potato pie. Granny Ivy’s beef enchiladas were the first meal made in a new home. Toni, “an American Creole from Hawaii, by way of Las Vegas, with many stops in between,” is joining a strong family line of matriarchs who passed down hunting, preserving and cooking skills through generations. A young Toni sat in family circles, learning to shell peas and peel sweet potatoes. But Toni was also learning stories and lessons that go with each traditional recipe. Now based in lutruwita/Tasmania, Toni’s is using her cooking skills to transport the community to her grandmother's kitchen.
The Kiss
The Kiss is one of 7 poems within the Sea Eagle Collection. The Sea Eagle Collection was written after the death of Gabrielle’s late husband, the magnificent Richard Frank. As Gabrielle waded through grief and excessive love, her journey of lost and found coincided with the rising prominence of a friendship between bird and human. An inventory of sea eagle sightings became defunct as these birds became a regular everyday occurrence.
A letter to the sisterhood.
This is a cheeky take on what it means to be a woman, and a call out for all woman to tune in to the sisterhood in which we belong.
Viloma
Viloma means against the natural flow. I think? That's what my yogi friends tell me anyway, (pass the buck complete!). On the, ooh too early, death of my husband I found myself with an excess of love. So much love was residing in my little storehouse of being. I wrote this poem after a 3 day yoga retreat, with the added fortunate surprise of some post orgasm dopamine thrown in as a creativity boost.
2020
I dance, that's who I am. I dance to express myself and release, to be deliberate in allowing the flow. With covid 19 came the closure of many known dance spaces. I wrote this poem on arrival to a closed door, as a way to shift the discomfort that came on meeting new restrictions. So, I ran the beach, reaching the river mouth, to my own beat.
Recent Stories Added to our ‘Free Submission’ category
All of the content on our platform is open to the public and Free to View.
Green space
As a deep thinker, I often over think. Walking is a way for me to love myself up, to recognise that my body is not just a vehicle to carry my head around, there's more to me than my thinking brain. Solitude is a make or break kinda thing, like meditation it can teach me to be zen, or scare the hell out of me. Intimacy is weird like that, especially intimacy with oneself. I wrote this poem after a solo hike in the abundant nature that is Tasmania. As a nature warrior, I, like many, love and connect through nature and make it my responsibility to care for and protect this rich environment.
The Parable of The Ice Cream
Highlighting some of the difficulties of communication in The Middle East
Perfect Day
A sentimental outing turns sour for a middle-aged couple who yearn for the love they shared when Lou Reed was the 'coolest man on earth'.
2018 Finalists
Scroll down to check out our finalists from our 2018 festival, including the category and overall winners. All of the content on our platform is open to the public and Free to View.
September 2018
The magic of chemical photography
Right across the world, old style photography is coming back into fashion. Forget the filters and the phones, this is all about the chemistry. Is this going to be your next selfie?
A Welshman in Israel
As a 25-year-old Bob Frost found himself in Israel setting up the first Hertz car rental operation in that part of the world. It was the late 1960s and just as he was setting up the business trouble struck, and there he was in the middle of the Six-Day War. Bob tells his story from his Franklin home in southern Tasmania.
namanu rruni | Albatross Island
Albatross island is a magical place. 18 hectares of conglomerate rock off the northwestern tip of Tasmania is the home to 5200 breeding pairs of Shy Albatross. Harvested near to extinction in the 1800's, the population gradually recovered to half the estimated historical population size. Yet in recent years the population has again started to decline. A long-term monitoring program is overseen by marine biologist Dr Rachael Aldermen, who has been visiting the island for a decade. While there, Rachael and her small team must live in a giant cave that partially protects them from the elements. Life on the island is typically cold, often wet and always windy. This beautiful film documents the journey to a remote and beautiful corner of Tasmania, into the lives of the endemic Shy Albatross and the scientists that are working to ensure their survival.
Walking on Land in Larpuna
A sound meditation on connection to land.Spoken word by Jim Everett.
My Story – Deb Cowan
As an Aboriginal woman who has been denied recognition for most of her life, I feel I have started my healing journey. I can now stand up in that same sense of pride as I see in my Elders and remind myself ‘I am an Aboriginal woman, I am this Country and this Country is me’ – no one can ever take this from me - it is embedded in my soul and my psyche for ever.
The Big Canopy Campout
Footage from the big canopy campout in the Frankland Forests, featuring the beautiful soundtrack written during the Tarkine in Motion, part of a Bob Brown Foundation campaign to save the forest.
ABOUT STORIES IN SEPTEMBER
Stories in September is a festival that celebrates resident and ex-pat Tasmanian Storytellers across three main mediums, Visual, Sound and Text.
If you are a Tasmanian Storyteller with a story to share then you have come to the right place. Submissions are now open for our 2020 awards and prizes.
This year our categories are Visual Stories (Screen and Image Based), Sound Stories, Text Stories, Lock Down Stories and Acceptance Stories.
Stories in September is a collaboration between Tasmanian photographer and author Andrew Wilson and founder of The Wayfinder Storytelling Studio, Helene Thomas.
Subscribe to Stories in September
Subscribe to our mailing list and periodically we’ll email you some amazing story content by Tasmanian Storytellers as it’s uploaded to our platform.