Join Writing NSW for the 2023 Speculative Fiction Festival, where panelists will discuss everything from world-building to crafting monsters, from cross media publication to hopeful futures, from the rise of darkness to the search for new light.

On Friday 18 August 2023, Ultimo Press, an independent publisher established in 2020 with the simple ambition to become home to Australia’s best storytellers, will be in residence at Writing NSW.

Fiona Hazard joined us for First Friday to share her knowledge and experience garnered from over 25 years in publishing.

‘When a piece is going to exist off the page there is a beautiful invitation to consider an additional form and function in that new medium.’

Congratulations to the successful applicants to our 2023 mentoring program for emerging literary curators from culturally diverse backgrounds: Alejandra Martinez, Greg Page and Simone Amelia Jordan, as well as returning curators Tina Huang and Zohra Aly.

‘Process, for me, is a compound and an evolution of the known and unknown. Eventually I wound up here as a poet obsessed with this ineffable substance I hear in the storytelling of my Elders. I don’t know if should call it poetics or spirit but it exists in just about everything …’

‘Dirt Town started as a short story. I wrote about a group of small-town kids, describing all the different ways they’d made their way home from school on a Friday afternoon. After I’d written that, it occurred to me that there needed to be a reason for them to be talking about that day, in particular.’

‘Having a background in research helps me apply methods for gathering and assessing information necessary to ground my work and colour my stories with fascinating historical details.’