2020 CALEB Award Finalists Announced

By Iola Goulton, 2020 CALEB Coordinator

Like so much of what has happened this year, the 2020 CALEB Award hasn’t gone according to plan. Our past practice has been to have a combination of published and unpublished categories in the Award each year, and to announce the winners at the annual Omega Writers Conference.

Well, between fires, disease, and murder hornets, the 2020 Omega Writers Conference has now morphed into the 2021 Omega Writers Conference. The place is the same: Peppers Kingscliff, in northern New South Wales, from 8 to 10 October 2021.

This change led to us switching up the 2020 CALEB Awards. As such, the 2020 Awards are for manuscripts from unpublished authors in three categories:

• Adult Fiction
• Young Adult Fiction
• Nonfiction

The first-round judges have completed their tasks and returned their scoresheets. I’ve done my Excel magic, and I am thrilled to be able to announce the finalists in the 2020 CALEB Award.

Finalists: Adult Fiction

Helen Carr
Emily Maurits
Mindy Shaw

 

Young Adult Fiction

Kirsten Hart
Judy Rogers
Jean Saxby

 

Nonfiction

Susan Barnes
Jeffrey McKee

Congratulations, everyone!

Note that the Unpublished Award is a blind contest. Judges don’t know whose manuscripts they are judging, and we don’t reveal the manuscript titles to keep that anonymity.

The final-round judges now have until 30 September to read the full manuscript and pick the winner for each category. I don’t envy them!

The winners will be announced via a Zoom celebration in lieu of a conference.

This is provisionally scheduled for 16 October 2020, and the time is to be confirmed. We’d love it if you could join us!

Members of Omega Writers will receive an email invitation. If you’re not a member of Omega Writers but would like to join us, then consider joining us!

Alternatively, email me at caleb @ omegawriters [dot] org, and we’ll add you to the invitation list (note: finalists and members will be given first priority if we have any limit on numbers).

A Good Storyteller

The Storyteller

Once upon a time

The plot thickens

Strange goings-on

That can't be good

I’m a good storyteller. 

That statement may sound either arrogant or the sign of someone who is extremely confident in their own ability.

However, it is a statement that each of us who attempt fiction or memoir need to know is true for them. 

As writers in the current competitive world of bookselling, it is also a statement that is possibly challenged and undermined on a regular basis.

Let me tell you a story:

About twenty-six years ago, before my first novel was published, I had been writing a lot, having discovered the joy of writing fiction. When my father’s sixtieth birthday was approaching, I decided I’d like to write a story about him. My dad is a larger-than-life character, and I had plenty of material from my childhood observations and from all the stories my grandmother used to tell me about my father. When I think about it, the storytelling gene came down from my grandmother. The first part of the book, I recounted tales told to me as a child. Then I interviewed my mother, and got some of the finer detail about Dad’s young adult years, and their story of romance and marriage. 

At the time of writing, I had not had the advantage of having attended writing workshops or even knowing what the editing and publishing process was about. I simply wrote from the heart, and told story after story about my dad—most of which had a lot of humour attached. I finished the book, and gave it to him printed on A4 paper and spiral bound. And that was that.

Three years later, I self-published my first piece of fiction, still without the benefit of the proper editorial processes and reviews. That title, to this date, has sold over 8000 copies in Australia and has had five editions.

Fast forward to recent years. Being a member of Omega Writers, having attended many conferences, read many blogs, consulted may experienced editors and writers, adjusted and reworked much of my work, I don’t have that happy, ignorant confidence I had when I first began. In fact, my current work, in my humble opinion, is far superior to what I wrote in the early days, and yet I struggle to find an international publisher, agent or even market. Confidence has crashed in direct inverse proportion to the increase in the quality of my work. I have talked about this with writing friends and colleagues, and while we can comfort each other, and encourage one another, it doesn’t usually make any difference to the quest to let our work fly free into the greater reading world.

So back to the story I wrote for my dad. 

 I was up visiting my now 86-year-old father on the farm a couple of weeks ago. My mum is still living there as well, and she is in the throes of writing her memoirs. Being a sufferer of rheumatoid arthritis, she is not very mobile anymore, and spends a lot of time at the computer. I was cooking dinner for them one evening, and mum asked if she could read a section of her memoirs to me. She began to read, and I was engaged and amused. It wasn’t long before I realised she was reading what I had written 26 years ago. 

‘I decided not to rewrite this section,’ she said, ‘as you’re such a good storyteller’.

Having just listened to it being read back to me, I agreed.

 By jingo, I am a good storyteller.

And then it struck me. The piece she had read was written pre-education. It was pre-editing and polishing. It was simple, unedited storytelling, and it was delightful.

So the message came to me to share with you:

Are you a good storyteller?

 The question isn’t: have you found a niche in the market?

 It’s not: have you found an agent who has accepted your work?

 It’s not even: Do you have a mailing list of thousands of fans who can’t wait to pre-order your book?

No.

The question is: are you a good storyteller? 

The answer to that question for me is: yes. Yes, I am a good storyteller. 

Will I ever find that agent, or that international market, or list of thousands of fans?

 Maybe. Maybe not.

 But have I delighted my readers over the years—well written or not? 

The answer to that question is a resounding yes. Though I cringe when I read any of my work pre 2012—head hopping everywhere, speech attributions galore, adverb heaven, and telling, telling, telling (who knew what showing was?)—the general feedback I get from anyone who admits to having read one or more of my books is: I love your books! 

These people pop up now and then, and are enthusiastic in their praise. Bless them. I want to apologise for all the poor writing, but they don’t even understand what I’m talking about. They engaged with story and character, and loved it. 

So …

I am a great storyteller. I also think I’m getting better as a writer.

How is it going for you?

 Do your family and friends love what you write? Are kids enthralled when you’re telling them what it was like ‘in the old days’ (you know, back in the 1970s when dinosaurs roamed the earth).

Chances are, you’re a good storyteller too, and there are those in your life who love the stories you tell.

 Getting agents, publishers and international markets to buy it is a whole other matter. But does that really matter, in the long run? Or do you get pleasure out of telling a story?


Meredith Resce
Author of 'The Heart of Green Valley' series; For All Time and many other titles
President of Omega Writers Australasia


Meredith's Website 

CWD Member Interview – James Cooper

Most Thursdays this year we will be interviewing one of the members of Christian Writers Downunder – to find out a little bit more about them and their writing/editing goals.

Today’s interview: James Cooper

Question 1: Tells us three things about who you are and where you come from. 

1. I was born in Tanzania, the youngest of four boys, and grew up in Australia being read to by my parents.
2. I’ve been married 20 years and have two sons.
3. I live in the Adelaide Hills and more than anything love the sound of birdsong in the morning.

(That’s more than 3 things, isn’t it? We writers are sneaky blighters!)

Question 2: Tell us about your writing (or editing/illustrating etc).  What do you write and why?

When I was a teacher at Amata Anangu School in the early 2000s, we ran an English literacy program called Accelerated Literacy. It involved a close reading approach to some classic children’s literature, culminating in a scaffolded approach to story writing. I loved it as an approach to teaching, but it also helped me realise that great writers are ordinary human beings just like me, only who’ve taken time to study how language can be used to communicate images and emotion and to craft a compelling narrative. I remember thinking, ‘I’d love to do that!’ 

When I became a father, I discovered the joy of bedtime reading from the other side of the parent-child equation. I realised then how much my own imagination and sensibilities had been formed by that special time with my own parents and I started to play around with some picture book ideas.

But it was dabbling in poetry that got me seriously into writing, after reading a review of Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled in a dentist’s waiting room. I ordered a copy and devoured it. I did all the exercises and learned more about poetry from that one book than I’d ever learned at school. I also started penning children’s stories – anything to keep me from the academic journal articles I was supposed to be writing! (I was an Educational researcher then, living in Dawrin).

But I prefer to read literary fiction, and that’s what I’m drawn to writing most of all. I’ve only ever finished one novel, which was shortlisted for the Text Prize some years ago but still hasn’t found a loving home – several publishers have told me they think it’s really well written, before cordially declining to publish it. So I’m no stranger to rejection, which I hope makes me a better teacher! 

I started off as a schoolteacher, working in the UK and then on the APY Lands in the far north-west of SA. I made the transition to tertiary education by studying Creative Writing at Tabor College in Adelaide, where I now serve as Program Coordinator – I sort of dug in and refused to leave! But I love teaching almost as much as writing, so even though it takes up most of my time I’m not bothered. 

I’ve also been involved with Stories of Life since it began a few years ago now, co-editing all but one anthology and contributing a few stories along the way. I’ve had a few short stories published too along the way. All the while I find myself returning to poetry again and again – I must be a perennial poet!

Question 3: Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it? 

I’ve no idea really. Some journal editors, I guess. Students, friends, fellow-writers. It’d be great to have a wider, less familiar audience – I don’t care who just so long as they find what I’ve written worth their time (and that’s my main concern).

Question 4: Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

Piecemeal – that’s the word. I tell myself that’s because I’ve got so many other commitments, but I suspect if I won the lottery and devoted myself to writing full time I’d still proceed in fits and starts. I hate to begin something and not finish, so I’m reluctant to get started, knowing the effort it’ll take (I’m such a lazy sod). But once I’m in I’m away. 

I like to have a clear opening scene before starting a story, and need to be two or three steps ahead in my own imagination before I can happily sit down to write. That means lots of time spent sitting staring into space (just ask my wife), or taking long walks and generally being alone. It may look like I’m doing nothing, but beneath the surface I’m eves-dropping, talking with characters or walking a mile in their shoes.

Apart from time and commitment, I can get hamstrung by my own perfectionism. I’m getting better with this, learning to play around a little more on the page to see what surfaces of its own accord. Reading helps fuel my imagination and inspire me to keep moving. When I get stuck with a story, I find switching from keyboard to notebook and pen really helps – I’ll take a walk and sit under a tree, open the notebook and simply start writing: not in an attempt to pick up where I left off, but rather I write about the characters and their situation as it stands, in a more abstract, analytical manner… then before I know it, I’ll usually find a crack of light telling of a passage through to the next phase of the story. I usually find I’ve got a few useful lines out of the process as well.

Question 5: What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why? 

I’ve mentioned Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled – for poetry that’s a winner. I love and highly recommend Mark Treddinick’s Little Red Writing Book. Even though it’s not chiefly about fiction, I find his passion for language infectious and his advice for avoiding clutter absolutely spot on. I learned a lot about writing from my former teacher and colleague Mark Worthing, whose original lecture notes are now a textbook: The Sacred Life of Words. This semester I’m using Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction for the prose class I’m teaching and it’s really insightful too.

Question 6: If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

That’s really hard; I know some of them as former students at Tabor, others as members of my writing group and others having simply met at conferences and elsewhere. I never cease to be amazed by Nola Passmore’s industrious approach and creative output – I have fond memories of working with her in my Poetry class and could tell then just how creative and insightful she was. So, yeah, a big shout out to Nola from ‘The Write Flourish’ (and be sure to check out her many short stories)!

Question 7: What are your writing goals for this year? How will you achieve them?

To start another novel. I’ll probably procrastinate effectively by writing a short story instead. But I’d be happy with that ☺ 

Question 8: How does your faith impact and shape your writing?

I’m such a judgmental person, so I’m thankful for the way in which writing (and reading) brings that to my attention and makes me examine my conscience and curtail the tendency to categorise, shun or disregard others. In that sense, writing probably does more to shape my faith than the other way around. But I suppose it must have some bearing…

Writing teaches me to pause. To pay attention and to reflect, because nothing is insignificant. That’s all of a piece with my Christian belief that God is at work in and through creation, from the depths of the ocean to the highest heavens. One of my favourite writers, Flannery O’Connor, says that without belief in the eternal soul there is very little drama. In other words, a Christian account of the origin and worth of every human life makes for the highest possible drama – because ultimately everything is at stake and almost anything can make a difference to the outcome. 

That the way out of our fallen condition must come (and has come) from without, yet through the very conditions of our earthly and creaturely status, is also important here. Emmanuel – God with us, in Christ and through the Church most importantly, but also through my neighbor, my enemy, every stroke of good or ill fortune and every signpost in nature. God’s grace abounds in all things – nothing is insignificant. 

Not only is that compelling theology, it’s the best advice for writers: every paragraph, every line, every word should be there for a reason. O’Connor (again) says, “A short story is a way of saying something that can’t be said in any other way. And it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.” I think it’s the same in life: I can’t adequately summarise God’s purpose in creation, but I know there is purpose in it, top to bottom, and that every thing and every event forms part of the explanation. I’d like my writing to reflect that idea somehow.

James Cooper is Head of Creative Writing & Communication at Tabor College. He has written and published numerous poems and short stories in journals and anthologies, locally and overseas. He is a founding member of Stories of Life as well as inScribe Journal. When he isn’t teaching, editing, or working on his next poem or short story, he continues the search for a home for his first novel, The Thing About Alaska. James lives in the Adelaide Hills with his wife of 20 years, Claire, and their two sons, Jacob and Hamish.

How to answer the biggest question writers get asked ...

If you're a writer reading this, you've probably been asked this question as many times as I have.

What do you write?

It's a question that writers get asked because it's a way of connecting with our art; with our ability. It's a way to pigeon-hole what we do and get a sense of who we're like, helping others to understand what we put on the page. It's a way of picturing what we do as an output.

Over the years I've found that people's engagement with that question - outside of the infuriatingly common 'I'm going to write a book one day' - depends on my answer. If I answer by genre, the conversation is short. "You write contemporary? Great! <cue silence>" That's also taking into consideration that I don't really have a clear genre. My novels are set in contemporary society, but with an edge of magical realism. They're kind-of contemporary, and kind-of speculative, but not fully either. That shows in the award nominations I've received in the past two years in the USA - they're across a range of categories.

I've also answered that question by the style of my work. I did that for a while - saying that I wrote short(ish) novels. Or I write modern-day parables, which are essentially what The Baggage Handler, The Camera Never Lies and Where the Road Bends are.

But how do you get people interested in what you write, particularly if you're a Christian writer with a message to share? I've now changed how I answer that question, and it's based on a deeper question than 'why do you write?' That question I delve into is WHY I write.

So now when people ask what I write, I respond with something a bit deeper: "I write stories that help people look a little deeper into life." Or "I write stories that ask questions about the reader's life." That's opened up a whole new way of talking about my novels, and it also gets to the heart of what I consider my ministry as a Christian writer. Now a conversation will go:

"What do you write, David?"

"I write stories that help people look a little deeper into life."

"Oh ... what do you mean by that?"

"Well, The Baggage Handler is about three people forced to face the baggage they didn't know they were carrying ..."

And then a conversation breaks out about dealing with ... stuff. The person on the other end of the conversation almost always talks about the baggage a friend of theirs is carrying ... and we're having a deep conversation. It's a way to introduce the values I write about without being pigeon-holed - especially by those who don't respect Christian fiction. (And in my experience that is more common  from those inside the church, which I find sad).


So how do you answer that question of what you write? What answer could you give that opens up all sorts of conversations about the work that you bring to the world?

About David Rawlings

David Rawlings is an award-winning author based in South Australia. His first novel, The Baggage Handler, published by HarperCollins Christian Publishing, was named best debut Christian novel of 2019 in the Christy Awards. He writes modern-day parables that combine the everyday with a sense of the speculative, addressing the fundamental questions we all face. His third novel - Where the Road Bends - is now out. 

You can find David at:

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

CWD Member Interview - Heather Margaret Jephcott

Most Thursdays this year we will be interviewing one of the members of Christian Writers Downunder – to find out a little bit more about them and their writing/editing goals.

Today’s interview: Heather Margaret Jephcott

Question 1: Tells us three things about who you are and where you come from. 

I am a poet, an artist and a musician….plus a lot, lot more. I come from Ringwood, Melbourne, Australia and for most of the last 32 years have been living in Surabaya, Indonesia. 

Question 2: Tell us about your writing (or editing/illustrating etc).  What do you write and why?

I published a poetry book called “Open Hearts, Quiet Streams” in 2013 and am hoping to publish another poetry booklet - a dual language one, this year that I actually prepared 2 years ago. 

Question 3: Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it? 

Anyone who has my book plus my fb friends. Also, I put videos of my reading of my poetry on Instagram. These readings get more views than any other place (I suspect). I would like everyone to read my poetry that reads English and/or Indonesian and wants to feel the beauty of God’s world and love. 

Question 4: Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

I began writing poetry seriously as a reaction to another poet’s poetry which I thought was fantastic but dark. I wanted to see if I could write poetry that gave light and beauty and that would be read across the socio-religious categories. 

Question 5: What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why? 

What an interesting question! I do not have a specific favourite Writing Craft Book. I have been an English teacher. Actually, come to think of it, I still am. I have learned how to write from reading and teaching how to write and have been an avid reader and especially of Victorian literature. Also, I have found Writers and Readers Conferences invaluable. 

Question 6: If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

Sue Jeffrey

Question 7: What are your writing goals for this year? How will you achieve them?

Ah….let me think about this question. This has been such an extraordinary year BUT I do have one goal that looks like it is coming into being and there is a master hand behind this, and not me. It is the publishing of an Indonesian/English Poetry Book. The publisher I used before went out of business but it appears at the moment that the Organisation we work with, the Indonesian part of it, is publishing and so we are in contact. 

Question 8: How does your faith impact and shape your writing?

I write out of my ruminations on the Word Of God, especially in the morning and also out of life as a follower of Jesus. I write for the specific context I am living in here in Indonesia but people throughout the world still appreciate what I write because truly, the Bible and life are what inspires me.

Woke or Awake? by Ruth Bonetti

Articulate wordsmiths beware!

Fellow writers do you quake in the new religion of righteous cancel culture? 

No book, statue or film is safe, even if it depicts those who fought against injustices like slave trading. 

The new religion of righteous cancel culture revolution insists "citizens who may have committed no crime and oppressed no one, feel obliged to get down on their knees in a gesture of supplication to persons unspecified." Thus Peter Baldwin sums up The race to tear down reason in The Weekend Australian  "The rise of a new cultural revelation threatens to destroy history itself."

History reveals disturbing parallels; the fall of the Roman Empire into Dark Ages; last century’s Nazi book-burning; writers, artists, intellectuals, linguists, decimated by Stalin and Mao. Today they are cancelled. In this hyper sensitive age do others feel uneasy, stifled, neutered? 

Dead white males – of merit

"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often interred with their bones." (Shakespeare) 
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana.)

Censored?

What place in academia that chooses Confucious Institutes over Ramsay?

What place in my next manuscript for a "racist" 1959 letter quotation? 

My landlord grandfather checked a house rented to "an ants’ nest Chinese Den…Chinese heads bobbed up everywhere in every door…I don’t know whether you can complain about them or say anything nasty about them. If you did it with your eyes open we cannot blame them.” 

In 1903 he worked with Hindus "and in a friendly way I asked one how it is they can live in such an awful smell. He just shook his head and said, our smell is not as bad as your smell is to our countrymen…I think this should be our first starting point without casting any judgment." Edit out?

How can we shine light in this new Dark Age?

Awake, calls the voice to us of the watchmen high up in the tower;
Midnight the hour is named; they call to us with bright voices;
where are you, wise virgins?
Indeed, the Bridegroom comes;
rise up and take your lamps,
Alleluia! 

Johan Sebastian Bach told of the wise virgins in his cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. 

I wait with burning oil.

Zion hears the watchmen sing,

her heart leaps for joy within her,

she wakens and hastily arises...

Bach faced criticism, rejection – as we do

"The music is too showy. Some of our members even think it is sinful. Music should be simple so that it draws attention to God, not to the music or the performers."

Imagine Bach drawing a deep breath before defending his music:

"The main purpose of my music is to glorify God. Some people do this with music that is simple. I haven't chosen to use a simple style, but my music comes from my heart as a humble offering to God. This honours God no matter what musical style I use."

"I play the notes but it is God who makes the music."

Rejected by ecclesiastical employers, Bach's secular one gave him the freedom to write as he was inspired. After Bach died in 1750, his "fuddy-duddy" (white male?) music was forgotten for 80 years. In 1829, another God-driven composer Felix Mendelssohn revived his St. Matthew Passion. 

Cure Writers' Block

Bach wrote prayers at the beginning and end of his manuscripts: at the top JJ, an abbreviation for “Jesu Juva,” which translated means, "Jesus, help me."
Then the music began to pour from his soul and onto the page. When he was finished and satisfied, he wrote the letters SDG at the bottom of the page - Soli Deo Gloria - For the Glory of God Alone.

RUTH BONETTI is grateful for Bach's example as she writes Part 3 of her award-winning Midnight Sun to Southern Cross saga, St Lucia and the Art Deco Mansion–What drove the man who built it? Due for October release, it tells further Journeys of her Grandfather.  

Pre-publication special

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