from the editor's desk
‘A Conversation in Writing’ by Alana Hunt
With the support of the Copyright Agency‘s Cultural Fund, and in partnership with Margaret River Press, Westerly delivered our second Writers’ Development Program in 2017.
Four talented emerging writers were offered professional guidance and support in developing their work for publication in Westerly, both in print and online. We are now delighted to be able to showcase their work here at the Editor’s Desk, and look forward to their inclusion in our upcoming print issue.
As part of Westerly’s 2017 Writers Development Program (WDP), all participants have been invited to reflect on what they’ve learned and how their writing has developed. In a creative response, Alana Hunt has not only expressed her own ideas, but also shared a personal relationship that speaks eloquently to the writing process, through a conversation in writing.
Within this hand-written conversation, Alana and her grandmother, Margaret Clarke, discuss topics ranging from family and death, to the beauty of art in all its forms. They ‘talk’ about the passions of art, the way in which art acts in the world, even in the darkest of times, and the idea of a person’s art living on after death.
A further conversation is layered upon this, with Alana inviting Westerly editors Catherine Noske and Josephine Taylor to provide annotations and feedback. Writing and editing interact to provide readers with a different viewpoint, the whole showing how even the simplest of conversations can develop into something complex and beautiful.
Read more of Alana’s writing, along with those of the other participants in our Writers’ Development Program, in Westerly 63.1.
Alana Hunt makes contemporary art, writes & produces culture through a variety of media across public, gallery & online spaces. She lives on Miriwoong country in the north-west of Australia and has a long standing engagement with Kashmir. The politics of nation making, the violence of colonisation, and the fabric of community pulse through her practice in quiet yet consistent ways.
Author Photograph: Ben Lindberg
