Find out all your need to know about getting published, who to contact, how to present your work, contracts, agents...the lot. Even if you don't have something ready to go, this two hour session presents the basics for all authors and illustrators:

ASA Getting Published, 6 - 8pm at Orange Friday 17 February in the West Room, next door to Orange City Library, 147 Byng Street, Orange. Refreshments provided. Cost: $15.

Bookings essential - book online at http://www.asauthors.org or call the office on 1800 257 121. Enquiries call the Central West Writers' Centre on 6393 8125. Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to learn from the experts.

The Washington Post runs a contest where they ask readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing of one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some choice examples (thanks to Krystiina):

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

2. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

3. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

8. Uno: What you insert, you know, while, you know, you are deciding what you will say next, you know.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

10. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is, like, sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

What can you come up with?

Calling all writers! The Words Out West Summer 2012 Newsletter is now available. It has all the latest news on upcoming book launches, Getting Published Workshop and Oberon Performance Poetry as well as writing competitions, opportunities, and lots more....To read and subscribe, head to the Central West Writers' Centre Words Out West Home Page: www.wordsoutwest.com.au

Enjoy!

Here's a fun writing exercise for Australia Day. 'If, as John Berger claims, London is a street urchin and Paris is a young man in love with an older woman, what sex and age is Canberra?' Writing researchers at the University of Canberra invite you to write a pithy creative response. Selected contributions will form part of a text video Text and The City: Canberra Writes Back, created by the research team, and may also be considered in research papers related to the project.

Here (thanks to Lapham's Quarterly) is what some North Americans wrote about their cities:

• San Francisco is a wiry guy in his late thirties who may or may not have had a drug problem.

• Cincinnati is an unemployed Mark Twain impersonator.

• New York is the popular kid that no one wants to tell about the mustard on his shirt.

• Montreal is an old prostitute still managing to make a living by selling pictures of what she once was.

• Halifax is the hot cousin you secretly have a crush on but won't tell anyone because that's weird.

• Washington, DC is a driven young political consultant who, despite the exhausting pace of his work, still makes time for art openings, smooth jazz, and light blogging.

Contributions about Canberra should be emailed to Peter Copeman at peter.copeman@canberra.edu.au, preferably before the end of January. Have fun!

So have you made a resolution or two? Were they to do with writing? If you want to keep your writing in shape then, like anything else, try to keep practising. Here's a great writing exercise to get you thinking and...practising. This is a good one for beginners to experienced writers:

Write a story (as long or as short as you like) with these three things:

1. Conflict

2. Climax

3. Resolution

So set up your characters and the problem, then have a confrontation/climax and then resolve it all. For example, you could have two robots trying to impress their owner, they each play mean tricks and have a huge fight, one robot could win or the owner could discover their antics and sack them - whatever! It's up to you - get to it and have fun!

And guests who came along to our last Drop-in Writers' Day asked for some writing exercises to keep them going over the holidays - Great idea. So here is the first one:

Write down 3 - 5 favourite words and then use them all in a short story or poem. If you don't have favourite word or can't think of one, feel free to borrow mine. It is going one crazy story though.

My current favourite words are:

exquisite

Christmas

raison d'etre

smock

scrimmage

So that's the challenge - what kind of poem or short story can you create using your favourite words? It is also a great idea to keep a list of your favourite words. Try it during 2012 and see how your favourites change. Why do you like them? Do you use them everyday? Do you like the look of them, or the sound of them and have fun!

Twelfth Planet Press is looking to develop a new line of dynamic, original genre novels. Twelfth Planet Press novels will push boundaries to question, inspire, engage and challenge. They are specifically looking to acquire material outside that which is typically considered by mainstream publishers.

They are looking for science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime. They will consider borderline literary, new weird, steampunk, space opera, hard science fiction, soft science fiction, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, military science fiction, young adult, paranormal romance and everything in between.

Twelfth Planet encourage writers to take the time to familiarise themselves with the kind of content they publish, and the kind they do not. They are not interested in gratuitous violence, misogyny and gore or sex scenes for shock value. They are looking to acquire all English language territory rights and ebook rights. They are offering advances and royalties. Submission details at www.twelfthplanetpress.com/news/twelfth-planet-press-novel-manuscript-submission-month-january-2012

The stars and director of the Australian feature film Jucy are visiting Orange for a gala screening of the movie at the Odeon 5 Cinema on Friday November 4. Director Louise Alston and actors Cindy Nelson and Francesca Gasteen are coming to town as part of a nation-wide tour promoting the film's cinema release. Billed as a "womantic" comedy, Jucy is a feel-good movie about the relationship between two single best female friends, played by Nelson and Gasteen, and their attempts to prove to the world they are normal by scoring a dream job and the perfect guy.

The script, written by Alston's husband, AFI-nominated Stephen Vagg, was inspired by the real-life relationship between the two stars. The cast also includes Andy Ryan (Tomorrow When the War Began) and Ryan Johnson (Home and Away).

Jucy had it's world premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was named as one of the top fifteen films to watch, and was praised by the critic from Variety as "colorfully stylized, sweet and silly" with "terrific" lead performances. It subsequently sold out sessions at festivals in Seattle, London, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, Seoul, Sydney and Brisbanev and is screening at the Odeon 5.

"I'm a farm girl and lots of my relatives live in Orange so it is a massive thrill for me to be showing Jucy there," says Alston, whose previous film All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane, also screened in Orange.

The gala screening will take place at 7 pm on Friday November 4 at the Odeon 5. The stars and director will introduce Jucy and afterwards take part in a Q and A. Tickets are available at http://www.odeon5.com.au/. The film's website is at http://www.jucythemovie.com/

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but often that's only half the story. Sometimes the best memories come from recalling the stories behind the photo.

The Central West Writers' Centre and ABC Open are inviting you to share your stories behind your favourite photos. Select three of your best photos and come along to the workshop to learn how to upload your photos to the ABC Open website and tell the story behind the images. It can be a family holiday pic, a photo of your ancestors and their story or just a favourite snapshot.

Maybe you vividly remember the moment it was taken, or maybe there is something captured within the image that speaks volumes about that time in your life. Whatever the image and story, we want to know about it. Select a couple of images to be emailed or brought along to the workshop:

Central West Writers' Centre

Orange City Library

Byng Street, Orange

Thursday 3 November

2.30pm – 4.30pm

Please book your place by calling: CWWC 6393 8125 or ABC Open 6393 2542. Free

Youth suicide is a growing concern in Australia. In an effort to help raise awareness, Australian authors have donated stories to the Hope anthology. All profits from sales of the book will be donated to charities offering help to those in need of it and to foundations who are conducting research into why our youth are affected in the first place.

The anthology called Hope includes thirteen short stories by some of Australia's best speculative fiction writers: High Tide at Hot Water Beach (Paul Haines), Burned in the Black (Janette Dalgliesh), The Haunted Earth (Sean Williams), Eliot (Benjamin Solah), Boundaries (Karen Lee Field), The Encounter (Sasha Beattie), The God on the Mountain (Graham Storrs), Deployment (Craig Hull), Flowers in the Shadow of the Garden (Joanne Anderton), Blinded (Jodi Cleghorn), The Choosing (Rowena Cory Daniells), Duty and Sacrifice (Alan Baxter) and A Moment, A Day, A Year... (Pamela Freeman). The stories are accompanied by essays written by Beyondblue and Dr Myfanwy Maple and Mr Warren Bartik, from the University of New England. The book will be released worldwide in paperback and digital formats on 7 October 2011.

Six people take their own lives each and every day in Australia. Each one of those deaths affect dozens or even hundreds of people as family and friends attempt to deal with the grief, the guilt and the nagging questions as to why it happened. Often suicide sets off a chain reaction, which causes family members and close friends to suffer depression and suicidal thoughts.

The anthology will be available through brick and mortar bookshops as well as online bookstores. The paperback will be available in Australia for $17.99 and various digital formats will be available for only $3.99. All profits from the sale of the book will be donated to Beyondblue and the Anika Foundation.

Kayelle Press is based in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, Kayelle Press is a new independent publisher of speculative fiction, which includes fantasy, science fiction and horror. They will publish books for young readers, young adults and adults that will tempt your imagination and allow you to escape into unknown worlds. Find out more from their website: www.kayellepress.com

For more information about Hope visit www.kayellepress.com or contact Karen Henderson at 02 6353 1554.

If you or your friends need to talk call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.