What a year 2014!

Submitting 'Water, Water' into Film Festivals in Australia and internationally set the pace for a year that was heavy with administration. Some of these film festivals receive up to 5000 submissions, so to make the selected-for-screening list is very competitive. Our little low-budget short film was selected in August for the Spanish Puertas Film Festival - it would have been so good to be there! Hola to our Spanish friends, particularly Pati our translator. A private screening to the members of Surf Coast Arts at their AGM in September was a friendly, casual night in Torquay. Iris and I enjoyed  showing our auspice organisation the fruits of our labour. It was so great to meet more local artists. What is it about the Surfcoast? There are just so many artists living in this wonderful environment!
In November, we were selected again (whoo hoo!) and screened at the Barossa Film Festival in South Australia - another lovely vote of confidence in our short film.


Geelong based theatre company, Skin of our Teeth Productions, are producing a show in April 2015 for the centenary of ANZAC. The production will consist of two plays - one written by SOOT artistic director, Christine Davey (she writes, produces, acts, directs... and does them all SO WELL! Too much talent for one person!!) who has invited me to write the other play for that show. I'm not revealing my theme just yet, but I am busy researching diaries, letters and other archival material from the Australian War Memorial and the National Archives of Australia for my script. It's great to end the year with a project that's going to move straight into production.  

What will 2014 bring?

Happy New Year to writers, readers and audiences! Let's hope that 2014 is full of inspiration, creativity and motivation. Good news to finish the Anglesea workshops on  - one of my students has been accepted into the prestigous VCA Screenwriting course. All the best to you Simon! 

Writing for Performance classes at Anglesea

Just at the halfway mark of working with a great group of writers at Anglesea Neighbourhood House. I always enjoy teaching these workshops. We're all looking forward to our guest speakers from the wide world of theatre sharing their insights and experiences with us over the next few weeks.  

Short Film Water, Water.... 

The short film version of my story Water, Water is now complete - other than for Spanish and Italian subtitles which we are working on. It's been beautiful to watch Iris Walsh-Howling, our director,  working with our talented actor Claudia Clarke in this screen adaptation of my short story. With evocative music composed and played by Shaun Brown, the film has been shot by Adam Tribe on the Victorian surfcoast near Anglesea. We're just about to explore the big, wide world of short film festivals to see if anybody else on the planet might be interested in screening our debut project. Here's hoping!

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About...

Janet Brown is an Australian writer whose work has been published and performed since the early 1990s. With Joanne Ryan she co-wrote A Hole In The Ground  which was produced at La Mama’s Carlton Courthouse and the Wyndham Cultural Centre in 2004 after extensive script development from the Melbourne Theatre Company. The play, directed by renowned theatre director David Myles, explored the No Toxic Dump Campaign fought by the Werribee community in 1996-1998. Since then she has had several plays produced in Melbourne, Sydney and regional Victoria. You can view more information about her plays on Doollee at
http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsB/brown-janet.html

Her novel The Shaded Side was published in 2003 and her short stories and essays are published in anthologies and literary journals in Australia and the US. In her first book In the Company of Strangers, former patients of Australian tuberculosis sanatoria shared their experiences and insights (1993). Janet has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing, a Graduate Diploma in Reading Education and a Bachelor of Science Education. She teaches writing workshops, hosts writing events and lives in the beautiful Victorian Surfcoast region.  

The Shaded Side - Master of Arts thesis Victoria University 1998

The purpose of this project was to research and write the novel The Shaded Side and a theoretical component exploring pathography and using reserach in fiction. The novel is based on the fictitious events that take place in an Australian tuberculosis sanatorium in the 1940s. The story locates and reflects the consequences of relationships, experiences, morals and attitudes of this early period against the contemporary story of an adult adoptee searching for the identity of her birth mother. Research into the history of TB treatment in Australia and into broader representations of illness and disease has been required for the project. General themes include: sanatorium treatment, wartime experiences of women of Footscray, the influences of Catholicism as it was generally practised in the mid 1900s, adoption, and the mechanics of searching for one's birth relatives. The exegesis consists of two essays. Essay 1 discusses comparative representations of illness and disease and the use of metaphoric language. Essay 2 explores the controversial issue of appropriation of research in realist fiction and the requirement for writers to understand and take responsibility for their choices of representation.