Proud to be a Lifer at the SAWC

In all its history, the SA Writers’ Centre has bestowed just three honorary life-memberships. I’m immensely pleased to be one of them.

At last year’s farewell of outgoing director Barbara Wiesner (also the annual St Lucy’s Xmas party) I was invited up to present the winner of the innaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award (Hannah Kent) with a check for $10,000. A delight on its on. But then I was called back and presented with a classy glass monument and the honour of being the latest lifer, joining Max Fatchen and Gillian Rubinstein in a very distant third place.

The SAWC has been such a huge assistance to me in my 22 years of writing, and Barbara was been there every step of the way, embodying everything that a good writers’ centre has to offer: opportunities, challenges, the occasional much-needed cheque, and a boundless supply of heartfelt humour. She set the best possible example, one I’ll always try to emulate.

I mumbled my way through a thank-you speech, but I don’t think that anything I said could have captured just how surprised, pleased and grateful I was, and remain today.

So here’s to Barbara, the SAWC, its new director, Sarah Tooth, and to another 22 years of good times and great writing!

Edited to add: here’s another link, with video.