Jan Conway

Women’s Ink Journal March 2025 editor Jan Conwey

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Women’s Ink

Giving Women Writers a Voice

The Magazine of The Society of Women Writers NSW Inc. 

Celebrating 100 years 1925 –2025

Autumn/ March

Firstly thank you to our new editor Jan Conway for this edition Of Women’s Ink .  This is our year of celebration  for our centenary,  which was launched on Wednesday 12th March in the Dixon Room in the State Library and afterwards at 4pm in the afternoon as members and guests we gathered  at the State Library NSW Rooftop Bar where with a drink and nibbles in hand , we enjoyed good company , good talk and the unique stunning sunset view across the Sydney skyline and Harbour.

I am honoured to have two of my new poems published in The Women’s Ink

Here is an update of my published poem  called Park Bench

Park bench

Solid – something apart 
a grassy island in a tremulous sea, 
a soliloquy in a play. 

Something solitary here
a lighthouse set on rugged rock
or a heron solo in the wrack. 

It proclaims its place
weather-worn
wrinkled, venerable, 

a crone with many a story to tell.
  It tempts pause, take time out, 
look about.

How many have rested here
listened to the brush of grasses
found a full-stop moment  

amidst the shifting light?

Colleen

The Woman

She steps out into the night, not unlike this one 
that beckons me away from realities of computer
and tv, away from lights of the room
into quiet of dark wrapping
its calm around me. Her stepping out
is darker, with noise unfamiliar and harsh 
even as the night may be her protector.
It is the same moonless night with few shadows.

I wonder at the stars, their rare lace, displayed
on a navy cushion. Does she glance up? 
Her ground is unstable. She steps out 
on a mission, balancing two containers.
Her children? I will never know, though 
they would be much like my own. Let her 
quench their thirst. Let her not meet trouble.
Let her return to them hidden in the rubble.

Colleen Keating

 

 

 

 

Di Yerbury Residency Award 2024 by Colleen Keating

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Jan Conway the worthy winner with the two judges Colleen Keating  & Sharon Rundle

Congratulations to Janette Conway, worthy winner of this year’s Di Yerbury Residency Award. 

Emerita Professor Di Yerbury, Patron of the Society of Women Writers NSW, generously sponsors the Writers Residency which grants the winner 3 months stay in Barnstaple, Devon, UK to research and to continue to write a full length work-in-progress.

Maria McDougall (President of the SWW, Jan Conway the 2024 winner of the Di Yerbury Award,
Emerita Professor Di Yerbury and Colleen Keating one of the judges.

Previous winners of this award Belinda Murrell and Cindy Broadbent spoke about their time at the residency, the benefits that they enjoyed from their stay there, what it meant to them, as well as giving a brief insight into the work-in-progress that they are writing. Each showed a video to illustrate their talk. 

Pamela Rushby was guest speaker and spoke about her book about mudlarking on the Thames in London and showed us some of the artefacts she had retrieved from the banks of the river.

I highly recommend entering the Di Yerbury annual Residency Award, but you do need to be a member of the SWW. More at:

https://womenwritersnsw.org/di-yerbury-residency/

Congratulations to all our residency winners past and present.

 

 

DI YERBURY RESIDENCY 2024

Congratulations to Janette Conway on being awarded the 2024 Di Yerbury residency. Jan is seen here with Patron, Emerita Professor, Di Yerbury and judges Colleen Keating and Sharon Rundle

Les Wicks launches Margaret Caro by Pip Griffin

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A very congenial  and rewarding afternoon was spent to launch Pip’s new book and celebrate  the  completion of the  journey of  writing this amazingly researched and interesting woman.

The renowned and award winning poet Les Wicks  had the amazing group of people listening to his words on writing and poetry and Pip’ s new book

Margaret Caro
the extraordinary life of a pioneering dentist
New Zealand 1848 – 1938
her story in verse

The group filled the very gracious historical  Leichhardt Town Hall and it was a  buzz of  chatter and catching up with writers, poets and friends.  I was excited to be part of the day as I felt I had supported Pip in the final birthing of the book with edits and encouragement  as she suports me with my writings.

 

A team effort Pip and her son John who created the cover and flyers for the launch . Such a gift and so beautifully done.

 

The president of the NSW Societry of Women Writers
Jan Conway joined us for the celebration.

Hildegard of Bingen: A poetic journey by Colleen Keating wins two prestigious awards

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Hildegard of Bingen: A poetic journey has won two awards at the Society of Women Writers NSW Biennial  Book Awards at The State Library NSW on Wednesday 10th February 2020.

SWW Poetry Book Award 2020
SWW Non-fiction Book Award  2020

In the acceptance speech  Colleen Keating said:

This is for Hildegard. This is for women.  This is for those who have been silent, lost,  or suppressed down the ages  of 2000 years and more, of women who are being rediscovered to bring a balance back into the voice of history.

This is for our environment and our earth. Hildegard called  earth our Mother and reminds us to care for her as we would our mother. Our air, our rivers our soil,  our forests must be nurtured for they nourish us as a mother does.

This is for our well being. Hildegard reminds us that  nature and music are natural spirit given healers.  Hildegard has returned 900 years aftern her death and it is no accident she is speaking to people  in this 21st century at this time all over the world. We need her wisdom more than ever.

Thank to all for this awards. Thanks to the shortlisted poets and especially Pip as runner-up.  Jan Conway, President of the SWW  and the committee.

Special thanks to Stephen Matthews AOM and Ginninderra Press for affirming my work and beliveing in Hildegard and publishing my verse novel.it

My friend and supporter,  acclaimed poet, Pip Griffin renowned for her verse novel  –  the journey of a Chinese Buddhist nun ani lin,  was runner-up and highly commended  for the SWW Poetry Book Award for her evocative  poetic journey:

                    Margaret Caro
the extraordinary life of a pioneering dentist
        New Zealand 1848-1938

as the judge, highly acclaimed poet Margaret Bradstock wrote,

“Both Hildegard of Bingen and Margaret Caro are sustained narrative collections of poems celebrating the lives of strong, single-minded and deeply religious heroines, one an anchorite, visionary and ultimately abbess during the Middle Ages, the other a New Zealand dentist at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Through judicious poetic description the writers Colleen Keating and Pip Griffith respectively, are able to enliven their stories and engage the interest of the reader. Over several hundred pages of verse, this is no mean feat.  Griffin records her protagonist’s account in first-person stanzas, as a kind of poetic ventriloquy, allowing us entry to her thoughts and feelings, italicised conversation and quotations counterpointing this perspective. By contrast, Keating as poet tells Hildegard’s story, but interpolates the anchorites’s spoken words and unspoken musings in italics.”

Congratulations Pip .

 

Colleen Keating is Winner of two SWW Book Awards

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Colleen Keating is Winner of two SWW Book Awards

Colleen Keating is the winner of two awards. Her recently published Hildegard of Bingen: A poetic journey, has taken out two awards at The Society of Women Writers NSW Biennial Book Awards. This was held at the State Library of NSW on Wednesday 10th February 2021.

SWW Poetry Book Award  2020
SWW Non-fiction Book Award

The judge for the Poetry section, highly acclaimed poet  Margaret Bradstock  wrote:

‘Keating plays with language, uses nouns as verbs, creative imagistic parallels to enhance emotional states. Poetic descriptions such as ,

‘The Rhineland moon/ edges the icy road or dawn-crackle of ice . . .erratic shivers of the horses/with huff of dragon smoke ‘ ,

to quote just a couple, vividly evoke the scenarios the poet wishes us to experience. . . it was Keating’ employment of figurative language, of subtle metaphor that determined Hildegard of Bingen to be the winning title. ‘

The judge for the non-fiction section,  renowned writer and editor for reviews at Women’s Ink, Judith O’Connor wrote:

“How wonderful and fitting that Colleen has chosen the poetic form. Her narrative and style never miss a beat – almost racy at times, bounding along with passion and action against a backdrop of the beauty of nature as seen through Hildegard’s eyes. Lines like,

‘Her body knows what she wants
… as honey birds know
the most succulent flower
and geese
instinctively migrate (p.51)

The book speaks with the voice of a writer truely inspired, immersed, seeped in the knowledge and spiritual understanding of this far-away woman who lived to a remarkable 82 years of age. Colleen takes us on the outer, physical journey of Hildegard’s life but also the rich and spiritual inner journey. Harsh at times but always compelling.”

 

Thank to all for this awards. Thanks to the shortlisted poets and especially Pip as runner-up.  Jan Conway, President of the SWW  and the committee.

Special thanks to Stephen Matthews AOM and Ginninderra Press for affirming my work and beliveing in Hildegard and publishing my verse novel.it