Worlds Away - Melbourne City of Literature Virtual Resident

Some delightful news as we meander towards the end of 2025: throughout November I'll be Virtual Writer-in-Residence with Melbourne City of Literature. This completes a very lovely trilogy after Tartu and Gothenburg, and extends my reach outside of Europe, which is a happy bonus. Sadly, this one doesn't include a trip to Melbourne, but it is a heck of a long way to travel when I'm still in the middle of teaching contract, so that's all good.

This will be a Virtual Residency and the focus this time is less on me writing my own words, and more on me helping others to write theirs. I'll be working directly with Story Studios Australia, a very vibrant-looking organisation who specialise in storycraft for both kids and adults. Their brief sought someone who could talk to their writers about self-confidence, which aligns well with a lot my current creative practice. I am lucky enough to be a fairly confident creative soul, thanks largely to growing up in a theatrical household with ready access to stages and shows, but I've also become increasingly interested in recent years about how to help cultivate such confidence in others. The writing world and the writing life are not always the most accessible or friendly spaces, and we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect before letting others see our work. I totally get this, and I still get protective and shy about my words, but I also believe that storytelling skills are best cultivated with readers and other creatives, not away from them.

For this residency, I'll be bringing along my favourite workshop format: The Worldbuilder. This is something I've toyed with before, most recently with my undergraduate students (who loved it, I'm happy to say), and something I'll likely try to roll out more broadly in the future. It's exactly what it sounds; we start from nothing, and we build worlds. Specifically, we build islands, from the outline to the ecosystem all the way to the inhabitants, their customs and their beliefs. The rapid step-by-step creation of such worlds enables stories to arise naturally and organically; if you've popped a settlement of druids in the shadow of a volcano, that's an express ticket to storytown already, and we've not even mentioned the dreamweaving bats that live in the gully around the corner. Essentially, it's all one elaborate trick to get the brain out of its own way and into a richly imaginative space. The possibilities rapidly become endless, and you've got no choice but to start spinning yarns.

I'm also planning something a little more foolhardy and bold; a storywriting live stream. This is an evolution of the event I staged in Sweden last year, where I sat on a stage, projected my laptop, and wrote stories in front of a Swedish audience. Strangely, I didn't find it particularly nervewracking. One thing I have learned is that I can trust my brain to come up with something in the moment, even if it's not the most amazing thing ever. I have this mantra that humans are storytelling animals and it comes instinctively to us, so we just have to let it come. For this residency, I'll be live streaming, likely via Twitch, and we'll start with a blank page, generate a few random prompts, and take it from there. And if my brain is being slow (note the time difference: 7pm in Australia will be a crisp 8am over here) then I'll hopefully have some buddies in the chat who can help me along. In the end, we may end up with a co-written, co-crafted tale generated from the hive mind. Which will be fun.

Talking of generating, one other aspect I rather like about this live writing lark is how defiant it is in the ugly face of generative AI. This will be me, the literal and real me, actually and properly writing a story from my imagination to the page and then your eyes. It'll come out all rough and ready, likely littered with plot holes and inaccuracies and various bumbling spelling mistakes. But all that is good, right? That's the essence and energy of creativity; the jazzy chaos of it all, the thumbprints on Gromit's nose, the wobbly sets and dodgy costumes of early Doctor Who.

Whatever happens, I'll be sure to return here for brief debriefs, and I'll share any fun creations and reactions of my new pals from down under. And if you're a Story Studio member reading this right now, then put these dates in your diaries and join me! A resident is nothing without his collaborators.

From Nothing to Something: Words, Worlds, and the Confident Writer

with David Hartley

Wednesday 12th November, 7pm-9pm (Australia time): The Worldbuilder Part 1

Wednesday 19th November, 7pm-9pm: The Worldbuilder Part 2

Wednesday 26th November, 7pm-8:30pm: Storycraft Live Stream

The full details (tickets, Zoom, Twitch etc) should be available very soon via Story Studios. Hope to see you there, mates!