I interviewed Caitlin Richardson, who co-runs the Tasmanian young and emerging writers group Twitch, about Twtich’s upcoming appearances at the Emerging Writers’ Festival Hobart Roadshow and how they support young writers. 

What skills do you think emerging writers should try and develop?

It’s such a basic thing, but what I’ve been trying to learn (or re-learn) recently is how to be focused on doing one thing at a time. Reading a book from beginning to end. Sitting down to write something without getting tempted to escape to the internet the second it gets too hard. I’m ashamed to admit this, but with so much going on at the click of a button, sometimes I feel like I’ve forgotten what it feels like to become truly absorbed in one single task. This really saddens me!  I don’t think this ailment is specific to young people, but I do think we’re particularly susceptible to being sucked into a vortex of internet procrastination. There are good things about digital communication don’t get me wrong, but it’s so easy to scan over a millions things without taking anything in.  I think completely switching off sometimes can be really worthwhile.

You spent a semester studying a Bachelor of Creative Writing in East Anglia, which is quite famous for its writing degree, what did you learn there?

I was feeling a bit restless in Hobart, and I thought I may as well take advantage of that and try studying elsewhere for a while. I’d heard that the Creative Writing school at UEA was really good, so I decided to apply there. It was a really bewildering and surprising trip for me. It made me realise that Tasmania isn’t as terribly out of touch with the world as we suspect, for one thing. In the first week I bought my reader and inside it I found a Gwen Harwood poem set in a Hobart park! And then MONA opened a week after I got home which felt like this kind of magnificent, symbolic conclusion to my adventure. At the same time, the intensity of being in a different place made me produce work that I don’t think I would’ve written here. That extra bit of anonymity emboldened me to try some different things. My classmates were a lovely, eclectic bunch- lots were international students too so we were all going through this strange, illuminating experience and had the chance to write about it, which was a pretty special thing. I got goosebumps all the time…from the cold mainly, but also from hearing and reading amazing, inspiring work.

Where was your favourite place growing up?

Probably Nan’s house at Christmas. It’s a little weatherboard place and the walls are green and the roof is red and Nan is an amazingly warm and generous person who always goes to so much effort- so it’s always been a really festive place. Going there for Christmas as a kid always made me shaky and sleepless with excitement.

What projects is the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre working on at the moment?

Twitch, the centre’s group for young writers, has been meeting up at various pubs and cafes around Hobart every second weekend, so we’ll be continuing with that over the next few months. We’ll hopefully have a book swap and some other end of year festivities soon too! As for the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre more generally, there are some collaborations with the TasPride Festival coming up in early November, including a series of readings and a workshop with some really talented people involved in the local arts scene, which should be fantastic.

Do you refresh your writing by travelling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

I feel really lucky to have been able to travelled a bit, and I think travelling can be great for exploring creative stuff- your senses are already sharpened in a way. At the same time, I don’t think travelling reveals everything. I realise now that you still carry your ‘baggage’ with you (as well as your actual bags…unless they got lost), no matter how distant your destination is. And people’s lives are weird and hilarious and confusing and heartbreaking in Dubai or Devonport and I think the heightened meaning we attach to travel experiences means that people can miss opportunities to unearth stories around them more locally. There is a lot of light and shade even within small, sparsely populated places like Tassie- I think writers who stay here have a lot of stories to draw on too.

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart Roadshow?

I’ll be going to the Digital Writers’ conference on Thursday, and the graphic novel event and… everything basically! There’s so much happening, it’s really exciting. Twitch is running an event with the Stilts collective from Melbourne on Saturday at one of my favourite Hobart venues, the Grand Poobah. There’ll be workshops and readings and a pitching session with some really fantastic people involved and it’s going to be really fun, so if you’re reading this, make sure you come along!

Caitlin Richardson finds humans endlessly fascinating and enjoys fuelling her enduring existential crisis by learning more about them. She studied English and Sociology at the University of Tasmania and is a co-convenor of the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre’s group for young writers, Twitch. Last year she wrote some plays as part of her English Honours project and she’s hoping to have them staged sometime in 2014.