Bruce Bennett, one of the most respected and admired scholars and teachers in Australian literary studies, has passed away after a long illness.

St George's College and The Westerly Centre will present the inaugural annual Randolph Stow Lecture by Gabrielle Carey on Tuesday 20 September. The lecture title is 'Getting to know Randolph Stow: towards a portrait of the artist as a young man'.

The Westerly Centre, and Westerly magazine, would like to congratulate Kim Scott on winning the 2011 Miles Franklin prize for his third novel (and second to win the Miles Franklin) That Deadman Dance. That Deadman Dance has also been shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal (along with Peter Boyle, Apocrypha; Peter Goldsworthy, Gravel; Kirsten Tranter, The Legacy, and Chris Womersley, Bereft).

"Don't worry darling, you'll grow out of it," said Stephen Daisley's mother when, as a young man, he told her he wanted to be a writer.

A. A. Phillips Award granted to Dennis Haskell and Delys Bird

On February 17 and 18, 2011, the Westerly Centre and The Association Study for Australian Literature (ASAL) co-hosted a Symposium, Creative Writing and its Contexts. This event, held at UWA, was organised to mark the pending retirement of Professor Dennis Haskell and over 100 people attended.

The theme for The Fourteenth Biennial Symposium on Literature and Culture in the Asia-Pacific Region is the Era of the Digital Revolution.

The Symposium will be held from 4 to 7 December, 2011 at The University of Western Australia.

The Registration Form and Information Sheet is now available here.

Please look at the new Westerly iMovie displaying the latest edition and other features.

John Mateer, Westerly Honorary Research Associate, was recently interviewed as part of The South Project.

The interview appears on a blog dedicated to exchanges across the Southern Hemisphere, it is a spin-off of the large South Project called southern perpectives.

The Westerly Centre is pleased to announce the re-appointment of an Honorary Research Associate with the Westerly Centre in the School of Social and Cultural Studies within the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.