VAL CLARK
Anthologies
These are collections that Val has contributed to.
The inScribe writing program publication of short stories, Centres & Peripheries by Catherine Moffat, Rob Salt, Helena Pastor, Val Clark and Sam Leah, edited by Roanna Gonsalves. Short stories illustrated by Darren Blanch, Amanda Donohue, Locky Naef, Shani Nottingham and Vicki Luke.
enCounter is about museums. It’s about the experience that museums can provide, whether it’s a deep dive into our media landscape, flights of fantasy about disappearing crafts, childhood views of dusty cabinets, ancient tales weaving through modern landscapes or revealing chats with staff, museums offer a myriad of ways for visitors to react to what the museum offers. This book captures just some of those possibilities. It also captures the wealth of creative drive in regional NSW. Writers, curators, mentors and artists have combined to bring about a multi-disciplinary project that includes this book, two installations, 11 museums and 14 creative practitioners. Stories are by Helena Pastor, Catherine Moffat, Val Clark, Jason Richardson, Deborah Henley, Jamie Derkenne, Margaret (Peggy) Aitken, Alex Rosenblum, and Leah Szántó.
Dark Sky Dreamings emerged from my Skywriters Project, part of the Big Skies Collaboration to catalyse new cultural and other opportunities for rural and remote communities in Inland New South Wales and the ACT. Over the past three years, I’ve travelled thousands of kilometres in Scarlet O’Barbara, the old red Toyota wagon gifted to me for this project by a literary friend. Scarlet is big enough for me to throw my camping gear in the back, and even sleep in her when conditions outside get rough. The Project has been conducted on such a miniscule budget that the amenities Scarlet provides have been fundamental to its success, as has the support provided by our many project partners, collaborators and friends.
I’ve met well over a hundred Inland writers at Skywriters events hosted by public libraries in Narrabri, Warren, Gilgandra, Coonabarabran, Dubbo, Parkes, Forbes, Condobolin, Grenfell, Cowra, Orange, and Bathurst, and at gigs hosted by Parkes Shire Council, Dubbo’s Outback Writers Centre, Milroy Observatory and by local supporters in Molong and elsewhere. Skywriters newsletters and social media posts, including our call-out for submissions to this anthology, have reached hundreds more people within and beyond our region with the support of our partners, including New England Writers Centre, Writing NSW, Outback Writers Centre, Red Room Poetry and the Wiradjuri Study Centre, and many individual supporters, including astronomers and astrophysicists.
​