We empower Australians to tell their stories. ___________________________________________________ LATEST NEWS 
EXPOSED - Photography Exhibition & Performances Spoken Word Artists Laid Bare MAY 9-27 ____________________________________________________________________________ The Rumble is almost over, but first, it's going to get really loud! After workshops and finals across Western Sydney, young poets will be getting up on stage at the Parramatta Riverside Theatre to represent their communities, compete for audience love and a trip to Melbourne to conquer Victorian slam champions.
The following day, the winners (aka 'The Rumble All Stars') will head to the Club Stage at the Sydney Writers' Festival to light up the stage and show the rest of Sydney what they can do! This event will be hosted by Miles Merrill and will feature current Australian Poetry Slam champion, Luka Lesson, as well as performances from MC Trey and live music by 'The Man of A Thousand Sounds', Trevor Brown. Sydney Writers' Festival Event -
The Rumble Final
feat. Miles Merrill, MC Trey, Trevor Brown
Saturday 19th May @ 1pm-2:30pm Riverside Theatre - Cnr Church & Market Sts, Parramatta
FREE - Bookings essential 8839 3399 For more info: http://www.riversideparramatta.com.au/performance.asp?pID=1843
Sydney Writers' Festival Event -
The Rumble All Stars feat. Miles Merrill, Luka Lesson, MC Trey, Trevor Brown
Sunday 20th May @ 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Pier 2/3 Club Stage, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay
FREE - No bookings required
For more info: http://www.swf.org.au/component/option,com_events/Itemid,124/agid,3218/task,view_detail/
Presented by Word Travels with ICE, Street University and WestWords. The Rumble is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.
by University of Western Sydney and Parramatta City Council. __________________________________________________________________________ The Writers' Playroom at the Word Travels Rocks Pop Up
The Writers’ Playroom is Word Travels' latest Rocks Pop Up program. It will see writers of varied styles and backgrounds taking up residency in one of the rooms in the Word Travels office space and making it their own. They’ll be free to work their literary magic in their own manner and style. Their Playroom will be open to visits from the public and will be host to performances.
and our first writer in residency is...
 Benito Di Fonzo
In the Playroom: April 20th - May 6th
Open to the public: Fridays - Sundays 1pm-2pm
Level 2, 40 Gloucester St The Rocks
Benito Di Fonzo is a journalist, playwright, poet and performer. He has written for, and been profiled by, the best and worst of publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun-Herald, The Australian and CNN. Benito has performed his narrative neo-beat poems and spoken word in London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Rome, Adelaide, Perth and Indonesia. As well as writing radio serials and plays for 2SER and FBi Radio he has had two plays broadcast live from the Sydney Opera House.
(Photo by Ken Simpson, City Wears 11, 2011) During his time in the Playroom, Benito will be working on the following projects:
Lenny Bruce: 13 Daze Un-Dug In Sydney 1962, play Scheduled to premiere this November as part of Darlinghurst Theatre's 2012 Season. Adapted from the book by Damian Kringas, Benito has incorporated elements of journalistic investigation, documentary film footage (he has been interviewing surviving members of Lenny Bruce's entourage whilst in Sydney), live music, comedy and drama. http://www.darlinghursttheatre.com/lenny-bruce.html
The Cronic Ills of Robert Zimmerman, The Novella "The Chronic Ills of Robert Zimmerman, AKA Bob Dylan (A Lie)" was a hit of Adelaide Fringe and a winner of BITE (Best of Independent Theatre) 2010 after several Sydney seasons. After many requests from audience members Benito is adapting the stage play into a novella in prose-poem format. SMH review of the play http://www.scribd.com/doc/29838457/Chronic-Ills-Sydney-Morning-Herald-Review-April-2010
ATYP Submission: Ibis Play
Due May 11th is Australian Theatre for Young Peoples' Foundation Commission submission of a script that can be workshopped and performed by their young actors. Benito is taking the Buddhist fable of Siddhartha's childhood encounter with a hunter and swan (which traditionally displays Buddha's compassion) and is placing it in the industrial working class Western Sydney suburbia of his youth. Stuck culturally and literally between the factory where his father slaves and the Ibis riddled Mangrove swamps of Homebush Bay our young protagonist wishes to escape his fate, assisted by the ibis narrator that he saves. It will hopefully be a play to inspire children to follow their dreams. http://www.atyp.com.au/fresh-ink/atyp-foundation-commission
Rocks Poems
Benito will endeavour through some afternoon ambles with notepad around the area to write a series of poems inspired by the landscape, people, history and places of The Rocks.
And an un-named musical theatre project.....
 Don't forget that the Word Travels Rock Pop Up office continues to be open to the public from Wednesdays - Sundays, 1pm-2pm Word Travels has a new Rocks Pop Up office...
and Sarah Kay & Phil Kaye are helping us launch it. It's not really a performance space and we can't fit many people, but let's imagine!
 From amazing audiences on HBO's Def Poetry Jam to enlightening crowds at TED conferences, Sarah Kay has set an incredible track record for a young spoken-word artist. Sarah Kay will be touring to Sydney with the equally inspiring Phil Kaye. Word Travels opens their season in The Rocks Pop-Up with a private show. Space very limited. RSVP now. Pay at the door. Includes drinks and nibbles. Sunday 25 March, 2pm Tickets: $15 donation  Word Travels in partnership with the National Year of Reading 2012! Because we understand the importance of literacy, we are proud to be a partner of the National Year of Reading. We believe reading plays a large part in building the imagination and encourages people to tell their own stories, linking them with their history and culture. 
The Rumble kicks off! Rap, poetry, story, monologue…whatever you do with words, bring it to the stage. Outspoken wordsmiths in team battles. Word Travels has received a grant from Arts NSW to develop slam teams in schools and youth centres in western Sydney. Read More... 
Australian Poetry Slam 2011 National Final, Sunday November 27, 2011  On Sunday, November 27, two poets from each state and territory bound onto the stage in front of a packed Sydney Theatre crowd. They poured out their wit, substance and powerful emotions in a competition judged by randomly selected audience members. It was the finals of Australia’s Poetry Slam. A crowd of over 400 offered wild screams and applause, people leapt to their feet shouting, “yeah, that's right!” – remember, this is a poetry event! We heard an 85 year old woman from Launceston discuss her online relationship with a Mr. N. Large Ment, an ode to a female parking inspector, a brilliant assessment of issues in Alice Springs by an Indigenous woman and a moving invective on the fate of Palestine. Runner-up Nadine Brown, a school teacher from Perth, offered two strong pieces but ultimately, the audience chose Luka Lesson as Australia's 2011 Slam Champion. The annual Australian Poetry Slam is a major national program, created to showcase writers who perform their work. Starting in Sydney in 2005 with three heats and a final, the program has grown to 45 events, running from June to December in every state and territory, with almost 1000 writers performing at packed out events. The Slam has also expanded to include the performance of any type of writing: stories, lyrics, monologues - whatever one person can do with words and a mic. Check out the full press release on the APS media page. UK SLAM CHAMPION HOLLIE MCNISH AND FREESTYLE CHAMP INJA PERFORMED AT APS '11 NSW FINAL |
Hollie McNish is a published UK poet and spoken word workshop leader who has been taking the scene by storm since her first reading in 2009. She has released two poetry albums, Touch and Push Kick, both to critical acclaim, with the latter prized for contributions to maternal research by the University of London. Hollie has appeared in venues as diverse as the Glastonbury Festival, Ronnie Scotts Jazz Bar, London’s Southbank Centre and Cambridge University. She won the 2009 UK Poetry Slam and finished third in the World Slam du Monde, Paris, has been featured on Radio 4’s Poetry Diaries, Women’s Hour and BBC 2 and has recently completed a poetry residency in Mons, Belgium. Watch Hollie performing Language Learning here. 
Inja is an exceptional MC and host whose work spans a huge variety of genres, including dubstep, hiphop, grime, drum and bass and freestyle poetry. He is resident Host/MC at Warning and Stink Like Sock, two of the UK’s biggest and longest running drum n bass and dubstep nights and is current host of both the UK and World DMC DJ Championship tours. Inja performs live as a solo act, as well as as part of the renowned Taskforce family and one third of the mighty ‘The Skuff and Inja Show’. The latter’s ‘show stopping powers’ have received 4 star ratings in Metro and smashed up stages from the UK and Europe to China. Check out Inja's latest single, Pepper Sauce, here. WORD TRAVELS WELCOMES NEW BOARD MEMBERS |
 We are proud to announce the addition of four new Word Travels teamies, who each bring exceptional skills, passion and vision to our committee. At our board meeting on 14 July, 2011 we welcomed: Tony Letford (Executive Chairman, Summit Equities), Anthony Nantes (CEO, Plan Power), Jane Ellis (Partner, Blake Dawson) and Belinda Campbell (Writer, Singer/Songwriter, Photographer).
Read more... 2011 SYDNEY WRITERS' FESTIVAL WORD TRAVELS WRAP |
 Word Travels paired up with the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2011 to produce a series of poetry events. For the second year in a row we hosted one of the Festival's most popular events, Spoken Four. This year Spoken Four featured our 2010 Slam champion, Kelly-lee Hickey, Australian performance poet, Candy Royalle, two time US team slam champion, Mike Simms, and former US slam champion and HBO Def Poetry Jam poet, Rives.
Read more... ROOTY HILL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AT SPOKEN FOUR |
 Students from Rooty Hill High School jumped up on stage at our recent Spoken Four event at the Sydney Writers' Festival, performing to a capacity crowd of 350 people.
The performance was the culmination of a series of Wordshops coordinated by Word Travels and WestWords (the Western Sydney Young People's Literature Project). Wordshops were held with the school's drama students and several went on to perform at The Rumble - a youth poetry slam in Blacktown... Read more... | 
