THE search is on for writers and photographers to express their “sense of place” relating to the Mornington Peninsula.
Celeste Deliyiannis and Emily Westmoreland are planning to publish their annual PENinsula “literary journal” in October with a focus on nature.
Its contents will include photographs “short fiction, nature writing and personal essays to showcase the secretly creative community and stunning wild landscape of the peninsula”.
Deliyiannis and Westmoreland say they want their journal to “motivate and sustain” members of the peninsula’s creative community “during a time when they’re cut off from the Melbourne CBD’s artistic culture due to COVID-19”.
“[It will be] a way to encourage locals to look introspectively, take time to appreciate their home and community, and to share that gratitude and positivity with one another — a necessary task for morale in bleak times,” Deliyiannis said.
“We’re blessed with an imaginative, almost fairytale-like landscape down here, and there’s many stories hidden in it. For many of us, where we live is a huge part of our identity and I’m excited to see what we’ll uncover as a community by ruminating on that idea together for a little while.”
Westmoreland recalls living London and missing the foreshore. “I wanted to immerse myself in the bay the way you can dive into a good book. Which is what we’re hoping to capture in PENinsula. A little slice of the peninsula you can dip into, pages that evoke a sense of place.
“It can be disheartening as a young writer from the peninsula feeling like you have to travel into the city to have your voice have relevance. But the peninsula has such a lot to offer, and I don’t just mean in terms of landscape.
“We want PENinsula to be a thing of beauty, something to do justice to the beauty we’re surrounded by every single day here on the peninsula.”
Submissions of writing for PENinsula closed midnight 31 July, with photography submissions opening in August. Email: morningtonpeninsulajournal@gmail.com or call 0402 643 352.
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 4 August 2020
