2009 NSW Mentorships Announced

28 January, 2010

The Australian Writers’ Guild is pleased to announce the five recipients of the 2009 New South Wales Mentorship Program are Blake Ayshford, Raen Fraser, Andrew Kelly, Simon Luckhurst and Sam Meikle.

The program will provide these NSW based performance writers with a significant opportunity to receive critical support and guidance from professional colleagues to develop an existing work. The AWG will match the writers with mentors who are AWG members with notable achievements in the relevant area of performance writing.

Presented with the generous assistance of the New South Wales Film and Television Office (NSW FTO) and Arts NSW the mentorship program is part of an extensive professional development program being implemented by the AWG in 2009 and 2010.

The program received a high number of applications from an impressive list of writers. The AWG recognise that there is clearly a strong demand for programs like this and the look forward to providing more opportunities for our members in the future.
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2009 NEW SOUTH WALES MENTORSHIP PROGRAM RECIPIENTS

Blake Ayshford is a writer and script editor for film and TV. Recent credits include My Place, irock – ready to roll, The Straits, All Saints and Love My Way. He has written two feature films scripts, Cut Snake and The Deserter, an adaptation of the Miles Franklin Shortlisted novel Silent Parts for Tony Ayres.

Raen Fraser has written and produced a number of short films and documentaries. In 2006 she was awarded a NSW Film and Television Office Young Filmmaker’s Fund grant as a writer director for her short film Lullaby. Raen was one of three winners of the 2009 John Jameson Productions Scriptwriting Competition for her script Cockroach.

Andrew Kelly has worked as a writer for 20 years, focusing on television. He has written for light entertainment shows, sketch comedy, series drama, serials, telemovies, childrens’ shows and animation. Andrew won the 2002 AWGIE for Television Series for The Secret Life of Us – The Butterfly Effect and an AFI for an episode of children’s program The Ferals.

Simon Luckhurst has worked across a number of genres but despite success in his fiction writing was ultimately drawn to performance writing. He has had a number of works for stage and radio produced and was nominated for the 2009 AWGIE Award for Radio – Original for Concerto for Humans and Semtex. Simon is also the recipient of the Regional Scholarship for a mentee residing outside the Sydney metropolitan area.

Sam Meikle wrote his first play at 16 years old but ended up with a solid career in television series drama. Sam has extensive series and serial experience writing for All Saints, Home and Away, Neighbours and Out of the Blue. He has been nominated for an AWGIE six times and won the 2006 and 2007 AWGIE Awards for Television Serial.