Award winning Australian author Ms Catherine Jinks aims to inspire the Riverina region’s budding writers at the launch of a program designed to develop the skills of young authors. Catherine Jinks, who writes historical fiction for young adults, will be in Wagga Wagga on Thursday 4 October to launch Cyberwriters, a project for young authors of historical fiction devised by Booranga Writers' Centre member Ms Jen Thompson. The visit by the internationally celebrated author is funded by a Country Arts Support Program (CASP) grant from Regional Arts NSW and is presented through the collaboration of the Booranga Writers’ Centre at Charles Sturt University (CSU), the Eastern Riverina Arts Program, the Museum of the Riverina and CSU.  Ms Jinks will present a one-only reading and open-microphone discussion session in conjunction with the launch of Cyberwriters at the Wagga Wagga Historic Council Chambers.

The Dolls Have Souls is an exhibition of drawings and textiles by Ms Julie-Ann Tylor. The works are contributing towards her Master of Visual and Performing Arts from Charles Sturt University (CSU). They are drawn from her intimate memories of much loved family heirlooms, a set of dolls, inherited by the artist. Ms Tyler says “My mother’s small legacy of the tiny set of Guatemalan Trouble dolls have become a symbol of a rite of passage. The making of art has been a ceremony of transcendence, from the role of a daughter, to the eldest surviving daughter, the default matriarch of the family. The dolls have become a vehicle for describing not only events in my mother’s life, but also as an overlay for episodes in my own life”. The Dolls Have Souls exhibition is on display in the HR Gallop Gallery, CSU Wagga Wagga Campus, which runs from Tuesday 25 to Thursday 27 September 2007.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) 2006 television production graduates Luke Heywood and Tim Pass are ecstatic with the news that their production Chance Your Hand will be screened at the 2007 New York Television Festival Independent Pilot Competition. Chance Your Hand, a situation comedy showing the behind the scenes drama of a television game show, was a major project during the students’ third year studies. Produced at the CSU School of Visual and Performing Arts studios at the Wagga Wagga Campus in inland NSW, Chance Your Hand is one of only three productions selected from outside the United States. CSU Associate Lecturer Patrick Sproule says, “this is a major accolade for the both the course and the students, showcasing just how capable, creative and talented our television, acting and theatre design graduates are”. Luke and Tim will travel to New York to attend the festival from 5 – 9 September and hope to meet network executives to further their television careers.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) is reaching out to students in distant and remote locations through the growing education resource of podcasting, the broadcast of audio files across the internet. CSU School of Computing and Mathematics lecturer Anthony Chan says: “Podcasting is now happening in CSU biomedical sciences, accounting, information technology, food and wine sciences and commercial radio and management courses. Podcasts are provided to students before and after classes and include interviews with experts from around the world”. An international collaborative project between CSU and USA’s Bentley College allows students in a first year computing subject to learn from each other and another lecturer half way round the world. The School of Computing and Mathematics also uses podcasting with a local Wagga Wagga high school, with their work in Japanese learning and teaching featured on Japanese television. Studies within CSU have shown that podcasting reduces the effects of isolation and promotes inclusiveness. Surveys with CSU undergraduate students also show podcasting reduces their stress levels, especially students who are coming into a higher education environment for the first time.