Young writers explore country experience through arts program

Charlotte Smith This Was Urgent Yesterdayweb TBW Newsgroup

Isidora Pandilovska TBW Newsgroup
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE: Isidora Pandilovska hopes to pursue a career in the performing arts after her script was published as part of a Country Arts SA program.

TWO budding Limestone Coast playwrights have been given a stepping stone into the world of publishing following a youth-focused writing retreat.

Mount Gambier youths Charlotte Smith and Isidora Pandilovska took part in the Country Arts SA-backed program which has culminated with their monologues becoming published works in the book This Was Urgent Yesterday.

The pair found inspiration in their regional upbringings, using their monologues to express the challenges of living remotely and having a passion for the performing arts.

The entire This Was Urgent Yesterday collection reflects the lives and experiences of regional young people with themes of identity, friendship, grief, loss and first love and comes from a week-long writer’s residency co-ordinated by Country Arts SA and youth art organisation Carclew.

Ms Smith and Ms Pandilovska were among 14 young authors aged from 18 to 25 who took part in the Writing Place program, with their work to be distributed to schools and youth theatres in a hard-copy book.

Ms Smith’s monologue All But You Who Looked At Me and Smiled is centred around a remote artist who does not have much contact or experience with performing arts.

“It took about four days straight of writing which was the time limit we had anyway,” Ms Smith said.

“That is where I was coming from, that feeling of being far away and coming closer.

“I wrote about four drafts before the final one, which equaled out to about an entire script a day because I kept re-writing it.”

With no specific tone for the piece in mind, Ms Smith said she let the words flow and became more intrigued with her own work throughout the process.

“Through redrafting I was getting more into the world that I created and the mindset of the narrator,” she said.

“With the help of the mentors, I was able to push myself to go in a more extreme direction with my writing.”

The young author said a highlight of her work was the ending.

“It is not just wrapped up in a neat little bow,” she said.

“I did not want a happy ending, I wanted to leave an impact and have it stay the same the whole way through.”

Fellow writer Ms Pandilovska dove into a deeper mindset with her monologue, basing the story around heaven and hell.

“I have always been fascinated by the concept of heaven and hell but I do find hell more interesting, so I played on that a lot and incorporated deeper topics in an animated approach,” Ms Pandilovska said.

“Working the prompt into the story was not too difficult as living remotely there is that sort of empty channel so I grew it from there.

“The program was absolutely fantastic because you get mentored by some amazing writers but you also have people your own age who have the same approach to writing.”

Ms Pandilovska said she hoped to pursue a career in the performing arts and will remain focused on creative writing.

This Was Urgent Yesterday will officially be launched in an online publication party, to be livestreamed across Facebook on June 4 from 7pm.