For our first few Stories events, the committee pulled from our personal networks to find volunteer presenters. Now that we've successfully done a few of these and secured a modest budget, we want to make sure Stories reads represent the Boorloo/Perth and greater Western Australian comics communities in a broader way!
In order to do that, we need people who may be interested in presenting to share their work with us. We're looking for stories that hit these notes:
- It must be a comic! We welcome experimental pieces and various formats (both excerpts from longer works and collections of short works like strips, styles including manga and vertical scroll are welcome), but at the least it should feature a narrative told through sequential art
- Created at least in part by Western Australian residents, where at least one creator can be physically present for the Perth-based Stories event (for example, maybe you're an artist working with a writer who lives elsewhere)
- It doesn't have to be new material for this event! You may submit work from your archives if you think it's worth sharing
- Approximately 3 to 15 minutes in live reading length (if you're not sure, feel free to submit it anyway; you can always time yourself reading it out at home, too)
- Both family-friendly and adult-oriented works welcome, but some mature content may be limited depending on a few factors such as venue restrictions
- Visiting creators from elsewhere who have plans to be in Perth may submit work for consideration, subject to schedule/logistics
- If you're shy, it's absolutely okay to ask a theatrical friend to help with the speaking part of your reading (we might even be able to help arrange for vocal support for sound effects, character voices, etc), but we do need the original creator to be physically present at the event
- If invited, you will be asked to reformat the work into slides that work well with the live reading performance format (we have examples, it's pretty straightforward –– most display a page or spread and reveal the panels one by one, or break panels up into separate slides for different pacing)
- Please only submit each work once, but we'd love it if you return to this open call to send in more comics as you finish them in the future! If you have multiple works ready, you can submit them all at once
- And please only submit your own work.
We store all responses/submissions in a shared Google Drive accessible only to PCAF committee members, to be used only for planning Stories events. The PCAF committee will never use or redistribute your work without contacting you directly for permission first.
Our selection process is still being established, but we typically aim to assemble a complementary mix of comics to a theme for each event.
PCAF is a volunteer-run not-for-profit organisation whose programming relies on grants, sponsors, etc. That said, treating our local comics community professionally is important to us. Funding pending, we aim to pay a $100 honorarium per presented work at Stories events. We will confirm this fee if/when you are invited to participate.
We are not looking for remote/video presenters at this time. Please only submit if you can be physically present at these events.
If you're kind of interested but you've never done one of these before, don't sweat it! Neither had we when we got started. Our team is happy to coach and support you through the process.
