Until its unfortunate demise last year, the Box Hill TAFE professional writing and editing course annually released Avant (previously Inkshed), a student-made anthology, for 30 years. Avant gave local writers a chance to get their work published and kick off careers, or at least have something nice on their resume.
When those wonderful TAFE cuts kicked in and kicked the course's arse, two of the students from the final year, decided that they liked working on Avant so much that they wanted to keep it going.
But, they couldn't get the rights to the name, so they thought of a new name and started anew.
The journal is new, but the idea is the same. At The Morning Bell, we want to give emerging writers a platform to publish their work, promote themselves and launch their writing careers.
Welcome to The Morning Bell - new writers, great stories, no budget.