What is a writer? Someone who writes, not talks about writing.

Lawrence is a contributor to the new anthology The Emerging Writer. His piece is about mistaken identity and the funny job of finding ideas for comedy. If you aspire to be a novelist, journalist, blogger, comedian, critic or screenwriter – or just someone who wants to learn how not to procrastinate – this book has some very useful tips from some pretty ace people who do the writing thing for a living.

A better description of the book can be found here and it’s also available in ebook form for those annoying people on trains with cool gadgets.

Lawrence will also appear at the The Emerging Writers’ Festival (May 24 – June 3, 2012) a Melbourne institution that prides on calling itself the “Festival For Writers”.  There’s forums, panels, performances and cerebral piss-ups. There’s even a Spelling Bee competition where editors and writers can go head-to-head, arguing over the correct letters in “bivouacking” and “haemorrhage”.

As one of the “ambassadors” for writers’ conference, Lawrence will appear on panels and workshops about industry relationships, advice for emerging writers and the nitty-gritty of comedy performance. Come and heckle him.

After 5 months of heats and challenges, TopGeek2.0, the search for Australia’s most tech-savvy, pop culture-obsessed human, came to a nerdy climactic conclusion. On May 10, 2012, Lawrence was Ringmaster for the massive Grand Final showdown at Perth’s State Theatre and the clash was streamed LIVE across Australia on iiNet’s FreezoneTV.

Lawrence (aka The Twelfth  Doctor) – photos: iiNet

The Six TopGeek2.0 Finalists each brought their own specialty – Cem Selamet (Fandom), Skaidris Gunsmith (Internet), Rhiannon Davies (Art), Rhys Elsmore (Technology), Steve Wright (Gaming) and Cody Davis (Popular Choice Wild Card Entry). They and battled it out over two rounds of trivia with Double Dare-styled physical “geek” challenges, on a TV gameshow set that was appropriately designed.

TopGeek2.0 stage (above)    vs      IT CROWD office (below)

The winner who rose to the top of the pile of blood, sweat and Zelda T-shirts, was Steve Wright, aka Stevivor, a gaming journalist from Melbourne.

Lawrence: “What were the names of Batman’s murdered parents?”

Steve:  “Martha and Bruce Wayne.”

Lawrence: “Incorrect.”

Steve: “Dammit! Thomas! Thomas Wayne!”

Are you Australia’s geekest person?

TopGeek 2.0 invites geeks from all across the nation the to prove their skills, obsession and obscure knowledge to claim the title of Australia’s TopGeek. Contenders will display their talents through a series of challenges set by iinet and the nerdy judges (some whom were last year’s finalists)  that are designed to test gaming, fandom, creativity and Internet skills.

Nerdventurer Lawrence Leung will meeting some of the contenders on TopGeek TV, a fortnightly webseries beginning 30 March 2012 and will be hosting the massive Grand Final/Showdown on 10 May 2012.

Lawrence with some of last year’s TopGeek Finalists (Photo:  Herald Sun)

THINK YOU ARE GEEKIEST IN THE LAND? REGISTER HERE

The winner will bag themselves an all-expenses paid trip to the US to attend one of four ‘geek’ meccas: Sandiego ComicCon, Consumer Electronic Show (CES), South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW) or Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).

If you think you can out-do last year’s winner Tasmanian comic book artist Cassandra James, then enter this geeky Fight Club.

A few weeks ago, in the middle of his national tour, Lawrence popped up to Canberra to be part of a heist. The short film entitled “Waiting For Robbo” is a cheeky little caper written and directed by Simon Weaving.

John Wood, Rhys Muldoon, Justin Rozniak and Lawrence play crims planning a robbery. You heard right! The gangsters are played by a former Mt Thomas Police Chief, a former PlaySchool host and this nerdy comedian! Rozniak has a bit more experience in the field having played a crook in Underbelly: Razor. We won’t give away too much, but Lawrence’s role is known as “The Swisher”.

We look forward to see how the film turns out. Lawrence denies any tales of late night partying and guitar-playing with MPs in Canberra, but maintains that it  was “an absolute pleasure working with these fine actors and top blokes”.

Watch out for “Waiting For Robbo” in film festivals in early 2012.