Read / September 19th, 2018
Not that it was planned in any way, but the theme of the month appears to be non-fiction/memoir. I began with Get Up Mum by Justin Heazlewood, an account of his experience as a 12-year-old, finishing primary school while also taking care of his mother during chronic periods of her mental illness. His writing is warm,…
The following is the second of the two interviews I salvaged from the audio taken at the Williamstown Literary Festival. The first interview with Emilie Zoey Baker is here. I also had to great pleasure of talking to Ailsa Piper, author, director, actor, teacher, speaker and broadcaster. I hope you enjoy it as much as…
Group photo of the winners, highly commended, judges, actor-readers and special guests I was one of the lucky winners at the Literary Nillumbik ceremony on Saturday 2nd September. The full list is below, taken from the Nillumbik Shire Council Arts and Cultural Development Facebook page. Ekphrasis Poetry Award 2018, judged by Helen Lucas, Steve Smart…
This month’s reading pile features three very different books (poetry, essays, a novel), each resonating with its own heartbeat. I’ll begin with Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin. It’s a new release and I’d heard a lot of advance buzz, so feel fortunate I got my hands on a library copy when I did. Word of mouth has only…
As discussed last week, this is the first of the two promised interviews that I managed to salvage from the audio taken at the Williamstown Literary Festival. Here I’m talking with Emilie Zoey Baker, an award-winning Australian poet, educator, slam champion and spoken-word performer. She has toured a lot of the world as a guest…
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Thirty-Two This is a significant, soul-searching and (for me) sad episode. Except it’s not a ‘true’ episode because I haven’t got the accompanying audio… the very thing which makes a podcast! I recorded the below without realising that one of the drawbacks of reverting to a free account was that I would…
We’re deep into literary festival time of year and coming up fast, from the 24th August to 2nd September, is the Melbourne Writers Festival with new artistic director Marieke Hardy at the helm. Its theme is ‘a matter of life and death’ and there is a lot to go see, spread over a number of new venues….
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Thirty-One Today’s guest is Annabel Smith. She is the author of the digital interactive novel The Ark, US bestseller Whisky Charlie Foxtrot, and A New Map of the Universe, which was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Awards. She was an inaugural Australia Council Creative Australia Fellow and holds a…
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Thirty This episode’s guest is Kate Mildenhall. Her debut novel, Skylarking, is based on the true story of Kate and Harriet, best friends growing up on a remote Australian cape in the 1880s, and the tragic event that befalls them. Skylarking was named in Readings bookstore’s Top Ten Fiction Books of 2016…
