The latest in Tasmanian books and writing news, September 2022

Yesterday morning I sat in bed with a cup of tea and sobbed. I’d just finished Robbie Arnott’s new book, Limberlost. While rare these days, I was moved to tears by this gentle story of Ned who we meet shooting rabbits along the Tamar to sell pelts and buy himself a little boat while his brothers are away at war. There is no escaping the gentle intensity of Robbie’s best novel so far (and yes, I adored the rambunctious Flames and the environmental peon Rain Heron).

Limberlost is launching in Hobart on October 6 and up north at the Tamar Valley Writers Festival in October, with events in the North West after that.  Get your orders in now, this is a book that will have a few print runs – don’t miss the first. 

THE Tamar Valley Writers Festival have also announced they are hosting Michael Mohammed Ahmed and Winnie Dunn, co-creators of Sydney’s Sweatshop Literary Movement, which has bought to light some of Australia’s most exciting writers. The festival's program is fleshing out well – Melissa Lukashenko and Jack Serong two others I’m looking forward to hearing talk about their work.

In international news, two Tasmanians, currently based in Glasgow, have forged a editing and mentoring set up, Praxis.

Joe Nuttall, best known for his musical form in Enola Form, and Lesley Halm, with her editorial acumen, have worked with their first author, on The Great Orange Ogre by Chris Eipper. Keep an eye out for Praxis, I trust they will do nothing predictable. 

We must have some announcements coming soon regarding the state’s literary prizes, but in the mean time, historian Alison Alexander has deservingly won the $25 000 Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History for The Waking Dream of Art: Patricia Giles, Painter. 

Poetry abounds across the state:

Elder Pete Hay is launching Sarah Day’s new collection Slack Tide with Fullers on 29 September and Seasonal Poets is back for Spring at Hadleys in Hobart on Monday 19, featuring Helga Jermy, Rose Lucas and Anne Kellas.

Anne is also hosting a poetry workshop as part of the Tasmanian Poetry Festival on September 30. She asks ‘when writing poetry, how do we get the balance right between the pull of our won ‘earthly history’ and that of the mystery of the ‘invisible’? I ask myself that most days, about how the numinous can sit alongside the news, it does though, it does so every day. 

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing?eid=957326&fbclid=IwAR2LOPYnePjyw85ENahnq0w_-fEbCI7wW-QgL6GSqWJdMEJJIbYGy74bQwM

And in Launceston, the Poetry Pedlars are having their month gathering on Tuesday 13, featureing Kim Nielsen-Creeley as guest poet, ahead of her chapbook launch which will take place during Launceston’s Junction Festival. 

Joel Rheinberger has written some fun and feisty novels, (my favourite is Chick Magnet, 2015) and now he’s venturing into Young Adult territory, with the first two in Poppy Lu series up now on Amazon. 

Designer Jennifer Cossins has been shortlisted for the CBCA Eva Pownall Award for her Book of Curious Birds and Tasmanian science writers Zoe Kean and Lydia Hale have been selected for The Best of Australian Science Writing from UNSW Publishing which will be published later this year. 

A new book from Linda Cockburn (I so enjoyed Who Killed Dave, a fun whodunit) Eat My Shadow, described as dystopic lit fic, is the first in a series. And did I imagine that she is reworking the 2006  Living the Good Life, How One Family Changed Their World From Their Own Backyard? A smart book then, will be even smarter now. 

If you’re in the North West of the state, this Wednesday, 7 September, Minnie Darke (one of the pen names of the adored writer Danielle Wood) will be at the Devonport library discussing her new book With Love from Wish & Co.

I’m in conversation with Favel Parrett about Past the Shallows, her sad and deeply Tasmanian first novel, next Wednesday at Fullers. Why, so many years after publication? Archipelago Productions’ play of this lovely novel is about to start its first season in Hobart. 

And, for something different, involving senses other than sight, your hearing, your tasting (and sight too) will be stimulated at The Devil is in the Details  - an immersive spoken word performance based on traditional folk tales about tricksters.

Food from Miss Honey Child, Stories from Roaming Tree’s Tamas Oszvald, this is happening on September 23 at The LongHouse in Hobart.

Bring back the trickster. 

Books and writing news, August 2022

 Darlings, it has been a while

I recently had the absolute mind bending opportunity to interview Stella Prize winning poet Eveyln Araluen about her stop-you-in-your-tracks collection Drop Bear. She was here for a week long conference on Aboriginal literature at UTas– and the program was wild. And I missed the whole thing. This was part if the inspiration to reinstate this monthly column of books and writing news from around lutruwita Tasmania.

Big news is that Brendan Colley’s The Signal Line has been shortlisted for The AgeBook of the Year (fiction). This novel, which is getting accolades left, right and centre, was also recognised in manuscript form – winning the Unpublished Manuscript Prize, Tasmanian Premier’s Literary AwardsWinners will be announced on September 8. .

Tasmanian writer and editor Zowie Douglas Kinghorn has recently been appointed editor of Voiceworks. You’ll find her distinct voice tweeting here. 

Tasmanian writer/illustrator team, Aunty Patsy Cameron and Lisa Kennedy, were shortlisted for the Wilderness Society's new Karajia Award for Sea Country, Magabala Books for Environmental Children's Lit by First Nations creators.

The Tamar Valley Writers Festival has just announced a ripper line up including Michael Mohamed Ahmed, Robbie Arnott, Meg Bignell and Melissa Lukashenko. It runs between 14-17 of October, with early bird tickets only on sale until August 29.

The festival is also hosting two in conversation events in August, with Dr Norman Swan with Dr Polly McGee, and then Norman in conversation with Goodlife Permaculture’s Hannah Maloney, who is also the festival’s ambassador.

The festival’s theme is The Good Life.

In book news a new collected from respected poet Karen Knight will be released in time for Christmas It will feature photographs by her partner, and newly recognised photographer Jules Witek. Karen is best known for her work Postcards from the Asylum, a collection of poems that look at notions of madness and incarceration and reference her time at Willow Court.

Karen Harrland’s new book, Daughter of the Plateau will be launched at Fullers on Friday 5. The event looks like it’s already sold out, if this one has the delights of her first book, Spinifex Baby, which won the National Finch Memoir Prize, it will be worth the read.

I was invited to a gathering of influential bookish people which was last week. It was to get us talking about Tasmania Reads, an initiative of Libraries Tas and the State Government. It will take place for a week next March. A three tiered project, which acknowledges the parlous state of literacy in Tasmania, the project is encouraging innovative interpretations and has some inspired crew working on it. A lovely chat with Alexander from Black Swan Bookshop ensued and got me thinking about the fabulousness that was Nude Girls Reading, or whether Transportation Press should rise from its lengthy slumber.

In August it will be 50 years since Lake Pedder, the mythic (for my generation and younger) pink sandy beach deep in some our wildest wildness. Water(shed) is being launched to coincide with this. The book looks exquisite, and features work from 50 artists alongside essays by leading Tasmanians including Kate Crowley and Greg Lehman. Launching August 10 at Fullers.

In the North of the state, even the AGRIcultured festival is getting bookish. They have events with Rees Campbell, about her new Eat More Wild Tasmanian, and Gardening Australia’s Hannah Moloney and Costa Georgiadis, both of them published authors. 

537 Days Winter  by David Knoff is being launched at The Hobart Bookshop on Friday 26^th. He spent that long in Antarctica – the lock down of the deep south.

 Keep an eye out for the Tasmanian Heats and Final of the Australian Poetry Slam will be held in Hobart, Launceston and Deloraine during August, dates and venues being finalised.

And drop me a line, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

PS my little online bookshop, Books On Her Selection (I choose them all) has some pretty good titles at the moment. I am biased though.