LITTERARY ALLSORTS 2023

Literary Allsorts is a grab bag of great writers and thinkers coming to our town for one very special day in June. The Kyogle Readers and Writers have been able to put together such a great program thanks to our hard working committee and the support of the CWA, Kyogle Together, and Kyogle Council, for which we are very thankful.

Lismore Book Warehouse will be running a pop-up in the foyer, featuring titles from the writers you see on stage as well as a selection of the best current fiction and non-fiction titles.

Money talks. Sometimes it also says — “thanks for making the trip over with all those heavy boxes.”

There will also be a chance to become a member of Kyogle Readers and Writers on the day so keep your eyes peeled. We’d love to have you.

You’ll notice that most of the events are at our Roxy Gallery, a beautiful, light filled spot right in the centre of town. The great venue and the tightness of our schedule means that we need some cooperation from you, our lovely audience. To help out our team of volunteers please:

Each woman battles her own demons and makes her own sacri ces, from the proud matriarch, to the revolutionary baby and nally the exquisite talent who touches many souls on the world stage. e reader experiences these lives through Katy, the child born in a revolutionary time, who has to deal with the loss of loved ones, and yet eventually reaps a beautiful harvest when her daughter Clara is born and shows an a liation for music.

Robert Barclay was born in England and before the advent of the internet and televsions he made up stories.

As a clearance diver during the Vietnam War he saw rst hand the tragedies from Pol Pot’s war.

Inspiration for his novels comes from seeing rst-hand the children a ected by this war.

You can order your copy from shawlinepublishing. com.au out) The 2017 floods, the 2019/2020 bushfires, the 2022 floods – the Northern Rivers has faced more than its fair share of natural disasters over the last five years. Can being involved in creative pursuits –writing, photography, filmmaking, podcasting – about one’s experiences, help people get through these trying times?

Join Northern Rivers locals Jarrah Dundler (Fire Stories project) Jimmy Malecki (Director of Tinnie Heroes) Jeanti St Clair, (producer of Floods Stories), and Jessie Cole (author of Desire) as they discuss if Can the act of sharing one’s story, photos, or art to a wider audience, or being in that audience, help?

The Last Outlaws

Doors 11:115am. Start time 11:30am. Roxy Gallery

Featuring: Aunty Loretta Ethel Parsley, Frank Lopez, Kaitlyn Sawrey and Katherine Biber

Tickets: Via kraw.com.au and on the door (if not sold out) creativity to make space for themselves and others in Australia.

Drawing on a rich heritage of resistance, intellectual traditions the panellists will reflect on becoming a displaced person and what they had to leave behind in their homelands; they also share with us how language and culture can inspire creativity and support people trying to find another place to call home. Over 20 years on from the Tampa incident and the escalation in our harsh border policies, this panel will offer critical and creative insights on compelling issues related to forced migration and seeking asylum in Australia.

Writing Funny Doors 2:15pm. 2:30pm start. Roxy Gallery

Featuring: Mandy Nolan, Lisa Sharpe Tickets: Via kraw.com.au and on the door (if not sold out) include her noir fiction Atomic City and memoir

The Casuals.

Gigorou

Doors 5:15pm Start 5:30pm. Roxy Gallery

Featuring: Sasha Kutabah Sarago, Dr Jenny Fraser.

‘If you’ve ever dimmed your light, hated how you look or searched for your beauty in all the wrong places, this book is for you.’ Gigorou (jig-goo-roo) means ‘beauty’ or ‘beautiful’ in Jirrbal, the language of Sasha Kutabah Sarago’s grandmother. Growing up, Sasha didn’t feel gigorou.

Turn up at the doors open time. This means you can get a seat and hear some great spoken word before the event. It also means you won’t miss anything as each event will start on time. In the words of U2, with or without you.

We also ask that you make your way out of the venue when the event is finished. If you have a ticket for the next event, obviously you can hang around, just have it ready to show one of the ushers.

There’s a lift, but it can only take three people at a time. So if you can manage the stairs it will help us out.

If you need a hand with anything, let us know. We love to help.

Kyogle Community Poet’s Breakfast

Open mic registration

8:30am. 9am Start. KMI Hall Supper Rooms

Featuring: Vincent Stead, Paddy O’Brien, and Don McQueen.

Tickets: This is a free event. Come for CWA cake and cuppas, open mic poetry, and performances by poet legends Paddy O’Brien and Don McQueen. This event will include the announcement of the 2023 Kyogle Readers and Writers Poetry Competition winners.

Enquiries: vincentstead@ outlook.com

Creating through floods and fire

Doors 9:45am. 10am start.

Roxy Gallery

Featuring: Jessie Cole, Jarrah Dundler, Jimmy Malecki and Jeanti St Clair.

Tickets: Via kraw.com.au and on the door (if not sold

In a podcast like no other, The Last Outlaws pulls on the threads of one of Australia’s greatest misunderstood histories, moving beyond the myths to learn what the Aboriginal brothers Jimmy and Joe Governor faced in both life and death. Jimmy and Joe Governor were from Wiradjuri and Wonnarua country, and were the last proclaimed outlaws in Australia, wanted dead or alive.

Australia’s budding Federation is the background setting to this remarkable story, tying the brothers to the inauguration of a ‘new’ nation and Australia’s dark history of frontier violence, racial injustice and the global trade and defilement of Aboriginal ancestral remains. Join the team behind this award-winning podcast Aunty Loretta Ethel Parsley, Frank Lopez and Kaitlyn Sawrey, and Professor of Law at the University of Technology Sydney Katherine Biber. Warning here this panel will feature (with permission) the discussion of topics sensitive to First Nations people.

Literature and Displacement

Doors 12:45pm. Start 1pm.

Roxy Gallery

Featuring: Omid Tofighian, Hani Abdile, Mohammad Ali-Maleki, and Huda the Goddess Tickets: Via kraw.com.au and on the door (if not sold out)

Imagine having to leave behind everything you know. How would you make a new life in a foreign land?

Join us for a very special insight into how these writers have used their own

Join Northern Rivers legends Mandy Nolan and Lisa Sharpe as they pick apart the craft of writing and delivering comedy. This event will, if their shows are anything to go by, full of belly-laughs and fun as they share some secrets of joke writing and some war stories from the road. Language warning. Probably nothing too severe but jokes are jokes…

Patting The Shark Doors 3:45pm. Start 4pm. Roxy Gallery.

Featuring: Tim Baker and Dr Sally Breen Tickets: Via kraw.com.au and on the door (if not sold out)

Tim Baker was living the dream. A best-selling and award-winning surf writer with a beautiful family, a lifetime of exotic travel and a home walking distance to quality waves. That all changed on July 7, 2015, when he was diagnosed, out of the blue, with stage 4, metastatic prostate cancer. So began a descent into the debilitating world of aggressive cancer treatments and a fight for a survival as brutal as any big wave hold down.

Tim writes candidly and with a raw vulnerability about this perilous journey through chemotherapy, hormone therapy, radiation and surgery, and his own determined lifestyle strategies to maintain mind, body, and spirit. Happily, surfing provided one of his most powerful forms of therapy, and writing about his experiences has proven deeply cathartic. This is a story about facing your mortality, staring down your fears, and working out what really matters in life.

Tim will be joined on stage by the books editor Dr Sally Breen, who lives on and writes about the Gold Coast. Sally’s books have been widely published and

At a young age, she was told, ‘You’re too pretty to be Aboriginal’. Since then, she’s been on a journey to reconcile her conflict with beauty. In this intimately fierce, funny, and reflective book, Sasha retraces her footsteps as a beauty assistant, model, and magazine editor to find the answers she’s searching for. Through conversations with her matriarchs, and the creation stories gifted to her, Sasha unlocks an ancestral wisdom – the key to healing and reclaiming her femininity.

Gigorou invites us to explore the interconnectedness of Aboriginal culture to resolve our relationship with beauty and ourselves.

Sasha will be joined on stage by Dr Jenny Fraser, a Migunburri creative researcher, poet and video artist who is the founder of Solid Screen which seeks to platform and celebrate Indigenous women filmmakers.

LA FIESTA!

Doors from 6:30pm. Show from 7pm. The Bowlo Featuring: Lisa Sharpe, Odette Nettleton, Thor, and Jasmine Phillips.

Join MC Odette Nettleton for a night of belly-laughs, music, and a jar or two. This event will feature Lisa Sharpe’s one hour comedy show Roar, and music by Thor and Jasmine Phillips. Roar!

Lisa Sharpe is making a name for herself as a masterful storyteller and this time you’re gonna hear her ‘Roar’. The gloves are off as she makes you laugh, cry, and laugh again while she ducks and weaves through the biggest fight of her life, to figure out what keeps us getting up off the mat and who is really in our corner.

Warnings: Some swears. Mental health.

As always there will be spoken word littered throughout the day by poets Dusk Dundler, Sarah Temporal, Vincent Stead, Paul Shields, and Carlie Daley.

Community hub in Lismore reopens with a public open day

After being closed since February last year due to severe flood incursion, the Northern Rivers Community Gateway community hub in Lismore is finally reopening its doors.

To celebrate the occasion with our communities, Community Gateway will host a free public open day on Friday 12 May, from 2-6pm. This event is an opportunity for everyone to come along, connect, tour the renovated premises, enjoy some great entertainment, get involved in some fun activities and win some great raffle prizes donated by local businesses.

Live musical entertainment will be provided by local musical legends, Brodie Buttons, Jimmy Willing and Davey Bob Ramsey. Free doughnuts, traditional weaving and craft activities, games and quizzes will be on offer too. Food and refreshments will be available, children and families are welcome.

Located at 76 Carrington Street, the community hub has undergone significant renovations and upgrades to repair extensive flood damage, provide a better experience for community members, and to safeguard against future flooding. It is a vital resource for vulnerable people in Lismore and Northern NSW, providing essential support services, programs, and activities for disadvantaged people of all ages and backgrounds.

The community hub was formally reopened recently by Janelle Saffin MP, Member for Lismore with a gathering of local dignitaries and Community Gateway’s partners.

“We are delighted to reopen the community hub after such a long hiatus, and we are thrilled to finally be moving back into our home.” said Community Gateway CEO Jenni Beetson-Mortimer.

“We had a disaster management plan in place, so when the hub flooded, we were able to relocate to temporary premises in Goonellabah and continue uninterrupted service delivery, at a time when more people than ever were in need of support. Even so, many of our staff experienced significant hardships too, and they have all worked so hard to ensure the most vulnerable people in our communities have been supported through the disaster. We cannot wait to showcase the new facilities and updated services that we are now able to provide.”

“We are pleased to add new services to our hub supports, including the Choices clinic, Lismore’s trusted reproductive and sexual health service, and new free financial counselling services.”

“The open day on 12 May serves to let our local communities know that are finally running at full capacity again; to remind vulnerable and disadvantaged locals that we’re here to support them; and to reconnect with our community partners. We invite everyone to come and celebrate with us.”

For more information about Community Gateway, their community hub and