northerly summer 2019 issue

northerly Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Summer 2019

LEMN SISSAY

BRUCE PASCOE

2018 IN YA

MOYA COSTELLO

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Contents Summer 2019 Features 010 The year in YA Polly Jude rounds up the YA fiction highlights for 2018 012 Susie Warrick Young Writers Award Read the runner-up stories for 2018 from Mackenzie-Jane Stephan and Mikaela Auld 016 A new history Bruce Pascoe in conversation with Katinka Smit 018 The business of ‘switching’ Jenny Bird dissects how the rise of audiobooks is changing our reading habits

Regulars 002 Director’s note 003 StoryBoard Update Short story collection In My Bones is launched at Ballina Library 004 News and events Christmas party, volunteer call-out and more 006 Feature Poet Two prose poems from Moya Costello 008 Notes from the Festival Lemn Sissay interviewed by Katinka Smit 020 SCU Showcase Poetry from DebraTurnbull 021 Book Reviews Fiction from Jarrah Dundler and Chris Hammer and memoir from Kim Hodges 024 Workshops

northerly

northerly is the quarterly magazine of Byron Writers Festival.

Byron Writers Festival is a non-profit member organisation presenting workshops and events year-round, including the annual Festival.

LOCATION/CONTACT Level 1, 28 Jonson Street, Byron Bay P: 02 6685 5115 F: 02 6685 5166 E: info@byronwritersfestival.com W: byronwritersfestival.com POSTAL ADDRESS PO Box 1846, Byron Bay NSW 2481 EDITOR: Barnaby Smith, northerlyeditor@gmail.com CONTRIBUTORS: Mikaela Auld, Jenny Bird, Michael Cook, Moya Costello, Kathy Gibbings, Polly Jude, Gabby Le Brun, Colleen O’Brien, Katinka Smit, MackenzieJane Stephan, Debra Turnbull BYRON WRITERS FESTIVAL BOARD CHAIRPERSON Adam van Kempen SECRETARY Russell Eldridge TREASURER Cheryl Bourne MEMBERS Jesse Blackadder, Kate Cameron, Marele Day, Lynda Dean, Hilarie Dunn, Lynda Hawryluk, Anneli Knight.

LIFE MEMBERS Jean Bedford, Jeni Caffin, Gayle Cue, Robert Drewe, Jill Eddington, Chris Hanley, John Hertzberg, Fay Knight, Irene O’Brien, Jennifer Regan, Cherrie Sheldrick, Brenda Shero, Heather Wearne MAIL OUT DATES Magazines are sent in MARCH, JUNE, SEPTEMBER and DECEMBER PRINTER Quality Plus Printers Ballina ADVERTISING We welcome advertising by members and relevant organisations. A range of ad sizes are available. The ad booking deadline for each issue is the first week of the month prior.

Email northerlyeditor@gmail.com DISCLAIMER The Byron Writers Festival presents northerly in good faith and accepts no responsibility for any misinformation or problems arising from any misinformation. The views expressed by contributors and advertisers are not necessarily the views of the management committee or staff. We reserve the right to edit articles with regard to length. Copyright of the contributed articles is maintained by the named author and northerly.

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025 Competitions 028 Writers groups We acknowledge the Arakwal Bumberbin People of the Byron Shire as the traditional custodians of this land.

northerly SPRING 2018 | 03

Director’s note Seasons’ Greetings to all our members and supporters.

I recently had the great pleasure of attending an all-day workshop in Byron Bay with poet and philosopher David Whyte. What pure joy it was to listen to him recite copious poetry, then seamlessly and evocatively offer gentle analysis of the meanings and how they can be applied in our daily lives. You could hear a pin drop, and the pull of the audience leaning in.

I realised the last time I committed a poem to memory (written by Whyte’s friend John O’Donohue) was approximately seventeen years ago and I resolved to revive the art at home. Coincidentally, when I spoke to my ten-year-old son that night, he told me he had that very day learnt a poem by heart with his father. Perhaps we could all revive the art over New Year? One resolution that may be easier to keep.

Over the past month I have been fortunate enough to attend Griffith University’s ideas forum, Integrity 20, in Brisbane and the Festival of Dangerous Ideas on Cockatoo Island, Sydney. Both powerfully iterated the constant ethical assessments we need to be making in all areas of our lives – private and public.

Both gatherings prompted introspection and conversation, and both featured truly inspiring speakers. Of course, these experiences inevitably feed into my ideas for our own programming here in Byron as we begin to shape an exciting list for 2019.

You’ll see within the pages of northerly details of our 2019 workshops. If you have always wanted to write, be it memoir, non-fiction, history or other genres, now might just be the time!

The Festival team is looking forward to a session with M.E. Baird in December on creative thinking, which will then be on offer to the public in February titled Rigour: Creative Thinking and Curing Writer’s Block. Or perhaps you want to try your hand at podcasting with Samantha Turnbull? For poetry lovers, local poet Lisa Brockwell will deliver the workshop Poetry: Deep Reading For Better Writing. Plenty to choose from.

We are thrilled that our membership has consistently increased over the last few years and want to alert you that all memberships will expire on 28 February. Don’t worry, we’ll be sending out renewal reminders when our 2019 Membership Drive kicks off in the first week of February. All new and renewing members will go into rolling February draws for some fantastic weekly prizes.

We are busy liaising with our Festival colleagues around the nation to bring you some exciting 2019 Out of Season events, including Clare Press whose book Rise & Resist takes a wild trip through the new activism sweeping the world. She is in huge demand internationally but is making time to visit Byron in early April – stay tuned for details.

Meanwhile, may I wish one and all relaxing, safe and happy holidays and lots of escapist reading!

Edwina Johnson Director, Byron Writers Festival

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NEWS & EVENTS

Journeys through the past StoryBoard project manager Gabby Le Brun reports on the launch of In My Bones, a showcase of short stories by young writers inspired by myths and legends of their ancestry.

It’s 4.45pm at the Ballina branch of the Richmond Tweed Regional Library and something out of the ordinary is about to begin. Eight young writers aged between eight and sixteen are ferrying armfuls of vintage tablecloths, sepia photographs, rich velvet curtains and ornate picture frames past the bookshelves, jigsaw puzzles and computers and into the library’s History Room.

This was no ordinary book launch.

Eight stories were presented in an interactive museum-style showcase. In My Bones is the culmination of the StoryBoard Ballina Masterclass 2018 series with author Zanni Louise. Around twenty people – family and friends – attended, and the stories were the catalyst for lively discussions about how our pasts shape us.

Participants committed to six weekly ninety-minute workshops, plus additional time working on their stories between sessions.

They explored new ways to write by experimenting with form including chronological history, historical fiction, diary entries, letters, poems, collage and fantasy. Each author presented an installation that illustrated the inspiration for their story: objects or photographs evoking character, setting, time and place. Authors also gave

readings. Stories were as diverse as the forms used to tell them.

In delving into the myths and legends in their ancestry, participants revealed they were related to famous icons such as Captain Cook, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Thomas Andrews Jr. (the chief engineer on the Titanic).

They also explored the unsung heroes in their past. Thirteen-yearold Eliska wrote the love story of Ivan and Ivanka and their escape from the Russians during Operation Danube: A couple of hours later, Ivanka, Ivan and Kristof were running towards Wenceslas Square.

Ivanka wore a long-sleeved

blue dress with white boots and a fuzzy red scarf, and Ivan wore beige pants and a plaid top.

‘This way!’ Kristof yelled, like they didn’t know where the main area in the city was.

Finally, they arrived in the square.

‘Oh my…’ she whispered. It was barely recognisable.

StoryBoard Masterclasses continue at Richmond Tweed Regional Libraries in Byron Bay, Ballina and Lismore in 2019. For more details please email storyboard@ byronwritersfestival.com

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NEWS & EVENTS

Margin Notes News, events and announcements from Byron Writers Festival Success for locals Congratulations to local writer and northerly contributor Emma Ashmere, whose story ‘Standing Up, Lying Down’ was shortlisted in the fiction category of the Fair Australia Prize 2018, organised by Overland journal.

Image courtesy of First Dog On The Moon

Festive fun This year’s Byron Writers Festival Christmas party will take place on Thursday, 13 December from 5pm to 7pm at the office at Level 1, 28 Jonson Street, Byron Bay. Drinks and nibbles will be provided as will lucky door prizes.

The Byron Writers Festival office will then be closed for the holidays from 21 December to 7 January.

Festival mentorship recipients announced Congratulations to our members’ mentoring scholarship recipients Elizabeth Allen, Carly Lorente, Heather Roper and Lynton Burger, who will each receive free sessions with a professional mentor.

Congratulations also to Byron Writers Festival member and visual artist Avalyn Doyle, who recently had her memoir Falling Through Time: A Sacred Prostitute Returns to Eqypt was published by Balboa Press.

Any local writers are invited to let northerly know about their recent publication or competition successes: email the editor at northerlyeditor@gmail.com

Bon voyage Best wishes and bon voyage to local writer and Festival board member Jesse Blackadder who recently set off for Mawson Station in Antarctica, accompanied by screenwriter Jane Allen.

Blackadder will create an Antarctica-based TV drama as well as a series of junior fiction books.

She is travelling courtesy of an Arts Fellowship from the Australian Antarctic Division.

Hachette mentorship opportunity In January 2019 Byron Writers Festival will again be partnering with Hachette Publishing to facilitate a mentoring opportunity for our members. Applicants will be asked to submit a full-length manuscript in the genres of fiction, non-fiction or YA. Hachette Australia will select the winning candidate.

More details coming soon.

Summer Listening Byron Writers Festival podcasts are now available on Soundcloud.

To find live recordings of selected sessions from our 2018 Festival program head over to: www.soundcloud.com/byronwf

Cover story This issue’s cover image is Undiscovered #8 by the highly-acclaimed Brisbanebased artist of Bidjara heritage, Michael Cook. This piece is part of the wider Undiscovered series, while his work has featured on several occasions at Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah, most recently with the Object series in 2017. For more information about Michael and his work visit www.michaelcook.net.au

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NEWS & EVENTS

Grassroots writing at Coffs Coffs Harbour Writers’ Group’s annual Grassroots Writers Weekend will take place across the weekend of 17-19 May at Coffs Harbour Community Village and Cavanbah Centre.

Starting on Friday afternoon and concluding on Sunday afternoon, the weekend promises to be a festival of workshops and practical ‘hands-on’ writing sessions available to everyone with a love of storytelling, from school students to seniors.

The festival’s mission is to provide affordable workshops for writers at all stages of their literary journey.

The fee for the entire weekend is a mere $25 with a barbecue and dinner as optional extras.

Sessions will be held on memoir writing, short story writing, writing for children and young adults, travel writing, interviewing, writing and performing poetry, research, editing, publishing, pitching, social media and more.

For more information keep an eye on www.coffsharbourwriters.com or call Leonie on 0412668315.

Dung, Jesus and tacos One of the more playful prizes up for grabs in the literary world must be the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year, organised by UK magazine The Bookseller. This year’s shortlist has been announced, showcasing a predictably motley assortment of imaginative book titles.

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“The comments are really comprehensive. I appreciate all the work and thought that has gone into the assessment, and the technical details conveyed that will teach me such a lot. Everything has to sink in and there will be much to do, but I’m so glad I took this step before taking the manuscript to any agents or publishers. It’s exactly the kind of feedback that I needed.”

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The shortlisted books are: Are Gay Men More Accurate in Detecting Deceits? by Hoe-Chi Angel Au; Call of Nature: The Secret Life of Dung by Richard Jones; Equine Dry Needling by Cornelia Klarholz and Andrea Schachinger; Jesus On Gardening by David Muskett; Joy of Waterboiling by Achse Verlag; and Why Sell Tacos In Africa by Paul Oberschneider.

By the time this issue of northerly is printed the winner will have been announced – visit www. thebookseller.com to discover who took the gong. It is the silly season after all.

Writing Hour at Byron Bay Library Any writers in need of a quiet and tranquil place to get their heads down and work are warmly invited to the weekly Writing Hour at Byron Bay Library.

Every Tuesday, literary sorts gather in the Local Studies room at 10am for two hours of uninterrupted

writing time, often followed by a chat and a coffee. Wifi is available.

Pascoe receives Dreamtime award Bruce Pascoe, who features in this issue of northerly in an interview with Katinka Smit (page 16), was recently named Person of the Year at the 2018 National Dreamtime Awards.

The award is given to an individual that has made ‘a significant contribution to the advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait people during the past twelve months and who has inspired those around them.’

Pascoe’s hugely acclaimed book Dark Emu was published by Magabala Books in 2014.

Pascoe appeared at Byron Writers Festival in 2017.

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PROSE POETRY

Feature Poet: Moya Costello Travelling north He had been bruised by a particular history. He had been too long with low life. He was damaged, physically and psychically, by the city’s ravenous crimes and criminals. He had made mistakes; he was getting a reputation, among colleagues and criminals alike, for re-jigging the rules.

He needed to be incognito, to be some place where he wasn’t recognised, where people were blind to his past and present. He needed a long, quiet holiday. He’d make the move from Darlinghurst.

The force wouldn’t mind. It was assumed to the bush – more tolerably known as a ‘region’, the bush offered some cachet with the term – to exchange drug possession for drunk and disorderly, prostitution for parking offences.

A lack in public transport didn’t faze him. His job had locked him into the mode of the private vehicle. Go anywhere, any time, at will. Even in Sydney he had only ever boarded the ferry in pursuit of a lead, out of a need to investigate a case characterised by liquidity.

What could prevent him from travelling north? It was what most of the population did, hugging the coast while they thought they were escaping.

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PROSE POETRY

Road-kill The time: driving in a queer light formed by late evening and a storm brewing. She met every pothole. Every headlight-lit car appeared as a mad demon, every truck as an intergalactic monster so close as to be only breath between them.

When she killed the echidna, she didn’t even recognise it as another sentient being. Afterwards, she remembered thinking that up ahead was dead vegetation blowing across the road, a tumbleweed. A stream of cars came towards her, another behind. A 100km zone and commute time, even in the bush.

Then the road curved, so she couldn’t see the oncoming traffic.

By the time she recognised what it was, it was too difficult to swerve. There was a thwump, and the thing rolled across the road.

She sought forgiveness. But there would be penance, selfimposed – if not retribution, other-imposed.

Moya Costello is an adjunct/ casual lecturer at Southern Cross University. She has two collections of prose and two short novels published, and many scholarly and creative works in journals and anthologies. She has been awarded writing grants, fellowships and a residency from federal and state governments, Varuna, and Monash University.

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Photo: Kurt Petersen

INTERVIEW

Notes from the Festival: Lemn Sissay Byron Writers Festival 2018 saw Lemn Sissay warm audiences’ hearts with his poetry and personality. Born into care after his mother was forced to give him up, rejected by his adoptive foster family and finally released to his own care at eighteen, he is a living example of the healing power of poetry. Now the chancellor of University of Manchester, the performance poet’s personal mantra is ‘Lead by example; inspire and be inspired.’ Interview by Katinka Smit.

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INTERVIEW

Do you think poetry is instinctive?

Poetry is as close to instinctive as a human can get because poetry is close to how we think. We speak in adequate sentences, but poetry is how we think – we think in images and symbols, we think on associated ideas. Poetry is as close an interpretation of our instinct that we get to. I think creativity allows for that.

How do you get in that zone where you can just open up and it comes out?

I think the action of poetry is in the practice, so you must try to write every day to keep yourself topped up.

There was a good question from the audience: ‘Is there poetry in Brexit?’

It was a good question; I think there is poetry in conflict. The reason poetry is important is because poetry is very personal and therefore also very political.

Politics, for some reason, can actually ignore the person, where poetry can’t.

Why do you think that you as a performance poet were voted in as the chancellor of University of Manchester, rather than the business person or the politician who were also nominated?

I won that election because people researched who I was and decided that what I represented was more important to them than what the other two did. I do the best I can with everything I’ve got; I’ve travelled further than they have in terms of where I’ve come from. I think people saw that. I think they saw the determination, integrity, honesty.

In a TED Talk you listed off all the great characters in fiction who’d lost their parents in some way. Why do you think writers and artists are drawn to the abandoned child?

The abandoned child will often seek out answers from the wider community that in having a family you may not need to seek.

Without that buffer to test out their emotions, they’ll test them out on the wider community and often find it failing or more confusing.

Their stories are the classic hero’s story. I’m inspired by those who have suffered a very real prejudice against them from society. The orphaned child and the child in children’s homes are living, walking proof of the dysfunction at the heart of all functioning families; because of that they suffer prejudice from our familial society, which assumes they are naughty, or wrong, somehow a threat, unmarriable because they haven’t got a family line and so on. They’re a threat to the status quo. This is prejudice, and prejudice grows when it’s not questioned.

This goes back to Victorian days, to patriarchal society. Our social services and our charitable nature is predicated on a system which believed that you were un-Christian if you were a child without a family, if you were a woman who was pregnant without a husband. We are reviewing this in England, and you are reviewing it in Australia. Abuse could happen in churches and in children’s homes because we allowed those places to happen. We were part of the prejudice that allowed those predators to enact their violence on those children. We are responsible. It’s very interesting how we’re looking now at the church as if it was a bad place – we

were the ones who put the children there.

There’s that expression, ‘it takes a community to raise a child’, but it takes a community to abuse a child too.

We are complicit. And unless we see that, then all of these charges against the priests, the women who run the children’s homes, the nuns, they don’t mean anything. It’s about us, it’s about wider society, it’s about prejudice.

What is the responsibility of poetry? Does it have one?

No, I don’t think that poetry has a responsibility. It translates the human experience for each poet – the human experience of nature, of politics, of spiritualism – that’s what it is. I don’t think of myself as a great writer, but I do think of myself as somebody who is meant to do what he’s doing.

You spoke about poetry as something that was always there with you, but what was your first inspiration to write?

I think it was various things, but I think that in writing I felt at home, when I had no home. When I wrote, I felt like I was where I was meant to be on earth. It sounds very weird but it’s true. It didn’t matter whether anybody read it. I felt a compulsion to write.

How did that translate to performing?

Well it’s just a coincidence that I was a natural communicator of my words. I don’t know why, that’s just how it is. I really was meant to be what I am.

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FEATURE

Thrills and grit: The year in YA northerly’s resident YA fiction reviewer Polly Jude wraps up the best in Australian YA for 2018. So if you have young adults on your Christmas list, this might a good place to start.

Dystopian futures Hive by A.J. Betts In this dark, futuristic world, everyone has their assigned duties, roles and responsibilities. No one questions or challenges the Elders, who control this hexagonal world with strict rules resembling those of a religious sect.

Hayley’s job is tending to the bees who live in a tiny little hexagonal world so much like her own.

But there’s a drip. Hayley can hear it, see it and even taste it. But the ceiling shouldn’t drip and Hayley can’t ignore it.

The Elders can’t control her mind, and her curiosity soon has Hayley making dangerous choices that threaten to expose the truths which in turn could reveal reality and threaten the Elders’ existence.

Hive is fast and curious from the start.

It will appeal to most YA readers, particularly younger girls.

Reluctant lads

Scary stuff

Changing Gear by Scot Gardner

Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein

Merrick has been lost since his grandpa’s sudden death. Merrick doesn’t know where he belongs in this new world without his friend.

His mum and dad move on with their new partners and new kids while Merrick wallows in his grief.

With HSC exams looming, Merrick packs a bag and hits the road. This coming-of-age road- trip adventure sees him experience the best and worst of society, and will appeal to readers perhaps a bit wary of YA, particularly the fellas who will identify with Merrick.

In true Scot Gardner fashion, Changing Gear is a brutally honest story that explores loss and grief with heart and humour. Gardner deals with all the big, important issues without bubble wrapping or sugar coating for young adults, who will appreciate the genuine, raw emotion.

Tash saw Mallory Fisher leave the fair with Sparrow, but no one believed her. Little girls just don’t get kidnapped by imaginary friends. Days later, when Mallory stumbles out of the bush dazed and confused, her story becomes national news. Eventually, Mallory’s family flee town to avoid the cameras and gossip.

The Fishers return and Tash has to work out what she really saw that day at the fair. Mallory won’t speak to anyone except her cute, overprotective brother.

Unwanted memories of Sparrow and the day Mallory went missing start coming back to Tash. She wonders what’s real and what’s not.

This terrifying YA book is fast and fun. It will appeal to a wide range of YA readers.

Walker Books / 384pp / RRP $19.99

Pan Macmillan Australia / 272pp / RRP $16.99

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Allen & Unwin / 228 pp / RRP $19.99

FEATURE

Kick-arse chick

On debut

Supernatural sequel

Found by Fleur Ferris

I Had Such Friends by Meg GatlandVeness

Palace of Fires: Unholy by Bill Bennett

When Charlie Parker dies, the ripples are felt through the whole community. Hamish Day never even spoke to Charlie, but Charlie never picked on Hamish or teased him or bullied him, so he must have been okay.

Growing up on a cabbage farm, Hamish and his parents are still dealing with their own loss. But theirs is tearing them apart, not bringing them together.

When local bad boy, Peter, offers Hamish a ride home from school, Hamish assumes he’s about to get his head punched in. Instead, they head to the beach and everything changes.

The second novel in the Palace of Fires series picks up right where the first book left off. Lily is searching for her mother before the black witches of the Golden Order remove her soul in a terrifying ceremony on Unholy, the new moon.

With Skyhawk, a super-spunky shaman-in-training, in tow, Lily races across America to find her mum before she is killed. They are being chased by numerous assassins; The Hag, Dr Skinless and other terrifying creatures are intent on killing everyone who tries to stop them.

Granted, witches, Satan and possessed goats isn’t everybody’s idea of a good read. But Palaces of Fire: Unholy will attract a whole new crew to reading. Older, reluctant YA readers and especially guys are going to love the fast pace, bloody nature of this book. It’s a thrilling page-turner – they’ll be hooked.

Seventeen-year-old Beth Miller has spent her whole life in the witness protection project. She just didn’t know it. On the afternoon that she’s about to tell her dad, Bear, about her romance with Jonah, everything changes. When a mysterious white van kidnaps Bear from right in front of her, Beth’s world comes tumbling down.

Beth and her mum, Lucy, enter a deadly adventure to save Bear. It will expose a lifetime of lies and forgotten truths. Lifelong secrets, hidden bunkers and dangerous thugs are just the start.

Found is an action-packed adventure with strong female characters that will appeal to YA girls. It’s fast and easy to read. It will appeal to readers who have enjoyed Ferris’s other work and is a great choice for reluctant female YA readers.

Penguin Books Australia / 320pp / RRP $19.99

I Had Such Friends deals with hardhitting themes including domestic abuse, neglect, grief, sexuality, death and suicide. It is well written and tragic. I Had Such Friends is beautifully sad and will appeal to YA girls and YA boys exploring their sexuality.

Pantera Press / 278pp / RRP $19.99

Penguin / 416pp / RRP $19.99

www.pollyjude.net/reviews

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READ

Susie Warrick Young Writers Award: The runners-up Byron Writers Festival’s annual Susie Warrick Young Writers Award invited Northern Rivers writers aged between thirteen and twenty-one to enter their short stories in a competition that offers $1,000 in prize to the winner. This year’s winner was Ella HillSmith, whose story ‘The Girl Who Collected Broken Seashells was published in the Spring issue of northerly. Here we present the two runner-up entries: ‘Almost Home’ by Mackenzie-Jane Stephan and ‘A Cuckold’s Web’ by Mikaela Auld.

Almost Home Mackenzie-Jane Stephan

The woman relaxes her steps into the damp grass of Princes Park, confidently strolling on the track she treads most nights a week. The street lamps cast soft pools of gold on the ground as she stumbles into their half light and deep writhing shadows, her phone’s glow illuminating the fissures and chasms of her face as she laughs faintly. Unusually, her comedy show has been a success and her future is unfurling before her, the elusive gates to performative fame cracking open, allowing her into a forbidden world few ever cross the threshold into. Her house begins taking shape in the distance as a message from her boyfriend slides onto the screen. She quickly taps out a reply, ‘Almost home safe. hbu?’ An enthusiastic morning jogger pounds around the corner before her and she half-smiles, considering what could promote such ungodly motivation. The

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figure, a man, stops a few metres before her in the streetlight. He opens his mouth. His arms stretch.

The lights block out. *** Iris waits in the restaurant, the gentle thrum of dinner conversation gliding over the papered walls as she scrolls again over the last pages of Margaret Atwood’s novel on her phone, hoping no one will look at her too closely. The ornate door pushes inwards in a rush of cold air and her friends stumble laughingly across the threshold; a melee of coats and gloves and hats.

‘Sorry sorry sorry,’ Emerson kisses her on the cheek as he sits down between Beja and Akmal, ‘we thought because of the vigil we could walk through Princes Park but it’s still cordoned off. We had to go all the way around.’

Iris feels her mood sober, ‘You don’t expect it do you. Not right in your own backyard.

Rape and murder just seem like sensationalist words tossed around for news stories.’

‘I saw her perform once you know,’ London’s usual cheer has dissipated, ‘at some little comedy bar. She was funny too.’

Addison shrugs and turns to order. *** The waiter begins bringing over plates of food. Wagyu beef and seared scallops and smoked salmon lettuce cups clutter the table, delectable steam floating into the fragrant air.

‘It’s incredible how much attention her death is receiving,’ Emerson observes, slicing through his steak, ‘We ignore sexual assaults but they aren’t uncommon.’

‘That’s why though Emerson.

It’s hitting a nerve because of its commonality!’ Beja becomes quietly fervent. ‘Women are

READ

sick of the victim blaming. That policeman who said we need to be responsible for our own safety!’

Iris rolls her eyes. ‘He’s clearly clueless. I grip my keys through my fingers anytime I walk alone, cross the street anytime I see a man who looks even remotely shady.’

Luke stares at her, ‘Are you serious?’

‘Luke! All women do that,’ Addison insists, ‘we cover our drinks in bars to make sure no one can put something in them, sit in the backs of taxis, make sure our dresses aren’t too short or too tight. What do you guys do?’

They reply in unison.

‘Nothing.’ *** Leaving the restaurant the cold stabs them with its icy fingers as they link arms, a chain against the night.

‘I saw this earlier.’ London pulls out her phone displaying a clip from ABC’s 5:30 news broadcast.

‘Apparently this is our Premier, he talks about what Addison was saying before.’

‘We’ll keep asking “Why was she alone in the dark?” instead of asking “Why was he?” ... Women don’t need to change their behaviour. Men do.’

‘Let the man-hating begin!’ Luke gesticulates wildly.

‘Oh sorry to bruise your sensitive ego! It’s not man-hating it’s common sense!’ Beja stares him down and the conversation almost

moves on.

Luke persists, ‘But now all men are going to be judged as these monsters who go around attacking women.’

‘Right, like all women are told they were asking for it?’

The floodlights snap off and they glow in the flickering candlelight as heavy quiet falls punctuated only by the faded, polished voices of news presenters, insistent in their chronicle of grief.

Suspended in silence they move to the edge of the throng.

Silence falls.

‘We should go then,’ they all turn to Akmal, “to Princes Park, to show our support.’ *** The park is filled with people, blurry shapes and fading outlines breathing with the cold air that cloaks them in melancholy. They all hold a light. Burning beacons of candles and torches and lanterns calm in their attempt to reclaim the darkness. Iris reaches out and takes Addison’s hand who links arms with Beja and London as they weave through the hundreds of people who form a never-ending circumference of grief. Individuals slowly move towards the centre, placing bouquets of lilies amongst the flickering reverential lights that shine valiantly onwards despite the shadows. The choir begins to gracefully sing and the park is filled with voices, this empty violent place echoing as a woman is mourned, as all women are mourned. They are not just singing for the gone but crying for the living and Iris knows the empathy is universal. Akmal wraps his arms around her shoulders and the grass shudders against the rawness travelling through its veins.

‘Watch.’ Beja places her phone before them. ‘This is happening across the country, it isn’t just us.’

She clicks on a Facebook site where a vigil is being held in Adelaide, across the country Brisbane too glows in gentle silence.

Emerson shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Look at Hyde Park in Sydney.’ His screen burns blue and as they observe a list of names is spoken into the night. The voice doesn’t stop. Doesn’t pause for breath.

‘Who are they?’ London whispers.

‘Other women, other men, other victims who have been through the same thing.’ Addison’s words ripple with anguish.

Iris looks at the screen and hears the words of Margaret Atwood float in the back of her mind: Men are afraid that women will laugh at them, women are afraid that men will kill them.

***

northerly SPRING 2018 | 15

READ

Susie Warrick Young Writers Award: The runners-up

A Cuckold’s Web Mikaela Auld

There were six women fixed comfortably around the finely set bridge table. The seventh was not, but did indeed make an effort, to be comfortable, commenting on how lovely the new blinds were at regular intervals. She was mostly pre-occupied with other thoughts.

Subtly biting nails, she watched the toddler in the room across trying to jam a block into the wrong hole.

Somehow, the seventh player connected with the child, who was dressed up in Sunday bests for a lazy Tuesday afternoon, filled only with snotty noses and orange peels. She turned her attention back to the game.

‘I heard that Betty Walowitz is making her poor husband Gerald a cuckold,’ sneered the host, Mrs Izzy Montgomery, from under her glass of rosé. ‘Although that wouldn’t be the first time that happened

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around here,’ she paused, looking into her glass. ‘Isn’t that right, Theresa?’

cool water. She instantly regretted it, worrying about the makeup she had tried so hard to wear perfectly.

The women stared at bridge player number seven with sickly sweet smiles, some of them holding their cards protectively against their stifling giggles.

Theresa Pryor felt horror seep up from her stomach and out of her collar, spilling red on her cheeks.

How could they possibly know?

She fretted, unsure of what to do, like she was in most situations with women her age.

Memories of that morning came back, intruding into her vision as she blinked numbly at her blurry reflection. In her bedroom, the window was open just enough to let in the cool morning breeze, and from the confines of her bed, Theresa had welcomed the soft breath of day that brushed her forehead. Brightly painted toenails peeked out from under her covers beside her.

‘Well, I- I’m not…’ Theresa hesitated. A thousand curses coursed through her veins. Izzy raised her eyebrows at her, waiting for an answer. ‘...May I use your bathroom?’ was all she got in return.

They were pink and shining when the sunlight caught them.

When the girl beside her awoke, she squeaked in shock, choked down excuses and left with abrupt certainty (in that exact order).

Theresa hesitated only for a second before choosing her outfit for bridge. She was sure to secure her wedding ring back in place. This was something to be bottled up for later.

How could they possibly know?

She repeated to her reflection in the washroom mirror. If she had barely admitted it to herself, how could she be so easy to read? The tap turned on with shaking hands, and Theresa splashed her face with

And now here she was. Her throat was tightening with the

READ

recollection of what she had done.

You stupid woman, she spat.

Stupid, disgusting woman. She looked at herself in the spotless mirror. Skin pink and eyes wild.

At only twenty-four years old, she knew she was too young for a divorce. But there was no way that Grant would stand by her though this. Now all of these horrible women knew. All of these horridly perfect wives knew what she had done and what she was and they would tell their equally foul husbands and my life will be over, she whispered. The tap water had made her makeup blotchy and mascara gather under her eyes, and so wiping it away with scrunched up toilet paper, she decided that she needed to leave.

She could feel her footsteps vibrating up her calves and the sound of her high heels against the hardwood floors as she walked back to the table.

‘Ladies, I’m awfully sorry but, Grant needs me to pick up something before he gets back tonight,’ she lied swiftly, reaching for her purse on the upholstered chair she had vacated. Without waiting for their replies, she closed the stain-glassed front door behind her and staggered almost drunkenly to her Camaro, keys clanging in her hands. She thought to drive home, but there she would inevitably have to face her husband. No. I’ll just drive, she told herself, and sort this out.

The leather of the car seat was hot and her thighs instantly stuck to it. The dense heat of the car made her cough and her head pound. Theresa rolled down the windows with fervour and pulled out of the Montgomerys’ wellmanicured driveway and drove.

She couldn’t tell how long she had

driven for, until she had passed the borders of the suburbs and parked poorly on the edge of a winding track. A car passed her and honked aggressively. Still half on the road, her car left less than ample space for passers-by. Theresa didn’t care.

She just sobbed. How could I be so foolish? Why am I so stupid?

She was searching for answers to a question she had never dared to ask her whole life. The sun was starting to lower in the surrounding trees. Theresa remembered everything she had been trying to forget for so many years. ‘DYKE’ scrawled across notebooks.

Getting married young and quick and without hesitation, for all the wrong reasons. Wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, and squinting into the sun as it sunk brightly down, spilling out colours like a tipped over paint tin, she pulled back out onto the road.

Maybe she could make this right.

She didn’t see the truck as it sped up behind her. The truck driver didn’t see her either, too focused on the little boy wonder on the radio. As the two vehicles collided, they mixed and morphed together and their flames joined the colour of the sky. The paramedics retched when they pulled out her corpse.

At the Montgomerys’ house that night, Izzy sat her child up on her lap as her husband finished his dinner. ‘And it was strange, her leaving like that, so quickly,’ Izzy explained as her husband grunted with disinterest. ‘We only wanted to see if she knew about what Mrs Edin on Flock Street did.’ She gazed over to the living room at her daughter’s toy block stuck awkwardly and askew. Queer, she thought. ‘But I suppose we’ll see her next Tuesday.’

northerly SPRING 2018 | 17

INTERVIEW

Shifting paradigms: Bruce Pascoe and hidden history Yuin author Bruce Pascoe’s interest in history led him to the archives and early explorers’ accounts of Aboriginal society. Here he found a very different take on Indigenous technology, customs and ingenuity to many of the popular perceptions.

The resulting book, Dark Emu, argues for a reconsideration of the ‘hunter-gatherer’ tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. He discusses his research and writing with Katinka Smit.

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INTERVIEW

The Neil Gaiman poem ‘The Mushroom Hunters’ is predominantly an ode to women as ‘the first scientists’, but it also references how the first scientists in the world were Indigenous peoples.

We were involved in science and engineering. Some of our fish traps are beautiful pieces of architectural design and engineering, and I talk about them in Dark Emu, in reverence of the skill. But our women invented bread; 36,000 years ago (and probably much earlier than that) a woman in an act of incredible intellectual foresight decided to harvest grain, grind it into flour, mix it with water and, with an incredible understanding of chemistry, heat it and make bread. In terms of world science, it’s one of those breakthroughs in human development, and it started here.

How do you feel about the history of Australia having been so misconstrued, considering the evidence in the archives? What of the apparent obligations of historiographical practice?

I think that’s European intellectual life. If we’re going to repair that damage, we need to look at a different form of education.

European intellectual life is so Eurocentric, it doesn’t really take in other forms of thought. If we’re going to repair that lack, we’re going to have to look at the mind.

I’m very tempted to write a book called ‘The European Mind’, but I don’t want to because it’s going to be painful to do it. But I think the world needs to understand that the way Europeans think is not the only way to think.

There was a discussion on a panel at Byron Writers Festival 2017 with Kim Scott about Noongar classification systems, how plants and animals are placed in relation to where

they are from, which is a whole paradigm shift away from the European classification system.

Classification systems are fascinating to study. I’m a bird observer and interested in botany, so I use European classificatory systems and I enjoy it. I like to know that a parrot is related to these other birds. But in the Aboriginal mind, often we’re taught about the voicing – who is talking when – and that groups birds together. The magpie, the currawong and the raven are actually having a conversation: these creatures are interacting with each other. That changes your whole attitude to Country.

You pronominally identify as Indigenous – ‘this is who we are, this is what has happened’; but also as European – ‘we have done this, we’ve colonised’ – and also as Australian. Is this what decolonising the mind looks like?

I had to decolonise my mind from the assumption that whatever Europeans do is the pinnacle of human life so far on Earth.

I questioned my own Elders’ description of history, because I hadn’t been taught it at school. I was already at university learning history, European history. I thought I knew Australian history, yet they told me a completely different version of life in this country. I struggled with the idea that there could be any other form of life. I was inculcated with the European mind. But I also have to admit that I am part of that system. My family is solidly Cornish, and solidly Aboriginal. Without either of them, I don’t exist. You can’t deny any part of that which produced you.

You have to pay respect. But that doesn’t mean to say you can’t criticise.

You mentioned once that we need to learn to write about blackfellas as well as we do

about white fellas. Why do you think that (non-Indigenous) Australian authors generally find it difficult to adequately imagine Aboriginal characters?

We don’t understand our history. That avoidance of the real, fundamental facts of our occupation of this continent prevents us from really seeing Aboriginal people, because we’re actually not supposed to see Aboriginal people. So how can we write about them? We can only write about them in a distant sense. We don’t know how little we’ve extended ourselves to learn about it. We don’t hold a mirror up to ourselves, we don’t examine.

I was forced to do it. I’m not any better than anyone else. I knew nothing. But that meant that I was exposed to all the tricks, and all the lack, and the tininess.

You’ve written an array of books across genres, and multilingual stories as well. What was the genesis for this array of diversity?

I love writing and I love telling stories. There are different ways to tell stories and I don’t feel any of them are forbidden to me.

Our old people were storytellers.

The more I become immersed in my culture I’ve realised that in Aboriginal life, storytellers are revered. A community wants a spiritual person, a practical person, a nurturing person. They also want a storytelling person. My role in Aboriginal life has sanction. I’m continuously being asked by my own people to tell this or that story, or not to tell that story. Fellow writers think that’s terrible, but it’s not like that in Aboriginal ways or story; it’s something you can treasure. That story is within, you find a way to tell it in another way.

Dark Emu is published by Magabala Books.

northerly SPRING 2018 | 19

FEATURE

Voices in our heads: The impact of audiobooks on reading How does the immense popularity of audiobooks affect the way we read the written word? Jenny Bird examines how our experience of literature is now a hybrid affair.

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FEATURE

Who knows what is a book anymore? Who knows what is reading?

The rise and rise of digital audiobooks challenges both our shared understanding of what a book is as an object and the very act of reading itself.

Of course, over the long arc of human history listening to stories is nothing new. For millennia before Gutenberg we relied largely on the spoken word to share our stories.

Then came the hegemony of the book as printed text – to be read with our eyes on the page. In 1877 Edison invented the phonograph, from which came a long line of innovations that returned stories to the acoustic domain and created the opportunity to separate the narrator of the text from the listener in time and space.

We are neurologically wired in such a way that irrespective of the portal – eyes or ears – we create both visual and auditory imagery when language activates the relevant regions of our brains. Different kinds of language create different degrees of vividness – descriptive language activates more vivid visual imagery, and direct speech activates more vivid auditory imagery than does indirect speech.

Such is the magic of reading that even when we sit silently alone curled up in a chair with a good book we are busy creating our own theatre. And the theatre inside our reading brains is anything but silent.

When we read, most of us will employ our inner voice, which approximates our spoken voice, and add auditory imagery, which is a more purposeful imagining of the voices of characters and narrators in a book. We also borrow outside voices, accents, pronunciations, syntax, speed and rhythm to create character and meaning when we read. For example, I have a tin ear for a Scottish accent and my inner Scot sounds like a mongrel

mash up of Billy Connolly, Jimmy Barnes and the boys from the film Trainspotting. It’s not great but it’s the best I can manage.

Over the last few years audiobooks have quietly crept into our book club, for some of us transforming not only our reading practices but rendering more complex the nature of our monthly discussions. The narrator (in some cases narrators) of the audiobook had entered the room. Their performance became part of the review and analysis of the book. The question becomes whether it added to or detracted from the text, whether it gave more authentic voices to the characters than the ones we could create for ourselves, and whether an intimacy was created that sustained our attention throughout the book.

Not all of us are audiophiles. There are those who resist the audiobook altogether and there are those who read paper books and e-books and listen to audiobooks, but only in one medium at a time.

Recently my partner David and I have begun to wander back and forth between the audio and print versions of a book, and sometimes we read/listen to both at the same time. Our ‘switching’ between media seems to be driven by both pragmatic and literary needs.

‘From a convenience point of view, being able to switch from print to audio is very handy if I’m reading and my eyes get tired,’ says David, ‘but I’m engaged and I want to keep going.

‘I do have voices in my head when I read and sometimes they are confirmed when I switch to audio and sometimes not,’ he adds. For both of us, if the narration is done well, the voice of the narrator enhances and sometimes replaces the voices that we imagine in our heads.

Reflecting on my own practice, whilst I always start with reading, I find myself seeking out the audio version quite early in a book. I want

to hear a professional rendering of the voices of the narrator or characters. If done well, they are so much better and more true than my own, and within minutes a character has come alive. I then hold the audio performance, or perhaps graft it into my auditory imagery and retain it as I return to reading the print version. I was, for example, able to override my mashed up and male inner Scottish accent with a real Glaswegian accent for Eleanor, the first-person narrator in Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

Similarly, David describes reading/ listening to Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End. ‘An Irish actor read the book and it was superb. It was like having someone in the room with you telling you a long dramatic colourful story, and whilst reading the book was wonderful in itself having that voice carry me through was also wonderful.’

Of course, the reverse is also true.

David, who spent years living in the Pilbara in Western Australia, found the latter part of Peter Carey’s A Long Way From Home ‘disastrous because it was set in the Kimberleys and there are indigenous Kriol speakers, and the narrator had no idea how to read the Kriol. For my ear that was very, very jarring.’

Sometimes we read and listen simultaneously. ‘I don’t do it very often but it’s a rich thing to do because sometimes I’m surprised by exactly how that bit of text is read, how inflections are placed,’ says David.

Media scholars are not sure what the influence of audiobooks on reading practices might be in the long term, but for now there is much to explore.

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SCU SHOWCASE

A showcase of Southern Cross University student work, compiled by Dr. Lynda Hawryluk

Shades of Life Debra Turnbull

We ponder the need to be alone, and the desire to be with others.

A large woman runs a large dog, twins march in time-identical.

We are different like snowflakes, diving through gaps in barbwire.

A twisted lady and a linear labrador, mark the shore.

We are still hearts pounding in time, feeling the ancient earth’s hot breath.

Whispering through closed lips, bleeding soft prayers.

We are lost hopes, lost people, lost memories.

Human remains incriminated with baking debris foul the blessedness.

The sky makes no mistakes.

Debra Turnbull is in her final year of the Associate Degree in Creative Writing at SCU. Her passion is learning to make every word count and finding the rhythm in her writing. Debra plans to continue her studies in writing at the end of this course and will probably spend the rest of her life re-writing.

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BOOK REVIEW

The big D Girl Over the Edge

by Kim Hodges Review by Kathy Gibbings

Kim Hodges’ second memoir, Girl Over the Edge, is a journey over the rim of the world into the dangerous unknown. This is a hero’s tale and Kim is in a life and death struggle. Not with dragons or sirens luring her to the rocks, but with mental illness, alcohol, pills and thoughts of suicide.

Kim is unwilling to accept the diagnosis that she is mentally ill. She feels deep stigma and shame, an overwhelming fear of being judged, and of being locked away. Kim’s first book, Girl on the Edge (2016), introduced us to these issues.

In her rational moments, Kim knows that something is wrong. But she still can’t say the word ‘depression’, instead using ‘it’, ‘The Big D’, and ‘poison’.

Her therapist points out that she has no language for emotions. But while her emotions are mute, her body is not. When the poison is starting, ‘something washes all over my body. It swells up from my feet – right through my body and whips all over me – and then it’s gone in an instance.’

Sometimes it reaches her heart and clings to her shoulders. ‘When it reached this high, I felt scared and overwhelmed… It was really controlling me when I could taste it in my mouth and feel it on my skin.’ It is not as if Kim is seeking some kind of literary way to describe her illness. She is literally explaining how it sits on and in her body.

One of the most poignant descriptions of depression is when Kim’s world turns to grey. ‘The

grey grass ended at the headland’s edge and a lighter shade of grey caught my eye, the sea. As the perfectly formed waves broke, they became a lighter shade of grey… I even sensed the colours were there but I still couldn’t see them.’

Kim works as an academic and in sections of the text she draws on her intellectual faculties to consider creativity, madness and gender politics. This is interesting, but perhaps belong in a separate book or article. Much of Girl Over the Edge is immediate and visceral and these passages pull the reader out of the story.

Sometimes there is repetition of thoughts or themes, which may be intended to emphasise a point, but actually diffuse it. And at one point, Kim starts to use Yoda-speak where sentences are upended.

‘Appealing, this scenario was,’ or ‘Deserve this, they did not.’ There are a few instances of this, and they disrupt the natural flow of the text.

These are minor issues in what is a brilliant book.

There are people waging an internal war, living in terror, incurring mental injuries and scars, and returning to us shell-shocked. Kim is a reporter from the front line, describing her lived experience with great clarity. She has sacrificed her privacy to promote understanding among those who haven’t experienced mental illness and to shine a torch in the darkness for those who are in its midst.

Ventura Press / 400pp / $29.99 northerly SPRING 2018 | 23

BOOK REVIEW

Running dry Scrublands

by Chris Hammer Review by Colleen O’Brien

A year after a struggling country town has been shattered by the apparently pointless murder of five of its local citizens, a troubled journalist, Martin Scarsden, arrives to write a story about the aftermath. He finds a town devastated by drought, citizens divided about what truly happened, and more crimes lurking in the scrubland outside Riversend.

As the stories unravel, the city media flocks to Riversend to add its special brand of chaos. Scarsden finds himself involved in more than writing a story and is forced to look at his own demons before he can resurrect himself from the cauldron that is reshaping him and the town.

Scrublands is a complex crime novel with a number of storylines and well-portrayed characters. It is filled with the present lives of the main characters as well as the backstory of the priest who shot five people. There is also Scarsden’s war trauma and townspeople with hidden agendas: the policeman who had to investigate the crimes of his friend, Father Byron Swift; the local drunk and rapist of the mother of Mandalay, a bookshop owner, whom Scarsden falls in love with; the adolescents in the town and the dwellers in the scrubland – all of whom are hiding something.

At times the complexity is too much, but overall it has a well-paced arc. The narrative slows down, speeds up and wends back and forth, always in the stifling hot and oppressive township of Riversend and the nearby scrublands. The description of heat and dry is evocative, and depict the intensity and relentlessness of today’s drought. The township and Scarsden, and in some ways, Mandalay, are reforging themselves amid the pressures of the past crimes, their consequences and the heat that beats them and the town into a new shape.

Behind the pivotal characters is the theme of war and its effects. There is the statue of the World War One soldier who stands guard at the crossroads in the centre of town, the priest who has experienced war and brings it with him to a small town in southern New South Wales, and the journalist who is traumatised by it.

As in recent Australian crime novels by authors such as Garry Disher, Emma Viskic, Holly Brown, Allan Carter and Jane Harper, the setting is of paramount importance.

Riversend is every town in rural Australia. The town is failing to thrive, the young are moving out and crime and drugs moving in. People are desperate to give their lives meaning as they stagger in shock from the drought and the actions of a few that affect the many. The feeling of desertion and heat is visceral.

No doubt, the sense of place is enhanced by Chris Hammer’s previous non-fiction book, The River. In this, the author describes his journey through the same territory portrayed in the novel and it undoubtedly informed many of the characters.

There are a number of storylines and crimes that are interconnected. However, one of the main threads – why did the priest shoot five people? – was not convincing.

Its explanation comes late in the novel, which is great for suspense, but I felt it went unsaid for too long and the revelations were piecemeal and anti-climactic. Father Swift is the only character who isn’t fully realised, even though he has many complexities. The author is trying to juggle just that little bit too much. Even though most of it works, some of the plot points could easily have been left out and the book would have been ‘cleaner’.

However, it has great pace, interesting characters, a fantastic sense of place and a convoluted but generally satisfying plot. I definitely recommend it.

Allen & Unwin / 496pp / RRP$32.99

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BOOK REVIEW

Duty of care Hey Brother

by Jarrah Dundler Review by Polly Jude

When fourteen-year-old Trysten Black learns that his big brother and hero, Shaun, will finally get his chance to do a tour of duty in Afghanistan, Trysten is stoked. Shaun gives Trysten a mission before he is deployed: take care of Mum and stay out of trouble.

But in the months after Shaun leaves, Mum hits the bottle pretty hard and there’s not much Trysten can do to stop her downward spiral. Dad’s not much help either.

He’s fled to the bottom of the paddock where he’s been staying in a rusty old caravan near the creek. Then Uncle Trev shows up and doesn’t look like he’ll ever leave.

Mum and Trev start acting up, but there’s more to Uncle Trev than just the petty crim and beer-guzzling thug Trysten mistakes him for. Trysten’s not sure how he’ll keep either of his promises to Shaun.

Trysten and his best mate, Ricky, prove that some friendships are worth fighting for. Confused, angry, and in love for the first time, Trysten fights to stay afloat in a world that’s crumbling around him. He’s a rough and ready country kid. He’s got nothing and everything on his plate.

When the family learns that Shaun is set to return in time for Christmas, Mum pulls herself together and things are finally starting to look up for Trysten. But the war in Afghanistan has left its mark on Shaun and Trysten soon realises it’s Shaun he needs to take care of, and keeping him out of trouble is going to cause a whole lot of chaos.

health, alcoholism, friendship and loyalty. Hey Brother is about growing up, making choices and living with the consequences. Trysten’s rural setting will be relatable and familiar to Northern Rivers audiences who might recognise Little Town and Big Town as places just down the road.

Hey Brother is Jarrah Dundler’s first novel. After winning places in the Byron Writers Festival’s Residential Mentorship and the Varuna Writers Fellowship, the Kyogle-based writer shot onto the radar when he was shortlisted for The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 2017.

Hey Brother is fast, funny, at times heart-wrenching and just downright great. It will appeal to a wide range of readers, particularly reluctant male readers and North Coast locals who will recognise the familiar rural setting and lifestyle of Trysten and his family. Although Hey Brother features a young, male protagonist, Trysten’s journey will attract a diverse audience.

Dundler has skilfully crafted a novel that tackles all the big issues with refreshing honesty and charm. Trysten, like a lot of young Australians, is exploring the world around him and discovering that sometimes life is just a bit shit. Hey Brother is genuine, realistic and explores these issues with sensitivity and care, even though many of Trysten’s experiences are confronting. If this debut novel is anything to go by, you’ll be looking forward to Jarrah Dundler’s next novel.

This coming-of-age story explores challenging family dynamics, the highs and lows of country living, mental Allen & Unwin / 288pp / RRP$29.99 northerly SPRING 2018 | 25

WORKSHOPS

RIGOUR: CREATIVE THINKING & CURING WRITER’S BLOCK WITH M.E. BAIRD SATURDAY 16 FEBRUARY 10.00AM - 4.00PM Byron Writers Festival Office $50 / $40* (morning session)

UNDERSTANDING STORY STRUCTURE WITH LAUREL COHN SATURDAY 23 FEBRUARY 10.00AM - 4.00PM Byron Writers Festival Office $115 / $95*

$85 / $70* (full day) This workshop is split up into a morning seminar and an afternoon workshop. Participants can attend the seminar only if desired.

It has been claimed that those who are able to think creatively will be best equipped to problem solve and innovate into the future..

‘Rigour’ is designed not only for creatives but for anyone wanting to know how to think clearer, deeper and more creatively.’

M.E. Baird is a critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, occasional visual artist, creativity advocate and former academic. M.E. Baird has lectured and held senior teaching positions at various universities and art schools in New South Wales and Victoria for over twenty years.

This workshop will address some of the common structural issues found in manuscripts by editors and publishers. A story is like a creature; it can have a multitude of limbs and unusual features, but it needs to be able to stand on its own and deliver its creator’s intent.

In order to be viable, your story needs to have healthy vital organs and a strong spine.

Laurel Cohn is a book editor passionate about communication and the power of stories in our lives. As a developmental editor she has been helping writers since the 1980s prepare their work for publication. Laurel has a PhD in literary and cultural studies and publishes in the academic world.

For workshop details and to register visit byronwritersfestival.com/whats-on *Byron Writers Festival members or students 26 | SPRING 2018 northerly

A WINNING SUBMISSION WITH MARELE DAY

PODCASTING WITH SAMANTHA TURNBULL

SATURDAY 9 MARCH

SATURDAY 30 MARCH

POETRY: DEEP READING FOR BETTER WRITING WITH LISA BROCKWELL SATURDAY 6 APRIL

10.00AM - 4.00PM

10.00AM - 4.00PM

Byron Writers Festival Office

Byron Writers Festival Office

10.00AM - 4.00PM

$60 / $50*

$120 / $100*

Byron Writers Festival Office $115 / $95*

You have been working away at your brilliant manuscript and now feel it is ready to share with the world. This half-day workshop will give you strategies for writing a distinctive submission that will get your work noticed by agents, publishers, competition judges, and residencies such as Varuna and Byron Writers Festival Residential Mentorship.

We will focus on developing a professional approach to submitting manuscripts, identifying what makes your work distinctive, tagline, synopsis and cover letter.

Suitable for writers of fiction or narrative non-fiction. Bring your synopsis to the workshop.

Marele Day’s four-book Claudia Valentine series won her a Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award for crime writing. Her bestselling literary novel, Lambs of God, was published to international acclaim and is soon to be a major TV miniseries.

Anyone can make a podcast with a microphone and a computer, but creating a good one that people (beyond friends and family) listen to is a little more difficult.

This workshop will focus on what makes a successful podcast, with an emphasis on writing, producing, presenting and promoting. It will also include an introduction to editing, and the nuts and bolts of how to record and release your own podcast. This workshop is suitable for content-makers across all genres. Participants will need a smartphone and headphones.

Samantha Turnbull is the writer of hit ABC children’s podcasts Fierce Girls and Animal Sound Safari. Fierce Girls was number one across all categories in Australia on iTunes, and Animal Sound Safari reached top spot in the children’s and family category.

Reading poems deeply is a surefire way to write better poems.

In this workshop we will read a selection of great poems closely, to see what makes them tick and to enjoy what they can do. For all skill levels, from published poets to those just starting out.

Lisa Brockwell lives on a rural property near Byron Bay with her husband and young son. She was runner-up in the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize in 2015, and has been shortlisted for the Australian Catholic University, Newcastle, Montreal International and Bridport Poetry Prizes. Her poems have been published in The Spectator, Australian Love Poems, The Canberra Times and Best Australian Poems.

Sam is also a features reporter at the ABC and regularly produces her own radio features/documentaries.

northerly SPRING 2018 | 27

Competitions FICTION FACTORY SHORT STORY COMPETITION

FORTY SOUTH PUBLISHING TASMANIAN WRITERS’ PRIZE

This UK-based competition is open to international submissions of short stories of up to 3,000 words in length. Cash prizes are on offer (ranging from £25 to £150) as well as optional critique of stories. Winning stories will be published online and in an anthology at a later date. Entry fee is £6 and the optional critique is £8 – entries close 30 January.

For more information visit: www. fiction-factory.biz

This competition is open to Australian or New Zealand residents for short stories of up to 3,000 words with an island or island-resonant theme. The winner will receive a prize of $500 and anthology publication – a selection of other entries also will be published. There is an entry fee of $20 per story, with a deadline of 17 February.

For further details go to www. fortysouth.com.au/tasmanianwriters-prize/

HAL PORTER SHORT STORY COMPETITION Australian writers are invited to enter short stories on any theme to this competition, which offers the winner prize money of $1,000. Entries should not exceed 2,500 words with a deadline for entries of 10 December. Each entry must be accompanied by a $10 administration fee.

For full conditions visit www. eastgippslandartgallery.org.au/ halporter2018

WB YEATS POETRY PRIZE There is a fifty-line limit for the 2018 WB Yeats Poetry Prize, which invites entries in an open style.

Winner takes $500, with second and third winning $75. Entries are via email or post, with a deadline of 31 March. There is a fee of $10 for the first entry and $4 for further entries.

Full details are available at www. wbyeatspoetryprize.com/

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CARMEL BIRD DIGITAL LITERARY AWARD Set up by publishers Spineless Wonders, the Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award is open to collections of short prose with a total word count of no more than 30,000. The writing may be fiction or creative non-fiction and be comprised of short stories, micro-fiction or a novella – entries close on 3 February and there is an entry fee of $25. Winner receives $3,000 and two runners up $1,000. For full terms and conditions visit www. shortaustralianstories.com.au

BUZZ WORDS SHORT STORY PRIZE The Buzz Words Short Story Prize is a new competition aiming to recognise excellence in short story writing for children. First prize takes $1,000. Entries should be an original short story of no more than 1,500 words and suitable for readers aged eight to eleven. There is an entry fee of $10 and entrants

should be permanent residents of Australia. Deadline for entries is 31 December. The inaugural judge for the competition is author Jackie French. For further details visit www.buzzwordsmagazine.com/p/ prize.html

CALIBRE ESSAY PRIZE The Calibre Essay Prize, run by Australian Book Review, is one of the world’s leading prizes for a new essay and is worth a total of $7,500. The competition is open to all essayists writing in English.

Essays should be between 2,000 and 5,000 words on any subject and can be personal or political, literary or speculative, traditional or experimental. First prize wins $5,000 with second taking $2,500. Deadline for entries is 14 January, while there is an entry fee of $25 ($15 for ABR subscribers). For more information go to www.australianbookreview. com.au/prizes-programs/calibreprize

THE JOHN O’BRIEN LITERARY AWARDS The John O’Brien Literary Awards is open in two categories, Short Story and Poetry, on the theme of ‘Singing out for rain’. Short story entries should be between 1,000 and 2,000 words, while the poetry entries should be of no more than forty-eight lines. Prize money is to be confirmed at time of print, while there is an entry fee of $10.

The closing date for entries is 29 January. For further details go to www.johnobrien.org.au/ bush-poetry-competitions/openwriting-competition-guidelines/

THE FANTASTICA PRIZE The Fantastica Prize invites Australian and New Zealand writers to submit to science fiction manuscripts of no more than 30,000 words. First prize wins $2,000 and print and digital publication through Fantastica. No more than 10 per cent of manuscripts should have been previously published.

There is no entry fee and a deadline for submissions of 31 January. For full entry conditions visit www. briobooks.com.au/blog/2018/5/8/ fantastica-sf-prize

THE NATURE CONSERVANCY NATURE WRITING PRIZE This award, worth $5,000, invites essays of between 3,000 and 5,000 words in the genre of ‘Writing of place’. This year’s entries are Delia Falconer and Tom Griffiths, while there is an entry fee of $30. The deadline for submissions of 1 February, with the winner announced in May. The prize is open to Australian citizens and permanent residents.

For more information go to www.tncnaturewritingprize. submittable.com/submit/125002/ the-nature-conservancy-naturewriting-prize-2019

NEWCASTLE SHORT STORY AWARD This competition invites short stories of up to 2,000 words on any theme. First prize wins $3,000, second prize $1,700 and third prize $1,000. This year’s judges are Annabel Smith and Tim Richards. Entries close on 4

February, while there is an entry fee of $16.50. For full details log on to www.hunterwriterscentre. org/newcastle-short-storyaward-2019/

BRONZE SWAGMAN AWARD The 48th Bronze Swagman Award invites submissions of traditional bush verse with rhyme and rhythm and on an Australian theme. There is an entry fee of $20 with no limit on number of entries. The winner takes $500 and a bronze statuette of the swagman, and there are further awards for runners-up and highly commended. Entries close on 30 April. For complete entry details go to www.abpa.org.au/events.html

THE WOMBAT AWARD The Wombat Award for poetry is organised by the Henry Lawson Memorial & Literary Society.

Children aged twelve or younger are invited to enter up to three poems on the theme of ‘Our heritage’. First prize wins $100, second prize $75 and third prize $50. The school libraries of the winning entries will also receive prizes. The judge is children’s author Meredith Costain.

Entries close on 30 April and there is no entry fee. For more information go to www.henrylawsonsociety. org/the-wombat-award/

TOM COLLINS POETRY PRIZE The Tom Collins Poetry Prize invites poetry entries of up to 60 lines on an open theme. First prize wins $1,000, second prize $300 and third prize $100. There is an entry fee of $10 and a deadline for submissions of 15 December. Entrants should be residents of Australia. For more information go to www.fawwa.org/ competitions

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northerly SPRING 2018 | 29

Writers Groups Alstonville Plateau Writers Group

Meets second Friday of each month, 10am - 12pm. All genres welcome, contact Kerry on (02) 6628 5662 or email alstonvilleplateauwriters@outlook.com

Ballina/Byron U3A Creative Writing

Meets every second Wednesday at 12pm, Fripp Oval, Ballina. Contact Ann Neal on (02) 6681 6612.

Bangalow Writers Group

Meets Thursdays at 9:15am at Bangalow Scout Hall.

Contact Simone on 0407 749 288

Bellingen Writers Group

Meets at Bellingen Golf Club on the fourth Monday of the month at 2pm. All welcome, contact Joanne on (02) 6655 9246 or email jothirsk@restnet.com.au

Byron Bay Memoir and Fiction Writing Group

Dunoon Writers Group

Writers on the Block. Meets second Tuesday of each month, 6:30pm – 8:30pm at Dunoon Sports Club.Contact Helga on (02) 6620 2994 (W), 0401 405 178 (M) or email heg.j@telstra.com

FAW Port Macquarie-Hastings Regional

Meets 1pm on last Saturday of each month, Maritime Museum, Port Macquarie. Contact Joie on (02) 6584 3520 or email Bessie on befrank@tsn.cc

Gold Coast Writers Association

Meets third Saturday of each month, 1:30pm for 2pm start, at Fradgley Hall, Burleigh Heads Library, Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads. Contact 0431 443 385 or email info@goldcoast-writers.org.au

Kyogle Writers

Meets monthly at Sunrise Beach, Byron Bay. Contact Diana on 0420 282 938 or diana.burstall@gmail.com

Meets first Tuesday of each month, 10:30am at Kyogle Bowling Club. Contact Brian on (02) 6624 2636 or email briancostin129@hotmail.com

Byron Writers

Lismore Writers Group

Every Tuesday 10am to 12pm, Byron Bay Library.

Contact the library on (02) 6685 8540.

Casino Writers Group

Meets every third Thursday of the month at 4pm at Casino Library. Contact Brian on (02) 6628 2636 or email briancostin129@hotmail.com

Cloudcatchers

For Haiku enthusiasts. A ginko (haiku walk) is undertaken according to group agreement. Contact Quendryth on (02) 6653 3256 or email quendrythyoung@bigpond.com

Coffs Harbour Writers Group

Meets 1st Wednesday of the month 10.30am to 12.30pm. Contact Lorraine Penn on (02) 6653 3256 or 0404 163 136, email: lmproject@bigpond.com. www.coffsharbourwriters.com

Coffs Harbour Memoir Writers Group

Share your memoir writing for critique. Monthly meetings, contact 0409 824 803 or email costalmermaid@gmail.com

Cru3a River Poets

Meets every Thursday at 10:30am, venue varies, mainly in Yamba. Contact Pauline on (02) 6645 8715 or email kitesway@westnet.com.au

Dorrigo Writers Group

Meets every second Wednesday from 10am-2pm. Contact Iris on (02) 6657 5274 or email an_lomall@bigpond.com or contact Nell on (02) 6657 4089

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Meets second Tuesday of the month from 6pm to 8pm at Communities Hub Art Space on Keen Street. Cost is $5 for Hub members, $7.50 for non-members. For more details phone 0410 832 362.

Nambucca Valley Writers Group

Meets fourth Saturday of each month, 1:30pm, Nambucca.

Contact (02) 6568 9648 or nambuccawriters@gmail.com

Taree-Manning River Scribblers

Meets second Wednesday of the month, 9am-11:30am, Taree. Call first to check venue. Contact Bob Winston on (02) 6553 2829 or email rrw1939@hotmail.com

Tweed Poets and Writers

Meets weekly at the Coolangatta Senior Citizens Centre on Tuesdays from 1:30 to 3:30pm, NSW time. Poets, novelists, playwrights, short story writers are all welcome. Phone Lorraine (07) 5524 8035 or Pauline (07) 5524 5062.

WordsFlow Writing Group meets Fridays during school term, 12:30pm-3pm, Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre, 12a Elizabeth St, Pottsville Beach. Contact Cheryl on 0412 455 707 or visit www.wordsflowwriters.blogspot.com

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