northerly Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine Spring 2021
ALISON CROGGON
GEOFF CROWTHER
HELEN BURNS
CARLIE DALEY
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Contents Spring 2021 Features 008 Geoff Crowther remembered Tony Wheeler pays tribute to an icon of travel guides and a muchloved local character. 010 Family matters Alison Croggon discusses her memoir Monsters, and the state of criticism in Australia. 014 Flowers of life Helen Burns on the inspiration behind her new novel, Andal’s Garland. 016 Young talent Polly Jude reports on a new Northern Rivers writing initiative in schools, Rivers Brain Storm. 019 Staying strong Hayley Lawrence reflects on writing, upheaval and change in the wake of the pandemic. 020 Fantasy festival Rebecca Ryall speculates what the 2021 Festival may have been with an imagined review of the three days. 023 Poets Out Loud Read the winning poem from this year’s Poets Out Loud Youth Slam in Murwillumbah.
Regulars 002 A note from the Festival 003 News & Events StoryBoard’s new bus, 2021 Festival update, Franzen digital event and more. 006 Feature poet Two works from Carlie Daley. 012 From the Reading Chair Laurel Cohn on the importance of an effective opening in fiction. 018 Southern Cross University Showcase Poetry from Bronte-Maye Stanmore. 024 Sleeper class Sean Doyle’s Night Train to Varanasi reviewed by Liat Kirby. 026 What YA Reading? Polly Jude reviews new releases in YA fiction.
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. Held on the land of the Arakwal Bumberbin People of the Byron Shire. We pay respect to the traditional owners of this land and acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this region. LOCATION/CONTACT P: 02 6685 5115 F: 02 6685 5166 E: info@byronwritersfestival.com W: byronwritersfestival.com PO Box 1846, Byron Bay NSW 2481 EDITOR Barnaby Smith, northerlyeditor@gmail.com CONTRIBUTORS Helen Burns, Laurel Cohn, Carlie Daley, Polly Jude, Imani Hannaford, Liat Kirby, Hayley Lawrence, Rebecca Ryall, Beowulf Sheehan, Bronte-Maye Stanmore, Tony Wheeler PROOFREADER Rebecca Ryall BYRON WRITERS FESTIVAL BOARD CHAIRPERSON Adam van Kempen VICE CHAIR Lynda Hawryluk TREASURER Cheryl Bourne SECRETARY Hilarie Dunn MEMBERS Daniel Browning, Marele Day, Lynda Dean, Grace Lucas-Pennington LIFE MEMBERS Jean Bedford, Jeni Caffin, Gayle Cue, Robert Drewe, Jill Eddington, Russell Eldridge, Chris Hanley, John Hertzberg, Fay Knight, Irene O’Brien, Jennifer Regan, Cherrie Sheldrick, Brenda Shero, Heather Wearne MAIL OUT DATES Magazine is published in MARCH, JUNE, SEPTEMBER and DECEMBER PRINTING Summit Press 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. CONNECT WITH US Visit byronwritersfestival.com/members to find out more about becoming a member.
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027 Workshops 028 Competitions northerly SPRING 2021 | 01
Director’s note At the time of writing most of us are in lockdown again with a sense that time has entered a new dimension and our worlds are all reduced to their respective five-kilometre radii. Time to look to enduring friendships, long walks, comfy chairs and calm spaces – and new and favourite books by talented storytellers who’ll take us on journeys far and wide. We know so many of you were looking forward to journeying to Byron for the 2021 Festival and feel so sad for all concerned that we had to again cancel our celebration. But we look to the future and take solace from local author Melissa Lucashenko who encourages us all to… keep our eyes fixed on the horizon – anything is possible there. More immediately, you may have seen that we are ‘bringing’ Jonathan Franzen to Byron (digitally) for his first Australian event to mark his new novel Crossroads. Be sure to join us for that special occasion and keep an eye out too for Judy Atkinson’s 2021 Thea Astley Address, Listening to Truth Telling. Our free digital Schools Program is available to schools across the Northern Rivers from 23 August until 17 September, so please let your local schools know to jump on board and share with their students. Thanks to the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund and Southern Cross University for their support of this project. Staying positive matters, so here are some suggestions from the Festival Team of things we are loving at the moment: • Desert Pea Media’s beautiful, calming film Bunyarra featuring Arakwal Bundjalung woman Delta Kay (available on YouTube). • Armchair travel with Pip Williams’ One Italian Summer (Affirm Press) – so vividly written it salves the yearnings, especially for Italy. • Author Holly Ringland on ABC TV iView’s Back to Nature with Aaron Pedersen, exploring the wonder and awe of the Australian landscape. • The Well Gardened Mind: Rediscovering Nature in the Modern World by Sue Stuart-Smith explores the restorative power of the natural world. • AGNSW’s exhibition of Swedish visionary artist Hilma af Klint’s ‘secret paintings’ online. • Daily Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Everyday Life – a daily email meditation at dailystoic.com • Author of Darkness is Golden (HarperCollins Australia) Mary Hoang’s contemporary sound bath workshops: Listen Up! designed to enhance your relationship with both sound and yourself: theindigoproject.com. au/courses-events/ • Being Human spoken-word performance by Naima Penniman to help put everything into perspective. • If you are in Queensland, immerse yourself in the paintings of William Robinson at HOTA and the European Masters at QAGOMA. Or maybe you just want to sit on the verandah and listen to the birds… Wherever you are, we wish you solace and can’t wait till we are able to gather together with you again in person. Stay safe and well,
Edwina Johnson Director, Byron Writers Festival 02 | SPRING 2021 northerly
NEWS
Margin Notes News, events and announcements from Byron Writers Festival
Update on 2021 Festival programming
their creativity and freedom of expression, a new StoryBoard bus was purchased in February 2021 (pictured left). Artwork for the bus was created by artist Justine Wallace using elements of the old bus and introducing new illustrations to create a fun and fresh look. In honour of Jesse, one illustration features a ‘young’ Jesse surfing alongside a huge whale on a paper plane. We are looking forward to many more joyous adventures in the StoryBoard bus. Thanks to the NSW Government for supporting StoryBoard and the purchase of the bus.
Since announcing the cancellation of 2021 Byron Writers Festival, messages of love, support, understanding and encouragement have flooded in from across the country. Our spirit is bolstered by the realisation that the Byron Writers Festival is so deeply valued by our Festival family and the wider community. Rest assured, we will be back in 2022! In the meantime, the Festival will be curating a small selection of would-be 2021 Festival conversations as podcasts over the coming months. Some Festival workshops are moving online, (see the workshops page), plus, stay tuned for rescheduled live events throughout the region later in the year, pending restrictions. Rescheduled events will be updated at byronwritersfestival. com/whats-on, and 2021 Festival sessions released as podcasts will be available via byronwritersfestival.com/digital
StoryBoard’s new bus hits the road After six years and up to 200,000 kilometres clocked up travelling far and wide to schools, regional libraries and community festivals in the Northern Rivers, StoryBoard’s colourful Mercedes bus was finally retired in early 2021.
Jonathan Franzen: Crossroads digital event
Jesse Blackadder’s dream of running a creative literacy program for young people in the region came to fruition in 2015 with the launching of StoryBoard. At the time of her passing in 2020, an exceptional author and illustrator team had reached over 25,000 young people from as far west as Kyogle to Kempsey in the south and Tweed Heads in the north.
In his first Australian event celebrating the release of his highlyanticipated new work Crossroads, the singular Jonathan Franzen (pictured below) will discuss family, America, and where the modern novel must go from here with ABC
To carry on Jesse’s inspiring legacy of providing regional young people with opportunities to enhance
northerly SPRING 2021 | 03
NEWS
Cover story The cover for the Spring issue of northerly features artwork by Sydneybased painter Jacqueline Hennessey, who is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery in Brisbane. This work is entitled This is not a love song I, 2020, oil on linen, photography by Mim Sterling. Referencing photographic images of her own body, Hennessy makes paintings that point toward the experience of self as an essence, or state of flux, arising in the gap ‘betwixt and between’ the opposed dualisms of visible and invisible, form and formless, matter and spirit, whole and fragment, and ultimately, life and death. By setting up a dialogue between painting and photography, Hennessy questions painting’s capacity to transform photographic self-imagery in such a way that it conveys a more complex and enigmatic representation of the phenomena of being in the world as a female self. To see more of her work, go to jacquelinehennessy.com Radio National’s Sarah Kanowski. This exclusive conversation will be available to view online and on-demand for one week only, from 7.30pm, Tuesday 5 October until 7.30pm, Tuesday 12 October. Presented in partnership with The Wheeler Centre and Newcastle Writers Festival. For details and to book, head to byronwritersfestival.com/whats-on
2021 Residential Mentorship recipients Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 Residential Mentorship: Lee Adendorff for Glow Fly, Vivienne Pearson for Dawn of the Ending, John Stevens for Cochsure and Paul Thomas for The Beacon. In September, these four writers will come together at a glorious hinterland location to develop and refine their manuscripts under the guidance of Lambs of God author Marele Day. Thanks to all those who submitted. Many of your manuscripts showed tremendous promise, so please, keep writing and honing your work!
04 | SPRING 2021 northerly
Congratulations to our Student Writing Prize winners A big congratulations to our winners, runners-up and everyone who submitted their stories to our annual Student Writing Prizes. Overall, we received over 130 submissions across all three categories of the Susie Warrick Young Writers Award and the Jesse Blackadder Prize, and were overwhelmed with the quality, creativity and originality of the submissions. We feel very lucky to live in a region with such creative young talent. Susie Warrick Young Writers Award Category 1 (Years 10-12) first place went to ‘Nipotino’ by Luisa Santucci, with ‘I Do Not Know Which to Prefer’ by Saoirse Chu snagging runner-up. Category 2 (Years 7-9) winner was ‘The Hunter’ by Floyd Whitaker, with ‘The Alley’ by Elise Nikkinen coming in runner-up. The Jesse Blackadder Prize (Years 5-6) first place went to ‘Allegro Presto’ by Edith Barber, and runnerup went to ‘The Thief’ by Caleb Scherrer.
The winning stories will be published in the next edition of northerly magazine and runner-up stories will be published online on the Byron Writers Festival blog.
Thanks to The Book Room and Pukka Herbs Sending a big shout out to The Book Room Collective and Pukka Herbs for their support over (what would have been) Festival weekend. Our official bookseller donated ten per cent of all in-store and online sales to Byron Writers Festival, and Pukka Herbs sprinkled some Festival magic around by providing a Pukka tea gift with every purchase at The Book Room. Many thanks to John and Karen from The Book Room for their generous donation and to Pukka Herbs for providing the tea to enjoy with those new books!
Digital Schools Program reaches students throughout the Northern Rivers For the second year running, Byron Writers Festival has curated a free on-demand Festival program for Northern Rivers schools. The aim of the program is to give primary and secondary schools who cannot attend the live Festival due to economic or geographical constraints the chance to engage with acclaimed authors. Following
NEWS
Than, Amie Kaufman and Oliver Phommavanh; and four secondary schools authors, Randa AbdelFattah (pictured at bottom left), Eddie Jaku, Will Kostakis and Nevo Zisin.
cancellation of the Festival this year, it provided a way for local schools to bring authors directly to their classrooms. The uptake was considerable, with more than 150 class groups engaging with the program, which launched on 23 August. The stellar program featured four primary schools authors, Davina Bell, Gavin Aung
The program is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund and Southern Cross University.
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Congratulations to performer, teacher and recording artist Greg Sheehan on the publication of his book The Rhythm Diaries. gregsheehan.com.au
Congratulations to Byron Writers Festival member and Yamba-based author Julie Campbell, who has recently published her memoir The Butcherbird Sings, a story about love, devotion and hope in the face of neurodegenerative disease. In other local news, students at Southern Cross University in Lismore have recently launched a new literary magazine, Flunk. Now on its third issue, the journal features the writing, art and media of Southern Cross University students, and is edited by Snowy Frankland. For more information visit flunkmagazine.com Finally, local author and occasional northerly contributor Emma Ashmere was recently longlisted for the 2021 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award with her story The Missing, while northerly editor Barnaby Smith was recently shortlisted for the UK’s Erbacce Prize for Poetry.
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The magazine you currently hold in your hands, northerly (the official publication of Byron Writers Festival), is seeking anyone in the local community keen to contribute book reviews, literary essays, opinion pieces or author interviews. Experience not necessary, just a strong interest in books and literary culture and an ability to string a nice sentence together. And if you are a member of Byron Writers Festival and have some exciting news, be it success in a competition, acceptance to a prestigious journal, a book deal or similar, we’re keen to hear about it to sing your praises in these pages. Whether you are interested in writing for northerly or just want to share some news, email northerlyeditor@gmail.com northerly SPRING 2021 | 05
POETRY
Feature Poet: Carlie Daley Mulberry Trees Mulberries are rotting on their branches
clotting blood along bark skeins
we used to gorge on them
bellies full of cloying sweetness
plucking ripe ones with fingers
crushing rotten ones with toes
slipping skins off down by the river
washing bloodied mouths clean before dinner
Some year we grew weary of the berries
slits of flesh and simmering skin
more compelling than childish games
As if beyond the flesh was a portal to a kind of heaven
afterwards, guilt curdling in our guts like rotten cream
Pop said women looked cheap drinking beer
So, I got high instead
mother glaring between forkfuls of lasagne
granny only had 3 party dresses
& a plastic virgin mary
with a neon heart
plastered above her bed
make-up case at death
containing life’s ashes
06 | SPRING 2021 northerly
crumbs of eyeshadows and lipsticks
decades old and never worn
POETRY
In time In time, you will take your Bukowski books John Fante novels Robert Crumb comics record player and eclectic collection including Romany wedding band music & Dr Octagon albums catalogue of Iron Maiden shirts spanning decades Tarkovsky & Herzog films male canons of cool and gardening tools; collection of endearing pieces of old underwear and socks electric drill and lawn mower row of various guitars accordion and harmonium coffee grinder with the broken blade, set of knives Lady of Kazan figure resplendent with gold paint, and those three naked Victorian-era ladies in that yellow wooden frame who followed us dutifully from house to house you will take it all away from the shelves; from the house; from the shed; from the bedroom and I will feel the wind howl between those spaces like the gaps in mouths from rotten, pulled teeth.
Carlie Daley lives in Northern NSW. She has had pieces published in The Long Paddock, Southerly, Gargouille, Capsule, Frostwriting, and Australian Poetry Anthology. She was the winner of the City of Stonnington Literary Festival – Poetry Open Age – NonStonnington prize in 2018 and published her first chapbook with Dancing Girl Press in 2019. northerly SPRING 2021 | 07
FEATURE
Vale Geoff Crowther Geoff Crowther, intrepid traveller and adventurer, pioneering guidebook writer, much-loved eccentric and Northern Rivers favourite, died earlier this year at the age of seventy-seven. Here Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet, pays tribute to an icon of travel who undoubtedly succeeded in making the planet a little less lonely. He sold millions of books, he played a key role in overthrowing an African dictator, he was banned in another African country, maps he drew were shown alongside a Tolkien map of Middle Earth in a display at the British Library, and he was from just outside Byron Bay. However, his death in April 2021 went virtually unnoticed in Australia, apart from an obituary in the Byron Shire Echo. 08 | SPRING 2021 northerly
Unnoticed in Australia perhaps, but elsewhere in the world Geoff Crowther’s departure prompted lengthy reports in every Times you can mention: The Times of London, The Financial Times, even The New York Times all noted the key role Geoff, from his rainforest retreat at Burringbar, played for travellers all over the world, in that pre-pandemic golden era of independent travel.
I turned up in Australia – fresh off Asia’s hippie trail – in 1972 and with my wife Maureen created Lonely Planet the following year. Lonely Planet quickly needed more writers and Geoff was clearly our man. In London, he was the travel expert behind the BIT Guides, the main funding source for the very 1960s ‘underground information centre’, BIT. Pete Townshend and Paul McCartney may have helped
FEATURE
to keep BIT afloat, but it was the travel guides which were the key backing. Then the 1960s ended, BIT was grinding to a halt and I suggested to Geoff that he turn his work on Africa into the first Lonely Planet Africa. Forty-four years later, that Africa guidebook is still the only publication in the world to cover every country on the continent. What about South America, I suggested, and Geoff headed off to Central and then South America and emerged with a second classic guidebook, South America on a Shoestring. Instead of heading back to chilly England to write up his extensive research, Geoff relocated to Australia, taking up residence in an old banana shed on what had become a commune just outside Burringbar. With that book on the shelves, Geoff’s next destination was India where he played a key role in the book I still look upon as Lonely Planet’s proudest creation. For months, Geoff shuttled back and forth between northern New South Wales and my place in Melbourne, putting together a guidebook that was both a critical and popular success: it won a guidebook of the year award in London and sold like those proverbial hotcakes. In fact, it sold so well that Geoff was soon employing every craftsperson on the commune to put together a beautiful home with a soaring roof inspired by the Batak houses of North Sumatra in Indonesia. Of course, mains power was still far away, so Geoff’s computers, printers and communications equipment were powered by arrays of solar cells, decades before solar power became an everyday (and cheap) commodity. In between housebuilding and book-writing Geoff also continued to travel, particularly in Africa,
where his comments on Malawi’s ‘President for Life’, Hastings Banda, earned him and his Africa guide a ban from the country. African travellers sometimes went to extraordinary lengths to smuggle their copy of Africa on a Shoestring into Malawi. I was once shown a copy of a hardback schoolbook, a British-colonial-era history of Rhodesia – the country which today has become Zambia and Zimbabwe. Flipping the cover open and turning over a few pages revealed that the school text mysteriously metamorphosed into Geoff’s Africa guide.
In 1991, Reuters correspondent Aidan Hartley was the only journalist with the rebels on their way to overthrowing the despotic Ethiopian dictator Mengistu. As they approached Addis Ababa the rebel commander told Hartley he had not been in the capital for many years and most of his men had never been there. Despite their captured Soviet tanks, he was afraid they would get lost in the city’s streets. In
his book The Zanzibar Chest Hartley recounted that all he could provide was the Addis Ababa map from his copy of Africa on a Shoestring, but that proved perfectly adequate. Printed off from a commandeered photocopier, the guidebook map was used as the tanks rolled into the city. Lonely Planet guides were often good at finding the best hotel or restaurant, the hottest bars, the right bus stations, but as far as I know this is the only occasion a guidebook was used to overthrow a government. And that mapping encounter with JRR Tolkien? In 2016 the British Library in London mounted a major exhibition, Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line. In one display cabinet, a map of Middle Earth, which Tolkien used to plot the storyline of Lord of the Rings, was juxtaposed with Geoff’s maps and notes in his journal from researching the first edition of South America on a Shoestring. Despite endurance and a work ethic which left almost everybody in his wake, Geoff’s full-on approach to life sometimes went a little too far and it was probably too much indulgence in the amber fluid which led to a stupid household accident and a brain injury that resulted in a decade-long spell in a nursing home outside Byron Bay. It was a cruel end to a life lived at full throttle and in every corner of the earth, but there are still Crowther connections to Byron Bay. Hyung Poon, his Korean former wife whom he met while working on the Lonely Planet guide to the country, still lives in Byron Bay, although their son Ashley, clearly infected by his father’s travel bug, is currently living in Korea. In between everywhere else of course.
northerly SPRING 2021 | 09
INTERVIEW
Confronting monsters: Alison Croggon interviewed Alison Croggon’s acclaimed memoir, Monsters, is a true exercise in literary innovation in its melding of memoir and essay, addressing the painful breakdown of a family relationship as well as questions of colonialism, culture and history. Croggon, who was due to appear at Byron Writers Festival 2021, is also the arts editor of The Saturday Paper and an award-winning critic, poet and novelist. What was the initial motivation for writing Monsters? It’s one of those books that has been years in the making, in that the questions that impelled it have been bothering me for decades, and I’ve had several attempts, in both prose and poetry, to address them. What specifically prompted it was the painful breach with one of my sisters around five years ago, which 10 | SPRING 2021 northerly
threw all those old questions into sharp and painful relief. Were there any other memoirs that particularly influenced the style and structure of the book? Quite a few. I’ve always been attracted to hybrid works that resist easy classification, a reflection maybe of my own working across and between genres – I started off as a poet, and have worked as a
critic, a theatre writer and as a genre novelist, among other things. Form is a crucial part of expression, and I have always been interested in bending or breaking it: my first ever prose work, Navigatio, was actually a blend of memoir/essay and fiction, in alternating chapters, and was an early attempt at Monsters. I didn’t get it right, so this is my latest attempt. And I sincerely hope I never have to do it again.
INTERVIEW
Maybe the first book in terms of influence that springs to mind is Gillian Rose’s Love Work, because that’s a very personal and painful journey that’s also a work of philosophy, of thinking through. I think that was fairly formative in showing me what was possible. But there are so many others: Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawke; Maggie Nelson’s books; Viv Albertine’s To Throw Away Unopened, another story about sisterhood; Jessica Friedmann’s Things That Helped; Ariel Leve’s An Abbreviated Life; Maria Tumarkin’s Axiomatic. And many more. It’s a very rich time for this kind of writing. What was your relationship with editors at Scribe throughout the journey to publication? Usually I write a book to first draft before offering it to publishers, but with this one I approached Scribe with the proposal. I felt I needed an editor, because it was very hard to see outside the work. I think I am only now beginning to be able to talk about it in any rational way. I was very grateful to have David Golding’s expert eye and mind as a sounding board. Basically, I drafted it and sent it to David and he suggested some structural things and cut out all the things that I repeated and repeated, because I was worried I hadn’t already said them. How have you responded to the immensely positive critical reaction to the book? The nice reviews have of course been gratifying and, to be honest, a little unexpected. I think I was braced for rougher treatment. Which isn’t to say that won’t happen! It’s always fascinating to hear what people make of a book like this. It’s about a lot of things. At its heart, it’s an exploration of what it means to be white, in a culture and history
that is shaped by imperialism and colonialism, and how the delusions of empire affect and distort our psyches and the most intimate aspects of our lives and relationships as white people. Since becoming arts editor of The Saturday Paper, what has struck you the most about the state of arts criticism in Australia? The main problem with Australian arts criticism – and here I’m talking about criticism in mass media – is that there isn’t enough of it: not enough space, not enough voices. We have good critics here, but we don’t have a strong sense of conversation or exchange. A healthy public critical culture embraces a wide range of thinking and is easily accessible; it’s not defensive, it looks outward, and it’s curious and dynamic. I do think art is for everyone, and that it’s not perceived to be the case here for many people has a great deal to do with how newspapers have traditionally valued the arts – it was regarded as a ‘soft’ option, unimportant, a bit of a wank. There wasn’t even a separate arts category in the Walkley Awards for arts criticism and journalism until the past few years. Can you also identify the key ways the tone and values of arts criticism in Australia have changed since you began your career? For most of its history, Australian arts criticism has been overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly cis male and overwhelmingly middle-class. I’ve mostly worked as a theatre critic, where the critique has often been overwhelmingly anti-intellectual as well – this is less of a problem in literature or visual arts. The advent of the internet and the emergence of arts blogs in the early
2000s challenged that in very lively ways – a lot of young, smart and argumentative intellects entered the fray, and nobody could stop them. For a while it was enormous fun, creating an amazing conversation between artists, audience members and critics, and we had a glimpse of what a good critical culture might be like. That culture has mostly died since the internet was corporatised in the 2010s – back in the day you could start a blog and get a high international readership just by publishing interesting work. You can’t do that anymore. And also, although people say they want a critical culture, for all the good reasons we actually need one, it’s very hard to sustain, especially in a time when the arts themselves are struggling. The other reason blogs died was that people just can’t keep working that hard for no money. I guess this was brought home for me last month, when I had to close a performance criticism website called Witness I co-founded with Robert Reid four years ago because it was just too hard. We did almost everything we hoped to do except find a way to make a living from it. I really enjoy working for The Saturday Paper, it’s kind of a dream job. Perhaps that aspect of mentorship is the most important part of my job. If we don’t have new voices entering the conversation, everything stagnates. Within the limitations of a national weekly print paper with its necessarily limited space, I am trying to broaden the critical palette, to bring in different kinds of cultural expertise that reflect the manifold ways art is being made in the 2020s and the myriad urgent questions it addresses. I want criticism to open doors, not to close them. Monsters is published by Scribe.
northerly SPRING 2021 | 11
FEATURE
From the Reading Chair: In the beginning... Ahead of her upcoming structural editing workshop, Laurel Cohn explores the importance of an effective opening when writing fiction: what works, what doesn’t, and the creative decision-making behind it all.
Beginnings are crucial. If the beginning of a story is weak, chances are no one will ever get to the middle, let alone the end. You don’t have to grab the reader by the throat to engage them (although that might work), you can gently seduce them with a beguiling voice, you can tease them with a curious premise, you can charm them with an interesting character. I love that frisson of excitement as I turn to page one of a new manuscript. Most of us approach reading a new work with similar anticipation. We are hoping to be transported, beguiled, enticed, to have our curiosity piqued, to be held by someone else’s take on things. Opening sentences It’s all about tone in the opening sentences and paragraphs, and using the tone to convey a sense of the narrator, the setting, the situation and the atmosphere. English writer Allan Ahlberg says, ‘It’s like the way a piece of knitting is defined by the first row of stitches on your needle. It is the first three or four sentences that establish the feel and rhythm of a book.’ A good opening sentence is simple, raises questions or is surprising in some way. The very best opening lines draw us in because they are like portals to a whole universe. They give promise of what is to come. Irish writer Colum McCann says, ‘A first line should open up your rib cage. It should reach in and twist your heart backward. It should suggest that the world will never be the same again.’ Sounds melodramatic, but even a subtle heart nudge can be profound. Here are some of my favourite opening sentences: • Short story: ‘I don’t know how to begin about Effie but I’ve got to because I think you ought to know
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about her.’ Timothy Findley, ‘About Effie’ in Dinner Along the Amazon. • Novel: ‘If rain had come, things might have turned out differently, that is what I think now; but there were children in Outer Maroo who had never seen rain.’ Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster. • Essay: ‘Death is ordinary.’ William T. Vollmann, ‘Three Meditations on Death’ in Rising Up and Rising Down. Opening chapters Writers have more than the opening sentences to pique the interest of an agent, editor, publisher or judge; they have a specific number of words, pages, or chapters. Opening chapters need to introduce the key character/s, set the scene in terms of time and place, present an incident that raises a question or a problem to be solved, establish the voice, and build the tone set in those opening sentences. Australian writer Cate Kennedy advises writers to ‘get straight into it. Stories should start on the brink of change, on the precipice of action, and at the latest possible point in order to engage and involve a reader.’ She uses the analogy of the theatre. ‘When the lights come up on an empty stage, how long do you think an audience will sit patiently waiting for something to actually happen? Scarily, the answer is seven seconds. Something of this kind happens in prose, too. A page spent describing furniture or the weather is a page in which you waste your reader’s time and lose their attention.’ I agree with Cate. I sometimes see manuscripts where the opening chapters are laden with unnecessary details or too much backstory, as if the writer doesn’t trust that the reader will be able to engage with the
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characters or premise without a lengthy preamble. Good beginnings can often be obtained by amputating the first paragraphs, pages or chapters of a draft – called ‘throat-clearing’ by editors. On the other hand, occasionally I see writers starting a little late, with the moment of change having already happened, which can make it difficult for the reader to understand what’s going on and why. Starting with a bang In the last five or so years, I’ve seen a trend towards writers putting a highly dramatic event in the first chapter. This can be effective, but only if the placement of the event is appropriate to the way the story as a whole is structured. Just as every film does not need to start with a James Bond-style wild chase in which the central character’s life is threatened, not every book need begin with an emotionally charged scene. Kennedy draws attention to a moment of change, not necessarily a moment of incendiary drama. And if you tease out her theatre metaphor, it’s not that the audience is waiting for a real or metaphoric explosion to take place, they are waiting for the imaginary world to be introduced, for the characters to be revealed, for the relationships and events to vibrate with the potentiality of change. Many writers are under the false understanding that you must have something highly dramatic in chapter one. Yes, you do want to grab the reader’s attention, but even in this day and age where we are saturated by stories in all shapes and forms competing for attention, we don’t need to be hit over the head with a hammer. It is more helpful to think in terms of the opening chapters encouraging the reader to wonder, explore and ask, what’s happening here? How can this possibly be
resolved? This points to a problem, dilemma or conflict of some sort being referenced or introduced. One of the basic principles of story structure is that an incident will happen near the beginning that propels the story forward, sometimes called the ‘inciting incident’. While I don’t think this necessarily has to happen in chapter one, ideally you will reach the inciting incident, a dramatic turning point of some sort, in the opening chapters, and most likely get a little beyond that. Arriving at the beginning There is no one way to write a good beginning; it depends on the story being told and on the writer’s style and voice. It is likely to take many drafts. Some writers rework their opening chapters again and again before pushing through the remainder of the manuscript, wanting to get those initial stitches just right. Others know that they won’t be able to nail the opening until they get to the end and find more clarity about the storyline and characters and have honed their voice; they need to knit a version of the whole piece to discover what those initial stitches need to be. Everyone has their own creative process, but the goal is the same: to captivate and engage the reader, to garner their trust in you as a storyteller, to propel them through to the middle and, ultimately, the end. Laurel Cohn is a developmental book editor passionate about communication and the power of stories in our lives. She has been helping writers prepare their work for publication since the mid 1980s, and is a popular workshop presenter. She has a PhD in literary and cultural studies. Laurel’s three-day Structural Editing for Writers course with Byron Writers Festival will take place across October and November. See page 27 for details.
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In search of a goddess Ahead of the publication of her new novel, Andal’s Garland, Northern Riversbased author Helen Burns reveals the fascinating background to a work with its roots in Tamil myth.
Southern India in all her paisley glory — it is a land where you can still find myths and traditions as alive as they were for a young girl a thousand years ago. My novel Andal’s Garland re-imagines this once-upon-atime life of a revered goddess, and the story of Saisha, a contemporary woman drawn to India for the allure of its temple towns. Finding a book of ecstatic love songs unearths memories she had thought were long ago buried. The seed for this book was planted one Sunday morning in the crowded streets of Old Delhi – veering motor bikes, an errant cow, carts laden with greasesmeared engine bits, woks of bright orange sweets simmering in oil. Second-hand books covered the pavements of Daryaganj. Among the hundred Mills and Boon on offer, Stephen Kings, Da Vinci Codes and Readers Digests, I spied a tattered paperback of Tamil verse written by twelve poet-saints. Eleven men and one woman. Her name was Andal. I flipped open the book and read, Where Coromandel flowers entwine celestial worlds / there the primeval One holds a fiery discus / bring me close to its glow – but do not scorch me. The chaos of Old Delhi faded to a blur. I turned the page, O kovai vine you torment me with your scarlet fruits / neither shame nor virtue are mine / I fear his coral lips... Who composed these songs? I wanted to know more. It took me three days and nights to reach the town where Andal was born. Stepping from the train onto solid ground felt like arriving in a different country. 14 | SPRING 2021 northerly
The banter of passengers and auto drivers was Tamil, a language of fast rolling consonants like chattering pebbles in a stream. In the distance was a temple tower. Its multi-coloured tiers rose above coconut palms and the tiled roofs of a place not mentioned in any Lonely Planet, but Srivilliputtur was firmly fixed in the minds of pilgrims. Thousands flocked there for the festivals celebrating Andal’s short life of sixteen years. ‘She is our mother,’ people would say to me as we waited in the cool of early morning for a glimpse of her golden eyes. A cow and her hungry calf were the first to enter her shrine, their hooves clip-clopping on the flagstones. Then Jaya Malika, the temple’s resident elephant, lumbered up the stairs and inside to bow at her feet. When it was time for us to go in it was always the same, an urgent push and squeeze of bodies through the bell-studded doors, scents of coconut oil and jasmine buds in the hair of the women and the pungent mint of the sacred basil garlands they had brought for her. Visits to Andal’s temple were akin to stepping into the pages of her story. ‘Andal lived here,’ the woman beside me whispered as we waited for the priests to complete her adornments before drawing the curtains separating us from her inner shrine. She gestured to the small square well behind us. ‘There is the water where she found her reflection.’ I had already peered down into its darkness but found only the glint of a few coins thrown by pilgrims. ‘She was a girl in love with a blue-skinned
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god who flew on the back of an eagle and made his bed on the coils of a ten thousand-headed serpent.’ Drumbeats and the trumpeting of a nadeswaram, its reedy notes like the dawn calling of a swan, heralded the opening of a goddess’s eyes. A fresh parrot was perched on Andal’s shoulder, its wings fashioned from tapioca leaves, eyes from white shell and a pomegranate petal for a beak. Black cuckoo if you call the One who spanned three worlds / then you can take my parrot as your friend / she is plump with sweet rice and pretty too. A new garland of marigolds, roses and jasmine draped her silk-swathed body. We cupped our right palm and waited our turn for a spoonful of fresh milk from the cow. Offerings of fruit, sugar crystals and the sacred basil garlands were given to a priest who then offered them to Andal. Toward the end of this dawn ritual another priest quietly slipped out holding a cloth bundle on his head. Wrapped inside were the flowers Andal had worn for the past twenty-four hours. Weeks later, curious, I would follow him, this path of a garland tracing her life like some kind of mystic theatre.
wanting to make sure I was knowing all of Andal’s stories. This included the many gods, avatars and incarnations she spoke about in her two bodies of work, the Tiruppavai and Nacciyar Tirumoli. In the beginning I found it mind-bending. As for Saisha, my protagonist in Andal’s Garland, she took the myths and swallowed them whole. Was my path to the feet of a girl with a green parrot perched on her shoulder nothing more than serendipitous? It was as if I had been turned upside down, swung around in mid-air then dropped into a myth that was not, in the eyes of Andal’s devotees, a myth at all.
Andal’s Garland published by Odyssey Books, along with its visual companion A Garland of Love, a collaboration of Helen’s interpretive Tiruppavai translations with the photographic-art of Alison Taylor, will be available September 2021.
It took a year for the idea of a book to germinate. In those prelude months I haunted Indian libraries searching for translations of Andal’s verses as a way to better understand her. Each visit over the next seven years I was often approached by locals and pilgrims northerly SPRING 2021 | 15
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Perfect storm of stories Rivers Brain Storm is an exciting writing initiative specifically designed to identify and foster talented young writers and illustrators from across the Northern Rivers. Here, one of its founders and developers, Polly Jude, reflects on a special project that is going from strength to strength.
The Rivers Secondary College was officially gazetted in 2015 and comprises of Richmond River High Campus, Kadina High Campus and Lismore High Campus. The three campuses work together to ensure every student is safe, supported and successful with a bright future. Data analysis from across the Rivers Secondary College quickly identified the fundamental importance of developing a program to engage young writers and to help in the development of their craft. Former Rivers Secondary College Executive Principal, Mr Greg Smith, and myself, a Kadina High Campus English teacher, had an idea and Rivers Brain Storm was born. It didn’t take long for that little idea to grow. Our vision to engage students from across the whole region in a collaborative project was well received. Now in its third year, Rivers Brain Storm has developed into a thrilling opportunity for young creative students. Gifted and talented writers from the three Rivers Secondary College campuses and year 5 and year 6 students from the thirty-three Rivers primary partner schools are invited to apply to be involved in the program. With support from the Byron Writers Festival StoryBoard program, our young writers meet and work with a local author and mentor for four days. During these sessions, students develop ideas, build characters, find the heart of a story, write, draft, edit and polish their work until they have developed a 500-1,000-word story. So far, our primary school writers have been lucky enough to work with Zanni Louise, Tristan Bancks and Samantha Turnbull. Our secondary mentors have been Jesse Blackadder, Melaina Faranda and Sarah Armstrong. These mentors work with the kids over four 16 | SPRING 2021 northerly
fantastic, crazy, exciting, and energetic days. And then things get really interesting. The call goes out to the same thirty-six primary and secondary schools; we need talented illustrators. Our illustrators then work with a finished story and an illustrator’s brief written by the author. These students interpret the work and bring their own ideas to the storytelling process. With support from an artist and illustrator, the students develop the key ideas or moments from the stories into art. Sometimes, they select an object from the story, such as an important locket or a time machine, and explore that. Other artists go for a more general motif, like the spooky forest setting of the story, and represent that. Our artistic mentors have been Misa Alexander and Michelle Dawson. They have really helped the students find ways to develop their craft and explore visual storytelling. As our project continues to expand, we’ve brought Rivers Secondary College, Lismore High Campus art teacher, Simon Clark, to help our illustrators. Simon has been an invaluable addition to the team in 2021. Once the original stories and artwork have been combined, there’s an anxious wait as the authors eagerly anticipate seeing how the illustrators have explored their ideas. They don’t have to wait forever. By November, we will be ready to launch the book, Rivers Brain Storm, 2021. Authors, illustrators, mentors, parents and families, principals and teachers from all thirty-six schools, and
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everyone else who made it possible, are invited to The Rivers Secondary College, Kadina High Campus for the book launch, where the writers and illustrators will sign copies of Rivers Brain Storm. It’s the first time most of the illustrators and authors get to meet each other and see how their work has come together. It’s an exciting evening for all. Year 11 hospitality students cater the event, which is a celebration of the creative spirit of kids from our region. Thanks to the Rivers Secondary College, 500 copies of Rivers Brain Storm are published and distributed across the Far North Coast. We love thinking that in each of the thirty-six schools involved, there could be ‘the next big thing’ picking up our anthology and becoming inspired to get creative. Another important element of our program is that at the completion of their stories, primary writers are encouraged to submit their work to the Jesse Blackadder Prize and secondary writers are encouraged to submit to the Susie Warrick Young Writers Award. In 2019, we were thrilled to have two prize-winning stories in our anthology. In 2021, we are overjoyed to have one of our primary school writers, Caleb Scherrer,
awarded runner-up in the inaugural Jesse Blackadder Prize. Caleb’s story, ‘The Thief’, explores the devastating impacts of dementia. Jesse Blackadder was our first secondary mentor and a key figure in developing this project into what it is today. It seems fitting that one of our writers was successful in the competition held in her name. Although not everyone could win, we are thrilled to hear a number of our writers were shortlisted in both competitions. You can read Caleb’s story on the Byron Writers Festival blog. Rivers Brain Storm simply wouldn’t happen without Byron Writers Festival’s StoryBoard. The support offered, the love of stories and sharing ideas, the outstanding mentors provided and the ongoing commitment to young writers has been amazing. Thanks to the mentors, students, teachers and everyone else involved (and there are too many to name individually), Rivers Brain Storm has become the flagship of public education in our region.
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A showcase of SCU student work, compiled by Dr Emma Doolan
Rituals of a Titaness Bronte-Maye Stanmore
First tentative, then with a small recklessness, into the water a wearied creature slips. Clumsy limbs rise like Atlantean pillars from the depths And with each luxuriant breath Her lungs disperse the sea. Waves of her own making course across this floral ocean, slapping against bergs of foam. The Giantess feels them sticking to her skin, crackling in her ears so that she dreams of the smack of Lilliputian sails; the whistle of their masts. Soon, she must return. But for now, she can savour the quiet enormity of this ritual. This sea.
Bronte-Maye Stanmore is twenty years old and lives on the Mid North Coast, one of the most beautiful places. She is studying writing at SCU, but is not sure where she wants her life to lead.
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FEATURE
Writing through the pandemic As she celebrates the publication of Skin Deep, her third YA novel in three years, Port Macquarie-based Hayley Lawrence reflects upon a strange and difficult year in the life of a writer, yet finds there is light at the end of the tunnel.
When I think of the last fifteen months, I think of one word: CHALLENGING. Homeschooling was no fun for anyone. Losing jobs was no fun. Releasing books in the midst of entire city lockdowns, also no fun. But COVID has been this interesting time of unity and division. Those who lost jobs and careers and those whose workplaces have never been busier. Those whose house prices skyrocketed and those unable to find a home to rent. Those locked down in cramped city apartments and those on sprawling rural properties. Those with kids bouncing off the walls during homeschooling, and those working in uggboots with cups of tea and silence. For writers, COVID has been a time of mixed creativity. I have watched on with deep envy as those without kids have smashed out an entire novel or two during COVID. All that time to stay at home, stare out the window, think and world-build with cats and dogs curled around their feet. Then there are those like me with kids crawling out of every nook and cranny in the house, trying to steal hours locked away in their bedrooms to write amidst the noise. For me, writing throughout COVID has felt akin to crawling through broken glass. I have been writing to contractual deadlines with Scholastic Books. In the midst of those deadlines, I was homeschooling, I broke my right arm, my fourteen-year-old dog died, my marriage collapsed, my ex-husband lost his job as a pilot and my entire town of Port Macquarie flooded, including my house. COVID was a very serious marooning time. And while in the midst of the cyclone of my life, I had to block out what I could and write. Broken arm or not, broken heart or not. Some say brokenness makes for better art. I’m not sure. But I do know many, many people have suffered brokenness throughout COVID, so let’s see what emerges from the rubble!
I am thankful to be emerging now. With new ways and new paths. The storms have left rainbows in their wake. And I will continue to write. Writing isn’t what I do, it’s who I am. And I am not okay if I’m not touching base with my soul through writing. Writing is my meditation. But the pandemic isn’t over and none of us know when it will be. Or what the arts will look like in the aftermath. I have so far managed to release two novels during the pandemic: Ruby Tuesday in 2020 when Melbourne was in a hard lockdown, and now Skin Deep on July 1 when Sydney, Wollongong, the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains are all ghost towns in lockdown. Timing, huh? This is life in 2021. Unpredictable. The years our children will remember, the masks they have grown accustomed to seeing and wearing. The social distancing and COVID-safe check-ins and restricted gatherings we have come to accept as normal. But if there’s one thing COVID has taught us all to be and forced us all to be, it’s adaptable. New ways, new jobs, new workplace structures, new schooling routines, new ways to shop and socialise. And we have responded as a people, with Zoom meetings, virtual book launches and virtual parties. It is a testament to the human spirit. Because if there is one thing we can be certain of in life, it’s change. Humans have been adapting to it since time immemorial. And if there’s one thing writers and artists are good at, it’s capturing and embracing change. So, may the writers keep writing. Because when we simmer it down, stories are nothing more than shared wisdom. They are lived human experience and a communion of souls. There is no better food for the lonely soul than that.
Skin Deep is published by Scholastic Australia.
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Festival imagined: What might have been In the wake of the cancellation of Byron Writers Festival for a second year in succession, northerly contributor Rebecca Ryall, who was scheduled to be our on-the-ground reporter at the event, has conjured an imagined, envisioned Festival round-up, based on this year’s stellar line-up.
Byron Writers Festival is a smorgasbord of ideas and conversations. This year, having tickets to all three days, I decide to take full advantage of the organising team’s hard work and sample as much as possible of what’s on offer. On Friday, I take my youngest child, aged fifteen, to view the program through their eyes.
the Women Speaking Frankly panel as I am keen to see Shu-Ling Chua in person, and we are both fans of the work of Ren Alessandra, slam poet extraordinaire. It is great to sit in the sunshine of a perfect day in Byron, having writerly discussions and very little angst. We are too full of the ideas of others to clash about our own.
Friday We plan a full day, but thankfully most of it is spent in the same venue, and we have a packed lunch so we don’t waste precious time queuing for food. We start over at the Feros Care Marquee for the Secret Senses panel. I am intrigued by the possibilities of a sensuous engagement with the world that does not include hearing, so Fiona Murphy is a definite drawcard for me. The work of Sophie Hardcastle – both written and painted – inspires my child, so we are both engaged by this panel.
We queue for coffee and hot chocolate and take a short break to people-watch, before heading over to the Southern Cross University Marquee to see Archie Roach, because one must always take the opportunity to listen to this giant of a man. I have had the opportunity once or twice in the past, but this is a rare treat for my teen. They sit quietly and listen, nodding occasionally and rising to applaud at the conclusion.
The next time slot presents the first challenge, as I spy a scheduling clash – do I want to see Richard Flanagan in conversation with Jennifer Byrne, or attend the panel session in the Greenstone Partners Marquee, discussing what’s off-limits in YA? My kids have loved Isobelle Carmody’s work, and Will Kostakis is lauded for his depictions of diversity in his novels so, much as I am in awe of both Flanagan and Byrne, it’s the Greenstone Partners Marquee for us. I only wish Craig Silvey was there to add his two cents’ worth. The next session – Consent – I wish could receive a wider audience. I am so glad to have brought my young person to this event, if only for this discussion, though I have the feeling my child has a greater handle on bodily autonomy than I have ever possessed. We stay on for 20 | SPRING 2021 northerly
It is then time for the final act, and the most anticipated session of the day for us – He, She, They: Talking About Gender. This is, for my money, one of the most artfully curated panels of the entire Festival and definitely one of the most important topics of discussion. We were introduced to Nevo Zisin and their work when they appeared at the Festival a few years ago. I bought several copies of their book; one for us, one to share with family, and one for the school library. I am so excited to see them speak again and to dive into their new book, The Pronoun Lowdown.
Saturday Saturday, I bring my lover to the Festival with me. English is his fourth language, so books written in English are often impenetrable to him. The spoken word is much more accessible and he loves an opportunity for deep discussion. We start early, at the Feros Care Marquee for the What Life Has Taught Me discussion,
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featuring Robert Dessaix (who I expect to be cheeky and irreverent) and Arnold Zable, whose work I have devoured multiple times. The session is a soft entry into the program for the day. Next up we find good seats at the Southern Cross University Marquee to enjoy Grace Lucas-Pennington’s skilful facilitation of the Elemental: Fire, Earth, Water session, featuring Matthew Evans, Kaya Wilson and Victor Steffensen. From there, we head over to the Greenstone Partners Marquee for Looking Death in the Eye. Danielle Clermajer’s stunning work, Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future, has moved and inspired me, and I am eager to put a face to the name and hear her speak. We forgo lunch to see Melissa Lucashenko, Arnold Zable (again) and Randa Abdel-Fattah at the Power of Words panel discussion at the Feros Care Marquee, followed by Subversive Behaviour: Art and Activism in the Belongil Room. We conclude our day by listening in silence and stillness to the Thea Astley Address, which this year is presented by Judy Atkinson, our local and esteemed teacher in the field of intergenerational trauma and truth-telling. Whilst there are other sessions scheduled afterwards, we both agree this is the best place to finish. There is much spirited conversation on our drive back over the hills through the late winter sunset.
Sunday For the final day of the festival, I carpool from the hills over to the coast, with seven other women from my book club. We are an eclectic bunch, including students, community workers, a forest ranger and an esteemed academic. We have brought lunch, refreshments and reusable coffee cups and most of us have money to buy books. The drive over, taking nearly an hour and a half, gives us ample time to study the program and debate the merits of the schedule. It is an early start, as half of us are eager to see Arnold Zable and the rest keen for Julia Baird and the Luminosity in the Darkest Moments panel discussion, both of which start at 9am. Phosphorescence has done the rounds in our book club, and Arnold is the brother of our beloved local climate and anti-war activist, Benny Zable. We all agree it’s a shame to miss Marcia Langton who appears at the same time as these others, but she is thankfully scheduled for another session later in the day. The ten o’clock session sees our group further fractured and my decision is whether to see Matthew Evans or Danielle Celermajer (Small Green Shoots: Nature and Healing). In the end, I settle on the latter as this panel has the added bonus of being facilitated by Tony Birch. Some of the other literary ladies head over to the Southern Cross University Marquee for the Voicing History’s Untold Stories session.
The Sarah Kanowski fans among us settle in at the First National Byron Pavilion for her chat with Meg Mason; Sorrow and Bliss is next up on our reading list. With my head spinning from all the ideas and stimulation, I take my coffee down to the beach for a short walk and moment of solitude in the shade. The setting of Byron Writers Festival in this beachside location has been a wise choice. The site offers the cushion of soft, sundrenched grass on which to picnic and natter, and the beach beckons from a short walk away. We reconvene for lunch on a grassy knoll, comparing book purchases and compiling our list for upcoming readings. The afternoon stretches lazily before us and we are spoiled for choice when it comes to which sessions to attend next. A few of us rush off to find a seat in the Feros Care Marquee for The Sound of Silence: Deafness and Identity session. I so enjoyed Fiona Murphy on Friday and have been captivated by Sophie Li’s story of hearing impairment and finding the deaf community as a young adult. I am also curious about how the panel will be facilitated. I leave the session before the end to get back to Feros Care to see Marcia Langton and Eva Cox on the Trailblazers: Women Who Have Made a Difference panel, and find most of the other book club ladies already in the audience. It has been a long day for most of us, an even longer weekend for me, so I am happy to stay in my seat for the next two sessions – Scar Tissue: Trauma and Recovery and Think Globally Act Locally. I let the words of the panellists wash over me as I reflect on the three days passed. It is such a treat to find an event such as this so close to home. The curation of people and ideas is thoughtful and thought-provoking and the access to conversation is priceless. Whilst we all mourn the cancellation of the 2021 event, the work of organisers has not been wasted. Each year, the program presents the best new work in Australia today. We may not be blessed to gather in the sun and yarn, but we can still benefit from the behind-the-scenes organisation of this event. Check out the program, investigate the authors, buy books and support the industry in Australia as well as exposing yourself to lives, thoughts and ideas that may be different to your own.
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Young poets shine
Thirteen-year-old Imani Hannaford wowed the audience at this year’s Poets Out Loud Youth Slam, held at The Regent Cinema in Murwillumbah, winning against a strong field of poets aged twelve to eighteen. Prior to the event, Poets Out Loud ran slam workshops in a number of Northern Rivers schools, followed by a masterclass for young poets to refine their poems. Individual poets and teams were then selected for entry to the slam and Poetry Out Loud’s mentoring program. The slam is supported by Tweed Shire Council, Create NSW and Byron Writers Festival. For more information see poetsoutloud.org/youth Imani described the process as like ‘climbing a mountain’, gaining confidence along the way, and has discovered ‘a new enthusiasm and appreciation for poetry, falling more in love with the craft.’ Second place was Inde Henderson, while joint-third place winners were Dandrubah Coghill and Marcus Love.
Don’t stick your nose in the air for too long Imani Hannaford
Don’t stick your nose in the air for too long Cause when you do you’ll smell the smoke Leading you into the flaming forest This light of lies Looks bold and bright But your body crumbles in fear The more you breathe The less you can These flames tense your lungs The hazy mist blurs your vision A dark disguise over your eyes Blinding your sense of identity Don’t stick your nose in the air for too long Smoke is a serpent searching Slivering down your spine Tracking down its prey Its belly rumbles for devilish deeds It’s wispy breath ringing in your ears Hypnotising your thoughts
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Pictures of history moulded in grey clouds
Dropping one by one
shapes of the past, shapes of the future
The damage done
the shape of now
Now there is none
Don’t stick your nose in the air for too long No more birds Maybe history is just one big lesson?
No more butterflies
Destruction has bred this evolution
No more flowers
They claim the aim is to maintain
No more
But your arrogance is evidence The lack of intelligence
You search for tears but they’re hidden inside
To understand these simple ways
Nothing…. Just nothing
Kindness, love, and the need to embrace
Oh how one drop of water would feed your soul
This is how real change has been made Blame and shame, just a mind game
The ash pits of sorrow around you
Who’s the highest, who’s the lowest
That once were blossoming trees
Who’s the fastest, who’s the slowest
Now you have become
Who’s the strongest who’s the weakest Who’s the richest who’s the poorest
Don’t stick your nose in the air for too long
Comparing is justifying the intensity, the toxicity, The scarcity, the hostility, the jealousy, the inequality That is this misguided humanity.. sometimes I wonder if empathy is a lonely spectator longing to join the game Don’t stick your nose in the air for too long The smoke has risen once again Flaming words spit from your tongue Firing on your enemies
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REVIEW
Absorb and wander Night Train to Varanasi: India With my Daughter By Sean Doyle Review by Liat Kirby
A book of many parts that come together with such quick-moving resonance that the reader turns to the next page, and the next and the next, senses aroused and mind sharpened. It’s a return to India for Northern Rivers author Sean Doyle, after many journeys through the subcontinent, commencing in the 1980s – and a first-time journey and rite of passage for his daughter Anna after completing high school. Together they launch themselves into the turmoil, and the stunning stillness of mind that can be provoked in this land of contrast, Doyle as the Old Asia Hand and Anna openeyed and fresh to every sight, sound and smell.
Mathura is Krishna town, Varanasi (and others) Shiva town, and as we travel to other cities and smaller towns, we realise the immense significance of Hinduism. Purusha, ‘the pulse of life’, connecting everything and the essence of everyone. As Doyle says, ‘Absorb or wander. No one is pushing anything. It’s up to you.’ An added plus is the conjoining of the sensual and the spiritual. No misplaced guilt engendered here.
So much has been written on India and ‘self’ that it can create jaded, pre-reading assumptions. So to encounter tough, wry, tender prose, together with utter self-honesty, is invigorating and engaging. The writing is ‘in your face’, just like India. Earthy and erudite, the narrative provides not only the changing face of adventures met, but also deep-seated knowledge of the culture of India in all its singular and disarming ways – a knowledge to be felt rather than learned. Spirituality is there, on many levels, whether met through nature, the Ganges, or the temples and ghats:
Father and daughter complement one another in different ways, and the special nature of their close relationship is evident throughout. There is Anna’s vulnerability and burgeoning young adulthood to consider, and Doyle’s controlled but fervent need to ‘show’ her the India he loves so deeply and unrestrainedly, at the same time wanting her to absorb and take from it what she will. His visceral and primal urge to protect her and not allow India to hurt her in any way rubs up against having to relinquish control in order to engage with the place. As he says late in the journey, in Haridwar: ‘I feel my limitations as a father, as a man. The feeling spreads through my mind like a fever, infecting all thought.’ This is a wonderful account of a father’s love and human fallibility.
The view from the top [of Mount Savitri, Pushkar] transcends space and time. Parameters cease to exist. The only limits are your own… The hills and the lake bear an undeniable resemblance to the highlights, shall we say, of a woman’s body… A bounteous Earth Mother, this Hindu Eden. It’s the poetic aptness of Indigenous mythology: landscape begets stories, stories beget meaning. The Earth tells you who you are, you just have to read it. Hindu Dreamtime.
Anna herself is a remarkable presence in the narrative, especially for one so young. See the quiet beauty of her mind as she navigates the confronting experience that is India: lucid, ethical (particularly in regard to animals), with a highly developed sense of justice. Her uncertainty and hesitancy, which sometimes asserts itself, yet still she persists. Her humour and penchant for laughing at her father’s jokes – and occasionally bettering them. The repartee between them is a highlight of the narrative.
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REVIEW
Doyle’s passionate, permanent love affair with India sees him enlisting as support for its undoubted worth the many others along the way who have lauded her: important cultural figures of the past, from philosophers to poets, as well as prominent singers, musicians, writers and actors from the 1960s and 1970s. All of it is true, but this reader tempers it somewhat by remembering that from the midtwentieth century on, India and gurus became fashionable, and many who caught the India train, rather than absorbing it more deeply, projected themselves on to it. There are many literary allusions throughout the text, from Quasimodo to Shakespeare’s Antonio, Schopenhauer to Albert Camus, and TS Eliot to Walt Whitman. These are fleet and fitting, a delight of fluency within the text and evidence of Doyle’s wide reading and appreciation.
some time after he and Anna return to Australia before Anna finds the words to describe the psychic shock of Delhi and that first day out in India. Doyle is a fine storyteller, and the intimacy with which he shares this story – the immediacy of which feels almost face to face over a cup of tea, or chai – creates the strength and beauty of the book. On that night train to Varanasi he calls on the ‘old’ charms that, he infers, worked wonders in the past, and they work again here with the reader. Doyle is, indeed, somewhat of a charmer. But a charmer of substance. Bad Apple Press / 256pp / $32.99
One important thing to take away from India is, among all the contrasts encountered, the kindness that prevails – simple acts of human kindness that we in the Western world are unaccustomed to. You see it on the night train to Varanasi and in many other small acts accorded father and daughter. And there’s the beauty and simplicity of life running along beneath the busyness and the bureaucracy; there’s chai and the rhythm of ritual. The impact of Delhi, with its hordes of people, pollution and filth, and continuous traffic jams of all kinds of vehicles – ‘horns, horns, horns’ – is, as Doyle says, like ‘glimpsing another older, more instinctive world we still feel in our genes, our souls’. He must wait
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REVIEWS
What YA Reading? Reviews by Polly Jude
Add a cute Aussie teenager who has a thing for Trinity and doesn’t know Holly’s replaced her, a murderer on the loose who has eyes for Trinity, Trinity’s all-girl punk band with a gig in just a few days, and what could possibly go wrong? Trinity has discovered Holly’s boring-old-lady wardrobe and isn’t impressed with the clothes or the hair. When Trinity goes to work in Holly’s job as an art teacher, her professionalism isn’t really what the Department of Ed are expecting.
It’s Not You, It’s Me by Gabrielle Williams
When forty-year-old Holly Fitzgerald wakes up inside the body of a teenager living in LA in the 1980s, it takes her a while to work out what’s going on. The last thing she remembers was being gifted the vintage typewriter. Mysteriously, the same typewriter once belonged to Trinity Byrne, the teenager whose life Holly seems to have taken over. Now trapped on the other side of this weird time-space-continuum glitch, Trinity can only communicate with Holly through the typewriter. And when she gets going, Trinity can really let Holly have it. Both Holly and Trinity are stuck in the wrong bodies, both trying desperately to work out what the hell is going on and trying to get back to their own lives before the other destroys it all.
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There’s also a rare blood type, some cosmic lining up of the planets, leap year birthdays and a mystery to solve! They’ve both been sent to save the other. They just have to work out how and why. It’s Not You, It’s Me is all about finding your punk attitude and second chances. It’s an unexpected hero’s journey. It’s Not You, It’s Me will suit YA readers aged fourteen and over. The strong female characters will appeal to female readers and their mums. Williams’s fastpaced writing will hook readers from the opening page. Readers who enjoyed Williams’s other work won’t be disappointed, but this body swap crime thriller will attract a new audience as well. Allen and Unwin / 288pp / RRP $19.99
The Gaps by Leanne Hall
New girl in school, Chloe, never got to meet Yin before she disappeared. But now it’s all the girls at Balmoral Ladies College can talk about. Chloe’s busy trying to survive in the new elite school where she’s on a scholarship and doesn’t belong. Natalia was Yin’s best-friend until they fell out a few years ago. Yin’s disappearance forces Natalia to face some of her own demons and to think about the friendship and where it all went wrong. Told in both their voices, The Gaps forces the characters in the story and the audience to consider the role of women and how they are presented in the media as victims. The Gaps explores female vulnerability, strength and sticking it to the man. It’s the YA femo injection you didn’t know we needed. Text / 356pp / RRP $19.99
WORKSHOPS
The Golden Rules for Writing a Great Short Story with Sunil Badami
SAT 11 & 18 SEPT 10.00AM — 12.00PM Online via Zoom $120/100 Members & Students In two entertaining, engaging and enlightening two-hour weekend workshops, writer, broadcaster and academic Sunil Badami will reveal his Golden Rules for Writing a Great Short Story, which he gleaned from some of the world’s best writers and tested by writing six short stories in six weeks — all of which were published in some of Australia’s most prestigious literary journals and anthologies. Sunil Badami is a writer, broadcaster and academic. He has a Masters in Creative and Life Writing (Distinction) from the prestigious Goldsmiths College at the University of London, where he studied under acclaimed novelist, poet and critic Blake Morrison. Sunil also has a Doctor of Creative Arts from the University of Technology, Sydney, where he teaches creative writing, film studies, digital literacy and other subjects.
Structural Editing with Laurel Cohn
SAT 9, 30 OCT & 20 NOV 10.00AM — 4.00PM In person at Byron Writers Festival office (Covid-pending)* $295/265 Members & Students Most writers know their manuscript will require a structural edit, but have little understanding of what this means. This three-day course explains structural editing, what role it plays in manuscript development, how to go about it, and how to survive it. Breaking the process into stages, participants will learn strategies and tools to apply to their own work, with the course format guiding writers as they work on their current draft. Laurel Cohn is a developmental book editor passionate about communication and the power of stories in our lives. She has been helping writers prepare their work for publication since the mid 1980s, and is a popular workshop presenter. Laurel has a PhD in literary and cultural studies. *This workshop is in-person pending COVID-19 restrictions. If the workshop is cancelled, all registered participants will be refunded.
What’s the Truth Got to Do with It? Memoir Writing with Alan Close
SAT 27 NOV 10.00AM — 4.00PM In person at Byron Writers Festival office (Covid-pending)* $120/100 Members & Students Truth. Facts. Honesty. OMG! It’s not boring is it? Finding the ‘right’ way to tell our stories can be the hardest part of writing them – and the ‘truth’ of our lives so challenging and elusive. This hands-on workshop will give you the tools to make your story both engaging and authentic. Over four decades as a writer, Alan has published fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction and written widely in the national print media. He edited the anthology Men Love Sex. His most recent book is Before You Met Me: A Memoir of One Man’s Troubled Search for Love. He works as an editor and writing mentor and teacher, both face to face and online. He lives in Mullumbimby. *This workshop is in-person pending COVID-19 restrictions. If the workshop is cancelled, all registered participants will be refunded.
For workshop details and to register visit byronwritersfestival.com/ whats-on northerly SPRING 2021 | 27
COMPETITIONS
Competitions PETER PORTER POETRY PRIZE Closing date: 4 October This prestigious competition is open to all international poets. Offering prize money of $10,000 (first place winning $6,000), the Peter Porter Poetry Prize invites poems of no more than 70 lines. Entry fee is $15 for subscribers to Australian Book Review, and $25 for non-subscribers. More details: australianbookreview. com.au/prizes-programs/peter-porterpoetry-prize/2022-peter-porter-poetryprize
MiNDFOOD SHORT STORY COMPETITION Closing date: 15 October Leading magazine MiNDFOOD is seeking the finest short stories of 2021 for its annual short story competition. The winner receives $1,000 and publication. Stories should be approximately 2,000 words in length. The competition is open
to non-professional writers, and there is no entry fee. More details: mindfood. com/competition/calling-all-writersshort-story/
ROBYN MATHISON POETRY COMPETITION Closing date: 31 October This competition, with a theme of ‘New Beginnings’, seeks entries of poems up to a maximum of 40 lines. First prize takes $200, with second $50. There is an entry fee of $10 for up to two entries. Organised by the Society of Women Writers, Tasmania. More details: swwtas.org/249437482/
JOYCE PARKES WOMEN’S WRITERS PRIZE Closing date: 30 November The Joyce Parkes Prize is open to women writers in Australia. Both fiction and nonfiction entries are allowed, and must be
between 1,000 and 2,000 words in length. Prize money on offer is $500, while there is an entry fee of $10 per piece. Topic for this year is ‘Welcome’ or ‘Failte’. More details: irishheritage.com.au/ awards/the-joyce-parkes-womenswriters-prize/
COPYRIGHT AGENCY FIRST NATIONS FELLOWSHIPS Closing date: 15 December Five fellowships, including accommodation, all meals, travel expenses and manuscript consultations, are awarded to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers from anywhere in Australia. This fellowship program is open to writers of all genres and submissions in language are welcomed. Residency will take place in June 2022. More details: varuna.com.au/fellowships/ firstnations
The Magic of Wedgetail Retreat NSW’s only independent community-run hospice provides end-of-life care and palliative respite. We are staffed by specialist nurses, supported by trained volunteers. Every person’s journey is unique. As advocates, we listen to you and your loved ones' needs and cater to them. Our goal is to remove any hurdles that may stand in the way of a peaceful death. Our Wedgetail guests experience unconditional love and compassion. When people are fully met where they are, a type of awakening happens that allows for a different kind of healing. Truly seeing and hearing people allows them to celebrate the 'livingness' of dying ... that's where the magic is! “To heal is to touch with love that which we previously touched with fear.” Stephen Levine We rely on community support, donations, grants and receive no ongoing government funding.
To find out more about us, visit our website www.tweedpalliativesupportandwedgetailretreat.com
(02) 6672 8459
Quarterly Essay 20th anniversary special offer One year print subscription* Normally $79.99, for readers of Northerly, just $64.99
Go to quarterlyessay.com/northerly and use code NORTHERLY20 at checkout
*Offer valid until 30 November 2021 on print auto-renewing subscription only.
unwind with nature
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