northerly Festival Edition — Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine Winter 2021
KAYA WILSON
JULIE JANSON
CHRISTOPHER RAJA
JACK BEAUMONT
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Contents Winter 2021 Features 008 Art & science A chat with Kaya Wilson ahead of his upcoming Byron Writers Festival appearance. 010 Extract: Julie Janson Read a section of 2021 Festival artist Julie Janson’s acclaimed recent novel, Benevolence. 012 Continental drift Christopher Raja discusses his memoir, Into the Suburbs: A Migrant’s Story.
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 Ren Alessandra, Kim Blake, Jenny Bird, Laurel Cohn, Robyn Haynes, Polly Jude, Hector H. Mackenzie, J Miller Photography, Katinka Smit, Adam Smith PROOFREADER Rebecca Ryall
018 Inner voices Katinka Smit speaks with Madeleine Ryan about her debut novel, A Room Called Earth, and delves into compelling questions of neurodiversity and belonging.
BYRON WRITERS FESTIVAL BOARD CHAIRPERSON Adam van Kempen VICE CHAIR Lynda Hawryluk TREASURER Cheryl Bourne SECRETARY Hilarie Dunn MEMBERS Marele Day, Lynda Dean, Anneli Knight, 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
Regulars
MAIL OUT DATES Magazine is published in MARCH, JUNE, SEPTEMBER and DECEMBER
016 Extract: Jack Beaumont Read the opening of Jack Beaumont’s debut novel, the espionagethemed The Frenchman.
002 A note from the Festival 003 News & Events Restart program kicks off, new Festival partnerships, Writers on the Road and more. 006 Feature poet A piece from Festival artist Ren Alessandra. 014 From the Reading Chair Laurel Cohn examines the delicate balancing act that is backstory for your characters. 020 Lessons in joy Gabrielle Carey’s Only Happiness Here: In Search of Elizabeth von Arnim reviewed by Jenny Bird. 022 Adventure time Phil Latz’s The Gold Heist reviewed by Robyn Haynes. 023 Dickens in reverse Stuart Everly-Wilson’s Low Expectations reviewed by Polly Jude. 024 Workshops
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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026 Southern Cross University Showcase Poetry from Kim Blake. 027 Competitions northerly WINTER 2021 | 01
A note from the Festival It was with great excitement in April that we announced the 2021 Byron Writers Festival would go ahead this year, once again held on Arakwal Bundjalung Land in the beautiful grounds of Elements Resort. Then in May we announced the first guests of the Festival line-up, including Julia Baird showcasing her critically acclaimed and award-winning book, Phosphorescence. She is joined by Tony Birch with his searingly powerful novel The White Girl and Malcolm Turnbull with his memoir, A Bigger Picture. Our discounted Sunday Locals’ Passes – supported by Stone & Wood – went on sale with the first line-up announcement and were so popular we increased the COVID-safe allocation. We have watched with delight as live events have returned and have been grateful to attend events such as Sydney Writers’ Festival, whose opening night address, featuring Melissa Lucashenko, Tara June Winch and Evelyn Araluen still reverberates. We cheered as the inaugural Kyogle Writers Festival took place in May with Bellingen Readers and Writers happening in June. Never has the thrill of gathering in community to share stories been more powerful and poignant. June will also see the announcement of the full Festival program on which the team have been working tirelessly, with all Festival tickets including 1-Day passes, Satellite Events and Workshops going on sale to the public 23 June (with Member access from 22 June). It has been challenging and thrilling to watch the program come together and we very much look forward to sharing the line-up of storytellers and creators who will stimulate what we are sure will be another cracking Festival of big ideas. Thanks to Create NSW for the support for a number of residential retreats we have been fortunate to hold, including our First Nations Australia Writer/ Illustrator Residential Retreat mentored by Kirli Saunders; our Open Writers and Illustrators Residential Retreat, mentored by Ailsa Piper; and our Write North Writers’ Group Residency, mentored by Charlotte Wood, which will take place in October. It is wonderful to be able to deliver these important and meaningful programs for writers and illustrators and the feedback from them has been hugely positive. Keep up with all things Byron Writers Festival via our website. We are very much looking forward to welcoming you all back to the (COVID-safe) Festival in person in August. Warm wishes from all of us here!
Adam van Kempen and Edwina Johnson Chair and Director, Byron Writers Festival
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Photo by J Miller Photography
NEWS
Retreat. Write. Restart. Byron Writers Festival Restart program is well and truly underway, with plenty more to come. Byron Writers Festival’s Restart program is in full flight. The Open Writers Retreat saw six writers in residence at the beautiful Lennox Unique Coastal Retreat at Lennox Head for five days, under the care of mentor and teacher, author Ailsa Piper. The feedback from the retreat is glowing. Author Lucinda Holdforth said, ‘Our retreat was a marvel. Conceptual breakthroughs and progress on every level: voice, word count, storytelling, deepening, structure and more. New writing friendships to sustain us as we worked, and onwards into the future. A vote for the vital importance of a strong writing culture in Australia.’ Ailsa has also worked with many of the shortlisted writers with one-onone consultations. Film director and
emerging writer Dianna Yee said of her consultation with Ailsa, ‘She was so generous, insightful and inspiring with her advice. I got so much out of it. I can now see many possibilities to explore, and have the clarity to improve and complete the work.’ The First Nations Retreat moved in immediately afterwards (pictured). Seven First Nations writers, including award-winning author Nardi Simpson, convened to yarn about books, writing and cultural concerns, guided by author and teacher Kirli Saunders. The writers have also benefited from masterclasses and tutorials offered by such luminaries as Tara June Winch, Bronwyn Bancroft, Dub Leffler and Melissa Lucashenko. Next in line for a Restart residency were Writers with Disability and
d/Deaf Writers, meeting at Lennox Head Cultural Centre for a two-day intensive writing workshop with teacher/mentors Asphyxia, Gaele Sobott, Kerri Shying and Alan Close. Teacher/mentor Kerry Shying said, ‘The lived experience of people with disability is funny, rich, smart and provocative – a web of stories too integral to our understanding of what it is to be alive right now to ignore, and we are looking forward to enjoying the new stories emerging from the talented writers attending this workshop.’
For more information about Byron Writers Festivals Restart program visit byronwritersfestival.com/whats-on/ restart-residential-retreats/
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NEWS
Margin Notes News, events and announcements from Byron Writers Festival
Writers on the Road August Tour
Thank you to 2021 Partners
Continuing the Byron Writers Festival tradition of connection through stories, Writers on the Road will take to the road at the end of July 2021, to spread the word with readers in the northern NSW towns of Coffs Harbour, Macksville, Port Macquarie, Grafton and Harwood.
We would like to extend a big thank you to all our funders, partners and donors who are supporting Byron Writers Festival 2021. This includes our Core Funders: NSW Government (through Create NSW), the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund (an Australian Government initiative), the Australia Council for the Arts, and Regional Arts NSW. Our Major Partners are Southern Cross University, Feros Care, Greenstone Partners and First National Byron. Our Major Venue Partner is Elements of Byron. We also thank Stone & Wood for supporting our Sunday Locals’ Passes. To all other supporters – you know who you are – we couldn’t do it without you. For a full list of 2021 partners and supporters, go to byronwritersfestival.com/festival/ partners
Authors and raconteurs Nevo Zisin, Krissy Kneen, Roanna Gonsalves (pictured below) and Isobelle Carmody will tour their latest books and the very latest ideas to schools, libraries and cultural centres from Coffs to Port Macquarie and back, returning to Byron for the 2021 Byron Writers Festival. All public events are free and open to the general public, but in COVID times, bookings are essential. For the full schedule and to register visit byronwritersfestival.com/roadtrip
Photo by Fred Kroh
Writers on the Road is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
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2021 Residential Mentorship open It’s that time again! Byron Writers Festival’s flagship program, the annual Residential Mentorship, is open for submissions. The mentorship provides five days in a glorious Byron Shire location with accommodation and some meals provided, one-on-one mentoring with Marele Day and the company of three other committed writers.
It’s an experience that many have described as life-changing, a time to forge lasting friendships and discover what lies at the heart of your work. Past alumni include Jessie Cole, Jarrah Dundler, Russell Eldridge, Mirandi Riwoe and many more. Applications are open until Wednesday 30 June, with the mentorship taking place 7-13 September. For more information visit: byronwritersfestival.com/ members/residential-mentorship/
First National Byron a new Major Partner Long-term partner of Byron Writers Festival, First National Byron, has stepped up its support this year to become a Major Partner of the Festival. Principal of First National Byron, Chris Hanley OAM (pictured above), is the Founder of Byron Writers Festival and was Chair of the Board for twenty years until 2016.
NEWS
Cover story The artwork for the cover of this Winter edition of northerly comes from Dr Fiona Foley. The work is Opium #1, 2009, etching on paper, edition 20. Dr Foley is a Badtjala artist, curator, writer and academic, currently based in Brisbane where she lectures at Griffith University. She exhibits regularly in Australia and internationally (including forty-nine solo exhibitions and 171 group exhibitions). Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane; Ballarat International Foto Biennale; and the National Art School, Sydney. In 2020 Dr Foley was awarded the inaugural Monica Clare Research Fellowship from the State Library of Queensland towards a publication, and she is a founding member of Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Co-operative. Dr Foley will appear at Byron Writers Festival 2021.
face from her role as Volunteers’ Coordinator for previous Festivals. Shien brings to the role twenty years of experience managing and producing arts events and has been a fixture in event production teams throughout the region.
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“I wanted to write and say thank you for the professional and incredibly helpful edits you did on my manuscript. I have poured over your feedback, ordered the books you recommended and started the planning and thinking for the second draft. The process of having your eyes on the work brought so much clarity and encouragement. I really appreciate your attention to detail.” Margot Shave
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Student competitions This year we are hosting two student writing prizes! Cash prizes and Festival tickets are up for grabs, plus the opportunity to be published on the Byron Writers Festival’s blog and in northerly. The Susie Warrick Young Writers Award invites stories of up to 1,000 words from secondary students, with the competition split into two categories: years 7-9 and years 10-12. The Jesse Blackadder Prize seeks story submissions of between 500 and 1,000 words from primary
Browning joins Board Byron Writers Festival would like to extend a warm welcome to our new Board Member, Daniel Browning (pictured above). Daniel is an Aboriginal journalist, radio broadcaster, sound artist and writer. He produces and presents Awaye!, the Indigenous art and culture program on ABC Radio National.
Volunteer application success
A huge thank you to everyone who applied to volunteer at the 2021 Festival. We were overwhelmed school students in years 5-6. The deadline for all entries is Wednesday with the response and it was a hard task to whittle it down to 30 June. For full details go to byronwritersfestival.com/student- the 150-person crew who will be helping us roll out this year’s writing-prizes COVID-safe event. Successful applicants have been notified and Welcome to Shien we are in the process of allocating The Byron Writers Festival team roles. We look forward to seeing all would like to extend a warm their smiling faces on the Festival welcome to Shien Chee, who has field soon. stepped into the role of Head of Production for the 2021 Byron Writers Festival. Many of you will know Shien’s name and friendly
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POETRY
Feature Poet: Ren Alessandra
Power Lines From the power lines down Memory Lane, I recall all the women I have been The houses look so different from up here. Soaring, I reflect on the way these rooftops seem from the street. How perspective, is a kind of hindsight. How time has done its best with everything that it had. How I did my best, with all I knew I had, at the time. My story begins each day when I wake, so many times, in so many beds, on couches, on floors, next to men I thought I loved, who I swear in moments loved me. From the power lines, I watch flowers shiver in their beds wine bottles reflect the sun, my cat, wandering all of these houses look the same as I remember, but aren’t the same as I remember, nothing is. These houses I see, are doorways into the past versions of the woman I am yet to be.
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POETRY
Why is a building named a building if it is already built? Why is a woman named a woman if not to woo man? Woe man…Womb man? Is this house of mine not built for anything more than to serve the other? Language, so inherently destructive, subconsciously constructing the way we see ourselves. From the power lines, I consider my power lines, that perhaps, they are here, in these lettered strings, stretching from mouth to house, from age to era, all of them ending, stretching into unconscious beginning. These houses house humans that are built for more than language determines. There are predetermined roles in other lettered strings, & they are things that I am reworking. So yes, name me building, for I am, constantly. Ren Alessandra is a poet and educator based in Melbourne. As the 2020 Australian Poetry Slam Champion, she has competed and performed interstate and internationally. Her poetry explores her relationship with her body, women’s fundamental rights and love in all its colours. Some of her work can be found in the 2020 Poetry D’Amour Anthology and the Pocketry Almanack.She will appear at Byron Writers Festival 2021. northerly WINTER 2021 | 07
FEATURE
Festival preview: Kaya Wilson Ahead of his appearance at Byron Writers Festival 2021, author Kaya Wilson discusses his acclaimed memoir of gender transition and identity, As Beautiful as Any Other: A Memoir of My Body, and how his day job as a tsunami scientist crosses over with his writing. What was the initial impetus to write the book? What were the key questions or ideas you were compelled to explore in the embryonic stage? The embryonic stage was much more of a diarised account of transition and my life through 2016 onwards. It was raw and unconstructed. I basically wrote a 1,000-word essay every week on 08 | WINTER 2021 northerly
whatever was happening at the time. I didn’t set out to write a book as such, I just came home from the doctor after disclosing that I was questioning my gender and the first essay burnt out of me. It was a good process, I learnt a lot about what got me angry or sad or joyful and how I wanted to use my voice and what that voice would be. Looking back on those essays,
I was able to be playful and try different things out. The process of learning about myself at that time included discarding a type of self-consciousness and that new freedom really shows up in the essays. The book became longer thematic essays based on that original writing and although that writing served a purpose, there’s a reason you’re not reading them!
FEATURE
What other books that deal with the transgender/queer experience might have served as influences on As Beautiful as Any Other?
Can you give an overview of how your work as a scientist had a bearing on writing of the book and its subject matter?
How far has Australian literary culture come in recent times in serving diverse voices such as yours?
There’s plenty of great trans literature out there. I’ve read Feinberg, Ortberg, Stryker and so on. Lately and locally, I’ve really enjoyed some of the graphic storytelling from Lee Lai and Fury. These are all influences that became a part of my thinking but if I was going to draw a direct line, I can’t go past Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, with the ease of transition between ideas. I would also include Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me. My title is a bit of a tribute to that book, which itself is a tribute to James Baldwin. Coates is not queer but the book is queer in its anti-hegemonic stance. I also look to many writers, queer and not, often poets writing prose, for the kind of lyricism I enjoy. I just read On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, which I found just breathtaking.
Working as a scientist has generally been a parallel experience to my writing and the convergence of the two has a lot of tension to it. I was doing a PhD in tsunami science at the same time as writing this book, so they will forever be linked in that way. Two things came directly out of it. Firstly, the dancing approach to chronology and creativity with descriptive language in the book were a kind of rebellion from the very prescribed and stringent writing style of academic science. In my creative writing this part of me was very much untethered and I suspect fertilised by the limitations I felt in my science world.
The Own Voices movement certainly feels like it is gathering momentum. In many festivals and publications, a white, straight uniformity is becoming unacceptable and we are hearing voices that were muffled in the past. But you know, these are slowly grinding gears. Appropriating marginalised voices doesn’t really carry much penalty in terms of popularity or sales. The burden of representation for the few marginalised voices that are published is very real as these voices still aren’t quite a chorus. It’s also hard to see what the changes are like behind the scenes. I’m fairly new to looking behind the curtain and I don’t quite yet understand the power structures that exist, but I welcome the changes that are happening.
What were the biggest challenges in both writing the book from a technical standpoint, and then readying it for publication? Anything bordering on memoir is never about just you. You write from within a community and a family, so finding a respectful balance that honours your own truth and does not overly impinge on anyone else’s is always going to be a challenge. Encountering some kind of recognition and taking the right steps towards accessing a publisher is really difficult and a huge achievement on its own. I was extraordinarily lucky to be represented by Jane Novak from fairly early on and receive her advice. She is a literary matchmaker at heart with a wealth of experience and knowledge.
The other direct product of my science life was the inheritance chapter. Trans people generally have a well-founded mistrust of and reticence to engage with the establishment of science, in particular medical science. Science also has a philosophical hubris in method and declarations. Peer review is hallowed ground, nothing else is given much credence. I live in both worlds and I found myself exploring the treatment of transgender people and bodies within the peer-reviewed literature and a kind of quest science has been on to define the causes of queerness. This was murky territory that I felt compelled to enter and write about and redefine for myself as much as anyone else. Every so often a science article comes out with a headline about trans brains or something and I wanted to challenge the unexamined and damaging narrative that perpetuates. Nothing in that chapter is neutral.
What other writing projects do you plan to undertake in the future? I’m not completely sure yet… something will take a hold of me, I’m sure about that. What it will be, I don’t know. I suspect I will want to give a bit of poetry to something that doesn’t normally get it. In the meantime, I’m enjoying free weekends and processing my new life as a published writer. BS
As Beautiful as Any Other is published by Picador Australia.
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READ
Extract: Benevolence by Julie Janson Julie Janson’s debut novel Benevolence presents a pivotal period in colonial Australian history, told from an Indigenous perspective. In this critically acclaimed work of fiction, Janson, who will appear at Byron Writers Festival this year, confronts stereotypes and allows a voice to an Aboriginal experience of early settlement.
The grey-green eucalypts clatter with the sound of cicadas. Magpies and currawongs warble across the early morning sky as the sun’s heat streams down. It is eaglehawk time, the season of burumurring when the land is dry, and these birds fly after small game. Muraging’s clan, the Burruberongal of the Darug people, gather their dillybags and coolamons and prepare for the long walk to Burramatta, the land of eels, and Parramatta town. The old women stamp out a fire, and one gathers the baby boy in her arms and ties him onto her possum-skin cloak. Muraging hears rattling carts full of waibala, whitefella, and the sound of pots against iron wheels. She looks back and sees the deep wheel marks, like huge snake tracks, and hurries after her father, Berringingy. He gives her a waibala coat of red wool. So he loves her. He turns away and she watches the boy take her place. She can see the love between man and boy. She doesn’t understand what is about to happen, but she knows she must try to have courage. There is loud talk around her. She is limp with the heat and imagines herself floating in a deep, cool creek. But her father is speaking to her and what he is saying brings her back. He tells her he met some men in Parramatta town who offered to teach Aboriginal children to read and write. She is to be an important part of helping their people and she must learn 10 | WINTER 2021 northerly
their language and their ways. She must be brave and remember that he loves her and one day he will come back for her. He reminds her that the sky god Baiame and his son, Daramulum, will watch over and protect her. She panics and grips his hand. Alarm rises and her aunt mothers look away. Her father lifts her up and holds his head with her body pressed against his black curls. She longs for food chews wattle gum to ease her thirst. The red coat is dropped along the track. ... They walk for many days before they arrive at Parramatta where carriages and bullock wagons churn mud – and the horses are terrifyingly big. She quivers at the sharp hooves and the whinnying, like the sound of monsters. A wooden stage has been erected near the church, where soldiers stand in formation, rifles by their sides. Musicians play on the stage and a juggler tosses balls in the air while a boy raps on his drum. Men in black coats and women in long dresses hold parasols as they gather. Roses bloom behind picket fences. Today is the Annual Native Feast – a day when blankets and food are distributed to the Deerubbin Aborigines of the Hawkesbury River area. Families sit in groups on the lawn, passing roast meats and swigging at jugs of bool, rum. Different clans sit
READ
next to each other, some dressed in rags and others resplendent in possum-skin cloaks. They gather in front of the verandah where the Governor’s wife, Mrs Macquarie, hands out blankets. Berringingy pushes through the melee searching for the man in a black coat. Muraging’s head turns back and forth staring at men in red with sabres. She is startled by the noise and loud music. She sees a tall wooden box with striped material, surrounded by small children who shout and laugh. Tiny people in bright coloured clothes are trapped in the box hitting each other. One has a hooked nose and a red pointed hat with jingling bells. Muraging pulls urgently on her father’s arm to get him to look at this spectacle. Her father places her down and hands her over to the government men of the Native Institution to be a school pupil. She is shown where the big fella boss stands – Governor Lachlan Macquarie. He gives a speech about his feelings of benevolence towards native people and how he accepts their gift. This word nguyangun – gift – can’t be correct. Muraging wants to scream but she can’t move or speak. Berringingy is standing in the sunlight and the boy now clings to his shoulders. The longed-for boy. She wishes they had left him in the bush for the ants. Her father stands, places his knuckles together on the top of his woomera and leans forward, listening. A
captain in red wool is talking slowly as if her father is stupid. The English words sound like the rattle of sticks. Berringingy looks over at her and wipes away a tear. Muraging stares at him. She has seen this look of confusion on his face before, when he was first given a bag of flour. He made a joke – had they given him white dust or ochre paint? He mimed spitting it out as he tasted it. He threw it away and the bag burst and produced a white cloud. They had all laughed. The tribe had kept their eyes on him to see what to do about these ghost men with fire sticks that killed. Her father was their star and moon. But then the soldiers had laughed at him. She had been dismayed to see him, their leader, ridiculed. They produced damper from a saddle bag, and the terrible horse had whinnied, frightening them all except her father. Berringingy stood tall, turned his back and, with a flick of a hand, the whole mob walked away. Proud. They didn’t need white dust from dead people. Only later would Muraging know what it is to beg for just one scoop of waibala flour. Now she is naked in front of these ghost men, their ghost-blue eyes glowing as she pulls a cotton shift over her head. Benevolence is published by Magabala Books.
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Photo by Adam Smith
INTERVIEW
Festival preview: Christopher Raja Christopher Raja’s landmark memoir Into the Suburbs: A Migrant’s Story is an examination of race, class, migration and tragedy through a deeply personal lens. Here he offers his thoughts on the gestation and process of writing the book, prior to his appearance at Byron Writers Festival 2021. Can you outline the inspiration for writing Into the Suburbs? What was the initial drive and what questions were you trying to explore? When I was eighteen years old my father’s body was found in Port Phillip Bay. The cause of death has remained a mystery. This event changed our lives. For years I was unmoored, never feeling 12 | WINTER 2021 northerly
quite right. Writing The Burning Elephant and Into The Suburbs was a way of understanding my Indian background and my family’s migration from Calcutta to Melbourne, dealing with what it was like to fit into Australia as new migrants and ultimately coming to terms with my father’s untimely death.
Can you identify some of the key influences on the book? I am a voracious reader. Some of the books I was reading and thinking about at the time of writing my memoir included Tara Westover’s Educated, Peter Handke’s A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, AD Hope, Peter Steele and T S Eliot’s poetry, Annie Ernaux’s The
INTERVIEW
Years, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle, Rachel Cusk’s Aftermath and Emmanuel Carrère’s The Kingdom. Turning to the nuts and bolts of publishing the book, promotion, and reception, how has your experience of these things been different to the works of fiction you have published? Every project is different. I am grateful to have had my play script, The First Garden, about Olive Pink and her botanic garden in Alice Springs, published by Currency Press in 2012, and The Burning Elephant, a YA novel that deals with the assassination of Indira Gandhi, published by Giramondo in 2015. Into the Suburbs was a very different experience as it was a private story for many years. I had written an early draft twenty years ago, but found writing this book required time, space and perspective, so I abandoned it. The final process was unexpected, quick, cathartic and healing. I am appreciative I could do it and get this story out of my system into the public realm, but talking about the book has been difficult. I know it has touched a lot of people. I have received emails and letters telling me what this book has meant to some readers and I am glad about that. The personal events I write about – being a teenager, sexuality, migration, death of a parent, class and exile – are universal. My publisher for Into the Suburbs was Madonna Duffy and she and the publicist Jean Smith at University of Queensland Press have been a dream to work with and a terrific support. As I promoted this book they recognised I was vulnerable, wanting to hide, but bold at the same time and wanting this story to be read widely. My agent Martin Shaw was encouraging and has
been very helpful behind the scenes and with social media. Writing Into the Suburbs changed me. Promoting the book during a pandemic in the midst of a hard lockdown in Melbourne was another challenge. Now I feel happy, have less of an ego, liberated somehow. Were there any sections of the book that you found especially challenging to write, from either a technical or emotional standpoint? The memoir is written from the perspective of a teenager and I avoided including how I think and live now. Some readers appear to have found the sexual content confronting. You can’t control how readers will interpret your book. I wanted to use my adolescence as a blueprint to show how a teenage boy thinks and sees the world, the type of messages and expectations that young men receive and try to process on their own. I was hoping for this to be a conversation starter about the need to dislodge sexism and racism. Race, violence, class, suburbia and death are subjects I deal with in my memoir and I wanted to write about these topics in an honest and precise way. Writing about my family, being a male, a teenager and sex was confronting, as was the re-creation of my father’s last hours. It is hard to be honest.
British Empire. One reason Australia was colonised was to protect the flanks of India from the French. India was the jewel of the British Empire and shares a number of the legacies of colonialism that Australia is still dealing with. What writing projects are you working at the moment, and what might be something you hold a strong ambition to do longerterm? Longer-term, I have more to write, more potential, more to absorb, more work. I am considering writing a sequel to Into the Suburbs. At the moment, I am focused on my fellowship residency at the University of Technology in Sydney. After years of living remotely, I’m enjoying spending time in the city, meeting students and staff at the university and finishing my next novel. BS
Based on your experience, can you offer any general comment on the literary relationship between India and Australia? India and Australia have an old history that stretches back to time immemorial. Tectonic plates, the supercontinent of Gondwana, Dravidians, dingoes, and the seven sisters star cluster named Pleiades in Greek mythology are just a few stories that connect the two countries that were once part of the
Into the Suburbs: A Migrant’s Story is published by University of Queensland Press.
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FEATURE
From the Reading Chair: The backstory balancing act In a taster of her workshop at Byron Writers Festival this year, local editor Laurel Cohn discusses the importance of getting character backstory right, whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction.
Have you ever been stuck at an event with a stranger who wants to tell you, unprompted, all about themselves? Even if that person looked interesting from afar, they can quickly become boring. Too much backstory! The same is true with characters on the page. Readers don’t need to be regaled with great slabs of personal history about characters in order to care about them, or in order to understand what’s happening. And it’s not just characters, but also settings, both physical and social; while a sense of place is needed so that your characters aren’t interacting in a vacuum, particularly in speculative fiction genres where world-building is key, there is a point where too much information is distracting.
The need to know In an attempt to set up the story, in time and place as well as character and key event, often a writer will get bogged down in the backstory, particularly in the opening chapters. And let me be specific – particularly in chapter two after a dramatic event in chapter one. It’s almost as if the writer is saying to the reader, ‘I’ve started with something to grab your attention, but hang on a minute, let me pause to fill you in.’ I understand why writers do this. It is vital they are intimately familiar with the history of their characters and sometimes also of the locations where the action takes place. The
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writer needs to know this backstory in order to create compelling and believable characters with plausible motivations, as well as three-dimensional settings. However, the reader doesn’t need to know that level of detail to follow the story, to care about the characters, or to be curious about what happens next. On the flip side, sometimes writers don’t put in enough backstory, leaving the reader unclear about characters’ motivations, their frame of mind in different scenarios and the contexts that shape their decision-making. This can impede a reader’s ability to engage with the characters, as actions, demeanour and thoughts aren’t tied to a delineated sense of a whole character. It can be hard to empathise with or care about a character you only meet on the surface. It’s a balancing act – you need a certain amount of backstory for a reader to engage and identify with characters and places, but need to steer clear of what are called ‘info dumps’, chunks of information that slow the pace or stall the narrative. Whether you are writing fiction or narrative non-fiction such as memoir, you need to be able to distinguish between the information the reader must know in order to follow your story thread at that moment, and all those other fascinating things that you, the writer, know about the characters and places, that can be omitted.
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Revealing and concealing backstory Much can be revealed about the past through the actions and interactions of characters in the present and through careful narration and description. We pay attention not only to who is speaking but also to what is said, the way it is said and why. We pay attention to what a person looks like, how they move, how they respond to what’s happening around them. And we pay attention to the setting, especially those that contain personal objects of some sort. I bet I’m not the only one who finds themselves perusing the bookshelves of someone I’m visiting for the first time to help me get a sense of who this person is. These details give us clues not only about that person’s present and character, but also about their past. Same in a book, which is why dialogue, action and description of settings are such important ways of revealing character, and revealing backstory. Think in terms of inserting snippets of backstory in context. Let the reader discover who the characters are over time, much like we get to know people in real life. Let the context – the scene, the moment in the plotline – help determine what snippet of backstory is revealed. The choices you make about what the reader knows direct their emotional response to the characters. You can choose to conceal the backstory that has shaped your characters’ motivations for dramatic effect, manipulating the way the reader sees the characters
on the page. What the reader knows and doesn’t know about the backstory can drive the tension and narrative momentum. Sometimes, revealing key backstory elements only near the end of a narrative can amplify the power of the whole story.
Mastering the balancing act A good way to start focusing on the backstory balancing act is to read the work of your favourite writers and notice how they carefully place backstory snippets, how they drip-feed information to keep the reader curious. What specific details do they reveal about their characters and places? When? How? Why at that moment? It can take many drafts to get backstory right. You may start with too much, or you may start with too little. You may realise that you need to adjust a character’s backstory to amplify the themes you are exploring or to increase the dramatic tension in places. The more awareness you bring to your use of backstory, the more effective it will be. It takes practice. 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 will hold a workshop, Balancing Backstory, as part of Byron Writers Festival 2021, for more information see page 25 or visit byronwritersfestival.com/festival-workshops/
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READ
Extract: The Frenchman by Jack Beaumont
The Frenchman, a thriller, is a work of fiction based on the real-life experiences of a former French spy, and offers a uniquely authentic take on the world of intelligence and espionage. Here we present the opening of Jack Beaumont’s novel – and the author will appear at Byron Writers Festival in August. The expert standing on the stage thanked the presenter, signalling an end to the session on solid-fuel propellants. Amin rose to his feet with two hundred other scientists and engineers as the lights came up on the conference floor. The large doors of the ballroom in Singapore’s Pan Pacific Hotel swung open and he moved towards them. As he reached the exit, a ruddy-faced Australian radar engineer approached him. Amin knew John Vaughan from other conferences but, despite the Queenslander’s friendliness, Amin had always kept his distance, trying to limit his social exposure. ‘Shit, mate, did you understand any of that?’ John shook his head. ‘I was a passenger for most of it.’ Amin chuckled. ‘It’s a small club, the rocket world.’ ‘Fancy an early beer?’ asked the Aussie. ‘The boys found a bar needs propping up.’ Amin glanced at his watch. ‘Sorry, I have some work to finish in my room.’ He caught the elevator to his room on the eighth floor and secured the interior mechanical bolt. Pulling the curtains, he shut out a view of the marina and fished a disposable cell phone from his wheelie case. It was 1.59 p.m., one minute until his daily call. He assembled the battery and SIM card into the Samsung he’d bought at Changi Airport, and at 2 p.m. Singapore time he selected ‘Dan’ – a name in the middle of a contact list of 16 | WINTER 2021 northerly
nonsense numbers – and hit the green button. The phone chirped as the call relayed to the Colonel, the man in charge of Amin’s project section. A silverhaired man with a thick neck who never wore a military uniform, he’d introduced himself the day before Amin turned twenty-six and made his proposal: Use your PhD to help build Pakistan’s missile capability and you’ll be paid more than your peers and work at the highest levels in the best labs. It seemed like a perfect birthday present, even if the trade-off was a profession he couldn’t talk about and a life controlled by Pakistan’s secret intelligence service, the ISI. Not that a government employee could ever ask if they were being overseen by the ISI; persons being controlled by the ISI were not emboldened to ask questions about it. But after working on missile development for six months, some of the engineers told him that his phone and internet were probably monitored, as were his interactions with friends. He considered this a small price to pay. He got to travel, he wore nice suits and expensive watches, and the pay was good – it had taken his father, a senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance, thirty years of service to earn what Amin was making before he was twenty-nine. It wasn’t until he met Anita that he’d started to question the compromises. Amin had disclosed his relationship with her, as required for classified workers, but the Colonel seemed to know about his new girlfriend already. Amin told his new love that he worked in a
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university research lab on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, without mentioning what he was actually working on. Anita worked at a classified scientific facility called the MERC, and they came to an unspoken agreement early in their courtship: don’t ask – don’t tell. Perhaps, Amin pondered once after he’d drunk too much wine, the Colonel was relaxed about Anita because he knew they didn’t discuss work? Perhaps he knew, because phone and internet were not all he monitored? Amin grew increasingly restless with the arrangement. He didn’t like lying to his girlfriend – now wife; he didn’t like it when the Colonel showed him photos of Anita from university, with her Western friends, or when he disclosed that Anita’s father was a secret alcoholic. When Amin tried to push back, the Colonel explained the facts of life: This is not a job you walk away from – but you’d be smart enough to understand this, yes? Yes, thought Amin as he sat on the hotel bed, waiting for the call to connect with Islamabad. He was smart enough to have worked that out. ‘Amin,’ came the smooth voice of the Colonel, when the call connected. ‘What news?’ Amin was accustomed to these communications. When he travelled he made the same call every day and it usually lasted twenty seconds. Sometimes the Colonel would ask a pointed question about gyroscopic
stabilisers or satellite guidance systems. He always asked who had spoken to him and his response. ‘An Australian engineer, John Vaughan,’ said Amin when the inevitable question was posed. ‘He invited me to go for a drink. I said no.’ As the Colonel ended the call, Amin’s iPhone began to buzz along the desktop. He’d switched it to vibrate in the seminar, and now it just rattled on the wood veneer. He checked the caller ID; it was Anita. ‘Hello, my love,’ he said, happy to hear from her. Since marrying, he was prone to homesickness. ‘Amin, you have to come home,’ she said. ‘Please! It’s urgent.’ ‘Slow down. What’s happening?’ ‘It’s Mama – she’s sick,’ said Anita. He could hear the fear in her voice now. Amin’s mother-in-law was a healthy woman; any sign of ill health would be a shock to her family. ‘I’m on the two o’clock flight tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There’s a round table tonight.’ ‘No,’ she said desperately. ‘Mama might not make it through the night. We need you here now.’
The Frenchman is published by Allen & Unwin.
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FEATURE
Night thoughts First-time author Madeleine Ryan’s novel A Room Called Earth is a sensitive, humorous and lively exploration of neurodiversity, belonging, family and identity. Katinka Smit speaks with her.
In her debut novel, Madeleine Ryan has constructed a character believable and flawed, a study of human complexity. The story, spanning one night, is narrated by a young single woman firmly in touch with her own reality, and how it interrelates with the people and world around her in every moment and interaction. The publicity announces the author’s neurodiversity as though indivisible from the story, and Ryan herself freely admits to a ‘dance’ between her own sensibilities and the character’s. ‘I brought my own structure of how I process people and experiences, how I reflect on memories, the order in which that happens, and the shape in which that happens,’ she says. She acknowledges the natural storytelling qualities inherent in that diversity of perception, ‘which is very much about illuminating how we work – different sensitivities and patterns of behaviour – that neurodiverse people magnify’. She notes that the ‘obsessive attention to detail or heightened emotions’ often associated with neurodiversity can be a powerful way to examine things that ‘everyone is grappling with’. Our heroine is acutely and accurately grappling with her particular place in history and life: as a woman, daughter, girlfriend, thinker, and physical, emotional and spiritual being – as an Australian. It’s a heady mix of self-awareness, skilfully narrated through the events of what could be a superficial story – an evening before, during and after a party in a fairly ‘white Australian’ cultural experience. What makes this young woman’s experience (and this novel) so exceptional though, is not only her neurodiversity. What we are witnessing is a complex and traumatised psyche in hyper-healing mode. Psychologists recognise that trauma affects sensitive people more intensely. Highly sensitive people hear, see and know what other people don’t, empathically feeling abuse and manipulation more deeply. Children who 18 | WINTER 2021 northerly
are like this need more love, recognition and support. Those who don’t receive it are more likely to feel the effects of trauma more intensely and for much longer. Our unnamed protagonist has, we find out, suffered a sudden trauma too, compounding her childhood, yet it has offered her an obvious and necessary vehicle for healing. She obsesses with self-care through her inner and outer actions. She cannot let any dishonesty go unchallenged, in herself or others, even if it’s socially awkward and makes people uncomfortable. Her honesty is all-encompassing, at once physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, existential. We traverse her mind, the micro and macro view. We follow her focus from objects, people or events happening around her to the thoughts they provoke, from flippant to irreverent to caustic, through the philosophical and deeply awed. Our heroine plucks and weaves separate threads together, her life a loom. In one scene, her thoughts slide from the books she is reading to the existential conundrum of being born in Australia on the blanket background of dispossession, genocide and the oldest continuing human civilisation on Earth, yet being nourished from this same land, then on to her untameable hair and how she is dressed to encounter the world out there, different from her world at home, which she possesses and creates in complete control. ‘I was just surrendering to being guided by her, to committing to the space created by her. As that opened up, I started to see where it might go, but it was really about following where she was going in each moment, where she was choosing to put her attention. And it does create its own logic and structure. It’s very true to how our minds work.’ Recurring motifs shape the protagonist’s mind. Triggered by events of the night and the people present, she loops back to ex-boyfriends, her father, her parents’ relationship. Relationship dynamics and conversations
Photo by Hector H. Mackenzie
FEATURE
are laid out and examined, sewn into tidy conclusions. Yet the patrilineal pull on her, her mother’s life in absentia, her own vulnerability as a woman, the lived result of colonialism, her too muchness, tell of a submerged reality that resists resolution. All are symbolic of patriarchal power and its ways of being that negate the feminine, and of the matriarchal, silenced but surfacing, nonetheless.
prepare ourselves to be witnessed by others, how we want to be witnessed and interpreted.’ Ryan’s protagonist takes direct charge of this, leaving nothing to subconscious desire or chance. Rather, she reveals herself, petal by petal, to herself and to her world. Every unfurling is exacting in its timing and its purpose: to experience, and be experienced by, life. And to be loved, exactly as she is.
‘It’s an interesting thing culturally, the idea of the patriarchy being awake and the matriarchy being asleep or numbed out, and that’s represented in the figures that she has in her mind of her parents. The pull between the two and how to find a balance between the two natures – the forceful, dominant logic-oriented, and the receptive, harmonious and intuitive, her connection to the earth. Trying to find a way to harmonise those things within myself, in this culture, is so difficult, yet it is so important to be able to function without feeling like you’re going mad.’ Some readers may read her character as mad, and others will find her strange. Others still will recognise a state of mind: an incessant, at times brutal, honesty, a psychological vigilance that perhaps only the hypersensitive, the traumatised, or the neurodiverse may find familiar, comfortably or not. Ultimately, the character’s modus operandi is to be witnessed. ‘There’s something universal in that — how we
A Room Called Earth is published by Scribe.
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REVIEW
Bother the gloomy Only Happiness Here: In Search of Elizabeth von Arnim By Gabrielle Carey Review by Jenny Bird
Only Happiness Here is a hybrid work of non-fiction, both biography and memoir, and a layered reflection on the nature of happiness. Gabrielle Carey’s fascination with the life and works of the writer Elizabeth von Arnim is both literary and personal. Carey, an academic, declares that rather than write a conventional biography, she wants to share her ‘love of Elizabeth and her works with readers outside of the scholarly world.’ She describes her relationship with Elizabeth as ‘like a very special friend that I was aching to introduce to everyone I knew.’ Carey is ‘incensed’ that Australian-born Elizabeth ‘had been so completely forgotten’ and determines to return her to her rightful place in literary history. But Carey’s interest in Elizabeth von Arnim lies deeper than just a biographer’s sense of injustice for an overlooked and forgotten subject. Already committed to writing a book about Elizabeth, Carey’s family was struck by tragedy, and, with life and work on hold, Carey found that she had forgotten what happiness was. Worse than that, she felt that she had ‘completely lost faith in the very idea of happiness, let alone the pursuit of it.’ Carey writes, ‘When I discovered Elizabeth von Arnim, I found, for the first time, a writer who wrote about being happy.’ Carey’s questions became these: ‘What did Elizabeth understand about happiness that no other writer I’ve ever come across did? And is it something I too might be able to learn?’ She takes a year off to study Elizabeth, a year that she describes as ‘one of the happiest in my life.’ In Only Happiness Here Carey toggles between Elizabeth’s personal diaries, her books, and three previously published biographies to fulfil her promise of sharing her special friend with us. I too fell in love with Elizabeth and laughed out loud at her wickedly 20 | WINTER 2021 northerly
satirical writing about marriage and the gendered roles of domestic life at the turn of the twentieth century: She hadn’t been married a week before she was reflecting what a bad arrangement it was, the way ecstasy seemed to have no staying power. Also it oughtn’t to begin, she considered, at its topmost height and accordingly not be able to move except downwards. If one could only start modestly in marriage with very little of it and work steadily upwards…’
And this observation from an agriculturalist husband: His affection for his wife was quite satisfactory: it was calm, it was deep, it interfered with nothing. She held the honourable position he had always, even at his most enamoured moment, known she would ultimately fill, the position next best in his life after the fertilizers.
You can be forgiven for never having heard of Elizabeth von Arnim. Born in Sydney in 1866, her family moved to London in 1870. She lived ‘a manically restless life’ in Europe, England and the USA, never returning to Australia. She was a friend of E.M. Foster, a lover of H.G. Wells, the wife of Count Henning August von ArnimSchlagenthin and later the wife of Bertrand Russell’s brother Frank. She was the mother of five children and the cousin of Katherine Mansfield. Throughout a life of chaotic and often destructive domestic, financial and romantic dramas, she was a determined, consistent and prolific writer. Most of her twenty-one books are thinly disguised semi-autobiographies. When Elizabeth died in 1941 the Melbourne Advocate said this about her writing: ‘Wit, glamour, joyousness, truth (sometimes ugly), incisive satire, laughter, beauty, common sense…’ Amidst the chaos and periods of deep depression,
REVIEW
Elizabeth managed to carve out periods of rapturous happiness. According to Carey, Elizabeth ‘had little sympathy for misery gutses’ and the inscription above the front door of her Swiss chalet ‘Only Happiness Here’ is a declaration of sorts. ‘Bother the gloomy’ says Elizabeth. Carey structures the book around a set of nine ‘Principles of Happiness According to Elizabeth von Arnim’ – what she learns from Elizabeth about happiness, and what she would like to share with us in case we might like to follow. For example, Elizabeth found sublime joy in nature, her gardens, and in sunlight. The spiritual rapture she describes from being in nature reminded me of the transcendentalists and Henry David Thoreau: I lived in a world of dandelions and delights… the acacias all blossomed too, and four great clumps of pale, slivery-pink peonies flowered under the south windows, I felt absolutely happy, and blest, and thankful and grateful, that I cannot describe it. My days seemed to melt away in a dream of pink and purple peace.
Only Happiness Here gifted me the unexpected sheer delight of meeting Elizabeth and her writing. But it also set going a deep reflection on my own relationship to happiness. Sometimes I found myself not quite trusting Elizabeth’s take on happiness. She had, when you add it all up, a tough life despite her privilege. Yet she kept bouncing back to happiness. Occasionally I wondered if Elizabeth needed a psychologist. It seemed that her highs were very high and her lows very low. Of course, my suspicions had as much to do with my own relationship to happiness as they did with Elizabeth. Yet how could I be doubtful of a woman who wrote in her diary just before her death, ‘I think I’ve so got into
the habit of being happy inside and quite secretly…’ While reading Only Happiness Here I coincidentally came across an interview with actor Charlotte Rampling in The Guardian in which she talks about the impact of the death by suicide of her twenty-threeyear-old sister. She said ‘I couldn’t be what I had been before. I couldn’t be happy any more. Your whole life changes.’ I understood exactly what she meant. But Elizabeth had a contrary approach to pain and grief: ‘One has only got to shut out the parts of the present one doesn’t like to see this all clear and feel so happy.’ At the very beginning and at the very end of the book Carey mounts two broader arguments about happiness. One is that ‘modernism didn’t believe in happiness,’ and the other, ‘let’s face it, most literature is miserable.’ Carey wonders about Elizabeth: She was demoted to those of the unsophisticated cheerful. It has become more respectable to be depressed, an attitude that signals virtue, and almost socially irresponsible to be happy – a state that is associated with vacuousness… amid our infatuation with darkness, being cheerful has become not only unsophisticated but morally suspect.
As you can see, there is a lot to ponder in Only Happiness Here, but let us allow Elizabeth the last word: ‘What are you to do if your conscience is clear and your liver in good order and the sun is shining?’
University of Queensland Press / 248pp / RRP $32.99
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REVIEW
Precious ingots The Gold Heist by Phil Latz Review by Robyn Haynes
Phil Latz was channeling action/adventure author James Patterson when he wrote The Gold Heist, a page-turning story that enthralls right to the end. The narrative action jumps between Australia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, all locations Phil is intimately familiar with, having lived and flown throughout the Asia-Pacific region as a helicopter pilot during his flying career. The deep insight he gained into the cultures he encountered adds authenticity to the novel, making plausible the flourishing of dark criminal elements at work within. Human resilience and resourcefulness in the face of great danger are examined in this novel. It shines a spotlight on what happens when people under pressure make bad choices, and is witness to the consequences of those choices. Weaving adroitly back and forth between the crime as it unfolds, and the crime’s investigation, the plot has two strands. Two main characters represent each narrative strand. Like all of us, they are flawed human beings, both struggling with personal crises. The novel opens with the first main protagonist, Samantha Fellows, a former policewoman and now private investigator, wrestling with the knowledge she is about to lose the family farm, the result of her dead brother’s drinking and gambling. Her troubles are further amplified when she is suspected of his murder. In her role as a private investigator, she is scrutinising the theft of sensitive files from a Sydneybased gold trading company, when things turn ugly. A company employee is run down, and Sam’s apartment is ransacked. Connecting the missing files with the gold heist, she flees to Singapore under a false identity to
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investigate and perhaps claim the reward for finding the gold. Mayhem ensues. The second plot line finds the other main protagonist, Brett Grant, mired in his own personal problems, accepting a job as a security guard in Indonesia. He becomes indebted to an Asian triad who ensnare him in their plans to hijack a helicopter carrying gold bullion, only to betray him once they have the gold. He draws on all his resources to survive. Fast pacing and engaging characters are notable strengths of The Gold Heist. Action scene descriptions are gripping and the detailed exposition of the story’s locations are vivid. The novel appeals for its ability to transport the reader to exotic places where social attitudes and expectations may be different from their own. To this end, Phil conveys the intersection of cultures convincingly – not unexpected given his lived experience in Southeast Asia. However, overemphasis on Sam’s beauty seems superfluous to the storyline. She is a smart and sassy well-drawn character, which is far sexier than being a beautiful ex-model, for this reader. Similarly, descriptions of sexual encounters were a little heavyhanded and overt. A subtle ‘less is more’ approach would have served the story better in this regard. However, this is a minor point given that it is balanced out by the strong female characters in this book. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to readers of action-packed adventure. The Gold Heist is an enjoyable and rattling good read. phillatz.com / $29.95
REVIEW
Working-class hero Low Expectations by Stuart Everly-Wilson Review by Polly Jude
Fifteen-year-old Devon Destri is a young man in hiding. He’s hiding from the school yard bullies with nothing better to do than make his life hell. He’s hiding from the street busybodies who watch his every move. But he’s also hiding from his mum and from himself. Devon’s let the whole world think he can’t talk, that he’s ‘hard of speaking’ and that his cerebral palsy makes him stupid. But Devon Destri is smarter than they all know, and thanks to clever first-person narration, the reader is in on the secret. Hiding out in the remedial classes offers Devon some protection from the system and the thugs. But when Devon and his best friend and protector, Big Tammy, launch a lucrative porn magazine business, it throws them both into the mainstream where they are confronted and challenged by a town that doesn’t fit either of them. Set in gritty, industrial Western Sydney, Low Expectations is set in 1975, a tough year for Devon. He loves David Bowie – yet another thing that separates him from the conservative, working-class world in which he lives. Devon’s nearly at the end of high school and a lifetime of secrets are about to catch up with him and his mum, as Devon starts to unravel the secret identity of his father. The past and the lies of a whole town are about to be revealed with both devastating and inspiring consequences. A secret fan of the classic Great Expectations, the irony isn’t lost on Devon or his audience – Devon has low expectations. Of himself, of his mother, of everyone in his life who seems to let him down in various ways, over and over again. This coming-of-age story sees Devon finally recognise that these low expectations aren’t the limitations he always thought they were, but an opportunity to stand up, change things and to be better. Low Expectations is made even more relatable by offering readers an unusual cast of characters. Devon’s mum loves to gossip but is too often the topic of everyone else’s talk. Krenek is the Hungarian refugee who at times seems like Devon’s only confidant. There is the bully father-and-son combo who own the local
shop, and the long-suffering wife and mother who is so much more than she appears, but who is just as trapped in her life as Devon is trapped in his. Low Expectations explores a number of confronting issues: rape and sexual abuse, domestic violence, bullying, living with disability and sexuality. The 1970s setting allows the audience to consider these issues from a more contemporary position while at the same time, the 1970s context makes Devon’s choices even more courageous. Told in the charming and at times confronting voice of Devon, Low Expectations is the coming-of-age story you didn’t know you’d been waiting for. It’s gritty, real and raw. Bowie-loving Devon Destri is an unlikely hero. He’s been called Western Sydney’s very own Holden Caulfield, but this anti-hero is funnier, more likeable and more relatable than Holden ever was. Low Expectations is the debut novel from Northern Rivers author, Stuart Everly-Wilson, and it’s a cracker! It is both heartbreaking and hilarious. With his sharp oneliners, endless courage and killer sense of style, Devon becomes the working-class hero of his own making. In true Charles Dickens fashion, Everly-Wilson explores the funny sides of poor social and working conditions in 1970s Australian blue-collar suburbs with comical and, at times, repulsive characters. When Devon overcomes all the obstacles thrown at him, audiences are ready to cheer along with him. He’s the ultimate underdog with kick-arse hair. This novel may appeal to readers who love Scot Gardner’s simple yet poetic narrative style or to readers who enjoyed Craig Silvey’s Honeybee. Text Publishing / 320pp / $32.99
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WORKSHOPS
What’s the Truth Got to Do With It? with Alan Close
MON 2 AUG 10.00AM — 4.00PM Byron Community College $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 is so challenging and elusive. This hands-on workshop will give you the tools to make your story both engaging and authentic.
Writing for the Screen with Benjamin Gilmour
TUES 3 AUG 10.00AM — 4.00PM Byron Community Centre $120/100 Members & Students Writer/director Benjamin Gilmour, whose script for his feature film Jirga won the 2019 NSW Premier’s Prize for Scriptwriting, hosts a workshop on the art of screenwriting. Participants will explore the growing of ideas, the importance of story, character development and structure. This workshop will provide skills required to work towards the first draft of a screenplay. 24 | WINTER 2021 northerly
Balancing Backstory
Nature Writing
with Laurel Cohn
with Sophie Hardcastle
MON 2 AUG
TUES 3 AUG
10.00AM — 4.00PM Byron Community Centre $120/100 Members & Students
10.00AM — 4.00PM Byron Community College $120/100 Members & Students
There’s nothing worse than getting cornered at a party with a stranger telling you all about themselves – too much backstory! The same is true on the page. Backstory can bog down a manuscript, but it is also essential. This workshop helps writers manage the backstory balancing act.
Ideal for anyone who is curious about the world around them… whether that’s a curiosity for sea breezes, an interest in tree root systems, or a fascination for glacial ice, Sophie will help participants write landscapes to life.
The Golden Rules for Writing a Great Short Story
Making Truth from Story and Story from Truth
with Sunil Badami
WED 4 AUG 10.00AM — 4.00PM Byron Community College $120/100 Members & Students In an engaging, enlightening and entertaining day-long workshop, writer, broadcaster and academic Sunil Badami will reveal his Golden Rules for Writing a Great Short Story, which he tested by writing four short stories in four weeks — all of which were published in some of Australia’s most prestigious literary journals.
with Kathryn Heyman
WED 4 AUG 1.00PM — 4.00PM Byron Community Centre $60/50 Members & Students Award-winning novelist and memoirist Kathryn Heyman (Fury) helps you take a kernel of truth and turn it into a work of art: a novel, memoir or captivating work of narrative non-fiction. Using a mixture of example, discussion and carefully selected exercises Kathryn Heyman will help you discover the core of your story and how to make it sing.
WORKSHOPS
Go Publish Yourself
Authentic You for Writers
Elements of a Story
with IngramSpark
with Mandy Nolan & George Catsi
with Chris Raja
WED 4 & THURS 5 AUG
9.30AM — 12.30PM Byron Community College $60/50 Members & Students
WED 4 AUG 10.00AM — 12.30PM Byron Community Centre $35/25 Members & Students Whether you’re an aspiring or established writer you can now ‘go publish yourself’ on equal footing with the mainstream industry players. Join Debbie Lee from IngramSpark to learn about printon-demand and global distribution, and how these services are turning the publishing world on its head.
9AM — 5PM & 9AM — 2.30PM Rockinghorse Studios, Coorabell $650/590 Early bird inc. hot lunch
both days
Supported by IngramSpark
For many writers the most comfortable place is behind the keyboard. Mandy Nolan and George Catsi are story detectives – taking your narrative from the page to the stage. Learn how to shine on panels, in story pitches and interviews. An immersive, transforming hands-on class!
Bringing Your Non-Fiction Book to Life
Writing Difficult Characters
with Maggie Hamilton
with Peter Polites
THURS 5 AUG
THURS 5 AUG
10.00AM — 4.00PM Byron Community Centre $120/100 Members & Students
10.00AM — 4.00PM Byron Community Centre $120/100 Members & Students
In this lively workshop, learn how to make your work relevant and captivating – how to arrive at your own voice, and weave in the voices of others – what to leave in and what to take out, and what mistakes non-fiction writers make.
From Captain Ahab to Mrs Dalloway, all the way to that kid everyone hates in The Slap – it’s the difficult characters that stay with us. In this session writers will be encouraged to study, dissect and bring difficult characters to life through a series of practical exercises. Supported by Faber Writing Academy
THURS 5 AUG
In this three-hour guided writing group, novelist, memoirist and playwright, Christopher Raja, will lead participants through a number of the key elements of a story. Participants are asked to bring along a piece of writing, project or story idea to develop in a supportive and positive setting.
Writing Family with Sara El Sayed
THURS 5 AUG 1.00PM — 4.00PM Byron Community College $60/50 Members & Students This workshop will guide participants through planning, researching and writing family stories. Participants will develop foundational skills in: understanding the ethics of writing the stories of others; deciding what stories need to be told, and why; and crafting family members as characters.
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SCU
A showcase of SCU student work, compiled by Dr Emma Doolan
the ocean creek Kim Blake
icy air, clearing skies deafening bird song cacophony, salt sits thick on licked lips running down the creek path, grass slashes ankles while eyes are on the lookout for sunbaking king browns high mounds of sandbanks laze as floating fish kill bellies that shimmer in the dazzle of morning sun, metallic blue solider crab armies drift like smoke across deserts of rippled sand, skirting bunker holes of stingray hideouts, tide chasing a restless target, miniscule bait fish spearheading salt water moving as oil, infiltrating mangrove spikes, sand oysters breathe salty brine, pelicans cruise in hunting pairs far apart camouflaging like they don’t care, the creek harbinger of life and death in glass water and crystal air
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Kim Blake has lived in the Northern Rivers for twelve years, raising her youngest daughter and renovating her house with her husband. She is in her final year of studying the Associate Degree in Creative Writing through SCU. She has a BA in English Literature from the University of New England, and is a teacher.
Competitions ROSE FRANKCOMBE SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2021
VENIE HOLMGREN ENVIRONMENTAL POETRY PRIZE
Closing date: 30 June The Rose Frankcombe Short Story Competition is open to all writers of short stories, and offers prize money of $200 for first prize and $50 for second prize. This year’s theme for writers to work to is ‘New Beginnings’, and stories should be between 1,200 and 1,500 words. There is a $10 entry fee for up to two entries. More details: swwtas.org/249437482
Closing date: 26 July Poems must be no more than 80 lines in length and on an environmental theme. Major prize is $1,000, and there are publishing opportunities with Rabbit journal. A $10 fee applies for each entry, with multiple entries allowed. More details: holmgren.com.au/the2021-venie-holmgren-environmentalpoetry-prize/
ACU PRIZE FOR POETRY Closing date: 5 July The Australian Catholic University Prize for Poetry supports the emergence of new and dynamic Australian poets and poetry. The total prize money is $18,000, with the first prize $10,000. The 2021 theme is ‘Resilience’ and will be judged by M.T.C Cronin. Poems should not exceed 80 lines and there is an entry fee of $25 per poem. More details: artsandculture.acu.edu. au/initiatives-and-prizes/acu-prize-forpoetry
E.M. FLETCHER WRITING AWARD Closing date: 15 July Entries for the best short story of 15002000 words on a family history or genealogy theme will be in contention to win a $1,000 prize. Organised by the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra Inc, the competition has an entry fee of $30 for non-members and $20 for members. More details: bestoftimes.com.au
RICHELL PRIZE FOR EMERGING WRITERS Closing date: 17 July The prize offers $10,000 and a year’s mentoring with one of Hachette Australia’s publishers to develop a manuscript. Guardian Australia will publish an extract of the first chapter of the winning work on its website. The prize is open to unpublished writers of adult fiction and adult narrative non-fiction. More details: emergingwritersfestival. org.au/richell-prize-emerging-writers/
VARUNA RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSHIPS Closing date: 29 July Varuna Residential Fellowships offer two to three weeks of full board and accommodation at Varuna, uninterrupted time to write in a private studio, and one-on-one input from a Varuna consultant. Submissions are welcome from writers working in all creative forms, including fiction, drama, poetry, children’s books, and narrative non-fiction. More details: varuna.com.au/ fellowships/varuna
SUDDEN WRITING PRIZE Closing date: 31 July This prize is aimed at emerging writers (aged 25 or under) of prose, poetry, prose poetry, or hybrid forms and has an open theme. The winner receives $500, their work published on the Express Media website and a Voiceworks subscription, and a one-year membership to the AAWP. More details: aawp.org.au/news/ opportunities/
KSP SHORT FICTION COMPETITION Closing date: 9 September This competitions offers a $300 prize plus weekend residency at the Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Writers’ Centre for open category and $100 first place prize for youth. Up to 2,500 words for adults and 1,000 for youth of original, unpublished writing with engaging characters and a compelling narrative in any fiction style or theme. There is a $10 fee per entry. More details: kspwriterscentre.com/ short-fiction-competition
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
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Advertise with us! SUPPORT NORTHERLY northerly is the official magazine of Byron Writers Festival. Published quarterly in March, June, September and December, it is widely distributed to members, community organisations, libraries, universities, schools, festivals, publishers and bookshops throughout the Northern Rivers and beyond. Designed to be picked up, put down, passed around, dog-eared and scribbled on, northerly reaches a highly engaged readership of discerning arts enthusiasts. Deals and discounts available. To discuss your advertising needs, contact us on (02) 6685 5115 or email northerlyeditor@gmail.com
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6 8 August Full program announced and all tickets on sale Featuring over 150 writers & thinkers including Archie Roach, Julia Baird, Richard Flanagan, Judith Lucy, Marcia Langton, Bryan Brown, Kate Grenville, Alice Pung, The Betoota Advocate, Raina MacIntyre, Nevo Zisin, and Evelyn Araluen
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