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Memoir

Festivaling

4 October 2023

My last post started with ‘I bloody love festivals’, and this one could start the same way. I really do. And I was recently at the wonderful Write Around the Murray, which I had long heard such good things about from author friends. They were absolutely right, it’s a cracker. The venues are gorgeous, the audiences were warm, the author line-up was fab, and everything was run so seamlessly by Director Ann-maree Ellis and her incredible team (particular shout out to Chris and photographer Pete, who is responsible for most of the photos here). To top it all off the weather was utter perfection and I could not have had a better time.

 

Opening night kicked off with yarnbombing from local Wiradjuri educator Ruth Davys, and a panel that I moderated with Paul Dalgarno, Gina Perry and Rijn Collins (who I also spoke with at Sorrento Writers Festival earlier this year). Our topic was ‘Mum’s the Word’. Interestingly, all three of the books have mothers who are absent in some way. All three also have brilliant plot twists which make it bloody hard – I so wanted to ask them questions that I couldn’t! Hard recommend on all three books as book club reads where all the spoilers can be discussed – A Country of Eternal Light (Dalgarno), My Father the Whale (Perry) and Fed to Red Birds (Collins).

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Saturday morning saw me up bright and early for an event for families at Lavington Library (where they have the loveliest staff who will make you tea and endlessly talk books with you), with my picture books Seree’s Story and Where the Heart Is. Next came Stereo Stories which was hands down the most fun I’ve ever had on stage. It’s such a cool format that Vin and his band have put together where authors read a memoir piece inspired by a song. The band weaves the song around the author’s words. As Chris Hammer once told me, ‘It’s like having your own backing band.’ And bloody hell, it was fun. Other performers included Debra Dank, Paul Dalgarno and Rijn Collins, who has performed at the most Stereo Stories of any writer.

It made me reflect, though, on how years ago, even the very thought of being on stage in this way would have left me with a feeling of utter dread. Several of my brothers were natural performers (I have five!), and for a time were actors or street performers. They loved an audience. I, on the other hand, avoided one. Public speaking was not something I ever voluntarily did. But then I started to get published, and I realised I was going to have to get comfortable with it. So, I pushed myself to do all the things. Eventually, I looked comfortable on stage. Looked being the operative word. But the more I did it, the more I enjoyed it. And now, I love it. Stereo Stories was a moment in time that made me realise how far I’ve come. To be on stage, making people laugh, and enjoying every second, is a world apart from how I once was.

Kate Mildenhall, Kathryn Heyman, me, TR (Tim) Napper

 

But I digress. Sunday’s final event for me was a panel moderated by Kate Mildenhall with Kathryn Heyman and Tim Napper. We talked about all things writing and publishing, and I’m sure we could have talked for the rest of the day, if not for a packed program! It was recorded for The First Time podcast, so look out for that one.

Kathryn and I discovered some weird synergies. When I was deciding on a title for The Breaking I googled it to see if anything came up. Nothing did. But a few months after The Breaking came out, another book appeared with that title. It was Kathyrn Heyman’s debut novel of 26 years earlier, previously published only in the UK, and now released all this time later in Australia. The weird bit, though, is that at the festival we discovered that both books started as a series of short stories, and we both had a friend who said to us, ‘I think you might be writing a novel.’ So two debuts with the same title, started in the same way. It seems Kathryn Heyman is my book twin!

As usual, one of the best bits of the festival was writerly hangs with brilliant people. Massive congrats to Anne-maree and her team on a stellar festival. Can’t wait until the next one!

TR Napper, Kate Mildenhall, Paul Dalgarno, Andrea Rowe, Margaret Hickey, and me

Behind the story

5 December 2019

Meanjin has just published a memoir piece that I wrote about my son, and it is the rawest and most personal piece of writing that I have ever published. ‘Untethered’ tells the story of how my 10 year old was discovered, by accident, to have an extremely rare and fatal asymptomatic congenital heart condition. So far as we know, he is the first person in Australia to be found alive with this condition. Usually children die, from the age of 10 onwards, while playing sport, having never known anything was wrong with their heart.

I’m not going to retell the story here; the Meanjin piece does that. Instead I want to talk about the writing process. As with all memoir, this is only one slice of the story. One year captured in 6000 words. My first draft was 10,000 words but I knew no one would publish it. So I pared it right back, and the piece is better for it.

I took it to my writers group. One writer said it was the best thing I’d ever written. Another made the astute observation that this was really the story of my heart, as I faced my son’s mortality and dealt with the grief of potentially losing him. He was right, though I hadn’t realised it. If my son were to write his own story — and perhaps one day he will — it would be different.

Readers often assume that writing about traumatic experiences is cathartic. This wasn’t. I wrote much of it while we were actually going through it. Reliving each scene on the page was painful. As I wrote, shaping every sentence, I often cried.

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I am what is known in writing circles as a ‘pantser’. This means that I usually write without knowing exactly where I am heading, without knowing the ending, and I allow my characters to lead me there. But not knowing how this ‘story’ would end was a constant grief. I desperately wanted a happy ending; I didn’t know if we would get it.

Our cat was the best post-surgery companion

In the end, we did. And you would think that would make the perfect ending on the page. But I wrote and rewrote the ending, never quite striking the right note. Did I leave the reader with the surgery’s success? Or did I take them into the aftermath, when my son had frightening reactions to the anaesthetic and all the opioids, finally ending up on only Panadol for heart surgery. ‘It sounds like the title of an indie song,’ my friend Francis Jaye said. It had more than enough angst for one too.

But neither of those endings was right. I waited, hoping something would click. Months passed. And then life delivered the perfect ending. An event that brought the story full circle. But I’m not going to give it away here; that would only spoil things.

It was my friend Donna Ward who first suggested that I tell this story. It hadn’t occurred to me; fiction is what I write. And although it wasn’t cathartic, it did help in a strange kind of way. It was about bearing witness.

You can read ‘Untethered’ in the summer issue of Meanjin, which can be purchased online or in good bookstores. If you already have a Meanjin subscription you can read my piece online. The issue is only freshly out and mine has yet to hit my mailbox, so it was lovely to receive this feedback on Twitter from one of the earliest readers. I hope you enjoy it too.

And to celebrate publication I have TWO book packs to give away, each containing the sping and summer issues of Meanjin. Meanjin is one of Australia’s most prestigious literary journals and every issue is packed full of incredible fiction, poetry, essays and memoir. To go in the draw simply sign up to my monthly newsletter full of bookish goodness before 19 December. You’ll find the sign-up block on this page. Winners should receive their parcel just before Christmas. Perfect for curling up with on Christmas day, beverage of choice in hand.