THE INVISIBLE THREAD
Winner, Canberra Critics Circle Award for Literature, 2013
Winner, special one-off award at the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards for ‘Outstanding Service to Writing and Publishing in the ACT and Region’, 2013
Official publication of the National Year of Reading 2012
Official publication of the Centenary of Canberra 2013
Featuring Judith Wright • Bill Gammage • Alex Miller • Marion Halligan • Les Murray • Jackie French • Omar Musa • CEW Bean • AD Hope • Kate Grenville • Roger McDonald • Jack Heath • Garth Nix and 62 others
Sparkling writing from some of Australia’s finest authors. But what’s the connection between Miles Franklin and Omar Musa? AD Hope and Blanche d’Alpuget? Manning Clark and Kate Grenville? — apart from their tie with Canberra and the high country around it? Edited by Irma Gold, this inspired anthology reveals the rich diversity of writing that has emerged from the foothills, boulevards and hidden corners of the Canberra region over the last 100 years. But more than that, together these works bring something deep and fascinating into view. Follow the interwoven threads through this remarkable and revealing journey of Australian storytelling. With its mix of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, The Invisible Thread promises to captivate and enthral all lovers of literature.
Buy The Invisible Thread from bookstores or online here.
Praise for The Invisible Thread
This book should be on every Australian bookshelf. Whispering Gums (read full review here)
As Editor, Gold inserts some clever, revealing juxtapositions…an anthology should comprise a ‘box where sweets compacted lie’. The Invisible Thread does. Anthologies are intended to make us think about the principles of selection as well as the inclusions. This one does that, too. The Canberra Times
A captivating collection…testament not only to the quality of the writing, but also to the insights of the editor…There are many individual jewels, some of them familiar to me, some new. Many of the fragments were so absorbing that I was propelled off the couch and into my study, or down to the library, to find the whole from which it had been extracted, needing to read more. Australian Book Review (read review here)
A shining achievement. BMA magazine
While we’re acutely aware of Canberra’s political legacy, what perhaps doesn’t spring immediately to mind is a strong literary heritage — something The Invisible Thread is likely to change...Connecting writers like this is intriguing, asking how a sense of place affects our broader interpretation of the world. The Sun-Herald (read full review here)
Canberra is the only one of our cities to have been anthologised in this way and that seems meet and just. Canberra is a city owned not by any state but by us, the people of Australia, as a symbolic city to represent and display us as a nation state…Anthologies are of unique value among all books because in their different ways they capture the landscape of our minds and feelings as Australians at a particular time or by a particular theme. In special ways, anthologies are the history of our writing, our thinking — and this is a very special anthology about a special city. Frank Moorhouse
At a time of some unease about our literary future — not just in Canberra — it is good to have an anthology that reminds us of the excellence, variety and longevity of Australian writing set in or emanating from the national capital. Peter Rose
The publication of The Invisible Thread is a watershed moment in ACT-region literature: it’s the moment when people realise the contribution this small part of the world has made. Nigel Featherstone
Selected links
Go behind the scenes on set here.
Watch an animation of Judy Horacek’s Invisible Thread illustrations here.
Read extracts from the anthology by Alex Miller here, Peter Stanley here, and Lesley Lebkowicz here.
Read Angela Meyer’s LiteraryMinded interview with Irma here.
Read an article about The Invisible Thread in The Sydney Morning Herald here and Meanjin here.
Listen to the ‘Out of Place’ panel of Thread authors at the NonFictioNow conference, RMIT Melbourne here.
Watch Irma’s video interviews with some of The Invisible Thread authors, including Roger McDonald, Marion Halligan, Omar Musa, Jackie French and Bill Gammage here.
Read about Woven Words, the spectacular Invisible Thread event with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra here.
Watch The Invisible Thread trailer, by filmmaker James Hunter.
Watch Irma interview Marion Halligan as part of The Invisible Thread series.
