Posted in Fiction, Queensland, Varuna Alumni, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged Biggles, Early Kooka, expatriate life, Kali, Papua New Guinea, pilots, writing on January 31, 2012| 11 Comments »
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“Hi, my name is Annah Faulkner.
I’ll be reading from the beginning of my new novel, The Beloved, to be published mid 2012 by Picador.
The story opens in 1954, in Melbourne, before moving to expatriate life in Papua New Guinea.
The narrator is six-year-old Roberta.
Posted in Historical Fiction, Queensland, Varuna Alumni, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged Cathay, Chinese papers, medieval love story, writing on January 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »
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“My name is Mireille Mardaga-Campbell, an archaeologist and writer from North Queensland. I am going to read from La Serenissima, a historical fiction, which was selected for the Varuna/PanMacmillan publishers fellowship.
Posted in NSW, Poetry, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged Alan Sisley, Detroit, excrement, hospital, Orange Regional Gallery, retrospective, survey show on January 29, 2012| 16 Comments »
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Hi, my name’s Philip Hammial and I’m going to read a poem from my new poetry collection Detroit, published by Island Press Cooperative in 2012. Dedicated to Alan Sisley the director of Orange Regional Gallery, the poem is called “AND FURTHERMORE”. (more…)
Posted in NSW, Poetry, Uncategorized, Varuna Alumni, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged Darwin Harbour, Ian Fairweather, Lights, raft journey, Reckitts Blue, writing on January 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »
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“Hi, I’m Dael Allison.
The poem I’ll read is from my series on the iconic Australian painter Ian Fairweather.
Fairweather died in 1974. A wanderer, he travelled through a great deal of Asia and Australia in the 1930s and 40s, painting and living rough. The impetus for him to settle was his epic raft journey, made in 1952 at the age of 60 from Darwin to Timor: 16 waterlogged days on a craft so small he couldn’t stand. (more…)
Posted in Crime Writing, Fiction, Queensland, Varuna Alumni, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged chaos, city living, crime fiction, house fire, writing on January 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »
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“Hi, my name is Tamara Pratt and I’m reading from a manuscript that I’ve been working on while staying at Varuna with Marele Day for Crime Week.
Posted in Junior Fiction, Queensland, Varuna Alumni, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged bat-face slippers, flying, vampyres, writing on January 26, 2012| 11 Comments »
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“Hi, I’m Sheryl Gwyther and I’m reading from my Junior Fiction work-in-progress, FANGUS FEARBOTTOM.”
Chapter 1
I crouch on my window sill above the twilight garden. The mango tree branch is a long way off, the garden path a drop below.
Doubt sends a shiver up my spine. I don’t know anyone else who’s tested the Fourth law of the Great Vampyre Reformation of 1812. (more…)
Posted in Berlin, Fiction, Varuna Alumni, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged "The Aftertaste of Goulasch Communism", Comecon, cult novel, Dictionary, Iron Curtain, The Book of the Year Prize, writing on January 25, 2012| 3 Comments »
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“Hello, my name is Péter Zilahy and you’re going to hear a short excerpt from my novel, The Last Window Giraffe. (more…)
Posted in Short fiction, Varuna Alumni, Victoria, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged Canada, Joni Mitchell, Niagara Falls, Pioneer bus, Wagga Wagga, writing on January 24, 2012| 3 Comments »
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“Hi, my name’s David Spitzkowsky. I’m reading a piece of short fiction called “Fantasy”.
You want to hear my fantasy?
Here goes: I just disappear into Canada. Since I was eight years old I wanted to do that. Must’ve been the trip to Niagara Falls, all the old photos of those crazies coming over the edge in barrels. After I get way up into the Yukon I stop at this little roadside cafe. The woman behind me won’t stop smoking. I get asthma you know.
‘Would you mind, I’m sorry, I just…asthma…’ Oh holy shit. It’s Joni. It’s Joni Mitchell. (more…)
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized, Varuna Alumni, Western Australia, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged Ancestor Games, Atlantis, being agnostic, cemetery, death, dinosaurs, infinity, writing on January 23, 2012| 8 Comments »
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“Hi. I’m Meg McKinlay and I’m going to read two poems from my collection, Cleanskin. Both of these were inspired by travels with my young daughter past a cemetery near our house in Fremantle, Western Australia. (more…)
Posted in Northern Territory, Prose, Varuna Alumni, Writer-a-Day recording, tagged 2010 Trudy Graham Biennial Award (Prose), hanging, Ned Kelly's hanging, writing on January 22, 2012| 5 Comments »
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Hello, my name is Michael Giacometti and I’m reading an excerpt from Elijah Upjohn, public hangman.
Hanging is a fine art and not a mechanical trade. Is not a man an artist who can painlessly and without brutality despatch another man?
– Charles Duff, A Handbook on Hanging (more…)
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