Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020

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Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
northerly
Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020

HAYLEY KATZEN          KIRLI SAUNDERS           CHLOE HIGGINS   DAVID ROLAND
Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
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Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
Contents                                                                  northerly
                                                                          northerly is the quarterly magazine of
                                                                          Byron Writers Festival.

Autumn 2020                                                               Byron Writers Festival is a non-profit
                                                                          member organisation presenting
                                                                          workshops and events year-round,
                                                                          including the annual Festival.

                                                                          LOCATION/CONTACT
                                                                          P: 02 6685 5115 F: 02 6685 5166
                                                                          E: info@byronwritersfestival.com
                                                                          W: byronwritersfestival.com
Features
                                                                          POSTAL ADDRESS
008 On debut                                                              PO Box 1846, Byron Bay NSW 2481
We meet the first-time authors who would have appeared at Byron           EDITOR: Barnaby Smith,
Writers Festival 2020                                                     northerlyeditor@gmail.com

                                                                          CONTRIBUTORS: Emma Ashmere, Jenny
                                                                          Bird, Mel Brigg, Kathy Gibbings, Graeme
014 The Horne Prize                                                       Gibson, Joel Hissink, Polly Jude, Lucinda Jurd,
                                                                          Rachael Lebeter, David Roland, Kirli Saunders
Read the first half of the winning entry for 2019, ‘Diary of a Wildlife
                                                                          PROOFREADER: Rebecca Ryall
Carer’ by Rachael Lebeter
                                                                          BYRON WRITERS FESTIVAL BOARD
                                                                          CHAIRPERSON Adam van Kempen
016 Short and sharp                                                       SECRETARY Hilarie Dunn
                                                                          TREASURER Cheryl Bourne
Two works of flash fiction by local author Emma Ashmere                   MEMBERS Jesse Blackadder, Marele Day,
                                                                          Lynda Dean, Lynda Hawryluk, Anneli Knight.
                                                                          LIFE MEMBERS Jean Bedford, Jeni Caffin,
                                                                          Gayle Cue, Robert Drewe, Jill Eddington,
018 Alone time                                                            Russell Eldridge, Chris Hanley, John
David Roland on a writer’s life in lockdown                               Hertzberg, Fay Knight, Irene O’Brien, Jennifer
                                                                          Regan, Cherrie Sheldrick, Brenda Shero,
                                                                          Heather Wearne

                                                                          MAIL OUT DATES

Regulars                                                                  Magazine is published in MARCH, JUNE,
                                                                          SEPTEMBER and DECEMBER

002 Director’s note                                                       PRINTING
                                                                          Summit Press

003 News & Events                                                         ADVERTISING
Local doctor Joel Hissink reflects on the pandemic, Festival moves        We welcome advertising by members and
                                                                          relevant organisations. A range of ad sizes are
online and more                                                           available. The ad booking deadline for each
                                                                          issue is the first week of the month prior.
                                                                          Email northerlyeditor@gmail.com
006 Feature poet
Two poems from Kirli Saunders                                             DISCLAIMER
                                                                          The Byron Writers Festival presents northerly
020 What YA Reading?                                                      in good faith and accepts no responsibility for
                                                                          any misinformation or problems arising from
Polly Jude selects the YA books to offer hope in hard times               any misinformation. The views expressed
                                                                          by contributors and advertisers are not
                                                                          necessarily the views of the management
022 SCU Showcase                                                          committee or staff. We reserve the right to edit
Poetry from Lucinda Jurd                                                  articles with regard to length. Copyright of
                                                                          the contributed articles is maintained by the
                                                                          named author and northerly.
023 Climate warrior
                                                                          CONNECT WITH US
Steve Posselt’s Tough is Not Enough reviewed by Kathy Gibbings
                                                                          Visit byronwritersfestival.com. Sign up for
                                                                          a membership.
024 Worlds collide
                                                                             twitter.com/bbwritersfest
Annee Lawrence’s The Colour of Things Unseen reviewed by Jenny Bird          facebook.com/byronwritersfestival
                                                                             instagram.com/byronwritersfestival
026 Workshops
027 Competitions
028 Writers Groups
                                                                          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.

                                                                                                  northerly WINTER 2020 | 01
Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
Director’s note
                               Warm greetings from the Festival team in Byron Bay where we are busy
                             reimagining the 2020 Byron Writers Festival.

                               As I sit to write the introduction to this Winter edition of northerly, which
                             would normally announce highlights of the year’s Festival, I can’t help but
                             reflect on the overwhelming encouragement we have received from our
                             community. So many positive and restorative moments, comments and
                             messages since we sadly announced the postponement of the Festival till
                             2021.

                               Meanwhile, we are keen to replicate that much-loved feeling of the
                             Festival fields and that sense of coming together that both our community
                             of writers and our audience cherish. You may already have spotted
                             our online workshops and weekly Postcards From Byron email series
                             connecting Festival writers with our Australia-wide audience. Make sure
                             you sign up to our e-newsletter (on our website) for news about our
                             forthcoming 2020 Conversations from Byron podcast series.

                               Shared stories have the power to unite and calm, to provide inspiration
                             and relaxation. Sitting in your favourite chair with an engaging book can
                             be a powerful antidote to the new uncertainty in our lives. Our friends at
                             The Book Room are generously providing free same-day delivery for book
                             purchases within the Byron Shire – see the back cover for more details.

                              We thank all our members, Festival friends, writers, publishers and
                             partners for your heartfelt support and look forward to welcoming you
                             back to Byron very soon.

                               Please keep a watchful eye on the Byron Writers Festival website and
                             social media for our latest news!

                               Stay well and safe,

                             Edwina Johnson
                             Director, Byron Writers Festival

02 | WINTER 2020 northerly
Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
NEWS & EVENTS

    A message from the frontline
    As the Northern Rivers community joins the rest of the world in adjusting to new
    lives, new routines and new values in the wake of COVID-19, we hear from Byron
    Bay GP Dr Joel Hissink about how both his work life and home life have changed in
    recent months.

    The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes      In Byron Bay, I have been inspired     amongst the unimaginable horror
    the disease COVID-19 continues        by the resilience and perseverance     of the Holocaust.
    to wreak havoc and devastation        of local business owners, and their
    across the planet. As a general       skill in adapting to severe duress.    In the fascinating novel, The
    practitioner in Byron Bay, the        Yet still they have the generosity     Overstory by Richard Powers,
    terrifying scenes emerging from       to show gratitude to healthcare        one story concerns the infamous
    China and Europe early this year      workers despite their own              chestnut blight in the United
    filled me with dread. There was       hardships.                             States, when a fungus was
    every reason to think that the                                               accidentally introduced from
    same would happen here, with our      Despite these challenges, my           Asia around 1904. The infection
    health system being overwhelmed       wonderful community of patients        resulted in the loss of four billion
    and my patients suffering.            have shown such heartfelt concern      chestnut trees over forty years and
                                          for me and my family. Many have        the devastation of industries that
    I found myself analysing the          also shared with me the silver         depended on them: it was one of
    data every morning before work,       linings of their time in isolation.    the worst ecological and economic
    trying to spot the first sign of      These include the additional time      disasters in American history.
    even a minuscule flattening of        spent with their children, slowing
    the curve. Sometime in March I        down from their usually busy           Like most people, I have found
    excitedly shared with colleagues      routines, spending time walking        that the changes to daily life have
    an ever so tiny deviation from the    together, and of course more time      reinforced the importance of our
    frighteningly steep climb that we     to read.                               daily rituals. These are the anchors
    all feared would continue. There                                             that we create for ourselves and
    was a glimmer of hope that the        One of my favourite parts of the       that secure us to familiar ground. I
    changes that the people right         day has always been reading to my      have found solace standing outside
    across Australia were making to       children each night, and as SARS-      at night, gazing at the stars, and
    their daily lives were beginning to   CoV-2 began to sweep across the        in watching the continuity of wave
    have an effect.                       globe I began seeing surprising        swell and the tides.
                                          parallels in the books that we were
    Behind the scenes in hospitals        reading together.                      We must find hope amid the
    and medical centres all over                                                 anxiety and devastation that
    the country, health workers           For example, in the early chapters     we see around the world. The
    were scrambling to learn more         of the wonderful novel that I’m        sense of shared responsibility
    about COVID-19, and establish         currently reading to my nine-year-     and togetherness that we
    procedures to manage large            old daughter, The Girl From Snowy      have witnessed has been
    numbers of seriously ill patients.    River by Jackie French, the story      heartening, and reminds me
    In many areas, medical teams had      plays out against the backdrop of      of the immeasurable power of
    to navigate their own way ahead       the influenza pandemic of 1918.        community and the inspiring
    as best they could, and as a GP in                                           beauty of human kindness.
    a group practice, the imminence       Later in the evening I’ve been
    of the crisis strengthened our        weeping to the confronting Once         This is an abridged version of an article
                                          series by Morris Gleitzman that I’ve    published on the Byron Writers Festival
    collaboration.                                                                blog. Visit byronwritersfestival.com/blog
                                          been reading to my eleven-year-old      for the full version.
                                          son. Acts of great kindness shine

                                                                                                         northerly WINTER 2020 | 03
Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
NEWS & EVENTS

     Margin Notes
     News, events and announcements
     from Byron Writers Festival

     Festival 2020 reimagined               we take the learning outside into
                                            nature too. During quarantine,
     During lockdown we have been
                                            our usual modes of delivery have
     busy reimagining how to connect
                                            had to adapt quickly to the online
     our Festival writers and thinkers
                                            space.
     with you. We have therefore recently
     launched our Byron Writers Festival    In term two, StoryBoard provided
     Digital program (Byron WF Digital).    pre-recorded author presentations
                                            and workshops to students at
     The program includes new
                                            several local schools. Authors
     conversations with 2020 Festival
                                            also facilitated live interactive
     guests, exclusive releases of
                                            workshops with students in the
     archived podcasts from previous
                                            classroom and at home via Zoom.
     Festivals and some special projects.
     Everything will be online and          ‘It was wonderful and the students
     available on-demand.                   were unusually ready and willing          Eldridge steps down
                                            to take part in all writing tasks after
     Byron WF Digital is being released                                               Founding member and secretary
                                            being so engaged in the videos,’
     over the coming weeks, and is                                                    of Byron Writers Festival, Russell
                                            said Julie Streader of Ballina Public
     accessible via our website at                                                    Eldridge, has stepped down from
                                            School.
     byronwritersfestival.com/digital.                                                his duties with the Festival after
     We will announce new content                                                     a quarter of a century of service.
     through our e-newsletters and          2020 Residential                          Fellow board member Marele Day
     social media channels.                 Mentorship recipients                     paid tribute to Eldridge, a novelist
     Of course, the importance of           Congratulations to the four               and former journalist.
     gathering together again in Byron      Northern Rivers writers who have          ‘As a founding member of Byron
     is much-anticipated, so we invite      been selected to take part in             Writers Festival, Russell was
     you to save the date for next year’s   the Byron Writers Festival 2020           instrumental in helping transform
     Byron Writers Festival, 6-8 August,    Residential Mentorship. Rachel            the original vision into reality,’
     2021.                                  Faith, Meg Grace, Jacqueline              said Day. ‘He brought to the
                                            Mohr and Kimberley Lipschus               organisation the same skills that
     We would like to express our thanks
                                            will spend five days in a glorious        make him a great journalist and
     to the Copyright Agency’s Cultural
                                            hinterland location working on            writer – an enquiring truth-seeking
     Fund and The Australia Council for
                                            their manuscripts under the expert        mind, empathy, attention to detail
     the Arts for supporting the Byron
                                            guidance of Marele Day. Thank you         and the ability to find the story
     Writers Festival Digital program.
                                            to all those who entered and to           behind the facts.’
                                            our judges, who had the difficult
     Storyboard goes virtual                decision of selecting just four
                                                                                      ‘He will be remembered most
     Under normal circumstances,                                                      fondly by fellow board members
                                            manuscripts from a long, lovely
     StoryBoard takes authors and                                                     in his role as secretary, whose
                                            and diverse list of entries.
     illustrators directly to schools                                                 minutes were not merely a
     and libraries and, where possible,                                               faithful record of proceedings but
                                                                                      peppered with puns and poetic
                                                                                      flourishes. Thank you Russell.’

04 | WINTER 2020 northerly
Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
NEWS & EVENTS

       Cover story                                                                           Festival Friends
       This issue’s cover image is Evening Passage (acrylic on canvas) by                    Byron Writers Festival is bringing a
       the South African-born, Queensland-based artist Mel Brigg. Brigg is a                 surprise to our email subscribers
       self-taught artist who started painting full-time in 1970. He has built               this June, with our Festival
       an impressive career over the past thirty years, with his art resonating              Friends campaign. Thanks to our
       with a wide cross-section of art buyers. His work has been collected                  incredible partners, a digital care
       around the world by significant corporate, private and government                     package should by now have
       institutions and individuals. Brigg was a finalist in the 2012 Doug                   landed in your inbox with some
       Moran Portrait Prize. Evening Passage was part of his recent Distance                 exclusive offers and discounts just
       exhibition at Gallery One on the Gold Coast.                                          for you from Brookfarm, Earth
                                                                                             Bottles, Husk Distillers, Pukka
                                                                                             Herbs, Stone & Wood, The Book
        LAUREL COHN                                                                          Room, The Saturday Paper and
                                                                                             Zentveld’s. Whilst we won’t be
        Editing and Manuscript Development                                                   gathering at the Festival this year,
                                                                                             we hope this digital care package
         ~ Manuscript assessment and                              ‘It’s been a bit of a      connects you with these wonderful
           development                                            journey and I’d like to
         ~ Editorial and publishing
                                                                                             businesses that support and
                                                                  thank you for being with
           consultations                                          me on it. Publishing       value the arts, and brings you, our
         ~ Mentoring                                              as you know is a very      valued members, some joy. To
         ~ Structural and stylistic editing                       subjective business.       see the full list of offers, head to
         ~ Copy editing and                                       Your feedback made me
           proofreading                                                                      byronwritersfestival.com/blog/
                                                                  believe in the concept
                                                                  and take it to the next    festival-friends
           Congratulations to
           Srinath Adiga on the               level. I couldn’t have got here without your
           forthcoming publication            help. So big thank you!                        Feros Care Notes of
           of his novel Dead Money            Srinath Adiga www.centralavenuepublishing.     Friendship
           (Central Avenue, Canada).          com/book/dead-money/
                                                                                             At the moment, there are
                                                                                             thousands of seniors who feel
        www.laurelcohn.com.au info@laurelcohn.com.au 02 6680 3411                            extremely lonely – and a message
                                                                                             to let them know they are cared
                                                                                             about can make the world of
    Publishing deal for                             been five years in the making and is     difference. Whether a simple note
    Brugman                                         set to be published in 2022.             or a pen-pal friendship, the 1,000
    The Byron Writers Festival staff                In other news, congratulations           Notes of Friendship program
    team and board would like to                    also to Dr Emma Doolan, lecturer         was created by Be Someone For
    extend its warm congratulations                 at Southern Cross University (SCU)       Someone (a Feros Care initiative),
    to Emily Brugman, Festival                      in Lismore and the curator of            and is one way we can tackle
    Administrator, on securing a                    northerly’s SCU Showcase page (see       loneliness in Australia together.
    publishing deal with Allen &                    page 20). Dr Doolan’s YA manuscript      Want to get involved? Send your
    Unwin for her manuscript The                    At Devil’s Elbow was shortlisted for     friendship note to: 1,000 Notes of
    Islands. Brugman was also recently              the Text Prize for Young Adult and       Friendship Campaign,
    shortlisted for the prestigious Vogel           Children’s Writing, organised by
                                                                                             PO Box 585, Byron Bay NSW 2481.
    Literary Award 2020.                            Text Publishing.
                                                                                             Include your address if you would
    The Islands is a fictional collection           And finally, northerly editor Barnaby    like a reply. The Feros Care team
    of interconnected short stories                 Smith’s debut album of original          will personalise the card and
    inspired by the life of her                     songs, Itch Factor, was named Pick       send it out for you. Find further
    grandfather and other fishers on                of the Week by the Sydney Morning        details at besomeoneforsomeone.
    the Houtman Abrolhos, off the                   Herald and awarded a five-star           org/programs/1000-notes-of-
    coast of Western Australia, during              review in May.                           friendship
    the 1950s and 1960s. The book has

                                                                                                                  northerly WINTER 2020 | 05
Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
POETRY

                             Feature Poet:
                             Kirli Saunders

                             Self-healers

                             It is time to attend to the aches

                             to shake the memory
                             from fascia

                             to breathe
                             into the trauma torrents
                             scattered about your being

                             to speak strength
                             into scars
                             carved by another’s harm

                             to regenerate self
                             where otherness lay

                             to reclaim reign
                             over realm

                             to write affirmation
                             everywhere

                             so that deep ancestral love
                             knows the way

                             love always knows the way.

06 | AUTUMN 2020 northerly
Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
POETRY

                                          Oneness

              ‘To be abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings’
                                        — David Whyte

                                   When I confess loneliness
                                           I am taken
                                         to the window
                                 to press elbows to aluminium
                                      and witness the trees
                                              to see

   rashed trunks | youth | old scars | deep roots | smooth leaves | earthy truths of infestation

                                and with deeper observation —

                                             | spirits |

                                          akin to mine
                               the divine returned in this lifetime
                                                                                                   Proud Gunai Woman
                                            as a guide
                                                                                                   Kirli Saunders is an award-
                                            to remind                                              winning international
                                                                                                   children’s author and poet.
                                    that there is never a time                                     She leads Poetry in First
                                                                                                   Languages, delivered by Red
                                         to feel alone —                                           Room Poetry. Kirli’s Daisy
                                                                                                   Utemorrah Award-winning
                                                                                                   children’s verse novel,
                                       oneness simply has                                          Bindi, will be released in
                                                                                                   late 2020. She is currently
                                          many homes.                                              working towards her first solo
                                                                                                   exhibition with Verb Syndicate
                                                                                                   Gallery. ‘Oneness’ was
                                                                                                   originally published in
                                                                                                   Going Down Swinging.
                                                                                                   Kirli was scheduled to appear
                                                                                                   at Byron Writers Festival 2020.

                                                                                                           northerly WINTER 2020 | 07
Northerly HAYLEYKATZEN KIRLISAUNDERS CHLOEHIGGINS DAVIDROLAND - Byron Writers Festival Member Magazine | Winter 2020
FEATURE

     On debut: Byron Writers
     Festival’s first-time authors
      Among the many sad consequences of the cancellation of Byron Writers Festival
      2020, is the fact that a number of debut authors will miss out on the chance to
      engage with their audience and gain new readers in the Festival setting. Here,
      northerly meets four writers who would have appeared this year, and who have
      recently accomplished the significant achievement of a first book.

     Hayley Katzen                          of displacement and belonging.
                                            The journey from then to Ventura’s
                                                                                    friends, in ideologies and political
                                                                                    movements, in landscapes and
                                            offer to publish in July 2019 has       communities, and ultimately
     Local Northern Rivers writer
                                            been a further lesson in craft and      in ourselves. It’s about how
     Hayley Katzen’s first book,
                                            life. In mid-2018, the two agents       experiences of displacement
     Untethered, is a memoir of moving
                                            I approached doubted the book           unstitch us, and how places and
     to a remote cattle property to live
                                            was saleable. The editor kindly         their people shape us. So too
     with her farmer girlfriend, and
                                            introduced the manuscript to            it’s about how belonging, with a
     of redefining the idea of home.
                                            four publishers: the feedback was       partner or new community, needs
     Originally from South Africa, Katzen
                                            fascinating and helpful but only        to be cultivated. Expectations and
     charts one migrant’s quest for
                                            one was willing to publish – and        preconceptions about difference
     peace as well as adventure, against
                                            only if I contributed to production     need to be shed; relationships need
     a backdrop of the unpredictable
                                            costs. In February 2019 I began         to be built over time. It’s also about
     beauty of the Australian landscape.
                                            reworking the manuscript – and on       how solitude and isolation, natural
     Can you tell the story of how          19 June, the day before I underwent     disasters and manual work compel
     Untethered came to be: its initial     surgery for ovarian cancer, I sent it   us to look and think anew.
     idea, the writing process, the         off to the same publishers and to
                                            Ventura Press. Ventura had recently     How has working in the legal field
     journey to publication, and so on?
                                            published the anthology Split, in       informed your writing?
     In 2012 I fell in love with the        which I have an essay. The essay,
                                            I came to learn, had resonated          Apart from an obsession with
     personal essay form – how it
                                            with Jane Curry, the publisher, and     structure and the precision of
     gave me space to think through
                                            three weeks after I submitted, as I     language, my experience of law
     experiences and find their
                                            again sat in the chemo lounge, the      and social justice still informs my
     universality, and how it helped
                                            delightful offer came.                  writing, partly because it is intrinsic
     make sense of my life on a cattle
                                                                                    to the lens through which I view
     farm in the Australian bush – a
                                            What were the most important            the world. As a legal researcher
     life I, an urban academic migrant,
                                            ideas or themes that you wanted         and academic, my passion for
     never expected. In September 2016
                                            to convey?                              social justice was rooted in a
     the wise editor, Nadine Davidoff,
                                                                                    hope that if I was able to really
     advised me to rework a collection
                                            The book explores our need for          understand and tell the stories of
     of these essays, some of which had
                                            home and belonging and the              women’s experiences of breaches of
     won awards or been published, into
                                            different forms in which we might       apprehended violence orders in a
     memoir with the unifying theme
                                            find it – in love, in family and        regional area, domestic violence

08 | WINTER 2020 northerly
FEATURE

 laws and police policies would           Jessie Cole’s Staying, along with        away from me or are unwell – a
 change and the world would be a          Virginia Woolf, Janet Malcolm and        virtual launch means they too
 safer, fairer place for women and        Helen Garner’s work reassured me         can participate. Mostly, I’m still
 children. I know – naïve and over-       there was value in revealing one’s       recovering from nine months of
 ambitious. Twenty years later, the       self and story – despite the risks and   treatment for ovarian cancer and
 issues and recommendations from          ethical complexity. Writers, such        so I’m relieved not to be going off
 my report ‘How Do I Prove I Saw          as Vivian Gornick and Olivia Laing,      on the exciting promotional and
 His Shadow?’ are still canvassed         who contemplated aloneness,              festival tour that was planned.
 in research. This desire to ‘walk in     and nature writers such as Robert        The other side of that is that there
 another’s shoes’ was what then           Macfarlane, Ana Maria Spagna,            are a whole host of new skills I’m
 directed me to acting, writing for       Emerson and Thoreau helped me            learning and I’m working incredibly
 the stage and then to fiction. But       fathom this rural life – but I found     hard: finding some balance, writing
 in law and all those other writings,     particular delight and resonance         pieces for various outlets, doing
 the ‘I’ – my I – was absent. I hid       in David Gesner’s Sick of Nature.        zoom interviews, filming clips of
 my hopes and fears, feelings and         Books about ‘home’, such as              readings in their actual settings,
 thoughts behind the ‘characters’         Marilynne Robinson’s Home and            trying to get a handle on technology
 until I finally leaped into the essay.   Housekeeping, Eva Hoffman’s Lost         and social media, and struggling
 Here I found a place where I was         in Translation, James Wood’s The         with very slow satellite internet
 able to authentically be myself,         Nearest Thing to Life, and The Idea      and limited downloads. Apart from
 and a playground for self-inquiry,       of Home, the title of both Geraldine     my deep concern for others during
 my analytical mind, curiosity and        Brooks’ Boyer Lectures and John          this time, last year’s drought and
 research background.                     Hughes memoir.                           bushfire continue to have a far
                                                                                   greater impact on our personal lives
 Which works of memoir were               To what degree has your writing          than lockdown. As for isolation: it’s
 particular inspirations in the           life been impacted by COVID-19?          mostly life as normal for us on the
 writing of Untethered?                                                            farm.
                                          I’m loathe to sound like too much
 Montaigne’s essays – with the help       of a Pollyanna but launching a
 of Sally Bakewell’s How to Live:         debut memoir during a period
 A life of Montaigne – along with         of lockdown is perfect for me –
 Joan Didion, Eula Biss and Robert        and not because more people
 Dessaix sealed my passion for the        are supposedly reading. Many of
 essay. Yiyun Li’s Dear Friend: From      my much-loved people live far             Untethered is published by Ventura Press.
 My Life I Write to You in Your Life,

                                                                                                           northerly WINTER 2020 | 09
FEATURE

     Sara El Sayed
     Sara El Sayed’s forthcoming
     memoir Muddy People is a lively
     and clever exploration of growing
     up as a Muslim Australian in
     suburban Brisbane. Egypt-born El
     Sayed developed the book out of
     essays originally published in the
     anthologies Growing Up African
     in Australia and Arab, Australian,
     Other. She is a sessional teacher
     at Queensland University of
     Technology (QUT), and is also
     completing a Masters in Fine Arts.

     Over what period was Muddy
     People written, and what are its
     key ideas and themes?

     For the most part it covers my
     years at school in Australia – from     Can you tell us a bit about the         hilarious and talented writer. I also
     2002, when my family moved              process of expanding your               really love Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s
     from Egypt, to about 2012. Some         contributions to Growing Up             The Erratics. I can read it over and
     of the more obvious themes are          African in Australia and Arab,          over and still learn so much from
     race, religion and being a minority     Australian, Other, into a book-         her style. Another is The Lebs by
     in a white-majority community.          length work?                            Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Even
     However, this book is a lot to do                                               though it’s not a work of memoir,
     with the relationships between me       The chapters I wrote for Growing        I’ve learned a lot from Ahmad,
     and my family members, and not          Up African in Australia and Arab,       stylistically and thematically, as he
     necessarily always about outsider       Australian, Other were snippets of      explores an Arab youth experience.
     influence. I really wanted to write     my experience as an Egyptian kid
     something that looks frankly at         growing up here. In Growing Up          Is Brisbane a fertile literary city in
     intra-Arab-family relationships.        African I talked about my hair. In      2020? How supportive has it been
                                             Arab, Australian, Other I went one      for you?
     What does the title, Muddy              step further and talked about my
     People, refer to?                       back hair. I got to the point where I   Absolutely. Brisbane is home to so
                                             thought ‘hey, I have more stories to    many fantastic writers. I’ve been
     It has a couple of different                                                    really lucky to have a supportive
                                             tell about my hairy existence, and
     meanings. One is a crude reference                                              group of friends and colleagues at
                                             perhaps some other things too.’
     to our brown skin. But primarily                                                QUT, where I study and work, who
                                             Long-form has given me the room
     it refers to murk and ambiguity                                                 help encourage and inspire me.
                                             to write more of these moments, as
     I experienced as a kid trying to                                                Writing is often a solitary activity,
                                             well as present each family member
     understand who I was, where I was                                               so I find it really important to touch
                                             of mine as a character in their own
     from, and what I was supposed to                                                base with others to give perspective
                                             right.
     do. I had rules I had to follow, as                                             on my work and process. COVID-19
     most do. As a kid you tend to see       Which literature and authors            has obviously changed the way we
     your parents as all-knowing beings      proved particularly inspiring in        connect, but I’m grateful that we’re
     and beacons of pure authority. As       the writing of the book?                still able to support each other
     I grew up, they became fallible. I                                              online.
     often had trouble making sense of       I am a big fan of Benjamin Law’s
     their logic when it came to mixing      The Family Law. Not just because        You recently gave an online
     traditional cultural expectations       he’s also a Queenslander who wrote      workshop on memoir writing with
     with the realities of living where we   about migrant family experience,        Byron Writers Festival. What key
     were. Things weren’t always crystal     but because he’s an insanely            things were addressed in this?
     clear.

10 | WINTER 2020 northerly
FEATURE

 We focused on the foundations of
 memoir, and how to craft a short
 piece for publication. Writing real
 life is often tricky. You know what
 they say: just because something
 happened to you doesn’t mean it’s
 interesting to others. So, writing
 memoir becomes a process of
 finding what matters to your story,
 and how to tell it as a story. We
 looked at the techniques good
 writers use to create compelling
 real-life characters, dialogue and
 scenes.

 Some people might see memoir
 writing as the preserve of people
 somewhat advanced in age,
 yet you have proven that this is
 not the case. Why is it true that
 memoir can be written at any age?

 Memoir is the exploration of
 memory through writing, and
                                             Chloe Higgins                            the ego stuff that I’m sure we all
                                                                                      experience. I think what really blows
 everyone has memories. You don’t                                                     me away, though, is how people
                                             Chloe Higgins’s award-winning
 just wake up a certain age and start                                                 react to the book in the private
                                             memoir The Girls is an unflinching
 remembering things. You remember                                                     messages they send me via social
                                             portrait of an individual negotiating
 all the time. You reflect all the time. I                                            media. At one point the number
                                             life-changing grief, along with
 agree that writing at different stages                                               of messages was so great that I
                                             love, sexuality and family. Higgins,
 of life brings different perspective,                                                started sending people red love
                                             who is the Director of Wollongong
 wisdom and retrospect, but that                                                      heart emoticons instead of writing
                                             Writers Festival, is a casual lecturer
 doesn’t mean there’s less value in                                                   back to them because I didn’t know
                                             and tutor in creative writing at the
 exploring memories at a younger                                                      how to properly hold the stories
                                             University of Wollongong where she
 age. I’m twenty-five this year. Sure, I                                              they were sending me. In particular,
                                             is also completing a PhD.
 could wait another twenty-five years                                                 something I never saw coming was
 and write this book then, but I don’t                                                the mothers writing to me saying
                                             Nearly a year on from the
 want to. The memories are relatively                                                 the book helped them understand
                                             publication of The Girls, what has
 fresh now. I’m still naïve, in a lot of                                              their introverted daughters. I love
                                             surprised you about the way it has
 ways, but I don’t think that takes                                                   those messages. Or the introverted
                                             been received?
 away from what this book is about.                                                   daughters writing to say how the
 In fact, it’s a big part of what the        So many things have surprised me.        book made them want to be kinder
 book is about. It’s about me – how I        The reception to the book exceeded       to their extroverted mothers. It’s
 am right now. This is not an attempt        all expectation: being shortlisted for   crazy to me how often we don’t
 at a didactic piece of work. I’m not        the Prize for Non-Fiction at the 2020    realise what we’re writing about
 trying to teach anyone anything. I’m        Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards,     until other people read it. I think
 not offering advice. I’m saying, ‘this      winning the VPLA People’s Choice         there’s something really beautiful
 happened to me, and this is how I           Award, being invited to speak at         about that.
 remember it.’                               Byron Writers Festival. At other
                                                                                      Continued Page 12
                                             times, the reception to the book felt
                                             like crickets chirping: not making
                                             different award short-listings;
                                             receiving few other festival invites;
                                             random people at random parties
 Muddy People will be published by Black
                                             asking what I write about, would
 Inc. in 2021.                               they know my book, saying no they
                                             haven’t heard of my book. All of

                                                                                                           northerly WINTER 2020 | 11
FEATURE

                                              keep reading. They made me feel            I went through the 2017 Hardcopy
                                              that maybe the voice that wanted           program run by the ACT Writers
                                              to come through in my own work             Centre where I spent another year
                                              wasn’t so boring after all. I felt like,   editing the manuscript, and then
                                              if these writers could achieve that        got lucky and met my agent – Jane
                                              ultimate goal of making a reader           Novak – during one of the final
                                              both slow down and compulsively            sessions in the program, and she
                                              read on, then maybe I could too.           took the book on. But the main
                                                                                         part of my publication journey was
                                              What were the biggest creative             trying to write on my own for four
                                              challenges in writing The Girls?           years (2007-2010), studying fiction
                                                                                         writing at university for five years
                                              Editing. I’d been writing various          (2011-2015), and then doing a PhD
                                              versions of the book since 2007, but       in creative writing (2016-onwards).
                                              I started almost from scratch again        Two hours a day of reading. Years of
                                              in 2016 and when I did, it poured          workshopping work with friends.
                                              out with little control on my end.
                                              But the editing was tough, I think         What writing projects are you
                                              because editing is ultimately a            working on at the moment?
                                              balance between knowing a writer
                                              can never objectively see their            I’m working on a commission from
                                              own work, and trusting one’s own           the Sydney Review of Books about
     Which works of memoir and                instincts. I still don’t have an answer    ‘polite sex’. You know, the way
     authors were particular                  to this, and it’s something I think        people will have sex because they
     inspirations for the writing of The      about a lot. When do you listen to         don’t want to be impolite, or they
     Girls?                                   yourself and when do you listen to         imagine that is what’s expected of
                                              others? In a way, that’s the central       them. It’s confronting, exploring
     I was a reader long before I was a       question of The Girls, and editing         how I contribute to this in my own
     writer, and The Girls would not be       is a physical manifestation of that.       life, while simultaneously exploring
     the same without so many other           I had two incredible mentors – my          the role of patriarchy in the mess of
     voices. I remember sitting on a          PhD supervisor Joshua Lobb and             it all.
     zebra-print armchair inside a small      my editor and publisher at Picador
     granny flat overlooking a tree and       Mathilda Imlah – and I think over          I’m also working on my second
     clothesline, reading books such          time I began to trust their eyes and       book. I’m about four years in but I
     as Fiona Wright’s Small Acts of          so that helped a lot.                      recently started from scratch again.
     Disappearance, Drusilla Modjeska’s                                                  It’s about Muay Thai (Thai boxing),
     Second Half First, Patti Smith’s Just    Can you briefly describe the               gender, sexuality, non-monogamy,
     Kids, Teju Cole’s Every day is For       journey to publication with                the body and emotional
     the Thief, George Orwell’s Down          Picador and how the editing                consumption. I think the book
     and Out in Paris and London. While       process unfolded: how much                 is asking: how do I have healthy
     writing the chapters about drugs,        input does an editor give to such a        and happy romantic relationships
     sex and all that hoo-ha, the voice       personal, raw book?                        with men within the context of
     came out how it came out and                                                        patriarchy and sexual trauma, whilst
     because of how long ago that stuff       My friends joke about my editor            also acknowledging my frequent
     occurred it felt like there was little   being like my therapist, which is          inability to communicate well?
     I could do to control the voice of       highly amusing (and not untrue).
     those scenes. But the chapters –         My work often swings between
     the real story of the book – about       over-written and under-written
     my parents and our relationship in       and a large part of Mathilda’s
     contemporary times, are the pieces       work was threading questions
     where I had this voice that wanted       through the manuscript in bits that
     to come out but which felt naff and      needed more explanation, and
     domestic and too mundane. The            suggesting cuts where I’d already
     books I mention above somehow            said what I needed to say. The joy
     slowed me down as I read, while          of the editing process with her was          The Girls is published by Picador
     simultaneously compelling me to          learning to balance that stuff out.

12 | WINTER 2020 northerly
FEATURE

 Andrew Pippos
 Andrew Pippos is a Sydney-based
 writer whose work has appeared
 in Meanjin, Sydney Review of
 Books, Electric Literature and
 others. His debut novel, Lucky’s, is
 a story about the rise and fall of a
 restaurant franchise. The narrative
 spans seventy years, and explores
 Greek-Australian culture, failure,
 commerce and questions of multi-
 culturalism.

 Can you just briefly tell the story
 of how Lucky’s came to be: its
 initial idea, the writing process,
 the journey to publication, and so
 on?

 I knew the thematic content from
 the start. I knew Lucky’s would        My search for a publisher is a happy    Children’ also helped me to think
 be about how people respond            story: Mathilda Imlah, at Picador,      more seriously about narrative non-
 to failure and success. It would       read Lucky’s within a week of           fiction. My next book with Picador
 be about the pursuit of love and       submission and we met at a cafe,        will be a work of non-fiction.
 family. I also wanted to write about   where it was soon obvious that
 an obsolete Australian milieu: the     Picador would be the perfect home       How do you anticipate COVID-19
 old art deco cafes run by first- or    for my novel.                           aff ecting the promotion of the
 second-generation Greek migrants,                                              novel, and what ways can authors
 which were once mainstays in city      What was the biggest creative           mitigate any problems in this way
 shopping streets and in country        challenge in writing the book?          over the next year?
 towns. It was a milieu I knew well.
 My first experience of community       From the outset I intended the          I’m reluctant to attempt any
 was my grandmother and uncle’s         novel to span several decades           forecasts because the pandemic
 cafe. So at the outset I knew the      and generations. I wanted to see        is making fools of everyone who
 thematic content, and I had in mind    how people changed over the             trades in predictions. I will say
 two or three scenes that I needed to   course of a life, and how a culture     this: writers have a privileged and
 write towards. That’s how I started.   changed. The biggest challenge was      central role in literary culture and
 From draft to draft the narrative      organising all that narrative time.     now is the time to take that role
 itself changed so much that I kept                                             seriously and engage with readers
 altering character names, until        Apart from the forthcoming              and booksellers and other writers
 the plot began to cohere, and the      novel, what is the most important       about how we can best serve the
 characters became themselves.          publication you have had to date,       health of our literary culture. Some
                                        and why?                                writers are weird ‘lone ranger’ types
 I don’t claim Lucky’s represents                                               – and I confess to that type – but in
 the Greek-Australian café milieu       The most important, to me, is an        2020 we find ourselves in a situation
 in its entirety: most fiction, mine    essay I wrote in 2017 for Sydney        that calls us to be more community
 included, is concerned with the        Review of Books [‘Brother to            minded.
 particulars of a setting and its       Children’] about one of the case
 characters. I’m not aiming to          studies in the Royal Commission
 represent universal experience. If     into Institutional Responses to
 I aimed at the universal I would       Child Sexual Abuse. For many
 surely miss.                           years, I’d intended to write about
                                        child abuse, but for one reason or       Lucky’s is published in November by
                                        another I hadn’t done it. ‘Brother to    Picador.

                                                                                                       northerly WINTER 2020 | 13
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     The Horne Prize 2019
     Aesop and The Saturday Paper have been cultural partners since 2014, and together
     they nurture writers of long-form non-fiction through The Horne Prize, an annual
     essay award. In 2019, writers were asked to address the theme ‘Australian life’ –
     shining light on a particular aspect of who we are, from a contemporary perspective.
     Here, northerly is proud to present the winning essay Diary of a Wildlife Carer by
     Rachael Lebeter, an English teacher and volunteer wildlife carer in regional NSW.
     Rachael’s essay will be published in two parts, with the second part appearing in our
     Spring issue.

     Diary of a Wildlife Carer
     By Rachael Lebeter

     October – I move into a one-room shack. In the              The baby is so depleted that it dies within hours of my
     morning, I sit on the verandah drinking coffee and          touching it.
     watching light filter through the gum trees on the ridge.
     Reminded suddenly of Richard Morecroft, who read the        I care for a buff-banded rail chick. I spend my days
     Sydney news on the ABC with orphaned bats under his         writing and searching for insects. Worms, beetles,
     jacket, I join the local wildlife carers. I spend my time   slaters and grubs. Being a mother bird is hard work.
     writing in the morning sun; there is room for animals.
                                                                 The rail hates me – true odium. Every time I go near, it
     November – My first rescue. I hold the ladder while a       throws itself at the walls and roof of its prison. A couple
     baby tawny frogmouth is retrieved, no parents in sight.     of times it escapes in the house, fleeing in circles. I am
     It opens its tiny mouth, pink inside with opalesque         afraid to hurt it, afraid it will hurt itself. I start spending
     green mottling. ‘Stay away, I’m dangerous!’ or ‘Feed        less time at home: I do my work at cafes or put the bird
     me!’ It is light as air despite the puff of feathers.       in the shower.

     The bird is covered in big black flat flies. They sidle     When I pass the rail on for release, I am told that I did a
     sideways, like crabs, under the feathers. A few seek        good job, it isn’t humanised. They need to hate us, just
     shelter in my hair and I spin, trying to shake them off.    not so much that it kills them.
     Flat flies are hard to catch. When you finally squish
     them between your nails like ticks, they pop a vibrant,     January – My first release. A welcome swallow, so light
     poisonous green. The last one stays under my clothes        that it was caught in a spider’s web over the river. The
     for hours, undiscovered. My skin creeps.                    bird owes its life to passing kayakers.

     December – A baby platypus, curled in a ball, eyes          I hold the swallow perched on my fingers. When I
     closed. It is precious and I feel lucky; most carers have   release my grip, it flutters a few metres to a nearby
     never handled a platypus.                                   fence and preens, removing the last gossamer vestige
                                                                 of trauma. Then, it is gone, soaring in giant loops,
     The platypus has been found on a creek bank, but            speeding away from the river. I watch until it is out of
     nothing is ever so simple. In truth, the baby has been      sight.
     without its mother’s milk for three days before we are
     called. People want to do the right thing but there is      February – A baby crow. We attempt a reunion but the
     such a wealth of misinformation online.                     parents cannot be found. I never really liked birds, but
                                                                 the crow has the most exquisite eyes, iridescent blue.
                                                                 While it sleeps, I examine tiny downy blue and black
                                                                 feathers on its eyelids, beautiful in their delicacy. By

14 | WINTER 2020 northerly
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some wonder of evolution, it looks as though it sleeps        brown bear fur. I name them: Flora, Blossom and Bear.
with its eyes open, the ultimate protection.
                                                              The possums are all orphans. Blossom is friendlier
The crow thinks I am its mother. I make the mistake           than the others and crawls up my arm during feedings.
of eye contact. I should have fed it in a head covering.      Initially, it takes a lot of deep breathing to let her
Instead, I looked at it, aiming tweezers of mince down        climb – arm, shoulder, tickling the hairs on my neck.
its throat, and it looked at me.                              Something in me wants to fling her away. She likes to
                                                              ride on my head, as if I were a mother possum.
I have to start weaning the crow off eye contact. I have
been told that it is necessary. Every time I feed it or go    The possums wake up about 5pm. They have possum
near its cage, it caws and looks at me. It is as distressed   milk, and fruit and leaves, that I forage daily. My
by the loss of connection as I am.                            floor is carpeted in leaves and pellets of possum
                                                              poo. Sometimes I sweep, but there is no vacuuming.
I move the crow outside. How do I provide the training        No music. I try not to acclimatise my house guests
of six months with parents? I give it whole food –            to human sounds and smells. I cook nothing more
zucchini, eggs, chicken wings. I could teach it to open       complicated than eggs. I eat a lot of wraps and salads.
bags and lunch boxes, like crows at schools. I consider
picking up roadkill but worry about imparting bad             A paralysed currawong. Birds are growing on me. I hold
habits; I imagine the crow being hit by a car.                this one so it can eat and drink; I clean its bottom with
                                                              baby wipes. We have an understanding. Every time the
My crow gets what we call a soft release: it is free but      possums see it, they softly make their warning sound.
fed. For a few months it returns, waiting in a tall gum       Chuck-chuck-chuck. The currawong seems to be
and gliding down to dinner when I am safely distant.          improving, then one day it is dead.
Then, one day, it is gone.
                                                              May – The United Nations Intergovernmental Science-
I finish my lyssavirus vaccinations so that I can handle      Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
flying foxes. The bats are smart, their eyes bright           releases a Global Assessment which states that one
and watchful even when they have been caught on               million species are at risk of extinction in our lifetime.
a barbed wire fence all night. I transport one to the         ‘Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in
wildlife hospital. Even with my small experience, I           human history.’
can see that its eyes are glazed. When I return for my
cage, I ask about the bat. ‘I’m sorry,’ says the vet nurse,   The report backs up what wildlife carers already
‘It was dead when you got here.’ I vacillate between          know: last year we saw 2,500 rescues in our area; each
embarrassed and horrified.                                    month sees more rescues than in previous years.
                                                              About fifty per cent of the animals we rescue die or are
March – I release a barn owl. We try to get her to            euthanised.
perch but it is awkward, two of us in the dark with a
poorly closed cardboard box. The owl pushes out and           The UN report captures news and social media
clumsily flutters onto the road. Her eyes mirror my           attention for a few weeks. We get twenty new members
torchlight. No cars. A few seconds later she is gone,         at the next wildlife carers’ orientation, but after that
silent. Sometimes I see her – I think it is her – hovering    it is business as usual. I care for my possums, grow
above the cane fields in the late afternoon, hunting.         vegetables, write, teach. When I can’t sleep, I wonder
                                                              what else I can do. I worry: Are my possums normal?
I catch my first bird, a corella. I see it sitting on the     Do they sleep too much? Is Flora losing fur? Are they
fence, puffed up, on my way to work. It could be              supposed to eat bark?
normal behaviour. Three hours later, the bird is still
there. Okay. To my own surprise, it is an easy catch. I
am unprepared; I have to hold the struggling parrot
against my hip with one hand while I fight with keys,
boot, cage. Coracoid fracture. The bone, essential to
flight, is unlikely to heal – the bird is euthanised.

April – A cageful of possums makes my one-room
house seem even smaller. Juvenile ringtails, they
spend the day curled up together in their flannelette
pouch. They are more rat-like than I’d expected, with

                                                                                                        northerly WINTER 2020 | 15
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                             Flash fiction from
                             Emma Ashmere

                             After the Storm
                             Headlights flashed across her mother’s beehive and her father’s
                             towelling hat. Her mother stopped knitting. He father was talking about
                             UFOs again, how they tailed his Wirraway over New Guinea during the
                             war.

                             They drove all night, slept all day, woke to egg-and-bacon pie, grey
                             paddocks, yellow hills, dry creeks, stop-watch timed pisses, dogs on
                             tuckerboxes, pink salt lakes, until they reached her stranger-cousins’
                             house on stilts, swaying over leech-laced ferns: a jungle world of
                             pointed mountains and pillared clouds, where birds walked and foxes
                             flew.

                             She lay in a bunk, squinting at the swollen stars hanging close. Frogs
                             croaked. Geckoes skittered. Spiders embroidered mosquito nets. Her
                             father and uncle were up, drinking away the night.

                             That first morning, she floated in a soupy swimming pool. There was a
                             flash of light in the green-black sky.

                             ‘Look, dad. They’ve followed us.’

                             ‘Get inside,’ her uncle shouted.

                             And when the storm had passed and her mother and uncle were
                             sweeping up the broken glass, and her cousins were making snowmen
                             with piles of steaming hail, she waded after her father through the
                             shredded trees towards the sunken shimmer of the tennis court.

                             She watched the sky as he knelt and wept.

16 | AUTUMN 2020 northerly
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       Satellite (of love)
       On the first hot morning the farmer throws down a rope. He says
       pretend it’s a snake. His three children watch as he hands me the gun.

       Every day I cook beef and mutton for breakfast, smoko, lunch, smoko
       and dinner. Every evening I sit with the farmer and his wife in the hum
       of the generator.

       Last night the farmers’ three children floated along the hall, a trio of
       pyjamaed ghosts. I called them back, but ghosts can’t always hear the
       living.

       The farmer’s wife no longer gets out of bed. I cook the children’s
       breakfast, wash them, dress them, walk them to the yellow school bus.

       Three times a week I wait for the postie van.

       Nothing for you says the postie’s wife.

       I sit by the amber-coloured creek where the horses bend their necks
       and corellas shriek in hollow trees. I think of you in the city, the orange
       streetlights burnishing your window, the basement clubs where we
       used to dance, you singing on the balcony.                                    Emma Ashmere’s short stories
                                                                                     have been widely published,
       Tomorrow there’ll be sackfuls of your letters in the postie van, telling      including in The Age, Review
       me to hurry back.                                                             of Australian Fiction, Griffith
                                                                                     Review, the Commonwealth
                                                                                     Writers magazine adda;
       No stars or satellites in the sky tonight.                                    and shortlisted for the
                                                                                     Commonwealth Writers
                                                                                     Award 2019, Newcastle
                                                                                     Short Story Award 2019, and
                                                                                     Overland/NUW Fair Australia
                                                                                     Prize 2018. Her debut novel
                                                                                     The Floating Garden was
                                                                                     shortlisted for the 2016 Small
                                                                                     Press Network MUBA prize.
                                                                                     Her new short story collection
                                                                                     Dreams They Forgot will be
                                                                                     published in September by
                                                                                     Wakefield Press. ‘After the
                                                                                     Storm’ will appear in Dreams
                                                                                     They Forgot, and was first
                                                                                     published in Landmarks,
                                                                                     the 2017 anthology of flash
                                                                                     fiction and prose poetry
                                                                                     from publishers Spineless
                                                                                     Wonders. Emma was
                                                                                     scheduled to appear at Byron
                                                                                     Writers Festival 2020.
                                                                                              northerly WINTER 2020 | 17
FEATURE

     New ways forward:
     David Roland’s life in lockdown
     Local psychologist and author David Roland had the promotion
     and momentum for his new book, The Power of Suffering,
     stopped in its tracks by COVID-19. Here, he reflects on the new
     literary landscape and his writing process over the past year.

     ‘Suffering in its simplest form is ill at ease             After two months on the road it was time to turn
     with what is, wanting it to be some other way              around and head north. I bought a vintage caravan
     when it cannot be.’                                        envisioning stays in camping grounds surrounded by
                                                                trees, enveloped in nature sounds, my ideal working
     - David Roland, The Power of Suffering                     environment. The caravan would become my cosy
                                                                office on wheels.
     In early 2019 I downsized my possessions, selling
     and giving away years of accumulated stuff; things
                                                                But it didn’t always work out this way. On one occasion
     I now felt burdened by. I wanted to shake loose the
                                                                I thought I had landed in writing paradise, an idyllic
     twenty-plus years of routines and responsibilities that
                                                                caravan park by the beach with expansive lawns,
     had bound me while working and raising my three
                                                                paperbark trees, shaded campsites. On the first day,
     daughters. I wanted to feel the freedom of insecurity
                                                                however, the groundsmen brought out every piece
     again, and to welcome the unexpected.
                                                                of gardening machinery known and began to mow,
                                                                snip, blow and round up any foliage that stuck its head
     All the research for the new book had been done,
                                                                above ground. I skedaddled to different locations
     the collation of personal stories of people I came to
                                                                within the park until I was caught out by a leaf blower
     know and who had survived intense suffering and
                                                                or a returning holidaymaker whose cabin deck I had
     grown, the experts I’d spoken with and my gathering
                                                                been sitting on thinking there was no-one staying
     reflections. The first three chapters were written and I
                                                                there. It felt hopeless.
     had a publication contract in my pocket. With ten more
     chapters to write I headed off on a writing road trip,
                                                                The next morning, I awakened to quiet with a sigh
     leaving my base in northern New South Wales, taking
                                                                of relief, but then a public address system cranked
     my tools of trade: a laptop, phone and reference books.
                                                                up. It was the schools zone cross-country carnival
     With a publication date of 1 March, 2020, I had plenty
                                                                and competitors would be running around the
     of time.
                                                                campground roads till 3pm, I was told. Not only that,
                                                                but the sausage sizzle and drink stall was being set up
     First stop was an artist’s residency at Bundanon Trust,
                                                                in the barbecue area right by my camp spot.
     near Nowra, then onto the Mornington Peninsula
     in Victoria for a month where a friend had offered a
                                                                 ‘Is there ANYWHERE quiet I could go to work?’ I
     writing space in the quiet of the hills.
                                                                pleaded with the woman at reception. There was, she
                                                                said, a picnic area a short drive away. ‘Hardly anyone
     My editor at Simon and Schuster invited me to send
                                                                goes there,’ she said. And indeed she was right. For
     him work in progress, so I did. The draft of each new
                                                                the next three days I took my writing tools and lunch
     chapter was teleported to him and in a week or so he
                                                                and set up by the picnic table encircled by the stately
     responded with a telephone call and tracked changes
                                                                presence of tall rainforest trees and birdsong. The only
     on the manuscript. I felt like a wayfaring explorer, but
                                                                other regular visitors were the garbage truck collector
     one who had the end in mind.

18 | WINTER 2020 northerly
FEATURE

 who came by at 11am for his morning tea, giving me a        to my posts, offering praise and validation. I have
 wave like I was a regular, before he settled down on the    attended online writers’ salons, networked with writers
 other side of the picnic ground, and two curious (read      and felt a sense of camaraderie I haven’t experienced
 hungry) kookaburras, who liked to prop themselves on        before.
 the picnic table.
                                                             Until this article, I have been unable to write anything
 2020 was to be the year of the book for me: promotion,      new. I poke around each day networking and
 public appearances, meeting readers, running                promoting the book online. It’s been hard to find a
 workshops and responding to new opportunities. I            sense of purpose. Should I write short articles or put
 gave myself this year to determine if I could continue as   it all aside for now until we return to the ‘new normal’,
 a writer and presenter with the new book my talisman.       when things might make more sense?
 I envisioned the book being embraced by an ardent
 and grateful audience. But, instead, someone shut the       The road trip had shown me multiple times that
 doors.                                                      disruption and the unexpected is inevitable and the
                                                             way forward is to accept what is and then find the best
 The book, a three-year project in all, has descended        alternative.
 into a black hole. All book events, interviews, speaking
 gigs and festival attendances have been cancelled or        But I haven’t been able to dodge the pandemic like I
 postponed. The arts pages have shrunk in mainstream         could a noisy camping ground; this is much bigger than
 media publications, taking with them the book reviews       me.
 and features that would have once peopled them. Only
 well-known authors seem to be getting the usual kind        I know from my investigation into human suffering that
 of publicity. All news is trumped by ‘the virus’.           following a major life upheaval there is the initial shock
                                                             and distress, the sense of displacement, but clarity
 I was able to get two local book launches and one           does come, and with that, new ways forward.
 bookstore event at Avid Reader in Brisbane before the
 lockdown. At the Avid Reader event a strange new thing      This pandemic is showing us what we don’t need as
 called ‘social distancing’ was practised with a reduced     well as what we do, and it is clear that a society without
 audience sitting 1.5 metres apart and a moat-sized          writers, books and the creative arts is a weakened
 space between them and me. I am very grateful for           society, a much less resilient one.
 these live events, it gave me the sense that the book,
 which had been for so long in my head, is real and that
 real people want to have conversations about it.
                                                               The Power of Suffering is published by Simon and
 What has proved sustaining for me since, are the              Schuster. This article originally published as a blog post at
 readers who comment via social media and respond              moniquemulligan.com

                                                                                                               northerly WINTER 2020 | 19
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