I have some great events coming up in October: Dog-Eared Readings on the 23rd here on Kaurna Yarta, and Canberra Writers Festival over on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country on the 26th.
Dog-Eared Readings are a salon style event that brings together a few writers for readings and an in-conversation with a featured author, held at the Monocle (the Howling Owl’s event space). This month, I will be interviewing the special guest, & my good friend, the wonderful Fiona Kelly McGregor! Am so looking forward to it.
It’s an intimate venue, so numbers are limited and bookings are essential – contact dogearedreadings@gmail.com to reserve your seat.
In Kamberri (Canberra) a few days later, I’ll be a part of Canberra Writers Festival. I have two events, both on the 26th October. In the morning I’ll be speaking on a panel with the title “Salvaging the Earth?” alongside Madeleine Watts and Omar El Akkad, both essential writers for our troubled times (I’ve been recommending One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This to everyone all year).
And in the afternoon I’m chairing a panel with the catchy title, “Can Big Tech Really Save Humanity?” The short answer is no, obviously, but we’ll go deeper than that and I’m looking forward to a lively discussion about technofixes and technofakes with a really interesting group of writers, each of whom takes a very different approach to the subject.
I had a lovely time reading from Salvage instore at Imprints last weekend as part of Love Your Bookshop Day. We were also treated to readings from local legends Walter Marsh and Hossein Asgari, both of whom have new books out in the world. A bustling bookshop with a busy till is a beautiful thing. I am so very grateful for the supportive writing and reading community in this city, and for Imprints.
Next week on the 23rd October is the first AusArt Day. This is a new initiative from Creative Australia that supports and encourages donations to arts organisations to help them do all the wonderful work they do (& pay artists and writers properly). There are plenty of organisations on the list I would recommend supporting. Here I want to highlight a few that I’ve been involved with over recent years: OSCA, Overland, Slingsby, Vitalstatistix, and of course the ASA. Donations to the ASA will help us stand up for authors’ rights into the future, including campaigning for regulation of AI companies to stop the wholesale theft of our work.
Speaking of Slingsby – this coming weekend, I get to see The Childhood of the World come to life in a development season held primarily for school audiences at Waterside Workers Hall. I’m really elated about this project for lots of reasons. It’s the first time I’ve had work adapted for the stage, and observing/being involved in little parts of the process has been a source of great joy for me. I’m inspired by the project’s visionary approach to climate action. I’m excited to see the complete Wandering Hall of Possibility set up inside dear iconic Waterside. And I’m thrilled to let you know that the triptych will have its world premiere at the Adelaide Festival next year – more details on that season to come very soon!
In further exciting news, the wonderful Pink Shorts Press will be publishing all three stories from A Concise Compendium of Wonder in book form, with the release timed to coincide with the premiere. You can already pre-order the book via their website. Check out the beautiful wood engravings by Lorelei Medcalf adorning this cover:
