Literature

A good place to start reading Farm is at the back. That may sound counterintuitive but by taking a look at the extensive bibliography you’ll quickly see how intensely researched the book is which adds weight to the arguments and questions it presents. While Farm is a memoir that chronicles the journey of Nicola Harvey and her husband after they leave their city lives to farm cattle in rural New Zealand, it is far more than that.

Chris Oldfield. A medal reflecting 60 years of incredible service has been awarded to our distinguished CFS member and author, Rex Hall. Since the launch of his successful book, Forty Flaming Years, in 2007, Mr Hall has penned three more. Mr Hall, one of Naracoorte’s favourite icons, was also a major force behind the town’s SA Volunteer Fire Fighters Museum.

It’s just a kilometre or two off the New England Highway at East Greenmount and easy to miss if you don’t know it’s there, but Steele Rudd Memorial Park is a must visit attraction for locals and tourists. Arthur Hoey Davis, better known by his pen name of Steele Rudd has certainly left a legacy, not just for the our local area but for the whole nation as his fictional work ‘On Our Selection’ has helped shape Australian culture.

One of the hardest but most pleasurable jobs in the Clarence Valley is judging The Long Way Home writing competition – that’s according to the judges. But the verdict is in. The Long Way Home’s Claire Aman said the theme this year was ‘let go,’ prompting writers of all ages to come up with a fabulous bunch of stories – poignant, hopeful, quirky.

A book by two authors, one of them an Allora local, delves into the war years of the brave men of the 2/26 Battalion. Read through the personal interviews, family stories and archive research of the military history and personal history of the men compiled by two dedicated women, daughters of two of the soldiers - Norm Newport and Bill Anderson - who were mates in the 2/26 Battalion.

Emma Pritchard. When Clarence Valley resident Paul MacNamara decided to transition from an everyday teacher to an education officer in the prison system, he found himself in an unfamiliar classroom with strict settings and new students. Some were sex offenders and murderers, others were serving time for armed robbery, drug offences, or breaking and entering ... "I noticed that people of all ages would ask me about my job and what is was like to teach in a gaol," he recalled.

In partnership with Varuna, The National Writers’ House, the New England Writers’ Centre is delighted to announce that entries are now open for the fourth year of the prestigious Varuna-New England Writers’ Centre Fellowship.

A pitch-perfect rural romance from the bestselling author of Magpie's Bend. Diana McIntyre and her four boys have had a tough eighteen months but with the love and support of her family, she believes their lives are finally back on track. Diana's dream of starting a flower farm has been the perfect diversion, with an elderly dahlia expert showing her the ropes. She won't have to do this alone.

One of the Carter De Freitas crime series by Steve Rogers, this is set in Western Australian goldfields, where farmers and miners are at loggerheads, emotions run high and motives are many. A search prompted by high gold prices, for a gold stash buried 50 years ago, uncovers several bodies. Who killed them and why?

Emma Pritchard. Flicking through the pages of The Lonely Jacaranda, Manager of The Book Warehouse in Grafton Jess Wood is delighted by what she sees and reads. Written, illustrated and self-published by Grafton author Russell Irving, The Lonely Jacaranda tells the tale of a little jacaranda tree, the first one to arrive in Australia from South America as a seed.

Reason 1: The books. Whenever I go to a writer’s festival, I choose one book to buy. This is a budgetary decision, not a choice. I’d happily buy every book from every author at the festival. Before I even get to the Kyogle Writers Festival I have my eye on a few after perusing the program.

A charming story of a young woman who faces challenges and finds joy teaching in outback schools. The year is 1956. Sally Gare is twenty. She's just out of teachers' college, and has been sent to work at a two-teacher school more than 3000 kilometres from Perth. With the head teacher away, she starts out alone with a class of forty-five Aboriginal children, ranging in age from five years to thirteen. Thus begins the career of a remarkable teacher and a life-changing adventure in remote Australia.

Mildura Library is providing an alternative to relax and keep cool while enjoying a social evening by extending its opening hours on Thursdays as part of the Libraries After Dark program. Libraries After Dark is a state-wide initiative initially aimed at providing problem gamblers with alternative options and venues for socialising through extended evening opening hours at libraries.

Nancy Whittaker. Just down the road from me is the fabulously revitalised Methodist Church, which is now Cascade Art Gallery. At the recent launch of Jeff Gardner’s book of poetry and prints Lucy the Dragon, Dr. Juliet O’Conor made a very insightful speech. She is a specialist in children’s book history, having curated a collection of five centuries of children’s books at the State Library of Victoria.

This book introduces the main characters in the Carter De Freitas series by Steve Rogers. The story is set in WA's far north, features road-train driver Carter De Freitas and his cattle dog Carpenter who are inadvertently caught up in a drug smuggling operation. De Freitas, an ageing character, picks up a young Swedish back packer, Elise Alquist, who is stranded after her vehicle breaks down on the way to a job as a cook/deckhand on a charter boat out of Broome ... Key to the story are the characters and scenery of the Pilbara and Kimberley region ... meet Carter in the extract here.

Commended in the Local History Small Publication Award, 2019 Victorian Community History Award. This award recognises the best small publications or or e-books which feature Victorian local, cultural or social history. The fascinating story of the establishment and development of the Art Gallery of Ballarat has been told in a book by noted Ballarat historian Dr Anne Beggs-Sunter.

In partnership with Varuna, The National Writers’ House, the New England Writers’ Centre is delighted to announce Armidale writer, Dr James O’Hanlon as the winner of the 2021 Varuna/New England Writers’ Centre Fellowship. The Fellowship, to be taken up in 2022, will give James a week’s inspirational writing residency in the beautiful surroundings of Varuna, in the Blue Mountains.

An inspiring breed: climate advocate and farmer.

When Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson set out to write a book about the town of Larrimah, 490km north of Tennant Creek, they had no idea the research would lead them all over the Northern Territory, including the Barkly region. The journalists, who met in a newsroom in Mackay 15 years ago, first told the story of missing man Paddy Moriarty in their 2018 Walkley Award-winning podcast Lost in Larrimah.

Chris Murray. From the mid-1920s until 1941, when the palm seed exports collapsed during World War II, ratting was no recreational pastime, but an obligation for all Islanders who received income from palm seed sales via the Island Board’s shareholding system (and that included all Island men, women and children) ... Mary Marlowe takes up the story of a typical rat hunt in some detail ... The dogs, all three of them, were quivering at the rumps and lifting their forepaws from the ground in anticipation of jumping for the rat the instant it should appear out of the banyan log ...

Magic will be in the air at this year’s Big Sky Readers and Writers Festival featuring yet another stellar line-up of local and West Australian authors, illustrators, storytellers, poets and musicians.