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Joanne Burns

Giramondo at the Sydney Writers Festival

Giramondo writers will be appearing at the following Sydney Writers Festival events

For more information, of to book tickets, visit the Sydney Writers Festival

Tuesday 18th May

Inside the Westside Writer’s Group

Bankstown Youth Development Service

6-8 Bankstown City Plaza

Bankstown

6:00 pm -9:00 pm

Join some of Western Sydney’s most exciting writers for an evening of readings with live editing and critical feedback from editor Ivor Indyk and special guest author Alexis Wright. The Westside Writers Group is supported by Giramondo and BYDS, and includes writers Michael Mohammed Ahmed, Lachlan Brown, Rebecca Landon, Peter Polites, Luke Carman, Fiona Wright, Felicity Castagna, Lina Jabbir and Susie Ahmed.

Food and refreshments will be provided.

 

Thursday 20th May

Changing Places

Sydney Theatre, Richard Wherrett Studio

2:30 pm – 3:30 pm

For an immigrant the place of arrival can be alien and challenging and, all too often cruelly hostile, however much the newcomer tries to adapt. Alison Booth’s novel ‘Stillwater Creek’ tells the story of a Latvian concentration camp survivor and her daughter trying to fit in to an Australian small town in the 1950s. Kim Cheng Boey’s collection of essays ‘Between Stations’ is a rumination on wandering and belonging as the author travels the world before migrating from Singapore to Australia, while Natasha Solomon’s charming ‘Mr Rosenblum’s List’ chronicles the efforts of a German Jewish refugee to become an English gentleman.

Friday, 21st May

Poetry on the Harbour

Bangarra Mezzanine

10:00am  – 11:00

Kim Cheng Boey, Adam Aitken and Judith Beveridge Hosted by Ivor Indyk.

 

Poetry: The Last Genre Standing?

Bangarra Mezzanine

4:00pm – 5:00pm

Will poetry outlast the novel in the digital age? Some say it’s the novelists who should be worried and that poetry ? unique among writing forms ? cannot be superseded. Robert Gray, Michael Palmer and Jennifer Maiden join Mark Tredinnick in discussing the likely effect of digital technologies on poetry.

 

Poems to Share

Heritage Pier, Upstairs

6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Eleven outstanding Australian poets – Kate Fagan, Lachlan Brown, Adam Aitken, Lindsay Tuggle, Greg McLaren, Elizabeth Allen, Fiona Wright, Joanne Burns, Judith Bishop, Andy Quan, Keri Glastonbury – come together to celebrate the work of the Red Room Company (redroomcompany.org). The audience is seated at tables with poets, to hear readings as well as a discussion on sharing. This event coincides with the release of Corban & Blair and Red Room’s Poems to Share card set, featuring the work of 40 Australian poets. Hosted by Johanna Featherstone.

To enter, you must bring something, anything to share, such as twig, a monetary donation or a poem.

Saturday 22nd May

Brian Castro

Sydney Theatre, Richard Wherrett Studio

11:30am – 12:30am

Brian Castro’s body of work stands as testament to his ingenious adaptation of fictional forms, with his latest novel ‘The Bath Fugues’‚ continuing his creative use of musical structure. He talks Bernadette Brennan about his rich prose style and the joyful play and provocation he brings to his writing.

Three Australias

Sydney Dance Company, Studio 4

1:00 – 2:00 pm

Three poets, three voices, three views of our country: Les Murray, Ali Cobby Eckerman and Kim Cheng Boey read from their work.

Reading Muster 7

Sydney Dance Company, Studio 4

4:00pm – 5:00pm

Australian writers pass the word around, reading their own work. Kate Veitch, Shirley Walker, Jack Marx and Tom Cho are rounded up by our Drover.

 

Late Nights at Number One

Number One Wine Bar

Goldfields House

1 Alfred Street

Circular Quay

9:30 pm – 11:30 pm

Enjoy a post-event drink or bite and listen to Jennifer Maiden, Adam Aitken and David Brooks read their poetry at the contemporary and relaxed Quayside wine bar, Number One (numberonewinebar.com). Your host: Patrick Muhlen-Schulte.

Sunday 23rd May

Poetry Anthology Overload?

Bangarra Mezzanine

11:30 am – 12:30 pm

For a small country we sure have a lot of poetry anthologies ? four at last count and more on the way. Two of them are represented here: Robert Adamson edited ‘Best Australian Poems 2009’ and Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray have just completed a thousand-page anthology. They explain their respective approaches to Susan Hayes.

Out of the box with Tom Cho

Museum of Contemporary Art

2:30 pm – 3:30 pm

In ‘Look Who’s Morphing’, Tom Cho’s first book, his characters dance through pop culture arm-in-arm with the likes of Whitney Houston’s bodyguard, Godzilla and a Gulliver-sized cock-rock singer. It’s a bizarre, biting and utterly hilarious rollercoaster ride that’s been shortlisted for prizes all over the place.

Every week, FBi 94.5 dives into someone’s record collection to talk about the music they love, the life they lead and how the two interact. Tom is a fiction and freelance writer who has written short stories, zines, the occasional business plan, and even a fictional program for the Melbourne Writers Festival. He and FBi arts broadcaster Matt Levinson will go on a conversational journey into rock star fantasies, going Gaga over style and cock rock excesses ? with a rumoured exorcism thrown in for good measure.

Afternoon Tea and Readings

Heritage Pier, Upstairs

2:30 pm – 4:00 pm

A Sydney Writers’ Festival institution. A civilised and relaxing high tea with readings from poet Les Murray and novelists Brian Castro and Kirsten Tranter. Hosted by Geraldine Doogue.

 

Shanghai Express

Sydney Philharmonia Choir Studio

2:30pm – 3:30 pm

It takes more than a translator to publish your book in a foreign country. Giramondo Publisher Ivor Indyk talks to Patrizia van Daalen, senior rights and acquisitions manager for the private Chinese publishing firm Shanghai 99, about getting your book into China.

 

Research and Writing: Personal Journeys

Sydney Dance Company, Studio 1

4:00 – 5:00

‘The Nib’: CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature recognises excellence in literary research with its annual prize. Last year’s winner, Robert Gray (‘The Land I Came Through Last’), and shortlisted authors Greg de Moore (‘Tom Wills’) and John McDonald (‘Art of Australia’) talk about their books with Suzanne Leal.

Presented by Waverley Library and Copyright Agency Limited.