Heroines Festival Book Month Program

HEROINES FESTIVAL
2020
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Heroines Literary Festival
Returns for 2020 with Heroines
Book Month
The Heroines Festival, Australia’s first festival of women writers telling women’s
stories, returns for its third year in 2020. For the first time ever, the festival features
a month-long program, the Heroine’s Book Month, taking place between 15 October
– 15 November. This online program features book clubs, live author discussions and
exclusive writing workshops.
Heroines Festival Book Month amplifies and applauds stories told by women, about
women. We invite audiences to take part in our exclusive book groups celebrating
stories of rebellion, survival and resilience. Our panel of authors complement their own
creative works with a curated selection of fiction and memoir by and about women.
Authors will be available throughout the month to discuss their creative practice and
book selections via live Q&A video sessions.
Amra Pajalic will reflect on her mother’s experiences of bipolar disorder and migration,
while S.L Lim’ explores the psychic violence imposed by capital and borders. Bem Le
Hunte considers thresholds between both generations and cultures. Julie Janson will
navigate Aboriginal identity and survival against the backdrop of British colonisation,
while Lee Kofman investigates societal perceptions of bodily “imperfection.”
Authors interrogate the past, uncovering stories of defiant and rebellious women
in Australia and beyond. Victoria Purman and Cathy Perkins will examine feminist
struggles in early 20th century Australia, while Karen Brooks turns to witchcraft trials to
illustrate women’s defiance of authority.
Writing workshops coach writers through the processes of drafting, and creating
dynamic characters. Hayley Scrivenor will encourage aspiring authors to “Write Like
No One is Watching”, to develop their work and create sustainable writing practices.
Lauren Elise Daniels hosts “Writing Rebel Heroines”, teaching writers how to create
authentic, fully realised female characters.
Bringing together a diverse community of readers and authors, Heroines Book Month
celebrates strength, resilience and courage.
www.theneoperennialpress.com/heroines-bookmonth-2020
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Heroines Book Month
Amra
Pajalic
& Things
Nobody Knows
But Me
Guests
Books
Amra Pajalic is an an editor, teacher and
award-winning author. Her debut novel
The Good Daughter (Text Publishing,
2009) won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for
Literature’s Civic Choice Award. She is
co-editor of the anthology Growing up
Muslim in Australia (Allen and Unwin,
2019) shortlisted for the 2015 Children’s
Book Council of the Year awards. Her
latest book is a family memoir Things
Nobody Knows But Me (Transit Lounge,
2019) shortlisted for the 2020 National
Biography Award. She is completing a PhD
in Creative Writing at La Trobe University.
www.amrapajalic.com
Amra’s Book Club
Nomination
Amra’s Book Club Nomination - You Must
Be Layla by Yassmin Abdel-Magied.
A beautiful novel about Layla who is of
Sudanese background and who dreams
of having adventures and inventions and
gets a scholarship to a prestigious high
school. She faces racism and discrimination
but through persistence and courage finds
her way. A great novel that challenges
stereotypes across race and gender Layla
is a strong courageous character that
I loved and that speaks to young girls.
Can’t wait to recommend this book to my
students.
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Cathy
Perkins
& The Shelf Life of
Zora Cross
Cathy’s Book Club
Nomination
Cathy Perkins is a writer and editor from Sydney with an
interest in the life stories of forgotten literary figures. Her
recent biography The Shelf Life of Zora Cross uncovers
the life of a once-famous poet, journalist and actress who
published a provocative series of sonnets in 1917. The
Sydney Morning Herald’s Spectrum called the book an
‘imaginatively conceived biography’ and a ‘fascinating
read’, and it was shortlisted for the Australian History
Prize of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Cathy edits
the award-winning SL magazine and other publications
at the State Library of NSW, and has worked as a book
editor, literary agent, bookseller, and for the Australian
Society of Authors. Her essays on Zora Cross have been
published in the literary journal Meanjin.
Cathy’s Book Club Nomination - Friends
and Rivals by Brenda Niall
Brenda Niall’s Friends and Rivals is a
vivid account of the intersecting lives of
four Australian women writers in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
Ethel Turner, author of the children’s classic
Seven Little Australians, Barbara Baynton,
who wrote of the harshness of bush life,
Nettie Palmer, essayist and critic, and
Henry Handel Richardson, of The Getting
of Wisdom and The Fortunes of Richard
Mahoney fame. Even readers unfamiliar
with the work of these writers will enjoy
this group biography that reveals the
challenges faced by women writers and
illuminates a fascinating time in Australia’s
literary history.
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Karen
Brooks
& The Darkest
Shore
Karen’s Book Club
Nomination
Karen Brooks is the author of thirteen
books, a newspaper columnist, and is an
Honorary Senior Research Consultant with
the University of Queensland. She has a
Ph.D. in English/Cultural Studies and has
published internationally on popular culture,
education and social psychology. An awardwinning
teacher, she’s keynoted at education
conferences around the country. Karen’s
first historical fiction, The Brewer’s Tale, was
published to critical and popular acclaim,
becoming a bestseller. Her subsequent works,
The Locksmith’s Daughter – an Elizabethan spy
thriller - and The Chocolate Maker’s Wife, a
Restoration story of love, cruelty, redemption
and chocolate have been successful here and
in the USA/UK. Her latest novel, The Darkest
Shore, is based on the true story of a witchhunt
in Scotland in the 1700s. It features a
group of feisty fishwives and covers themes
such as social justice, the power of female
friendship and resilience in the face of
terrible odds.
Karen’s Book Club Nomination - Gulliver’s Wife to revert back to the way it was - with him
by Lauren Chater
at its head and his every need and whim
While most of us either grew up with Jonathan met. This is the story Chater gives us - from
Swift’s satirical travelogue/novel, Gulliver’s the point of view of Mary and her daughter,
Travels, or know the extraordinary adventures Bess, with all its psychological and emotional
of its protagonist, ship‘s surgeon, Lemuel twists and pain. In this tale, Gulliver is not
Gulliver, through various popular culture the heroic survivor of ship-wreck and centre
retellings, not much thought at all is given of a wondrous tale, but a narcissist, unable
to his wife or family who were left behind. to see the damage his return, and inability
Well, Lauren Chater changes that. In Lemuel’s to understand the changes that have been
absence, Mary Gulliver not only provides for wrought while he was away, causes. Filled with
her family through her formidable skills as a lyrical prose, it’s a beautifully, heart-achingly
healer and midwife, but excels. Imagine then, told tale - realistic and raw. I was completely
after attaining liberty, repaying her selfish swept into this story and didn’t want to part
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husband’s debts and raising her children, her with it.
husband returns, expecting his household
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Lee
Kofman
& Imperfect
Lee Kofman is a Russian-born, Israeli-Australian author
based in Melbourne. Lee holds a PhD in social sciences
and MA in creative writing. She is the author of three
fiction books, and memoirs Imperfect (Affirm Press, 2019),
which was shortlisted for Nib Literary Award 2019 and
included in Books We Loved 2019 (The Age), and The
Dangerous Bride (Melbourne University Press, 2014),
which was included in Best Books 2014 (The Age and
Australian Book Review) and 2015 (The Age). Lee is the
editor of Split (Ventura Press, 2019), which was longlisted
for ABIA Awards 2020, and co-editor of Rebellious
Daughters (Ventura Press, 2016), anthologies of personal
essays by prominent Australian authors. Her short works
have been published in Australia, Scotland, UK, Israel,
USA and Canada, and her writing won numerous awards.
Her blog about writing was a finalist for Best Australian
Blogs 2014. Lee also teaches writing.
More at www.leekofman.com.au
Lee’s Book Club Nomination -
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed
with a potentially terminal cancer. When
she returned to school with a third of her
jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts
of classmates. In this strikingly candid
memoir, Grealy tells her story of great
suffering and remarkable strength without
sentimentality and with considerable
wit. Vividly portraying the pain of peer
rejection and the guilty pleasures of
wanting to be special, Grealy captures
with unique insight what it is like as a child
and young adult to be torn between two
warring impulses: to feel that more than
anything else we want to be loved for who
we are, while wishing desperately and
secretly to be perfect.
Lee’s Book Club
Nomination
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S.L
Lim
S.L Lim’s Book
Club Nomination
& Revenge
S.L’s Book Club Nomination - Rat Bohemia
by Sarah Schulman
S. L. Lim was born in Singapore and moved to
Sydney at the age of one. Their award-winning
first novel Real Differences was published by
Transit Lounge in 2019. They have appeared
at literary festivals including Melbourne and
Byron. They are a recent addition to the
transnational Out of the Woods collective,
investigating the twinned nightmares of
capitalism and climate change. They dislike the
global apartheid system of borders as
should you.
First published in 1995, this award-winning
novel, written from the epicentre of the
AIDS crisis, is a bold, achingly honest
story set in the “rat bohemia” of New
York City, whose huddled masses include
gay men and lesbians who bond with one
another in the wake of loss. Navigating
the currents of the city is Rita Mae, a rat
exterminator who holds the optimism of all
true bohemians--those who stand outside
of the prevailing social apparatus. She and
her friends seek new ways to be truthful
and honest about their lives as others
around them avert their glances. Inspired
by A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel
Defoe, Rat Bohemia is an expansive novel
about coping with loss and healing the
wounds of the past by reinventing oneself
in the city. Rat Bohemia won the Ferro-
Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction, and
was named one of the “100 Best Gay
and Lesbian Novels of All Time” by the
Publishing Triangle.
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Victoria
Purman
& The Women’s
Pages
Victoria’s Book
Club Nomination
Victoria Purman is an Australian Top
Ten and USA Today bestselling fiction
author. Her bestselling The Land Girls
was published in April 2019. The Last of
the Bonegilla Girls, a novel based on her
mother’s postwar migration to Australia,
was published in 2018. Her previous
novel The Three Miss Allens became a
USA Today bestseller in April 2019. Her
next novel, The Women’s Pages, will
be published in September 2020. She
is a regular guest at writers festivals, is
a workshop presenter and was a judge
in the fiction category for the 2018
Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature.
Written with unerring skill and insight,
The Dyehouse is a masterly portrait
of postwar Australia, when industrial
work was radically transformed by new
technologies and society changed with it.
Mena Calthorpe—who herself worked in a
textile factory—takes us inside this world,
vividly bringing to life the people of an
inner-Sydney company in the mid-1950s:
the bosses, middlemen and underlings;
their dramatic struggles and their loves.
This powerful and affecting novel was first
published in 1961, and is the hundredth
book in the Text Classics series. The new
edition comes with an introduction by
Fiona McFarlane, acclaimed author of The
Night Guest.
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Bem Le
Hunte
& Elephant’s with
Headlights
Bem Le Hunte is Indian by birthright,
British by descent and Australian by
choice. She is the author of several short
stories and four novels. Her latest novel,
Elephants with Headlights, had a carefully
timed release for the month of March
when the COVID-19 lockdowns began! Her
first two novels, The Seduction of Silence
and There, Where the Pepper Grows,
have become number one bestsellers and
been published internationally to critical
acclaim. She is also an Associate Professor
at the University of Technology Sydney,
where she’s the founding Course Director
of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence
and Innovation, a transdisciplinary, futurefacing
degree that teaches creativity
across 25 different. Before that she had
a career spanning three decades in the
creative industries. She has a BA and MA
in Social Anthropology from Cambridge
University and a Creative Doctorate from
the University of Sydney. Writing has
always been her elemental passion, and
the gift of this calling has allowed her to
flourish in many ways and worlds – well
beyond the written word.
Bem’s Book Club Nomination- A Room of
One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
was a trailblazing imaginative exercise in
understanding why there were virtually
no women writers in the literary canon.
Placing herself as a researcher in the
‘persona’ of characters like Shakespeare’s
sister (as talented as her brother) she
explored how impossible it would have
been to write fiction in that time unless
you were male.
Bem’s Book Club
Nomination
She came up with the famous notion that a
woman had to have a room of her own and
an independent income to write fiction.
Her legacy survives to this day. Without
her there would possibly be no Heroine’s
Festival!
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Julie
Jansen
& Benevolence
Julie Jansen is a Burruberongal woman of Darug
Aboriginal Nation, a playwright, novelist and poet. She is
a Co-recipient of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize
2016 and winner of the Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2019.
Her writing career began when she was a teacher who
wrote and directed plays in remote Northern Territory
Aboriginal communities and took part in traditional Yolngu
ceremonies. Fellowships include an Australia Council
Developing Writer’s Fellowship, two Asialink Residencies
in Indonesia and a Tyrone Guthrie Writing Residency in
Ireland. She wrote her debut novel The Crocodile Hotel
while living in Rome on an Australia Council BR Whiting
Residency. Julie’s historical novel Benevolence Magabala
2020, is an Aboriginal response to colonization and has
been long-listed for the NIB Literary Award 2020. She has
ten produced plays, including two at Belvoir St Theatre,
Black Mary and Gunjies. These plays are published by
Aboriginal Studies Press.
Julie’s Book Club Nomination- Song Spirals
by the Gay’wu group of women
The Yolngu clans of North Eastern
Arnhemland have shared knowledge for
thousands of years. Song Spirals is a non
fiction book, written by the Gay’wu group
of women. It explores the essence of every
clan. The women recount how they belong
to the land and it belongs to them, it sings
of the stories that are the heart of creation.
Julie’s Book Club
Nomination
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DATE TIME AUTHOR BOOK
Thursday, 15 October
2020
6:30pm - 7:00pm S.L. Lim Revenge
Friday, 16 October 2020 5:00pm - 5:30pm Julie Janson Song Spirals
Saturday, 17 October 2020 2:00pm - 5:00pm Hayley Scrivenor Writing workshop
Sunday, 18 October 2020 12:00pm - 12:30pm Lee Kofman Imperfect
Monday, 19 October 2020 5:00pm - 5:30pm Julie Janson Benevolence
Tuesday, 20 October 2020 7:00pm - 7:30pm Victoria Purman The Women’s Pages
Wednesday, 21 October
2020
Thursday, 22 October
2020
7:00pm - 7:30pm Karen Brooks The Darkest Shore
6:30pm - 7:00pm S.L. Lim Rat Bohemia
Saturday, 24 October 2020 1:00pm - 1:30pm Amra Pajalic You Must Be Layla
Monday, 26 October 2020 7:00pm - 7:30pm Victoria Purman The Dyehouse
Tuesday, 27 October 2020 6:00pm - 6:30pm Cathy Perkins The Shelf Life of Zora
Cross
Wednesday, 28 October
2020
7:00pm - 7:30pm Karen Brooks Gulliver’s Wife
Friday, 30 October 2020 6:00pm - 6:30pm Cathy Perkins Friends & Rivals
Saturday, 31 October 2020 1:00pm - 1:30pm Amra Pajalic Things Nobody Knows But
Me
Saturday, 7 November
2020
7:00pm - 7:30pm Lee Kofman Autobiography of a Face
Sunday, 8 November 2020 11:00am - 1:15pm Lauren Elise Daniels Writing Workshop
Saturday, 14 November
2020
7:00pm - 7:30pm Bem Le Hunte A Room of One’s Own
Sunday, 15 November 7:00pm - 7:30pm Bem Le Hunte Elephants with Highlights
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2020
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Kate Forsyth appeared at the 2018
festival on the “Hearing our Grandmother’s
Voices” panel, and again at the 2019
festival discussing the French revolution
and Chinese mythology. While Kate is
best known for her fiction, she has written
a bibliomemoir of their great-greatgreat-great-grandmother
and author of
Australia’s first known children’s book,
Charlotte Waring, with her sister Belinda
Murrell. The book, Searching for Charlotte,
will be published by the National Library
of Australia and will celebrate the 180th
anniversary of Waring’s A Mother’s Offering
to Her Children.
Margaret Morgan’s dark and speculative
novel The Second Cure is an exploration of
a world confronted with a pandemic. It is
eerily relevant in 2020, only two years after
its publication. Excitingly, in 2019 Margaret
announced the novel was being adapted
into a miniseries by Bunya Productions.
Bunya Productions is behind the 2017 film
Sweet Country, winner of 8 different awards
from the Australian Academy of Cinema
and Television.
Catching up with some of Heroines Festival’s
previous guests
Ceridwen Bush
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Lauren Chater’s second novel, Gulliver’s
Wife, was published in April 2020 to
rave reviews: “Innovative and unique,
this novel was gripping from the very
first page” (Theresa Smith Writes, 2020).
Lauren revisits the classic Gulliver’s Travels
to explore Mary Burton Gulliver. Mary
is a fleeting and limited character in the
original but is reimagined with a voice
and life of her own. Gulliver’s Wife is an
eloquent feat that tackles the historical
underwriting of women’s stories.
Cat Sparks, a multi-award winning
Australian author, editor, artist, and
director of multiple speculative fiction
festivals, completed her PhD in creative
writing entitled Capitalocene Dreams: Dark
Tales of Near Futures & The 21st Century
Catastrophe: Hyper-capitalism and Severe
Climate Change in Science Fiction. Her
forthcoming projects include publications
in the 2020 Dark Harvest anthology and
Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 3.
Kerry Turner published her second
historical fiction novel The Daughter of
Victory Lights in January 2020. Karen
Brooks, author of The Locksmiths
Daughter, describes the novel as “an
exquisite, heart-aching tale of love, loss,
rejection and connection all set against the
backdrop of firstly, London during the Blitz
and, later, the post-war years and early
sixties”.
2019 Festival guest Monica Tan’s Stranger
Country won the Chief Ministers Book
Award for Non-Fiction and Jessica White’s
Hearing Maud was shortlisted for the
National Biography Award by the State
Library of NSW.
Robyn Cadwallader appeared on
the “Hearing Our Grandmother’s
Voices” panel at Heroine Festival in
2019. Described by Head of Fiction at
HarperCollins, Catherine Milne, as a
“moving and profoundly beautiful novel
of the human impulse towards creativity
and connection”, her second novel, Book
of Colours went on to be the winner of the
2019 ACT Book of the Year.
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Jesse
Blackadder
Vale Jesse Blackadder.
We were so saddened by the passing of author Jesse
Blackadder in 2020. It was a real honour to have Jesse
speak as a featured guest at Heroines Festival last year.
Jesse was a remarkable woman as evidenced in her
adventures to Antarctica, her historical research and
writing practice, and her work with Byron Writers Festival.
Jesse made a significant impact on the Australian literary
landscape, was much loved, and will be greatly missed.
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We were profoundly lucky to be able to host Tara June Winch when she was in Thirroul
in 2019 upon the release of her most recent novel The Yield. The Yield went on to be
awarded three NSW Premier’s Literary Awards: Book of the Year, Christina Stead Prize
for Fiction and the People’s Choice Award, as well as the Miles Franklin Award. The
audiobook of her novel was also shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards
Audiobook of the year. Tara’s heritage is of the Wiradjuri nation in western NSW, and
she grew up in Woonona but is currently residing in France.
Home
Grown:
Writers from
the Illawarra
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In January 2020, Helena Fox won the Victorian Premier’s
Literary Award for Writing For Young Adults for her debut
novel How It Feels to Float. On top of this, her novel has
been shortlisted for the CBCA Awards, for Book of the
Year for Older Readers and the NSW Premier’s Awards,
for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature.
Helena has been spending her time reading and painting.
Chloe Higgins released her memoir
and debut novel The Girls as part of
her PhD study, which won the People’s
Choice Award in the Victorian Premier’s
Literary Awards in January 2020. A heart
wrenching novel of grief and growth,
The Girls was recommended by Readings
Australia for World Mental Health Day. As
well as writing, Chloe has been directing
the Wollongong Writer’s Festival since
founding it in 2013.
Film director Zanny Begg appeared at
the 2018 festival on the “Resistance and
Rebellion” panel, where she discusses her
portrayal of historically rebellious women.
In 2019, Zanny was commissioned by
STARTTS (NSW Service for the Treatment
and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma
Survivors) to direct Stories of Kannagi, a
short film, featuring three Tamil women
and writers based in Australia, and in
2020 she was commissioned to create a
new digital work by the Australian Centre
for Contemporary Art in Melbourne,
titled Magic Mountains.
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Announcing The Heroines/Joyce Parkes
Women’s Writing Prize
Joyce
Parkes
Joyce’s poetry has appeared in literary
magazines, journals and anthologies
in Australia, the UK, Finland, Canada,
Germany, the US, New Zealand, Northern
Ireland, Greece and the Netherlands. The
themes throughout Joyce’s poetry are
often responses to the world around us.
Her work is dynamic and with a distinct
voice. She has written politically, about
worker’s rights, with jarring sentences
and literary allusions; about the Australian
landscape tainted by colonisation, with
powerful metaphors entwined in graceful
prose. She writes of birds and fences,
belonging and leaves - combinations of the
natural world and the human. The life-long
and the quotidian.
Her activism extends beyond her writing.
Joyce was a member of the Western
Australian Discrimination Commission in
the 1970s, unveiling gender, race, and
age discrimination. In the 1980’s she was
a committee member of the Fellowship of
Australian Writers (WA), and later of the
Western Australian Cultural Arts Policy
Committee. In 1991, she presided over the
PEN Perth Centre. Joyce is also the patron
for the Joyce Parkes Women’s Writers’
Prize through the Australian Irish Heritage
Association.
Across history, women have always paved the
way for those that come after – consistently
fighting for futures and recognition that
they never saw. Contemporary women are
making history all around us. Joyce Parkes’
contributions to the literary scene in Australia
reflect this tradition. Based in Balajura,
Western Australia, we are thrilled to announce
that Joyce is the patron of Heroines/Joyce
Parkes Women’s Writing Prize.
Each year, the Heroines Festival has published
an anthology of short fiction and poetry.
2020 will see out third anthology and the first
announcement of our writing awards. Joyce’s
patronage will allow The Heroines Festival to
offer two significant prizes, for short fiction
and for poetry, from 2021.
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Read What
Australian Women
are Writing
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The Australian Women Writers Challenge
Reviews and Interviews
The Australian Women Writers Challenge is
run by a team of volunteers, as a response
to the gender division of major reviews of
books - the domain is dominated by male
authors, while novels written by women
neglected. The AWWC doesn’t just want
to challenge newspapers, magazines, and
literary journals, but has invited teachers,
authors, and bloggers to commit to
reading and reviewing more books by
Australian women. The challenge began
in 2012, and the success and international
attention it drew has led it to continue to
2020. The team ensures space for diversity,
outlining books written by Indigenous
women, women with disabilities, and
lesbian and queer women.
From AWCC Review: Historical Fiction
Round Up – Autumn Edition.
Review of The Philosopher’s Daughter by
Alice Booth by BookLover Book Reviews
“I was enthralled by The Philosopher’s
Daughters literary narrative. Most
appealing though is the open-mindedness
and respect with which both sisters engage
with the land and all its inhabitants. And
of course, their stories of personal growth
and liberation in having done so. Alison
Booth’s The Philosopher’s Daughters is
quietly moving and captivating historical
fiction.”
A tale of two very different sisters whose
1890s voyage from London into remote
outback Australia becomes a journey of
self-discovery, set against a landscape of
wild beauty and savage dispossession.
London in 1891: Harriet Cameron is a
talented young artist whose mother
died when she was barely five. She and
her beloved sister Sarah were brought
up by their father, radical thinker James
Cameron. After adventurer Henry Vincent
arrives on the scene, the sisters’ lives are
changed forever. Sarah, the beauty of the
family, marries Henry and embarks on
a voyage to Australia. Harriet, intensely
missing Sarah, must decide whether
to help her father with his life’s work
or to devote herself to painting. When
James Cameron dies unexpectedly,
Harriet is overwhelmed by grief. Seeking
distraction, she follows Sarah to Australia,
and afterwards into the outback, where
she is alienated by the casual violence
and great injustices of outback life. Her
rejuvenation begins with her friendship
with an Aboriginal stockman and her
growing love for the landscape. But this
fragile happiness is soon threatened by
murders at a nearby cattle station and by a
menacing station hand who is
seeking revenge.
38 39

Imbi Neemes’ The Spill
Ceridwen Bush
“There was something about the
pressure of the breaks followed by
the release of the accelerator that
made her feel in control again.”
What was the first prompt you had to
write this book?
A friend had a big argument with her sister
about an incident that occurred during
their childhood. Their memory of the
incident was so different, it was almost like
they were talking about two completely
separate events. The fact that two people
who were raised in the same household by
the same parents could experience – and
then remember – something so differently
absolutely fascinated me. I rummaged
around in my own memories, and soon
became fixated on a car accident I’d been
in with my mother and sister, which had
fundamentally changed me. So I decided
to use that as the inciting incident for two
fictitious sisters and their mother.
she ought to live and the life she longs to
live.
What do you think is important for
women who are aspiring to be writers to
know?
That you don’t need hours and hours each
week to write. Nor do you need to make
it perfect the first time. When starting a
new manuscript, I set myself an achievable
word target (250 words) that I make sure
I meet each day. By maintaining that daily
contact with my manuscript, I’m able to
keep the story churning away in my brain
so that by the next time I sit down to do
my 250 words, I’m ready to write.
with a puzzle, the reader doesn’t get the
pieces in order. In the beginning, we are
shown “after the spill” – a car accident,
a drunken mother and an afternoon
of watery lemonade - something that
signposted the end of young Samantha
In the novel, there is a chapter clearly
and Nicole’s parents’ marriage. In the
defined as “The Spill” - what is it about a
middle, we are given the spill itself: the
What did you learn - about anything, moment that marks it as a spill?
Imbi Neeme’s first novel The Spill won the moment the car tumbles too fast around a
including yourself - along your writing In the book, the term “the spill” most
Penguin Literary Award in 2019. It is a fullbodied
examination of relationships and juxtaposed by all the other indistinct spills
Writing has always been a way for me heart of the story. But it’s more than that
bend. The clarity of the spill in the novel is
process?
obviously refers to the car accident at the
trauma. It’s a brilliant story of secrets that sprinkled in, including seemingly unrelated
to emotionally digest experiences or – it’s the spilling of a jigsaw puzzle, the
absorbs its reader through loaded prose material – puzzles, vodka, tears – tiny
feelings (I’ve got decades of journals and spilling of liquid, the spilling of secrets. I
and complicated characters.
things that get lost in a moment.
notebooks as evidence of this!). While I like to make my titles work hard!
The story is told through the interchanging The everyday or usual as traumatic is a
often cannabilise my own life and the lives
perspectives of two sisters: Nicole and concept reminiscent of Virgina Woolf’s
of those around me, I try to do so with as “The Spill” has a form that is deeply
Samantha. A formal choice that exemplifies Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf presents a similar
much kindness and empathy as I can and interwoven with the experience of
the novels themes of perception and juxtaposition of trauma: veteran Septimus
to move as quickly as possible into the trauma. What did the process of writing
memory, but also puts the experience of Smith and his explicit, visual, postwar
trauma, and Clarissa Dalloway’s
I have little control over how people close Because I’ve never felt my own memory
realm of fiction. However, I’ve learned that something non-linear look like for you?
women at the forefront of the plot. The
diversity of secondary characters, both dissatisfaction with life and longing for
to me read my writing and that they’ll is particularly linear, I had this idea of
men and women, is refreshing – nothing past connections. Like Woolf, Imbi Neeme
often find themselves in places I haven’t structuring the book like a giant jigsaw
virtue signalling or irredeemably evil, just presents the reader with a traumatic event
put them!
puzzle, where I give the readers pieces
fully-fleshed. Despite never being in the so clear, it indirectly highlights the many
from different parts of the puzzle one at a
spotlight, I was fond of Nicole’s partner, stitches of trauma in everyday life.
What would your ideal reader experience time. Slowly, they are able to connect the
Jethro. Imbi shows us not only Nicole and The Spill, just like it’s protagonists, is
with this book look like?
pieces and see the bigger picture.
Jethro’s first interaction – playful, awkward full of cryptic secrets. It is a series of
I would hope it would make people reflect
– but Jethro’s and Samantha’s – hostile and scattered pieces: to understand is to work
on their own family relationships and The writing process relied heavily on a big
uncomfortable. These little interactions backwards, something impossible in the
consider that there might be more to the spreadsheet I created to manage all the
are something that tie all of the characters real world. Finally, in “Before the Spill”, the
past than they’ve remembered.
different puzzle pieces. It allowed me to
together. No moment is truly insignificant reader learns something that Samantha
sort the chapters in chronological order
in The Spill, nor in reality.
and Nicole never will. With this framework,
What are you reading at the moment? as well as in the order they appear in the
The Spill is a novel set against a backdrop the novel becomes a commentary on
I’m just starting ‘No Small Shame’
novel, as well as track character’s ages.
of two Australia’s: the 1980’s and now. It memory, truth, and trauma. Ultimately,
by Christine Bell. I met Christine at a
is a novel surrounding the spill: a clearly The Spill is a beautifully critical analysis of
workshop late last year and have been
defined moment in time, presented individual reality, and the trauma entwined
itching to read this, her debut novel. Set
differently in the beginning, middle, and in everyday life.
during the first world war, a woman is
end of the novel. It gives this feeling of
forced to make a decision between the life
collecting memories, or “pieces”. Just as
40 41

Walking, an interview with Kim Kelly
Ceridwen Bush
Australian writer Kim Kelly is the author of
ten books. Her novel Walking, set across
two devastating wars and two great
romances, is inspired by a true story of
medical genius and betrayal. It is crisply
told tale of bigotry and obsession, love
and loss, that charts the path of a young
woman finding her feet in the world, and
the power of kindness that drives her own
ambition.
What was the first prompt you had to
write this book?
Years ago, while researching my first novel,
Black Diamonds, I came across the reallife
story of a brilliant surgeon, Max Herz.
His story was so big, he deserved his own
novel: a Jewish German-Australian, he
was persecuted, betrayed and imprisoned
during the First World War, but never
swayed from his dedication as a doctor,
particularly in treating children – to their
parents, he was the hero who had enabled
their children to walk. He changed the lives
of thousands of Australian kids.
It took me a long time to work out how
to tell his story, though. The crucial spark
only came when I found the sole biography
written about him, by an ex-patient, Joan
Clarke. Suddenly, the character of Lucy
Brynne stepped into my imagination as the
heart and driving force of the novel. Lucy
would tell not only the doctor’s story but
her own, as an ex-patient and a medical
professional herself. Once I’d made the
decision to fictionalise the doctor as well,
calling him Hugo Winter, then we were
ready to set off on the writing adventure
together.
What did you learn - about anything,
including yourself - along your writing
process?
I learned a lot about early 20th-century
orthopaedics! I also found a deeper
understanding of how challenging it is
for a woman to be ignored professionally
in medicine, and how the dismissal
of her opinion can have devastating
consequences not only for herself but her
patients.
Personally, each novel is a new mountain
to climb, and I never stop learning in any
technical sense, but one thing I always
relearn about myself is tenacity. I have to
find the courage to continually renew my
love and respect for my work over the long
road, and that’s not always easy, but it’s
always worthwhile.
What would your ideal reader experience
with this book look like?
An emotional journey through love in all its
forms, and one that shows how kindness is
the greatest gift of healing we can share.
I hope readers feel a sense of building
confidence throughout the tale, so that
by the end, they want to step back into
the world with renewed determination
themselves.
What are you reading at the moment?
I’m absolutely delighting in The Mermaid
and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes
Gowar right now, and looking forward
to The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip
Williams.
What do you think is important for
women who are aspiring to be writers to
know?
I’ve worked in publishing for over 20 years
as a book editor and seen a few interesting
things in that time. The industry is not
always the kindest place – it is there to
make money – so be very wary of pinning
any hopes on the brand of success the
industry promises. Dig deep into the
reasons you want to write, give your
work the purpose, honour and respect
it deserves. You be the one to decide
what success means to you, and whatever
happens, make your best and most
beautiful work while you can. Don’t wait
for permission; seek only the validation
of those who will engage with your work
constructively and help you build your
skills. No matter where you are along your
writing road, remember this is a long game
– and it’s your game.
Walking is inspired by a true story. How
did you decide what to keep and what
must be left out?
I usually throw out all sorts – anything that
digresses too far from the steady unfolding
of story or character – but Walking was
a little different. Because I began with
a sketch of real-life facts, I slowly built
the characters and story threads around
it in my imagination as I gained more
information. When it came time to write
it, it came out as a whole thing and didn’t
change that much through the editing
process – apart from lots of polishing.
What do you do with elements that don’t
make the final edit?
Nothing is ever wasted – except for
embarrassingly bad sentences that must
get straight in the bin. It’s always a lovely
thing when a chunk of research finds new
relevance, or a storyline I couldn’t use in
one novel, finds its way into another. That’s
how Walking began.
What is the relationship between love,
medicine, and health for you?
Walking is dedicated to my wonderful
friend, Dr Liz Hovey, who embodies the
way love and science can combine to
change lives for the better – just as my
characters Lucy and Hugo do. Without
compassion a doctor can be plain
dangerous, as the novel illustrates, too;
but a doctor who becomes over-involved
can lose their critical distance. It can be a
tricky balancing act, for sure.
These challenging COVID-19 times we’re
experiencing right now have brought into
sharp focus how essential this relationship
between love, science and health can be.
Our best medical professionals are all in
one way or another grappling with a virus
that has as yet no cure; our lives are in
their hands. They truly are heroes, and
deserve our love in return.
42 43

Every Woman’s Guide
to Retirement
Experienced lawyer Alice Mantel writes as
a friendly, wise adviser to clearly explain
the complex situations that many women
encounter during retirement. Her guide,
Every Woman’s Guide to Retirement
responds to the fact that women
experience retirement differently to men.
Women generally live longer, have less
money and volunteer more than their male
counterparts. During the last third of her
life, women often takes on many roles –
caring for parents, children, grandchildren
and partners – that often leave them
little time for themselves. Every Woman’s
Guide to Retirement offers personal and
comprehensive guidance using researched
information and case studies to assist
women to prepare and make the most of
their retirement.
Alice spoke with Alice Dale of the Law
Society. She explained that she started
writing this book before she retired: “I
was initially doing research to answer my
own questions. Years ago, when placing
my mother into a nursing home, I realised
how difficult it was to find any sensible
information to assist me. More recently,
I wanted some guidance when I was
thinking about closing my practice. After
a while, I decided that most books or
articles did not seem very relevant to me.
They were often very friendly but aimed
at chaps who were fairly well off or aimed
at women who presumably intended
to spend the last third of their life on
continual holidays. My research gradually
grew into a book that is far more extensive
than I had ever contemplated and includes
mundane topics like accessing your
pension as well as more interesting options
such as lifelong learning or starting a new
relationship.”
What issues specifically apply to women?
I see retirement as very different for
women than men. Generally, women are
the main carers for their parents, children,
partners and grandchildren. At the same
time, they come into retirement with
significantly less financial resources but live
on average five years longer. If they do not
have enough resources, those last years
are going to be close to living in poverty.
It can be a very grim prospect if a woman’s
health begins to suffer and there is not
always the certainty that your children will
be there to look after you.
What about social planning for
retirement?
Most women retiring today can expect to
have another 20 years of relatively good
health, so it simply isn’t enough to plan
your one big overseas trip and think that’s
all there is to it. For working women, one
of the major issues around retirement is
the loss of their work identity, the loss of
income and the social connectedness that
professional life brings. We need to plan
at least a year ahead of retirement about
how we can use our skills and experience
in the non-employment sphere – and let
me assure you, that is a very large sphere.
There are so many not-for-profit agencies
looking for directors on their boards or
volunteers for their operations. Not having
to follow a work routine means you can
finally pursue your real passion – whether
it is art, woodwork, or caring for your
grandkids and even if it might take a little
time to find what that is, it will give real
meaning to the legacy you leave.
Quotes from “Six minutes with Alice
Mantel” by Alice Dale, Law Society Journal
online.
44 45

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Booksellers at Thirroul is
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