Decades of interviewing musicians, hanging back stage, being on the bus, sometimes the plane- Stuart Coupe has seen if not all, then a great deal of how the music industry works. Here he reflects on what led him down this path and what is has given him – and of course lots of anecdotes!
Recorded at Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival 2024
This is a beautiful memoir of coping with grief in a positive way. Indira’s beloved sister passed away and she set out on a search on how we can all deal with grief as a natural process and how it can lead to deep healing.
Recorded at Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival 2024
Jacinta Parsons reaches for mythological archetypes like ‘the witch’ ,’the mother’, and ‘the slut’ to demonstrate how women have been placed in boxes all their lives .Much more than a memoir about ageing.
Recorded at Byron Writers Festival 2023
Maggie MacKeller already had some experience of farm life before she followed love to the eastern seaboard of Lutruwita ( Tasmania). But the harsh drought conditions of one year really extended her endurance. But still she found things to sustain her.
Recorded at Byron Writers Festival 2023
This is the third and probably final instalment in Carl Cleves’ amazing memories of his life as a global musician and ethnomusicologist. The first book was ‘Tarab: Travels with my Guitar’, the second ‘Dancing with the Bones’. As always it is a riveting account of encounters both musical and non musical, as he and his music and life partner Parissa Bouas trek to mysterious places around the globe to be thrilled by previously unrecorded music and perform themselves in a variety of unusual places. There is a Q code in the book which when scanned will take you to a Spotify play list of 6 hours of some of the music that has influenced him through his life.
Recorded at Studio 3 ,2023
Sometimes our biggest foes are own bodies – Tim Baker learnt to live with illness and regained his health and confidence using cannabis oil.
His first experiment with hash cookies got a bit out of control!
Recorded at Byron Writers Festival 2022
As a young man Lech Blaine became every parent’s nightmare – he was the driver in a car that accidentally killed his friends.
In small community, there is nowhere to escape confronting the reality of this sort of tragedy. Lech Blaine reads from his memoir after the fatal crash scene has happened which claimed the lives of his friends.
Recorded at Stoyrfest 2022
Sally Warriner was chief cook, bottlewasher, nurse, mother, jillaroo, community leader, office administrator – the list goes on and on!
In short anything the general Manager (her husband) didn’t do – she did!
In addition to entertaining a host of important guests, she was organizing outings for politicians and hosting special dinners – everything that came along with the role of being the ‘wife of the General Manager’ on one of the biggest cattle stations in Australia. One day she just got tired of being taken for granted.
Recorded live at Studio 3 Bangalow April 2022
Something a little different in this post, John hasn’t written the book yet ( he says there will be about 5 volumes!) but this is an inspiring interview with permaculture legend John Barrie Button about what it feels like to be bitten by one of the most venomous snakes in the world- An Australian Tiger Snake. And then 25 years later , survive complete liver failure!
Click on the image link above or the one below to hear this episode on the Libsyn site
Here’s the first of the brilliant authors we collected for the Library, later in the year we will be producing a a whole new series of Podcasts with these authors collected into themed broadcasts.
Robyn Williams’ latest book is subtitled ‘ letters from the brink’ and he has a lot to get off his chest about the state of the world, even his own personal state as he gives us a blow by blow account of his treatment for bowel cancer. In this read he decries how the definition of ‘left wing’ has become a derogatory term, instead of merely reflecting the opposite view to conservative opinion.
I could have placed this read in ‘Science’ or ‘Philosophy’ but in the end placed it in ‘Memoir’ — as it contains so much of his views on life. It may be re-categorised later in the year!
As always his interview is eloquent and erudite and we could have continued discussion much longer than time allowed!
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