Hyeonseo Lee escaped from North Korea into China when she was just 17- except she didn’t realise she couldn’t go back and that it would be years before she saw her family again. Her story is a roller coaster of joys and terror and is a testament to her immense survival skills. She preferred not to read for Narratives as she feared her English reading skills would let her down, so instead she relates the importance of her opening chapter to illustrate to western ears just what living in the regime meant on a daily basis. Her memoir is a real life thriller.
Walter Mikac has taken a great personal tragedy and used it to fuel his compassion for others who are suffering.
The Allanah and Madeline Foundationwas founded by him to bring something good out of the loss of their lives and his wife’s at Port Arthur. This book contains 50 letters of love by prominent Australians, letters about love of country, or children, or their work , or even to their future selves. They are all different, touching and some even forceful.
Profits go towards the foundation. Walter’s letter is to his parents.
To keep you going till I begin podcasting again here are two more interesting tales from Matt Towner’s collection of authors.
As always, if you want to buy the book just click on the cover image to go to Booktopia (Help keep this site going!)
Ian Harris from ‘Crazy Sh.t in Asia‘ and Veronica Farmer from ‘Abroad Broke and Busted‘
IAN HARRIS ‘ The Honorary Consul’
Ian awakes in the early hours of the morning to find the lounge room of his Bali home filled with Police officers? What do they want? and who sent them?
VERONICA FARMER “Veronica’s Story
Veronica sees Singapore through new eyes- eyes that have been tested by a life trauma.
Interviews with both these authors will be posted later in the year.
Episode twenty-four: Kim Mahood ‘ Position Doubtful’ ; and Sophie Green – ‘ The Inaugural meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Bookclub’
‘Position doubtful’ is an old surveyors map term used for areas where it is almost impossible to get a landmark for bearing.In her memoir , Kim Mahood uses this term to apply to her memories of the history of a homestead that used to belong to her family and her deep attachment to the land and its indigenous peoples that surround this place. Here she reads from her opening chapter and later in our interview explains what has drawn her to write of this geographical place that is located in her heart and of the personal charts she creates to explain its history. ‘The Fairvale Ladies BookClub’ is also about living in the Australian outback, but Sophie Green’s central character, is newly arrived as a bride from London and struggling to find friends and her feet in a radically different land.
Music tracks: ‘ Periphery’ by Belle Miners
Kim Mahood and Sophie Green were recorded at the Byron Writers Festival.
Episode twenty-two: Nadja Spiegelman “ I’m supposed to protect you from all this”, Jenevieve Chang ‘The Good Girl of Chinatown”
Nadja Spiegelman had a complicated family life, a fact she observed very early on as a small child . Her mother was highly strung and emotional and it made for a fraught relationship. Jenevieve Chang went to teach dance in China and found she was a lot more Australian than she realised, but not exotic enough for her employers.
Music tracks:‘I love you and let you go’ by Gyan; ‘Fire in her Belly’ by Trysette.
Nadja Spiegelman and Jenevieve Chang were recorded at Sydney Writers Festival 2017.
Episode thirteen: Tex Perkins – ‘Tex’ , and Mark Holden- ‘My Idol Years’
To day we hear from Tex Perkins reading, under slight duress on a hot day at a Byron Writers Festival, from his book entitled simply ‘Tex’, in which he reveals he was never dismayed that he wasn’t taken seriously as a musician, he never wanted to be serious as a musician – and Mark Holden reads from ‘ My Idol Years’ about one of the highlights of his career, singing with the Temptations.
Featured music tracks : ‘How Good is Life’ & ‘One step ahead of the Blues ‘ by Tex, Don and Charlie .
Edition Ten :Tracey Spicer – ‘The Good Girl Stripped Bare ‘; Mary-Lou Stephens –‘ Sex,Drugs and Meditation’ and Suzanne Leal – ‘The Teacher’s Secret’
Well this week’s edition is certainly topical! Here is Tracey Spicer with her explosive expose of the misogyny in the media industry ( who’d have thought?!) and Mary-Lou Stephens tells all about being bullied at the ABC and Suzanne Leal weighs in with a fictional novel of life in the education department.
Featured music tracks:‘Change’ –Jodi Martin; ‘Some say I got Devil ‘ –Inge Liljestrom
Recorded at Sydney Writers Festival 2017, Byron writers Festival 2015, Sydney Writers Festival 2017
Edition eight: David Leser “To Begin to Know – walking in the shadows of my Father”, Nikki Gemmel ” After”.
David Leser reads from his memoir ‘To Begin to Know- in theshadows of my father’, in which he attempts to understand the forces that shaped his father’s childhood and their subsequent relationship. Nikki Gemmel reads from ‘After‘, an astonishing examination of the aftermath of her mother’s suicide. ( This interview and read deals with the subject of assisted dying .)
Featured Music track : “Undertow” by Cye Wood
Recorded at Sydney Writers Festival 2016 and Byron writers Festival 2017 respectively.
Each week there will be an upload of between 3 to 5 new authors on the Narratives site- here are this weeks offerings.
Travels with my Guitar
Carl Cleves has read from his memoir ‘Tarab’ of an hilarious and horrifying account of consulting a Faith Healer in South America .
Peter Breen has read from his soon to be published memoir ‘Candidates Disease’ in which we get an insiders account of the goings on in Federal Parliament during the last elections.
David Lovejoy reads from ‘Heresy’ – a book that is both philosophical argument and fiction.
