If they make a movie on investigative journalist Carey Gillam’s life they had better get someone like Chloe Sevigny to play her! Blonde and glamorous and fiercely driven by what she perceives as injustice and corruption on the part of a global corporation – she is the hope of thousands of people who are suffering from the effects of what they were told was a ‘relatively harmless” weedkiller- commercially known as Roundup. Banned in many European countries, America and Australia have yet to catch up -maybe after reading Carey’s thoroughly researched book they will come to the same judgement as Europe. Three days after this interview and read , Monsanto was ordered to pay $239 million in damages to one of it’s victims. There may be many more cases .
Narratives has just returned from a fantastic weekend in beautiful Bellingen which was brimming over with authors and readers at their annual Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival.
I will posting some of the many great reads and interviews here over the next few weeks .
Fiona McArthur– Mothers Day ; Kate Cole-Adams– Anaesthesia
J.D Donellan – Killing Adonis ; Tim Cadman– The Changes
Stuart Coupe – Roadies ; Amal Awad – Beyond the Veiled Cliche
Kim Hodges – Girl Over the Edge ; Claire Aman – Bird Country
Alicia Tuckerman – If I Tell You ; Sulari Gentill – Crossing the Lines
Lisa Milner – Swimming Against the Tide ;
Annie Seaton – Whitsunday Dawn
PLUS: We catch up with Jenevieve Chang – author of ‘The Good Girl of Chinatown’ to learn how things have progressed since we spoke to her last year at the Sydney writers Festival and we have a special interview with the 2018 Artistic Director of the Melbourne writers Festival Marieke Hardy, where she reveals her taste in winter sheets and what special changes she will be bringing to the Melbourne festival this year!
Jessie Cole will also be appearing at the Byron writers Festival in August , so here is Jessie reading from and talking about her latest book ‘Staying’
‘Staying’ read by author Jessie Cole
Jessie Cole talks about writing ‘Staying’
Lots more authors reads and interviews plus the return of our beautifully produced podcasts coming up in the next few weeks.
And we will be at the Byron writers Festival so stay tuned!
And on a lighter note- here is Megan Jennaway reading from her short story ‘The Real Indian Hospitality’, one of the stories in ‘Crazy Sh.t in Asia. edited by Matt Towner.
Megan Jennaway -‘The Real Indian Hospitality’
Megan Jennaway Interview
Click on the cover to buy at Booktopia!
Unfunded but unbowed!
Narratives is disappointed to report that this project was not deemed worthy of funding by the Community Broadcasting foundation this year.
As we are dedicated to continue bringing you ‘authors in their own words’ we will continue to seek new avenues of support.
Our subscription service and web postings are free to authors, readers and publishers, but it may be in the future we might have to ask a nominal donation to cover the cost of collection of material and continuance of the website and podcasts. If you can help, the Paypal donation button is on the left of out front page!
This week I had a wonderfully stimulating discussion with author Sonya Voumard about the role of journalism in today’s society. That interview will be podcast later in the year but in the meantime here is Sonya reading from her memoir ‘Skin in the Game’ about her very early desire to be a journalist and how youthful exuberance as a young undergraduate led her into some painful humiliation when she interviewed her idol Helen Garner.
Radio Zid was a community radio station that continued broadcasting throughout the Bosnian war. Its presenters were snipered, bombed, starved and dehydrated ( no water or electricity for nearly 3 years) but they continued broadcasting. driven by the knowledge that the community needed them and they needed to tell the community and the world what was happening inside the town of Sarajevo.
The war in Sarajevo spawned a new term ‘culturcide’ – the destruction of a society and a country through the mutilation of its culture. Radio Zid, was the resistance to this notion. Part One of three Parts.
Winner of the Bronze award from the New York Festival’s world’s Best Radio Programs.
Matt Towner always wanted to be an author. He started out with children’s books but really found his metier in recounting his own and then other’s traveller’s tales.
Now he is building a series of these books from travellers all over the world.
In the coming weeks I will be recording some of the other author’s misadventures in his collection of tales. Listen to him recount his horrific bike accident in Bali ( thank goodness he had health insurance!)
Matt Towner reads from ‘Abroad, Broke and Busted’
Matt Towner interview from ‘Arts Canvass’ Bay FM 99.9
Episode twenty-six: Libby Hathorn -‘ Eventual Poppy Day’, ‘A Soldier , a dog and a Boy’ and T.M Clarke: ‘Tears of the Cheetah’
Libby Hathorn’s ‘A Soldier, a dog and a boy’ is a picture book for small children about the First World War. ‘Eventual Poppy Day’ is for older readers on the same subject. They are beautifully written stories about a serious subject and with Anzac day coming up in two week s might provide a gentler explanation of just what those old blokes are marching in the street for.
‘Tears of the Cheetah’ is set in South Africa and is a novel about the dangers of running conservation projects in that country. T.M Clark grew up in South Africa and most of her novels are set there as she tries to alert her readers to the complex social and political problems facing the country.
Music track : “ Down the river’ by Starboard Cannons
T. M Clark recorded at the ARRC in Melbourne 2016 and Libby Hathorn at Somerset Literature Festival in 2017
Over the next few weeks I will repeat some of the most popular posts while we catch up on recording new authors.
Sadly, we will not be attending Sydney Writer’s festival this year but we will be going to Bellingen, Byron and Brisbane.
This wonderful double act of writing and reading comes from the ever popular author Graeme Simsion of ‘The Rosie Project ‘ fame and Anne Buist who can usually be found in the Crime writers section. Set in the beautiful countryside of the Santiago di Compostela pilgrim’s walk, it draws on the two authors’ experience of walking this trail.
If you like the sound of this book, clicking on the book cover will take you to Booktopia.
Edition two : Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist – ‘Two Steps Forward’.
Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist
Hear husband and wife writing team Graeme Simsion and AnneBuist combining forces to read the characters they wrote for ‘Two Steps Forward’.
Featured music track : The ‘River of Remembrance” by Lucinda Peters
Recorded at the Sydney writers Festival 2017 in Graeme and Anne’s hotel room ( as the media room was too noisy!)
First, an apology if you just received a podcast post this week for Nadja Spiegelman and Jenevieve Chang, I was testing out our new links and accidentally reposted an old post!
Sorry!
But, check it out and see if the links on the book covers in the post take you over to Booktopia, if so, we have entered a new era at Narratives.
Keeping this website financially afloat is a an ever increasing pressure, so we sifted through the options for monetization and decided an affiliation with an all Australian book supplier was the best fit.
So now, (hopefully), anywhere on the Narratives site , whether in the categories or on the Podcast page, just click on the book cover of the book you are interested in and it should take you over to Booktopia where they seem to have great discounts on all sorts of books.We will receive a few cents if you actually buy, but you have up to 60 days to actually make up your mind on the sale and we will still get a pay out.
If the book cover you click on doesn’t take you to the book you were looking for it may one of the very few that are not actually stocked by Booktopia. You will have to follow up that up with the author. Some self published novels aren’t available,but an awful lot are.
So, we have tried our best not to clutter your site with intrusive ads, and supply an extra service.
We just need to have someone buy a book through our site now to see if the whole thing works!
Thanks for being a subscriber, lots of new authors coming up for 2018.
Episode nineteen:George Gittoes ‘Blood Mystic’ and Louise Doughty ‘Black Water’
Today our edition has a serious theme as two authors give us very different accounts of the horrors of war. Australian Artist George Gittoes has been present at so many wars I actually lost count and he corrected me when I was interviewing him. As a public speaker he is riveting His book ‘Blood Mystic’ is an account of just a few of the warzones he has witnessed and recorded, and of his life lived perpetually on the edge of danger. Louise Doughty’s book ‘ Blackwater’ is a novel, but it is based on extensive research she made into Jakarta’s dark history. There is strong language used in this edition and adult themes.
Music track:‘Things Fall Apart’ the General Assembly
George Gittoes was recorded at Sydney Writers Festival 2017, Louise Doughty was recorded at Byron writers Festival 2016.
Romance fiction is a multimillion dollar industry in Australia and also has some of the highest paid and most popular authors in the country from the number of authors who have international publishing deals. So, have you got a heart tugger lurking in the bottom drawer? How would you go about getting it published? Is it bettert o self publish? what do reader’s think of the romance industry?
click to purchase
