You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.
~ by bohemian and who is able to see what is not there, aged 61, but eternally 39 ...“Ours is the age of substitutes: Instead of language we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; and instead of genuine ideas, bright suggestions.”
— Eric Bentley, British-born American playwright
A history of human imagination. Why the ability to see what isn't there is "the most essential bit of machinery we have"... Floral Imagination
FLORAL WORKSHOPS
OUR WORKSHOPS, HELD IN THE HISTORIC WOODFORD ACADEMY IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS NEAR SYDNEY, ARE FUN, INFORMATIVE AND A COMPLETE SENSORY EXPERIENCE.
Edith Pass from Floral Ink
IMAGE / WILLOW AND CO PHOTOGRAPHY
You’ve recently opened a beautiful destination store in Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. What helped you decide to do this and why? Having my own bricks and mortar shop was always on the cards and it was the last chapter to complete the Floral Ink circle. We do weddings and events, we have our online floristry store and now we have our new shop. We’re now a bigger part of the mountains community and I love seeing people and the happiness that flowers and gifts bring them.
ANNE CASEY: I had one of those electrifying moments recently. You know, when every hair bristles with recognition? Since very early in the process of writing my second collection, Out of Emptied Cups, I’d been having this on-off internal battle. It was nothing I could name. Just this slow current of unease rippling beneath the skin.
I’d known from the beginning what I wanted from this book – to probe what it is to be human, born into a body which preordains so much of what our life experience will be – the good, the bad, the ugly, the transcendent.
But as the pieces began to emerge, each time I’d finish a poem, there would be this surge: “Can I do this? Can I really say this?”. Then off that little piece would go into the world (with a few sweaty-palmed moments) and, most of the time, nothing seemed to explode.
~ ‘It’s easier to write a hard truth than to speak it’US poet and writer Maggie Smith in conversation with Irish-Australian poet and writer Anne Casey on what makes their writing tick.
Deepfakes: Imagine All the People
Cultural warning: Indigenous Australians are advised that some references in this blog include images or names of people now deceased.
ANZ LitLovers will again be hosting Indigenous Literature Week in July to coincide withNAIDOC Week here in Australia. (7 to 14 July).
This is a week when Australians celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and this year the NAIDOC Week theme is Voice, Treaty, Truth. This This theme acknowledges that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have always wanted an enhanced role in decision-making in Australia’s democracy.
ANZ LitLovers’ contribution to NAIDOC Week is to celebrate all forms of Indigenous Writing, and I hope that many readers will join in and read a book by an Indigenous author.
If you would like to participate, your choice of indigenous literature isn’t restricted to a focus on Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Maori literature. Participants are welcome to join in reading indigenous literature from anywhere in the world, from Canada to Guyana, from Native American to Basque to Pashtun or Ixcatec. (For a list of indigenous people of the world, see this list at Wikipedia.) As to how we define indigenous, that’s up to indigenous people themselves. If they identify as indigenous, well, that’s good enough for me, (and if you want to see how foolish it is to label people, see the first quotation here.)
Thanks to contributions from a fantastic bunch of participants in previous years of ILW the reading list is now extensive. For reasons of space and time and personal preference my reading list is mostly literary fiction titles by indigenous Australian and New Zealand authors but participants are free to choose any form —short story, memoir, biography, whatever takes your fancy! The permanent link to my reading list (and to other useful reading lists) is on the ANZLL Indigenous Literature Reading List in the top menu. (There is a list of Indigenous Women Writers there too.)
Thanks to all those who joined in last year and have encouraged me to host the week again.
Interested?
- If you’d like to participate simply say so in comments below. Tell us what you think you might read in the comments box to help spread awareness of what’s available. . You never know, you might encourage someone else to try the book too! (You can always change your mind later if you want to).
- Bookmark the page for Reviews from Indigenous Literature Week at ANZ LitLovers 2019 (as soon as it’s posted) so that you can use the comments box there either
- to provide the URL of your review on your blog, your Goodreads page or your Library Thing page, or
- to share your thoughts as a comment and then I’ll add it to the reading list.
- If you would like to write a guest review of your book for ANZLL I will happily host it here too.
From the TBR I will be reading these titles from Australia:
- Convincing Ground: Learning to Fall in Love with Your Country by Bruce Pascoe of the Bunurong people.
- The White Girl, a new release from Tony Birch, an urban Koorie of Aboriginal, Irish and West Indian descent who won the Patrick White Award in 2017.
- Welcome to Country: A Travel Guide to Indigenous Australia by Marcia Langton, a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara nations
- The Kadaitcha Sung: A Seductive Tale of Sorcery, Eroticism And Corruption by Samuel Wagan Watson of Bundjalung and Birra Gubba descent. He won the Patrick White Award in 2018. (The link is to Fishpond in case a second-hand copy turns up there, but I got my copy from The Grisly Wife Bookshop in Beechworth.)
and from New Zealand
- The Uncle’s Story by Witi Ihimaera of Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki descent
- Ned And Katina: A True Love Story by Patricia Grace of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa and Te Ati Awa descent
Most of the above titles can be purchased using the links to fishpond, but publishers don’t generally make it easy to find (or find about) indigenous writing. I find the most useful sources for indigenous titles are
- UQP – use their Browse Books menu to find David Unaipon Award winners, titles from the Blak & Bright Festival, and Black Australian Writing;
- Wakefield Press – choose browse by category from the top RHS side of the home page (under the search box). Not all these titles are by indigenous authors so choose carefully;
- and indigenous publishing houses Magabala Books and Jukurrpa/IAD Press
(There is, of course, AustLit’s Black Words, but there’s not much point in me supplying a link to a subscription-only resource.)
PS Please use the #IndigLitWeek & #NAIDOC2019 hashtags on Twitter.
ars technica – Bucking a major trend, company speaks out against the age-old practice. ” Microsoft is finally catching on to a maxim that security experts have almost universally accepted for years: periodic password changes are likely to do more harm than good. In a largely overlooked post published late last month, Microsoft said it was removing periodic password changes from the security baseline settings it recommends for customers and auditors.
ars technica – Bucking a major trend, company speaks out against the age-old practice. ” Microsoft is finally catching on to a maxim that security experts have almost universally accepted for years: periodic password changes are likely to do more harm than good. In a largely overlooked post published late last month, Microsoft said it was removing periodic password changes from the security baseline settings it recommends for customers and auditors.