Greetings!/Werte!
We trust you are enjoying this Queen's Birthday long weekend.
We're open today Sunday 9am to 1pm and Monday 9am to 1pm. Author Tanya Heaslip will be at our store from 9.30am this morning to chat and sign her books, always lovely to have Tanya in-store.
As we’ve mentioned before, NOW is time to put in for rec leave, invite friends to come and stay, and get ready for the NT Writers Festival 26-29 August. The Writers Festival here at Olive Pink Botanical Gardens is the best in the Northern Territory, four inspiring days of words, performance, discussions, immersive experiences, storied walks and more.
The theme for this year’s Festival is Anpernirrentye | Everything is connected, and the Writers Centre is rolling out further announcements before the full program is announced in July. As the Writers Centre tells us:
Our theme draws from the Arrernte concept of anpernirrentye, the Arrernte relationship system, which describes the way in which everything is connected to everything else – people, animals, land, language and culture. Last year our interconnectedness with the larger web of life was illuminated like never before, as we reckoned with firestorms, floods and a global pandemic, and felt the fragility of the systems we depend upon. This festival we bring our minds to anpernirrentye and the connections between all things.
This week, the Writers Centre made its second announcement, Laura Jean McKay, Omar Sakr, Karen Rogers & Mark McKenna will be appearing at this year’s NT Writers Festival.
We're spotlighting some of the writers, last week was Craig Silvey - this week is a Red Kangaroo Books favourite, Alice Pung.
Happy reading!
Bronwyn, John, Stephanie, Jo, Thor, Kelly Lee & Bernadette
Author Spotlight - Alice Pung
We trust you are enjoying this Queen's Birthday long weekend.
Alice Pung is an award-winning writer based in Melbourne. She is the bestselling author of the memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, and the essay collection Close to Home, as well as the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson. Her first novel, Laurinda, won the Ethel Turner Prize at the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. One Hundred Days is her most recent novel.
Listen:
Read:
Solice of a Library
In times of war, a wonderful story about reading and the role of libraries
We tend to take reading for granted—along with or our wonderful library here in Mparntwe/Alice Springs. But in times of war, this can be overwhelmingly difficult.
In 2012, as the Syrian city of Daraya was besieged by a civil war, a group of young men rummaged through destroyed or abandoned homes, looking for one thing: books.
They collected thousands in just a few weeks.
"They decided to save those books and protect them from the bombings and from the war," French-Iranian journalist and author Delphine Minoui tells ABC RN's Late Night Live.
The young friends found a basement in an empty home and turned it into a library.
Violence ravaged their city but the hidden library was a place of perfect order and rules, of quiet contemplation and respect. "They were facing bombings, suffering, destruction. But they had an ideal … They wanted to build something, not to destroy something," Minoui says.
It’s an inspiring story well worth listening to.
Spotlighting the Yinti Series
Yinti is a traditional Walmajarri Aboriginal boy growing up Great Sandy Desert in the remote North West of Australia.
The Yinti stories, are linked in a sequence (Desert Child, Desert Dog and Desert Cowboy), following Yinti from a young bushie to a skilled station worker and adult.
The stories are based on people and events as told to Pat Lowe by Jimmy Pike. ⠀
Richard Flanagan
Much loved Australian author on “one big lie”
Richard Flanagan, Booker prize-winning author has described Tasmania's salmon industry as "one big lie".
"I thought I would write something about
"It's not clean, it's not green and it's not even healthy."
His latest book, Toxic, looks at the impact of the industry on Tasmania, and is available from Red Kangaroo Books.
This week The Australia Institute is hosting a webinar featuring Flanagan, “On the rotting underbelly of the Tasmanian Salmon industry”. 11am AEST this Wednesday 16 June. Register here:
https://nb.tai.org.au/webinar_series
New or back in store
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Buckley's Chance by Garry Linnell
Under a Bilari Tree I born by Alice Bilari Smith
The Dictionary of Difficult Words by Jane Solomon
The World of Shakespeare by Laurence King
Coming Soon!
Freedom by Rosie Smiler, Thomas Mayor, Samatha Campbell
Storm Warning by Lauren Doyle & Alyssa Mason
Eco Dimensions by Seraphina Newberry,
Mixed Feelings by Declan Miller
Care and Fear: The New Politics by George-Megalogeni
The Story of Australia by Don Watson
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
After Story by Larissa Behrendt
Dear Son by Thomas Mayor
Oligarchy by Scarlett Thomas
True Tracks by Terri Janke
The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
Albert Namatjira by Vincent Namatjira
Papa Mawal-Mawalpa Tjuta by Johann Bell-nga munu Dion Beasley-nya
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
Hock this Space!
One of Australia’s leading artist-run spaces, Watch This Space, will be holding its annual Artists Market on 19 January, 9am-1pm, at their gallery at 8 Gap Road. With a gold coin donation it’s a great place to enjoy—and buy—the work of local ceramicists, jewellers, illustrators, fashion designers, bakers, home-cooks, musicians with records or merch, zine-makers, craft fanatics, creatives of all kinds. This market is for you! For further info see link below—poster by Rosy Murphy. Link for More information.
