May 2011

This is what one happy customer - Josie - had to say about the May reading with Andy Jackson and Marian Spires:

Thank you so much for yesterday - an absolute triumph. My friend Bev and I will be there again - our treat to selves once a month! I was a little too bold reading yesterday given the quality of so many others, but as I said to Bev on the way home - it is an inspiration to write more! My preference is prose, but we'll see. Your singing was extraordinary and Marian's work... well it was to be expected... just *wonderful*. As were so many of the other readers' works. What a wonderful thing to find that we have this so locally! 


Thanks Josie.

Thanks too, to Andy, who was feeling less than well on the day, but came along to read anyway. You're a star. So glad you did!

NOTE EVERYONE

Next month we're going to start at 2.30pm. Our cafe, it seems, is becoming more popular with the local lunchtime set who love a chinwag with their nosh. Make a note now so you don't forget.

Andy Jackson and Marian Spires

The next Stopping all Stations event will take place on Saturday May 21 with Andy Jackson and Marian Spires. As always we'll have an open section where you can read whatever you like as long as you can do it in less than five minutes! And of course there will be LUCKY DOOR PRIZES.

Put the date in your diary now.

Marian Spires is a poet, writer and teacher who explores the internal landscapes of personal and cultural myths with concrete language. She has performed her poetry on radio, television, at festivals and featured at poetry events. Her first collection, red angels rising, was published by Woorilla (2004).

In 2009, she won the Melbourne Writers Festival Poetry Idol Award and used her prize money to travel to Europe to view the original canvases and walk the landscapes where Vincent van Gogh painted. Her verse novel about van Gogh called Knowing Vincent (Picaro Press) was launched at the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival.

Andy Jackson's poetry explores the emotional, cultural and political dimensions of embodiment and identity, and has been published in many print and on-line journals, including Heat, Going Down Swinging, Island, Blue Dog, Mascara and Stylus.  He has performed at the Australian Poetry Festival in Sydney, Queensland Poetry Festival, and the Newcastle Young Writers Festival.  His poem Secessionist won the 2008 Arts ACT Rosemary Dobson Award for an Unpublished Poem.  He was an Emerging Writer in Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Perth in 2010, and he is currently the Librarian for Australian Poetry and the co-convenor of the La Mama Poetica series of readings.  His first full-length collection of poems – Among the Regulars  - was published by papertiger media in 2010.  This year, he will be an Asialink resident at the University of Madras in Chennai, India.

April 16

What a line-up and feast of words we had! Glenys Osborne talked about winning the Barbara Jefferis Award (worth $35,000!) and read from her winning novel, Come Inside. Our feature readers, Alex Skovron and Claire Gaskin had everyone leaning forward in their seats  - and not because of the noisy coffee machine behind! Our open readers - including two first-timers! - added a richness and diversity to a thoroughly entertaining afternoon. And to top it all off my 86-year-old Dad turned up under his own steam to give me a surprise. Which he did! Lovely.

G.L. Osborne

STOP PRESS

G.L. Osborne, winner of the 2011 Barbara Jefferis Award, will be making a guest appearance alongside Claire Gaskin and Alex Skovron at Stopping all Stations this Saturday, April 16. She will be reading from her prize-winning novel Come Inside.

A literary feast not to be missed.

Claire Gaskin and Alex Skovron

Saturday April 16 is the next scheduled Stopping all Stations with limited open section and Alex Skovron AND Claire Gaskin featured readers.

 

Alex Skovron was born in Poland, lived briefly in Israel, and came to Australia aged nine. He is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Autographs (2008), and a short novel, The Poet (2005). Awards for his poetry include the Wesley Michel Wright Prize, the John Shaw Neilson Award, the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize, and for his first book, The Rearrangement (1988), the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore awards. His novella was joint winner of the FAW Christina Stead Award for fiction. Alex’s New & Selected Poems is in preparation. He lives in Melbourne and works as a freelance editor.

Claire Gaskin has been publishing for over twenty years. Her collection entitled, a bud, was published by John Leonard Press in 2006, and was shortlisted in the John Bray SA Festival Awards for Literature in 2008. She was the 2009 recipient of the Alan Marshall scholarship. She has been a long term teacher of writing and literature in adult education. She was the Victorian editor of the literary journal Blue Dog from 2007 till 2010.

March 19

Stopping all Stations has choofed off down the tracks and into another year of readings. And what a way to begin. Aside from our open readers, Sandy Jeffs had the audience a hundred percent engaged – either transfixed or falling off their chairs laughing. Her poetry was inspiring and a testament to her creative strategies for living with schizophrenia. (Check out how it moved Amber Beilharz, a regular at Stations and one of our open readers.)
Next month, Saturday April 16, we have Alex Skovron and Claire Gaskin. Tell your friends and put the date in your diary now.

Sandy Jeffs

Happy New Year lovers of the spoken word and welcome to another Stopping all Stations line-up. So far it's looking good! I'm away for some of February so we're starting back on Saturday March 19. Can't wait.

We're kicking the year off with the amazing Sandy Jeffs. Check out her bio below.

In the meantime, get writing. See you in March!

Sandy Jeffs has published five books of poetry and in late 2009 the Vulgar Press published her memoir called Flying with Paper Wings which was awarded SANE Australia's book of the year 2010 and short listed for the Age book of the year and a Human Rights award. Much of her writing has been concerned with madness, based on her experience of schizophrenia. She also writes about living in a family traumatised by her violent father and alcoholic mother. On a lighter note, Sandy has written about the trials and tribulations of playing midweek ladies' tennis. She has performed at various venues and has been published in many journals. Sandy appeared at the Melbourne Writers Festival in 2010.