TASSIE’S LITERARY PARADE
If the wallpapered walls of historic Hadley’s Hotel could talk, they’d have a lot to say about the Hobart Writers Festival and its fascinating parade of guests
Hadley’s Orient Hotel will host a weekend of thoughtful discussions and reflections when the Hobart Writers Festival is held at the historic venue later this month. The literary lovers’ event, on September 13-15, is a reincarnation of the biennial Tasmanian Writers and Readers Festival. It returns as a smaller, more Tassie talent-focused weekend.
Festival director Sue Kennedy, of the Tasmanian Writers Centre, says budgetary constraint forced a scale reduction, but she sees a silver lining in her grassroots approach — and that is the chance to wholeheartedly celebrate Tasmania’s wealth of literary talent in the line-up. “We want to showcase our own writers and explore our own landscapes through [conversations about] food, history and culture,” says Kennedy.
The guest list includes multi award-winning novelists Rohan Wilson, Heather Rose, Amanda Lohrey, eminent historian Henry Reynolds and Gourmet Farmer Matthew Evans. As well as ticketed events for panel discussions, workshops and networking, free family events will be held on Parliament Lawns on both weekend days.
The festival kicks off on the Friday night with a discussion on the festival theme, My Tasmanian Landscape, when the Emerging Tasmanian Aboriginal Writer Award will also be presented. Kennedy says festival organisers are working in partnership with the biennial Tamar Valley Writers’ Festival, with the events to run in alternate years.
SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS
Novelist Rohan Wilson in conversation with Heather Rose about his new book Daughter of Bad Times, which imagines a dystopian Tasmanian future in which climatechange refugees are enslaved in a factory at Port Arthur. Rose’s appearance at the festival comes on the eve of the release of her explosive new Tasmanian novel, Bruny
.
Crime writer LJM Owen is one to watch in coming months. Not only is she about to release a thriller, The Great Divide, set in Tassie, she is a driving force behind the inaugural Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival for crime writing, which will be held at Cygnet from October 31-November 3. Owen will be in conversation with Gourmet Farmer and author Matthew Evans on the role food can plays in literature as a signifier of culture, time and place.
In a session called The Unknown Valley, writer Margaretta Pos and historian Henry Reynolds will talk about the Tasmanian landscape through two women’s eyes: Pos’s great-great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Fenton, about whom she wrote in Mrs Fenton’s Journey: India and Tasmania 18261876, and Pos’s mother Ann Page, who expressed a similar love for her Tasmanian surroundings a century later in eloquent teenage diaries.
The Pakana Voice, a book by Ian Broinowski, draws on real newspaper reports of the early 1800s through the eyes of a fictional narrator, WC, a reporter posted to cover conflict between the Pakana people of Lutruwita (Tasmania) and the British colonising forces. Broinowski will also be in conversation with Henry Reynolds.
In the Raising Humanity session, two thoughtful change makers, author Erfan Dalari and Ruth Langford of Nayri Niara, converge to discuss social justice issues and how we can respond to them meaningfully. Dalari’s book Raising Humanity is something of a guidebook for emerging change-makers.
As well as the $1000 Emerging Aboriginal Writers Award presentation, the Van Diemen History Prize winner will be announced. The competition is run by Forty South Publishing, which is also hosting a short story session .
Aspiring writers hoping to make a quid from their work should get along to Making a Living from Writing with David Owen, Tansy Roberts and Rohan Wilson — if only for a reality check.