Tag: Life Writing

Admin, Life Writing

A Special Edition of Wayward Kin Read Deborah Levy’s Living Memoir

LJ Maher

It’s been a hot while my loves, and I know we are all zoomed out, but I also know that some of us are craving a little of that human connection outside of the humans/fur humans with whom we are locked down. Therefore, on Wednesday 1 September, 8, September and 15 September I will open the Zoom room for a 2 hour long love-fest on Deborah Levy’s living memoir series. Bring wine, bring tea, bring your adoration for those books you get something new from every time you read it. Bring your evangelical enthusiasm (“No, babes, you don’t understand. YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK.” – no judgement, we’ve all said some iteration of this sentence). This isn’t a “lit class” discussion, it’s wine, reflection, musing, philosophy, therapy, sharing. It’s vulnerability and respect. It’s real estate.

15 September 20:00 AEST: Real Estate

Available at Neighbourhood Books, Brunswick Books, Paperback Bookshop, Hill of Content

Enter the Zoom here from 8pm on 8 September.

Fiction

Reflection: Oronooko by Aphra Behn

LJ Maher

One of my concerns of late has been the reclaiming of classical literatures from regressive frameworks. If that sounds euphemistic it’s because it is. My concern, more simply put, is that regressive ideologies have claimed the classical literatures that came from Europe as their own, and this is at the expense of progressive ideologies. I’m not saying that these texts are the only texts of merit, nor am I saying that they should be studied at the expense of texts that have been marginalised under, let’s admit it, settler-colonialist pedagogies that are premised on European-supremacy. Nonetheless, given settler-colonialism is one of the after effects of European invasion and colonisation, I do think it is important to understand the texts that gave shape to that mindset, if only so that the systems built on those readings can be dismantled from within. Colonised peoples know that the systems are fucked, finding ways of teaching colonisers (and I count myself among that number) about the ways in which their world views are not universal, nor even coherent, and are certainly not materially applicable in a universal sense (ie. they’re not just “the way things are”). To this extent Aphra Behn’s novel, Oronooko provides a valuable insight into the early spread of colonialism and the ideologies that underpin it.

Continue reading “Reflection: Oronooko by Aphra Behn” →

Fiction, Life Writing

Sounds of Silence: Audiobooks and the Reader

LJ Maher

I’ve been listening to audiobooks. I’ve had friends and colleagues tell me that this is a thing that I should be doing for ages. This makes sense, I’m busy, I’m overcommitted, I commute and I do a lot of walking. Audiobooks should be a way of maximising productivity and pleasure in one hit. In some ways, they have been. I enjoy being read to, there’s something delightful and childish about it. I find it comforting.

I also find it hard to concentrate, and I often have to go back and repeat entire chapters. I realise that as I’ve been cleaning, walking, staring out of the train window, whatever, I’ve lost half a story. In one ear, out the other.

Continue reading “Sounds of Silence: Audiobooks and the Reader” →

Life Writing

Reflection: Running Upon the Wires by Kate Tempest

LJ Maher

I have been fascinated by Kate Tempest since the first time I saw her. I think it was on some Australian morning show. I remember being surprised that they had a poet on (I don’t watch daytime television for the most part) And there was this Raphealite cherub in jeans and an oversized shirt, And instead of pearls and jubilations she spoke gritty prescience. She was some Cassandra, some some soothsayer, some unforgiving truth speaker. I was a ready made acolyte.

I devoured her written work, Let The Eat Chaos, The Brand New Ancients, Hold Your Own, The Bricks that Built the Houses, and Everything Speaks in Its Own Way. I listened to them where I could find them. I even made the Wayward Girls read them (we did Brand New Ancients just last month). Then this month, Running Upon the Wires was released. I ordered copies (both the book and the CD) from the UK (for reasons I don’t have to justify to you).

Continue reading “Reflection: Running Upon the Wires by Kate Tempest” →

Life Writing

Author Discussion: The Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee

LJ Maher

It’s just before 8pm on a Monday night and I’m sat in The Clyde, waiting for my dinner and listening to a group of undergraduates (five men, one woman) discuss sex education. One of the students wears a navy hoodie with the word “Science” emblazoned across its back. I’m guessing they’re not humanities students. Mostly because one of them said “re-entry” and the rest of them giggled. I’ve just come from a talk at the nearby Church of All Nations, hosted by the Victorian Women’s Trust and Readings bookstores. The conversation was between noted local feminist columnist and slayer of trolls, Clementine Ford, and Bri Lee, the young author of a memoir entitled Eggshell Skull.

Continue reading “Author Discussion: The Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee” →