00:09 S1 (PROGRAM ID)
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take a look...
00:24 S2
Hello and welcome to Hear This. I'm Frances Keyland and you're listening to the Vision Australia Radio show where we talk about books in the Vision Australia collection. And today we've got some exciting news coming up about the Melbourne Writers' Festival. And here to tell us all about it is Maureen O'Reilly, community engagement librarian. Once again, we're here with Maureen O'Reilly, engagement coordinator here at Vision Australia Library. Hi, Maureen.
00:54 S3
Hey, Frances. How are you this lovely April morning?
00:57 S2
I know it's nice. Autumn, the trees are looking beautiful at the moment. They're native trees with their golden and russet tones.
01:06 S3
It is, it's really lovely. And everyone's back in the swing of things.
01:10 S2
And the... autumnal... reading that you guys... have done - how did that go?
01:16 S3
Well, that was actually fabulous. It is just, it's, I love it. It's an event that is so accessible to everyone. Sometimes people think, Oh, well, you need to be like a great writer to do the memoir writing, or you need to be a brilliant poet to do the poetry workshop, or you need to be really into children's stories to be able to do our children's book writing. This really doesn't have a barrier of entry - you just need to have a book that you enjoyed, be able to tell us all about it. It's not a program that involves... interaction, as in people don't fire questions at you and they don't question your opinion on that.
It's really just, you get the mic, you get to talk about a book you like, what you liked about it, what you didn't like about it, perhaps what you've read by that author before, or perhaps you haven't. And everyone gets to walk away with these new ideas of what they'd like to read, or equally importantly, what they don't want to read. And then we also have a critical group of people who come along and have a wonderful hour with us, and they listen to... Kylie, who's our children's librarian, who was chatting about her two books and her two authors to Vien Nguyen, who was talking about his book and his author. And then all of the other library members who contributed about books, our reading.
But they just get to listen and be entertained and take some notes because everyone needs an audience. So it's it's something that really is just accessible for everyone. If you want to chat about a book you've been reading, it's not difficult. It's not nerve wracking. It's fun. You just say what you liked about it and you can't be wrong. I mean, what you like about it is what you liked about it. No one can challenge that. Yeah, but there's also the avenue for other people to just be there and listen.
03:10 S2
Yeah, it's all about what's best for you as an individual. Yeah.
03:13 S3
And it's a lovely. It's just a lovely, book loving community. That's what it really is all about, just getting people to come together and either talk about books or listen to us talk about books and hopefully get some ideas of a new author or a new genre, or just a new release book and think, gosh, that sounds really good. I want to do that.
03:35 S2
There's more exciting news about the Melbourne Writers Festival.
03:38 S3
There is. I put a little taster out last month, and I said to you, I couldn't tell who the authors were because they're embargoed. And that was very hard for me because I knew one of them was one of your favourite authors. Absolutely. So we had the lovely Kate Grenville joining us. So Kate is a prolific writer and incredibly popular with the Vision Australia Library members. I would go so far as to say she's probably one of the most frequently borrowed authors that we have. And Kate is going to be interviewed by Daniel James, who's a Yorta Yorta Melbourne based writer and broadcaster. So I have the luxury of just sitting in the audience, facilitating, letting people in and enjoying it.
So Kate will be wonderful. She's going to speak about her latest novel, which is called unsettled A Journey Through Time and Place. It's a deeply personal memoir of family legacies and truth telling. And for her, it's reckoning on what it means to be on land that was taken from other people. So it's intertwining her personal family's history with a broader story of First Nations peoples displacement and dispossession. Considering what it means to be descended from people who were in the family who were on the sharp edge of colonialisation.
05:08 S2
Wonderful.
05:08 S3
So it'll be very interesting. And I think Daniel will, it'll just be wonderful because you'll have two very different perspectives, perspectives in there as well from a historical viewpoint. So we just, with all our heart, invite our Vision Australia Library members who live in Melbourne or those that are willing to travel to come to the Vision Australia offices in Kooyong in Victoria... we would love to have you attend in person. So Kate Grenville sold out over the very first weekend that tickets were released.
However, I have retained seats specifically for Vision Australia library members. So if anybody are listening today would like to come make sure that you register for the waitlist and then send an email through to the library and let us know your details and I will release tickets to you and we would love to have you come along.
06:05 S2
Oh, absolutely.
06:06 S3
And of course, whoever's coming with you as well, if you have somebody driving you or accompanying you on the train or the tram or the Uber, they don't need to be a Vision Australia Library member. They can just be your your partner for the evening.
06:19 S2
When is that happening then?
06:20 S3
So that is on the 9th of May, and Kate will be with us from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. so we invite everyone to come from 530 so that they can be settled and ready for a prompt start. It will be in our conference room at Vision Australia and then after the in conversation, Kate will be signing books. We'll actually have readings there that are selling copies of her latest books as well. And then you can either go home or you can stay for another hour, because we had the lovely Nardi Simpson that's joining us, and Nardi will be with us from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. So you can make a whole evening of it and just hang out at the Vision Australia Library for the evening.
So Nadi is an amazing indigenous writer and actually written a beautiful fiction book. So Nadi has written... well, initially she wrote her debut novel Song of the Crocodile, and this one is a very beautiful story about The Bellbird. It treads the line between everyday and metaphysical, providing an exploration of a mystery being. It's really a gorgeous, lyrical novel. It's absolutely gorgeous. She will also be interviewed by Daniel James. So it'll be... very, very different because... Kate's in conversation is about what's, if not purely non-fiction, it's at least got a very strong factual base to it. Whereas Natty's book is actually purely a fiction book, and Nat is actually also a singer. so she's a beautiful artist. I'm really very, very excited about meeting her.
S2
Are there still tickets available for Nadi?
S3
We welcome all our guests to either come for Kate or to come for Nadi, or to come for the evening, and you can stay onsite in between. Have a chat to the authors when you're doing book signings, and have a chat to our other library members and be part of the Melbourne Writers Festival without having to do the big journey into the city on a cold evening. I know last year it was very cold. But for all of our other library members who aren't Melbourne based or aren't as mobile, we would love you to join us online.
So both of these events will be live streamed. They'll be on Zoom from the comfort of your own home, with a lovely cup of tea or a little cheese platter and glass of wine. If you want to be very Melbourne Writers Festival-ish... you can listen to Daniel interviewing Kate, and then an hour later you'll be able to listen to him interviewing Nardi. They are free events, whether you come in person or whether you're joining us online.
I was here last year when we interviewed... Louise Milligan, and we also interviewed Toby Walsh. And both of those... Melbourne Writers Festival In Conversations are in the Vision Australian Australia Library catalogue. So if anyone wants to get a taste of what it will be like, they can go to the library catalogue, look up Podcasts and search In Conversation and then they are sorted by date. And it was May 10th last year. So if you look at the conversations that were around May 2024, you'll see Louise Milligan and Toby Walsh, and that will give you an indication of what this year will be like.
09:45 S2
Fantastic. Oh, Maureen, I'm really excited about that. And I was talking to you just briefly before about, uh, years ago, I remember Kate Grenville sent in a box of... audio recordings of her books. Just thinking that we would make good use of them, which we did, and I sort of thought, gee, it's so nice for an author to do that with off her own bat without any request or anything like that. So it's nice to know that she's been aware of our library service for a long time.
10:12 S3
I must say, because I am comparatively new to Vision Australia. I've been here a year next week.
10:18 S2
Oh, wow.
10:19 S3
Yes, I have an anniversary. Yeah, I organised the program for this year, which involved approaching a lot of publishers and saying, you know, we'd love these authors. We'd love to have... and I'm always astonished at how generous they are. And these are very famous authors, and I'm sure they have, um, particularly when they've got a new release out. I'm sure they have commitments everywhere through their PR and publicity people, and they're always so genuinely keen to either be in conversation with Vision Australia, or to do the author readings, or to participate in the Writers Festival with us. And I just feel that all the authors that I've dealt with through work have just genuinely been really keen to engage with our library membership, which is just lovely.
11:17 S2
Yeah, it is, isn't it? Oh well, a lot of happy people and excited people will be looking forward to that.
11:23 S3
We, in fact, are the only free events in the Melbourne Writers Festival. So we are, so I like the fact that we make the festival accessible, not just from a blind and low vision perspective, but I think we also make it very accessible from a financial viewpoint so that people can come out to Keong, but they can just also participate in the festival from home.
11:47 S2
Yeah. And there's lots of parking here if you are going to either drive or be driven. Uh, lots of parking at Kooyong and lots of people that are ready to help you into the building and direct you around.
12:01 S3
Yeah we do. We have a plethora of beautiful volunteers that are with us for the evening, and some of them are waiting down in the car park to greet you. Some of them are outside the building to greet you. Many of them will take you through if you need assistance to the actual room where the chairs are.
12:18 S2
A great evening. So thank you for letting us know about that. What else is there?
12:23 S3
Oh, look, we just have everything going on in our world. We have - which I did have a chat about last week, but I will remind everyone - our poetry workshop coming up with Maria Takolander... and I had the privilege of chatting to Maria yesterday because we were just finalising some details and just working out the format, and ah, she's just so lovely. And Maria did our course, a similar course two years ago in March 2023. And she is just super excited about coming back. She said she absolutely loved it - the experiences that people wrote about, the enthusiasm they brought, the honesty that they brought, the talent that they brought.
And she in particular was saying... because one of my beliefs, which we spoke about last month, was that poetry is very accessible for people because it's not like writing an entire novel or an entire memoir. It can be as long or short as you want. And she said, when people really came out of their shell in her last program with Vision Australia was when they did haiku. It was really nice and short and punchy. And she said they were so excited because it is just so, it just doesn't have that intimidating length to it. And she said the haikus that people were putting together were so powerful still. So it is great. She's really looking forward to it and we would love people to join us for that.
So our poetry course is starting on the 6th of May, and it will run for three weeks, and it's online and it's free. So that will be the 6th, 13th and 20th of May. So I really encourage our library members to join us. And even if you don't traditionally read a lot of poetry, that's not really a barrier to entry, because one of the things about poetry is that it's very personal. So, you know, it may be rhyming, it may be following a sort of comparatively conservative rhythm, but it often is very free form as well. I really don't believe that people have to be avid consumers of poetry to actually really enjoy the poetry workshop that's happening.
14:39 S2
What?
14:40 S3
That's on the 6th of May.
14:42 S2
6th of May.
14:43 S3
And that will be running over lunchtime, which is 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So Melbourne time.
14:51 S2
And what else is there?
14:52 S3
We have a beautiful event from the Children's Library. So we have National Simultaneous Storytime that is coming up, which we are very, very excited about. This comes up every year. And National Simultaneous Storytime is put out by the Australian Library and Information Association, which is ALIA - it's a wonderful opportunity to create a community of book lovers to come together and read the same book on the same day, at the same time. So we've been promoting this out to all of our children's library members. Also, all of the special development schools that we work with, also all the creatures in kindergartens and schools that have our blind and vision impaired children attending them.
And we're really trying to get everybody involved because this is book is so gorgeous. It's a book about belonging, the premise behind National Simultaneous Storytime. So it's called The Truck Cat, and it's written by Deborah Frenkel. And it's by the award winning illustrator, Danish Nell. And it's about this beautiful cat that travels the country with a lonely truck driver. And between them, they travel around Australia - until one day, Tinker the truck cat chases a butterfly. And of course, Tinker gets lost. And then the book is about Tinker and the truck driver trying to reunite and the journeys that they have along the way.
So it has a beautiful... descriptions of Australian outback... the need for belonging, but also the opportunity to reach out to others. And it's a wonderful, gorgeous book. So the reason that we're very keen for people to join our National Simultaneous Storytime is that it's online. So even if children are at home, they can actually be part of it. Whether they're blind and vision impaired or not, if they're home with their grandparents or their parents.
And we've also got on our... event page on the Vision Australia Library website, instructions on how to make a tactile storybook, just like we have in our Felix Library kits. So these are fabulous for all children, but particularly for children who are vision impaired. So there's a downloadable, accessible set of instructions that are explained to people just using household items and things that you have around in your kitchen and your garden shed and, uh, your craft kit, if you still have one on how to put together this beautiful story, which the children can then read while they're listening to our online storytime.
17:36 S2
Oh, great.
17:37 S3
There's also a video that... we've recorded - Kylie, our children's librarian, has. So that will talk you through... how to make one of these tactile books, and it explains everything that she's doing. So that's really great. If we have parents or carers who are vision impaired as well, and it's really about making sure that everyone can have the most... the highest level of participation in this storytime.
18:09 S2
Mm. That's great.
18:10 S3
It'll be great. And our... audio, live audio reading, will also have... audio descriptions of the beautiful illustrations. So for all of our children and their families at home, that if they don't have the book in front of them, Carly will be giving these beautiful descriptions of... Danny's gorgeous illustrations the whole way through. So you don't need to be blind or vision impaired to enjoy it. I think it would be great for our library members who have children and grandchildren with them or if they have children or grandchildren who are low vision. I think it's just wonderful for everyone.
I love National Simultaneous Storytime. I just think it it's a great way of having the sense of community where millions of people come together to read the same book on the same day, at the same time.
19:07 S2
It is lovely. Oh, what a great event.
19:09 S3
So that's on the 21st of May and that's at 10 a.m. Melbourne time.
19:14 S2
Thank you very much for coming in today and...
19:17 S3
Thank you for having me. I always feel very privileged to be able to sit here and chat to you.
19:21 S2
Oh no, it's my privilege. So thank you very much. And, yeah, we'll see you next month.
19:25 S3
Beautiful. Bye, Frances.
19:26 S2
Bye. So just catching up a little bit on past programs, and we got a lovely email from... Gwen, who was responding to when we talked about or asked people to let us know about particular books, the first books that they may have read are what led them into a life of reading. And Gwen wrote... Mum used to read me children's stories when I was little. Then I read easy books in Braille in kindergarten and year one I joined the Royal Blind Society Library as it was then, and the first book I borrowed was Little Women.
I borrowed textbooks in Braille when I was in high school. I read both Braille and audio. Now I enjoy reading books and magazines on my Victor Reader stream. I love that because it shows... you know, the whole beginnings of reading - before technology as well, and now technology with the Victor Stream. Thanks so much, Gwen, for that.
Little Women are one of Stella's favourites... The first... book I ever borrowed from the library was The Folk of the Faraway Tree. Oh, no, the Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. And somehow we had this really old copy of The Folk of the Faraway Tree, which was further on in the series. So to get that first book in the series, and I think I was about eight at the time, and I was so excited and I remember... holding it tightly as I walked home from school, just dying to get stuck into that. And my first chapter book probably as well.
And hello to David, who said that he requested Lawson after hearing our feature on Hear This that's by Grantlee Kieza and he wanted to suggest Shackleton's Forgotten Argonauts by Lennard Bickel. He said it's one of the best books he has recommended to us - so thank you David. The story of Ernest Shackleton's Ross Sea Argonauts, who, against all odds, laid food and fuel deposits to support Shackleton's planned walk across the Antarctic continent. Marooned for two Antarctic winters, they showed great endurance and courage in a brutal environment. Let's hear a sample of Shackleton's Forgotten Argonauts by Lennard Bickel. It's narrated by David Martin.
21:51 S4
The Captain Scott saga is now a part of legend. Yet here, three men and four dogs fought through a raging blizzard to bring succor to starving men. Only a few miles from where the famed explorer and his two companions waited in their tent for death. These two well known epics, and the coincidence of the grimmest years of the Great War slaughter, served to throw a blanket across the feet of the Antarctic castaways, those other Argonauts under Shackleton's aegis. However, there were other reasons for erasing from public memory what these men achieved. In 1928, The noted historian Doctor Hugh Robert Mill wrote, quote, the full tale had better remain unpublished for some time to come. End quote.
He knew, as did John King Davis, that haphazard organisation, bad planning, and lack of money had resulted in suffering and loss of life. As well, there was a dearth of reliable data. The only full diary to come back to the warm world was that of the redoubtable Ernest Joyce, an account somewhat lacking in modesty. Dick Richards kept only brief notes during the height of their peril, while from the second tent there was little or nothing. Captain Mackintosh disappeared beneath the ice of McMurdo sound, and Ernie Wilde drowned in a warmer sea, leaving no personal record of those grim weeks in the fight for life.
23:42 S2
And that was a sample of Shackleton's Forgotten Argonauts are by Lennard Bickel. Lennard is spelled [spells author's name]. And that book goes for 10.5 hours. There is another book by Leonard Bickel in the collection, and that is Triumph Over Darkness - The Life of Louis Braille, a biography written by an Australian. This book sets the life and achievements of Louis Braille in the setting of the political and social life of France at the beginning of the 19th century, commencing with the foundation of the Royal Institute for the Young Blind in Paris in 1786.
It describes the constant battle to improve conditions for the blind. Braille's encouragement by Dr Pioneer, director of the Institute Against opposition for the use of a special alphabet for the blind and the gradual acceptance of the six dot system, which came only after Braille's tragic death at the age of 43. So that's Triumph Over Darkness - the Life of Louis Braille, also by Lennard Bickel. Leonard Bickell was born in 1913 and passed away in 2002. He turned from journalism to writing books. I'm reading from his obituary here, from Obituaries Australia. So that... website is OA dot ANU for Australian National University dot EDU dot AU. It's quite a detailed biography here...
He was born in London, emigrated to Australia in 1952. He had a background in newspaper journalism before coming to Australia, where he worked initially for Macquarie Broadcasting Service in Wollongong. After joining the ABC at the ABC, he worked in general news as a reporter until being appointed science correspondent. He did stints for the ABC in Sydney, Melbourne and in Federal Parliament Press Gallery, Canberra from the ABC. He went to The Australian as science correspondent, and in that capacity he was the only writer from Australia invited by the US government to witness the Apollo, the Apollo 11 first moon landing mission, in July 1969.
In 1970, he wrote a biography of Howard Florey, the Australian of Penicillin fame, entitled Rise Up to Life. It was an instant success. He chose not to return to journalism. His next hero was Sir Douglas Mawson, published under the title This Accursed Land, came out in 1975, and then in Shackleton's Argonauts. A very interesting person, Leonard Bickel. So thank you, David, for drawing our attention to him. The many other books that he wrote aren't available in the library, but perhaps there could be suggested.
Thank you for joining us on here. This today I'm Frances Keyland. Thank you to Maureen and thank you to Gwen and David. If you would like to communicate with the Vision Australia library or with Hear This, you can always email or call. So calling is on 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email library@visionaustralia.org - that's library at Vision Australiadot org. Have a lovely week and we'll be back next week with more Hear This.
