All posts by Michael Burge

Journalist, author, artist
Reviews, Writers

(Another) year of independent reading

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WHILE the world has been distracted by a pressing pandemic, a small group of readers in the northern NSW New England region committed to reading and discussing a range of independently-published books, and now they’re getting ready to announce the pick of the crop.

Trophy handmade by Richard Moon

This is the second year the High Country Book Club based in Glen Innes has awarded a literary prize. Across 2019 we read a broad range of titles published by readers in three continents and gave our first gong to Lady Bird & The Fox by Australian author Kim Kelly.

In 2020, our pool of choices was extended from indie authors to the publications produced by independent presses, those that don’t have huge marketing machines behind them and could do with a boost. Since we’re based at The Makers Shed, a destination for handmade, skill-sharing and artisanal products, our focus on indie titles is apt.

Our reading year kicked off with Jo-Ann Capp’s Four Hot Chips (published by Boogie Books). The true story of one family’s childhood cancer journey, this is a heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting short read, exploring relationship dynamics when loved ones are under pressure.

We continued with The Worst Country in the World by London-based Patsy Trench, which documents the author’s search for the reasons her ancestress Mary Pitt migrated from Dorset to New South Wales in 1801. Replete with fictionalised scenes where history remains undiscovered, this book is an eye-opener about colonial Australia.

In Hide (published by MidnightSun) we ventured into fiction. Penned by South Australian author S. J. Morgan, this thriller took us on a wild journey from Thatcher’s Britain to the Australian outback, via a chilling look into international bikie culture.

Staying with fiction, we read Kim Kelly’s Walking. Partly based on true events, this novel explores the world of orthopaedic surgery in the first half of the 20th century, through the eyes and experiences of patients, practitioners and their loves, lives and hopes.

You Had Me At Hola by Leigh Robshaw took us on a true-life South American odyssey, recreating the author’s 1990s adventures to find her heart’s desire in foreign lands. Scenes from this title are still regularly talked about in book club meetings months later!

We were visited by Yumna Kassab to kick off the second annual High Country Writers Festival with a discussion about her short fiction debut The House of Youssef (published by Giramondo). This acclaimed collection sheds light on lives in the Lebanese-Australian community.

Mary Garden’s Sundowner of the Skies (published by New Holland) was an external and internal adventure, documenting the 1920s England-to-Australia flight of Mary’s father Oscar Garden, and exploring what high achievers do when they give up their wings.

To complete the year, we read Hayley Katzen’s debut memoir Untethered (published by Ventura Press) and were delighted Hayley could join us for another writer’s festival session to chat about her search for a sense of belonging from academia to farm life in the Clarence Valley.

All High Country Book Club titles are available for purchase from The Makers Shed, and can be posted to readers within Australia. Browse our online bookshop.

Congratulations to all the finalists in 2020… we’ve been uplifted, challenged, thrilled, frightened, moved, angered, entertained and encouraged to keep reading by your engaging works of fiction and non-fiction.

The winner of the High Country Indie Book Award 2020 will be announced during the High Country Writers Retreat on Saturday October 24. Bookings essential! Join the High Country Book Club by attending The Makers Shed on the third Saturday of every month from 10am-12pm.

Rural Childhood, Writers

Meet the country writers boosting a festival’s word count

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“It’s like living on a writer’s retreat and I love it.”

AUSTRALIA’S rural heartlands are renowned for cultivating works of literature, and in the northern NSW region of Glen Innes the second annual High Country Writers Festival is busy fostering wordsmiths ahead of its final sessions on Saturday October 24. It’s also getting help from plenty of country-born locals who are great with words.

International travel writer and blogger Amanda Woods has had her wings (slightly) clipped by the global COVID-19 pandemic, yet this New England born-and-bred journalist will be chatting at the High Country Writers Retreat with authors Mary Moody and Mary Garden (also renowned travel and adventure writers) about capturing the world on the page, especially at this time of ‘armchair travel’.

Glen Innes-based travel writer Amanda Woods

According to Amanda, being able to live and write in the country is “a gift”.

“The simple fact that I am woken up by the sounds of magpies rather than construction work, as I used to be in the city, allows me to start the day gently and slip into my writing with ease, rather than having to fight to centre myself and block out what’s happening around me.

“It’s like living on a writer’s retreat and I love it.”

A regular contributor to popular publication Escape, Amanda has also been published in Mindfood and Australian Traveller. She creates stories for her own site, Adventures All Around, and is currently working on a piece showcasing the New England region for The Telegraph UK.

“It’s such a great feeling to be a part of something special in my home town. I love the way the festival not only brings great authors to Glen Innes but also brings local people together to bond over books,” she said.

Call To Home

Deepwater-based writer Lucy Munro

Deepwater-based writer Lucy Munro will be chatting with Mary Moody about cool-climate kitchen gardening at The Makers Shed, and finds inspiration on her 45-minute commute into Glen Innes.

“Whole paragraphs sometimes appear to me somewhere along the New England Highway,” she said.

“The smallest and most uncomplicated day-to-day moments evoke so much creative feeling within me, and I regularly leave interactions with people with a fully-formed story in mind.

“I think this is because for the most part, country people – and country life too – is genuine and meaningful. What you see is what you get, and there is no greater stimulation for writing than that.”

Published in The Planthunter, Belle Magazine, and Smith Journal, Lucy is undertaking a Masters in Writing at the University of New England, and will have an essay ‘Call to Home’ included in Trisha Dixon’s new book Spirit of the Garden. She cites isolation and poor Wi-Fi as challenges for country writers.

“But time has taught me that these are elements that are precious and needed most for my writing. It also helps that I have an expanse of paddocks to wander and animals to ‘anthropomorphise’ when the disconnect is too much.”

“There is so much creative work happening in this region and around rural Australia. Writers festivals like this provide space for this community to connect and share ideas and stories. “

Author Walk

Inverell Shire-based writer D’Arcy Lloyd

Emerging author D’Arcy Lloyd is currently working on a series of short fiction works based on the story of Waterloo Station, home of the High Country Writers Retreat.  

Raised in the Inverell Shire and drawn back to it after four decades living in cities and coastal regions, she was inspired to revive her writing output as a result of the move.

“I started dabbling with fictional writing in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until I returned a few years ago that I realised the various book concepts and a number of draft short stories that had grown out of the sites, colours, sounds and smells of the New England.  

“Cosmopolitan inner-city living is thrilling and stimulating, and I miss it, but this region nourishes me, inescapably.  It’s like a vast emptiness pregnant with whatever we allow our dreams to make it.”

D’Arcy will be launching her website at the High Country Writers Retreat during an ‘author walk’ of Waterloo Station with co-owner Deborah Anderson, complete with heritage tales that are part of her new ‘Waterloo Series’ of micro fiction.

Box Seat

Deepwater-based author Michael Burge

The support of this team of local wordsmiths is wonderful. They’ll lead conversations with our visiting authors and get to the heart of some fabulous books and storytelling now available in this region. Every one of us grew up on a New England farm, or still farms today, and we all have a connection to this landscape and its ongoing stories.

My first novel (a coming-of-age crime story to be published by MidnightSun Publishing in 2021) is set in a mythical place, although the towns, locations, buildings, streetscapes and farmlands are unmistakably the uplands between Delungra and Bingara, the country I came from.

I’ll be joining Moree-based author Nicole Alexander for a chat about breathing life into historical fiction, which I’m probably looking forward to more than just about anyone else planning to attend the session!

Since moving to Deepwater in 2017 I’ve been working on two manuscripts set in the past, one of which revolves around the 19th century railway gatekeeper’s cottage I call home.

It’s a great privilege for me to be able to sit in the box seat and hear an acclaimed author like Nicole open the door on how she creates an historical novel.

The High Country Writers Festival & Retreat continues on Saturday October 24, 2020 in the Glen Innes Highlands.

 

 

Art, Artists

Perseverance key to Powell’s pottery

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THE natural environment of the New England region, and the mindfulness of daily work in the clay studio during the COVID-19 pandemic, were influential in a collection of new ceramic work by artist Max Powell of Glen Innes.

The exhibition ‘FormWork’ will fill The Makers Shed with an array of pieces throughout spring.

According to Max, daily practice and perseverance were key to this prolific period of creativity.

CERAMIC CURVES: New works by Glen Innes potter Max Powell

“I came to ceramics through art making and fell in love with the endless possibilities of this elemental and enduring material,” he says.

“There is always the element of the unexpected and surprise that keeps me asking ‘what next?’ Clay has become an obsession and a daily necessity as I explore different pathways and grow ideas.

“Spending time in the workshop honing skills and focusing on the evolving processes keeps me in the moment engaging body and mind in a holistic way that has kept me anchored through these turbulent times. 

“The perseverance we need today is a basic tool for the potter.”

Inspiration also comes from spending time in the bush observing the shapes, colours and surfaces found in nature, Max says.

“As well as the making processes involved in transforming this most basic elemental plastic material into expressive form.

“I like the end product to reveal the honesty of the materials by leaving some exposed clay body on show, along with the effects created by the alchemy of multiply firings building up different glaze layers.”

A range of large ‘water bowls’ that can be used outdoors as bird baths, and a selection of vases and platters will be on offer, but also a range of large-scale works that will form a unique centrepiece to any indoor design.

“Besides producing useful objects, clay can sometimes result in ceramic work that can satisfy not only the maker but also engages others and adds richness to their daily rituals,” Max says.

FINE FORM: Max Powell’s new exhibition runs until November 28 at Glen Innes

Beyond the surface

A graduate of the National Arts School, East Sydney Technical College, and Monash University, Max Powell came to ceramics through the art of glazing.

“Painting the surface has always been my focus and with these new works I have tried to develop stronger forms that compliment the surface but still make their own statement,” he says.

A Glen Innes-based secondary and TAFE art teacher, he has a longstanding reputation for high standards of artistic practice in the region.

“I love the sense of community,” he says, “and the open landscape that lets you escape to the nearby majestic national parks. I love the seasonal changes that shape our lives”.

“Inspiration is everywhere: moss, lichen, a rock, a piece of wood, the landscape and the rich history of ceramics and the many stories that get mixed into the clay.”

Powell cites artists like Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Lloyd Rees, Elizabeth Cummings and Angus Nivison as influences throughout his career, which started in arts education but quickly moved on to public art commissions and exhibitions throughout the New England region.

“I feel privileged that I have been able to spend my time making art, responding to the world around and engaging with like-minded people,” he says.

FormWork runs until November 28 at The Makers Shed, 123 Grey Street Glen Innes