Sunday Night In #2 (a)

Literary, theatre and other word-based delights in and around September

Hello friends and welcome to issue #2(a) of Sunday Night In.

Two things about this issue that I have called #2(a)
1. It’s only been a week since I sent what was supposed to be the September issue (#2), but since then I’ve discovered a bunch of other wonderful wordy events so I’m sending this supplementary collation of the literary, theatre and other word-based happenings happening in and around South Australia.
2. It’s not Sunday night, it’s Monday morning. But I went to the Royal Adelaide Show yesterday and we stayed all the way until the end of the fireworks and by the time I got home my mind was filled with images of alpacas, hot donuts and obstacle courses for dogs and I forgot that I had this in my drafts ready to go.

Highlight of my week
The highlight of my last week (apart from the show—I am an adult who still loves the show and I go every year), was entirely unplanned. It isn’t exactly books or words or theatre, but it’s definitely storytelling, so I’m going to include it. I was in town to look at the SALA exhibition at Zu jewellers in Adelaide Arcade and to try the new Zacary Patisserie. Zu was as glorious as it always is. What a treasure, and filled with treasures. Zacary is outstanding and is an excellent addition to the many fine eateries in Adelaide Arcade, including the glorious Cielo. If you like cake and you haven’t been to Cielo then you are in for a glorious treat, and if you are in town today I would urge you to go there for your morning or afternoon tea (but early afternoon tea…am I the only person who thinks it’s getting very hard to get a mid-afternoon afternoon tea in our fair city these days?). While I was in Adelaide Arcade I dropped in to the ever-beautiful Heirloom and ended with a trip to Orchard Books where I found the perfect gift for someone. Um, this isn’t a sponsored post for Adelaide Arcade, but I adore it there.

Anyhoo, on my way back to the car I passed by the Migration Museum and remembered that I’d heard about an exhibition there, Haza. Artist Kate Kurucz has created an immersive installation telling the story of her family’s migration through an evocation of a drive-in. You can sit in the car she has painted, and watch the painted glass animation (how many hours this must have taken). From the moment you open the car door, feel the clunk of the handle under your thumb, the squeak of the door, sit on the soft leather bench seat, you are transported, lost in Kate’s story and probably in your own. I think it’s there for the rest of the year, and next time you’re in town, it is worth making the detour down Kintore Avenue. I found it to be extraordinarily moving.

Preamble: share and subscribe
Any minute now, I’m going to get to the summary of new events I’ve found (the whole purpose of this newsletter), but before I do, the usual preamble of all newsletters urging you to share and to subscribe.

Please share I continue to be useless at promotion, so please do share this newsletter with anyone you think might find it useful (use this button below):

Please subscribe and if someone has forwarded it to you, please do click the button to subscribe.

Self-promotion
And as always lets begin with my ongoing shameless self-promotion, my SALA exhibition Pearls: Unstitched Threads is in the Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery until 10 September, and I’ve got a performance of my show An Evening with the Vegetarian Librarian at the Tea Tree Gully Library (bookings here).

I’ve started getting some great recommendations from friends and subscribers, and if you know of something that could be included in future newsletters, please let me know by sending an email to sundaynightnewsletter@gmail.com

Read lots of books, see lots of theatre, feed your brain, nourish your spirit.

With love, Tracy

The wordy events that I’ve found out about since I sent the newsletter last week

To start, two brilliant new initiatives launching in September.

It’s not books or theatre, but it is words so I think it’s within the scope of interest of Sunday Night In. The Mercury Cinema’s struggle for survival has been the subject of much discussion over the last year, but they have survived (again), and their revived program includes Script Club ‘like book club but with scripts’. To be hosted each month by an established film practitioner, they are beginning life with a bang and Sophie Hyde will be facilitating a discussion on Goodbye to You, Leo Grande. If you are going to the event, you can request a copy of the screenplay. It’s only open to subscribers to The Mercury, and if you ever were considering subscribing, this is probably as good a reason as any. I’m off to Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill that night, but otherwise this script club would be in my diary. And I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next one.

A new in-person books discussion group, Stories from the South, is a collaboration between Dymocks Rundle Mall, InDaily and the University of Adelaide. They’ll begin with J.M.Coetzee’s Boyhood, and later books include Abdulrazak Gurnah, First Nations Australian writers Kim Scott and Alexis Wright, Māori author Patricia Grace and the Marshall Islands climate activist and poet Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. InReview will publish readers guides to complement the in-person discussions and you can join a facebook group too.

A talk The State Library of South Australia hosts a monthly series of talks A Tuesday Talk where a well-known South Australian talks about their reading journey. September’s guest is Nicholas Jose. I can’t imagine how many books he must have read across his multi-faceted life, so how he’s going to fit them all into an hour I don’t know. Lovely man, brilliant brain, so it can’t help but be a great talk.

A tour The West Terrace cemetery, is a fascinating feature of our city. I remember when we would drive past it on childhood visits to Adelaide and I would try to get a glimpse inside. My Mum would always say, ‘Percy Grainger is buried there.’ It seemed right that I gave one of the first public readings of what would become Pearls at a series of readings Writers SA held there. There are many different types of tours you can take, including ‘Tragic Tales: West Terrace Cemetery by Night.’ And if you haven’t already read it, I highly recommend Carol Lefevre’s Quiet City: Walking in West Terrace Cemetery. It was published around the time that I returned to Kaurna Yerta (Adelaide) from Abu Dhabi. I read it during that magical time of returning to somewhere, where everything is familiar but it’s also new. If you don’t fancy a night walk, you can read Carol’s book and use it as a kind of self-guide.

Poetry slam and spoken word Draw Your Swords is having heat one of their new slam series at the Summertown studios. You can get tickets and information about how to sign up to share you own poetry here or follow them on instagram.

A job The Mill is seeking an enthusiastic and skilled Finance Officer to join its small team. Definitely not the job for me, but a great job for a numbers person who wants to be part of the arts community.

If you missed the last issue of Sunday Night In, you can read it here, but I’ve got a quick overview of everything that was in it below:

Readings and In-Conversation

Early in September, Our Words will run as a complementary series to earlier events Our Mob and Our Stories. Writers SA has just released the program for the Context Writers Festival which is held in partnership with the City of Adelaide. The Independent Arts Foundation has a fundraising event the first weekend in October, Pip Williams in conversation with Sany Verschoor bookings here.

Local books and books by locals

Kate Larsen-Keys launched a new collection of poetry, Public. Open. Space at the beautiful Goodwood Books. The invitation to the launch of Libby Trainor Parker’s book Endo Days is here. The next Saddleworth market will be run alongside the Reading Between the Vines author event.

Regular gigs: readings, storytelling, poetry

This month, No Wave poetry, held monthly at The Wheaty is curated by Jill Jones, and features Jennifer Liston, JV Birch, Jelena Dinić and Caroline Reid. You can read about No Wave on Dom Symes’ website, including details about enquiring to read your own poetry (if that’s your jam). The September theme for tenx9 is show and tell. 100 Barossa Artists is hosting its latest speak event, with the theme of busted.

A bit of theatre a bit of cabaret

Another fundraiser by the Independent Arts Foundation in support of its grants program for emerging artists, Life is a Cabaret, hosted by Helga Handfull and tickets here. Rumpus Theatre is back with All the Things I Couldn’t Say is on at the Flinders Drama Centre. Kaurna Yerta (Adelaide’s) French-speaking theatre company will have a performance at the Auburn Frenchfest (Panache-Moliere), and the program also includes Talk Dirty Stay Classy.

Learn to write or perform (or get a little bit better)

Expressions of interest for the 2024 InSpace program at the Adelaide Festival Centre are now open. The City of Burnside hosts a writing group once per month.

Writing competitions

The Campbelltown Writer’s Competition closes at the end of the month.

Finding out what’s on

Sunday Night In is obviously the premiere stop for all your ‘what’s on in Adelaide’ needs, but where can you go to find out more? InDaily’s InReview has the most comprehensive wrap of arts and culture news in our state. The Adelaide Show podcast has been in production for many years and is a great supporter of local artists. Sign up to The Wheaty’s Wheaty Mail to get the goods on their goodly number of readings and poetry nights. Wakefield Press has a comprehensive weekly newsletter. It’s focus is on Wakefield authors, but it gives a good wrap of everything their authors do from book launches to performances to readings.

Jobs!

Brink Productions is looking for a new Artistic Director. The City of Marion has a vacancy for a senior theatre technician.

Share and subscribe

That’s all I’ve got for now, but remember to share this newsletter with other people you know who might like it.

And if someone has forwarded it to you and you’d like more, you can subscribe here

And if you know of things you think might be good to include, send me an email to sundaynightnewsletter@gmail.com