Sunday Night In #3 (October)
Literary, theatre and other word-based delights in and beyond Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide
Hello friends and welcome to issue #3 of Sunday Night In, a monthly collation of the literary, theatre and other word-based happenings happening in and around South Australia. I know it isn’t Sunday night, but I took my first post-covid holiday and went to Nipaluna (Hobart) and didn’t get home in time to send this out on Sunday. Since it’s the Monday night of a long weekend it sort of feels like Sunday, no? While I was away, I went to the amazing exhibition, Twist, at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. I’m currently writing a little essay about it which I’m hoping I’ll be sending out through my Naive Psychologist newsletter sometime this week.
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Before we get into things, some shameless self-promotion: I’ve got a performance of my show An Evening with the Vegetarian Librarian at the Victor Harbor library in a couple of weeks (bookings here). I’ll also be sharing a short work in progress at SA Playwrights Theatre next staged readings on October 24. All going well this will be a preview of my new show Stitches which will be debuted at next year’s Adelaide fringe.
And one final thing, I’d love to include as many wordy events as I can, so if you know of something that could be included in future newsletters, please let me know by sending an email to sundaynightnewsletter@gmail.com
I’ll be back in your inbox at the end of October, but in the meantime, read lots of books, see lots of theatre, feed your brain, nourish your spirit and don’t let the passwords get you down.
With love, Tracy
Very exciting!
Writers SA have partnered with the State Library of South Australia to offer the inaugural SA Literary Fellowships program. With five fellowships on offer for mid-career, First Nations and emerging writers, this is a fabulous opportunity, “open to all writers living in South Australia to encourage the original and imaginative use of the Library’s spaces and collections to develop new literary works.”
Festivals
Both the Nature Festival and the OzAsia Festival have a bunch of wordy events.
At the Nature Festival, the standout for me is probably the Kaurna Yerta Seasons, described as “a one-hour cinematic concert features stunning visuals, immersive soundscapes, song, dance and ceremony, as well as new music for string quintet and traditional instruments by David John Lang. An unmissable, sacred celebration of culture in harmony with nature.” I also really like the look of Flight, a collaboration between Jorji Gardiner and her mother Viv Szekeres at the South Australian Museum. I bought their book at the art gallery a couple of months ago without knowing that it would also be an exhibition, so I’m looking forward to seeing it. There’s also a nature writing masterclass with SA Unpublished Manuscript Winner Roanna McLelland, nature writing self-editing with Sumudu Narayana, a poetry open mic at Clarendon, spoken word SA hosting a poetry slam, Helen Lawry at the Botanic Gardens, Jen Mills at the Botanic Gardens, Shakespeare at Windsong Wines, Once Upon a Time on the Carrick Hill storytime trail, and my much-loved monthly tenx9 storytelling with its theme A Force of Nature.
There’s a bunch of stuff happening with the OzAsia festival. The program includes a lot of theatre and a nice collection of workshops, but as far as words and ideas goes, there is an absolutely brilliant lineup at the In Other Words program. Curated by Jennifer Wong, it is billed as a “three-day extravanganza of big ideas and literary masterpieces”, and it really is. I will definitely be getting along to as much of this as I possibly can. It won’t all be city-based—at the Cove Civic Centre, see Feasting on Memories: Exploring Cultural Narratives Through Food, ABC's Jennifer Wong and Katherine Tamiko Arguile in conversation with journalist Smriti Daniel as they discuss writing about food. A lot of this program is free, but it’s ticketed, and many of the events—includng the closing night debate ‘That Australia Needs More Tiger Parents’—will be very popular.
The Australian Short Story Festival is an annual celebration of short form storytelling. Held in November, the program spreads across four days from Thursday to Sunday with readings, workshops and book launches led by an amazing range of writers, editors and publishers.
Also in November, the Feast Festival is back, and there’s a little bit of literature, including a couple of open mics and of course the final debate ‘We Were Better Off In the Closet than Out.’
Talk books and words
The Mercury Cinema’s script club continues into its second month with a discussion of Pulp Fiction facilitated by Pete Monaghan. This event is only open to subscribers of the Mercury, but what a great reason to join the Mercury—screenplays of each session are available to access via the subscriber portal.
Also continuing into its second month is the Stories from the South book club, with Kim Scott’s Taboo. I love this book if only because it’s one of the few Miles Franklin winners I had before it was announced as the winner. The book club is hosted jointly by Dymocks, InDaily and the University of Adelaide, with reading guides and creative writing prompts published in InDaily and the discussion night is held in Dymocks’ gorgeous Regent Arcade branch.
Readings, lectures and in-conversation
I already mentioned that I’ll be doing a reading at SA Playwrights Theatre staged readings, but there is an excellent lineup with Hew Parham (I’ll have to try not to fangirl, I just adore his work), Spencer Scholz, John AD Fraser and Katherine Sortini. It’s only $10 per ticket.
Dog-eared Readings will have it’s second night out, and you’ll need to register to attend. With special guest Shannon Burns in conversation with JM Coetzee plus readings from Lisa Hannett and Jelena Dinic, this is shaping up to be an unmissable event on our literary calendar, so send in your RSVP now.
Charlotte Wood has a new novel Stone Yard Devotional and she will be at Matilda Bookshop’s next Meet the Author evening in conversation with Molly Murn. Presented in partnership with the Burnside Library, it will be in the Burnside Ballroom. It’s a big venue, but it will be full, so make sure to book.
This month’s Tuesday Talks at the State Library is Margaret Calder. Also coming up at the State Library is a talk In Plain Sight describing the discovery by a long-term volunteer that the old Adelaide Circulating Library shelves contained a selection of LGBTIQA+ literature from the 1950s. Unusual for the era, it indicates a determined refusal to censor on the part of Adelaide’s post-war librarians.
The Hawke Centre runs one of the best public lecture series in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide, and this panel for Reading and Writing Dangerously is exceptional with Behrouz Boochani, Geraldine Brooks, and Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert facilitated by Professor Peter Greste. You can be part of the crowd or watch online.
City of Marion Libraries is livestreaming a conversation with Wendy Harmer to talk about her new book, Lies My Mirror Told Me. It’s in conversation with Ali Clarke who I assume will be in the room. Tickets here.
I haven’t watched Home and Away since the days of Alf and Aisla and since then Judy Nunn has written a lot of books. She’ll be at the City of Port Adelaide Enfield Libraries to talk about her latest.
Local books and books by locals
I don’t have any information about upcoming book launches, but I’m a few chapters in to Sally Colin-James’s One Illumined Thread, and I thought you might like it too. Sally doesn’t live here now, but growing up in Port Pirie, Sally and I had the same piano teacher. I was pretty proud of my rendition of The Music Box Dancer, but Sally’s was even better.
Regular gigs: readings, storytelling, poetry
I went along to last month’s No Wave poetry night at The Wheaty, and it was outstanding. Jill Jones curated the evening perfectly, and the audience were chattery and chipper in the breaks, then quietly engaged during the readings. All of this under the fairy lights—I mean fairy lights always add a little bit of magic. Which is a long-winded way of saying, get it on people.
Voice Box is starting to hit its stride, with the third open mic night at Mixed Creative in Port Adelaide.
Mixed Bag run a monthly open mic night, and in early October they have a night called Fresh off the Press, a chance to showcase new material that has never been heard before. It’s at Ancient World, and if you want a late night, you can stick around to enjoy karaoke afterwards.
A bit of theatre, a bit of cabaret
Theatre Republic are premiering a new work by the prolific and much-admired Emily Steel. The Garden is “a searing drama about communities big and small and how we treat each other across borders and garden plots—real and imagined.’ It’s on at the Space Theatre, and will almost certainly sell out, so get on it.
The University of Adelaide Theatre Guild is showing Ink, written by James Graham and directed by Robert Bell and Rebecca Kemp. Tracking the story of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of The Sun which he completely transformed from a struggling, left-leaning broadsheet destined for failure into … well, what it turned into. The Theatre Guild couldn’t have known that it would coincide with Rupert Murdoch’s announcement that he’s stepping away, but it does make for a bit of added spice. “This ensemble comedy is jam-packed with both hilarious and gripping dramatic moments that tell one hell of a story.”
Red Phoenix Theatre are staging the black comedy Cyprus Avenue, written by David Ireland and directed by Nick Fagan. The play won Best New Play at the Irish Times Theatre Awards in 2017, and it does sound intriguing: “Eric notices something very unusual and disturbing about Mary-May, his five-week-old grand-daughter. Although his wife and daughter think Mary-May is the ‘best baby in Belfast’, Eric can see that she is really the famous Sinn Fein president and politican Gerry Adams—but without a beard.”
Call-outs and submission opportunities
As part of the Tarnanthi Festival, Writers SA and the SA First Nations Writers Group are inviting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers living in South Australia to take part in a series of paid writing commissions. Selected writers will be invited to respond creatively to works of art in the Tarnanthi exhibitions and programs.
It will be published by Queensland University Press, but co-curated by South Australia’s Jo Case, this callout for submissions to an anthology by autistic women and gender-diverse writers.
Learn to write or perform (or get a little bit better)
As well as the new fellowships I’ve highlighted above, Writers SA have released their latest program of workshops and events and they’re all up on the beautiful new website. I have always loved the WSA workshops for their range—from genre fiction like thrillers and romance, to broad support like Novel Bootcamp, and a focus on specific techniques like plotting or creating a great opening. In November, there’s an essay workshop with the brilliant Maria Tumarkin—unmissable.
At Goodwood Theatre & Studios, Simone continues to curate an exciting program of hands-on workshops with some of our most talented directors and writers. Still to come this year, Writing with Finegan Kruckemeyer; Directing with Chris Drummond; Writing and Dramaturgy with James Watson; and Viewpoints and Composition with Zoe Tidemann.
ActNow Theatre also has a strong program of upcoming events including workshops (‘Writing: Life is as strange as fiction with Katherine Sortini’; Scenework with Connor Reidy; and Monologues with Anthony Nicola); as well as a four-day pathways program for First Nations people.
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And if you know of things you think might be good to include, send me an email to sundaynightnewsletter@gmail.com