Trent Jamieson reads from
Day Boy.
I caught the Wheeler Centre’s Next Big Thing:
Spotlight on Queensland event on Monday night. It reminded me of those heady days of Queensland Writers Centre’s Wordpool, cramming into a sweaty bar to hear a mix of established and upcoming writers bare their work. Community-building. Great stuff. (see
Whispers, Queenslanders)
On Monday, in the intimate and rather spiffy surrounds of the Moat Bar and Restaurant in the Wheeler Centre’s basement (happy hour: BONUS!), four Queenslanders took the stage.
Bri Lee goes a’hunting.
First off the block was
Bri Lee, reading a narrative non-fiction piece published in
Voiceworks, about her experirence on a hunting trip. Descriptive, self-aware, highlighting the dichotomies of the experience and the hunter.
Sally Piper shares Grace’s Table.
was up second, reading from her 2014 debut novel,
Grace’s Table (it was great to catch up with Sally, following her profile interview for
WQ last year). Sally read two excerpts, highlighting how food — its preparation, serving and consuming — provided a window into the shifting structures of a family. The novel takes place in the course of a meal — a second novel is being shopped around now, so keep an eye out.
My old mate Trent Jamieson brought the vampires to the table, with a suitably chilly section from his brand spanking new novel Day Boy. The short chapter, its cold theme sympathetic to the chilly night outside, was everything you expect from a Trent story: atmospheric, literate, touching. And in this case, just a little spooky, too; it gave me an undertone of Let the Right In One, perhaps a little of that wonderful scene from Wuthering Heights when the ghostly child is seeking entrance. I HAVE THE BOOK! Thanks to Embiggen Books, who were selling copies of the readers’ work. The Brisbane launch is TOMORROW (25 June).
Sarah Holland-Batt reveals
The Hazards.
Poet
Sarah Holland-Batt read from her hot-off-the-press second poetry collection
The Hazards, the four poems showing broad subject matter gathered from her travels, an eye for landscape, emotional resonance.
Excellent curating, highlighting a great mix of talent, who all read well — not always easy with clinking glasses and background conversation to contend with.
The Wheeler Centre’s Next Big Thing event is held monthly.
I emerge from the three-and-a-half-year cocoon that has been the PhD* to catch up with a bunch of pals, and what a better way to do it than at a reading.
