Reality Bites

Last weekend I attended the Reality Bites Nonfiction Festival in Cooroy, Queensland. The festival is held over two weekends and this was the first of the two. I found it exciting but pretty exhausting. I flew up on Saturday morning, appeared on one panel on Saturday afternoon, a second on Sunday morning, and then flew home Sunday afternoon. Phew!

The weather wasn't wonderful - overcast most of the time and quite cool. Very disappointing for a southerner. I'd hoped for a little sunshine.

The organisers had worked hard to put together a varied and interesting program and a team of volunteers made it all happen. The speakers were ferried to and from the airport, between venues, and to and from their accommodation. It all seemed to run like clockwork.

I enjoyed my sessions enormously. The first was Grief, Loss and Recovery and I shared the stage with Paul Valent, a retired psychiatrist who has worked extensively in this area. Annette Hughes in the chair made sure it was a really memorable session. I think we were all just about in tears.

The following morning I ran into Paul and his lovely wife Julie in the rain in the streets of Noosaville. Spending time with them was a highlight of the trip for me.

Sunday morning's panel, Absent Parents, was chaired by local writer, Steven Lang. Those are my hands in the picture below, waving around, making a point:

Here I'm at it again, talking with my hands. I shared the stage with David Carlin and we talked about our absent parents: my mother whom I watched as she was swallowed alive by Alzheimer's, his father who killed himself when David was six months old. I couldn't help thinking how proud David's father would be of him, and what a good job his mother did.

Both our books contain sadness but both also joy and hope I think. We'll be discussing them again this Saturday at the New Voices 2010 Festival. This festival is run by the folks at the Eltham Bookshop and will take place at St Margaret's Anglican Church Hall, Pitt Street, Eltham, from 9.30.

Our session, at 3.30, is called Whispered Imagining, and we'll be talking about the art of memoir, guided by Catherine Cole.

The program is varied and I'm looking forward to it. Recently I read Glenys Osborne's remarkable novel, Come Inside, so I'm particularly excited to have the opportunity to hear her discuss her writing process. That session is on at 11.15.

So, if you're free on Saturday and are not too far away, come to Eltham. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Winter weekend

This wintry weekend we've eaten pumpkin scones, repaired a fence and established a new vegetable bed in the orchard.

After quite a bit of experimentation I have found the easiest and most reliably delicious scones to make are, despite her politics, Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen's. They don't taste of pumpkin at all but have a lovely golden colour and are soft and buttery. They're particularly scrumptious with sour cherry jam.

Ingredients:

1 Tblsp butter


1/2 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt 


1 egg 


1 cup mashed pumpkin (cold)

2 cups Self raising flour

Method:


Beat together butter, sugar and salt with electric mixer.

Add egg, then pumpkin and stir in the flour.


Turn on to floured board and cut.

Place in tray on top shelf of very hot oven 225-250c for 15-20 minutes.

I wasn't quick enough to photograph the scones before they were demolished so you'll have to take my word for them.

To make up for the lack of scone pictures, here are some of our other weekend activities.

Our share farmer, Sharon, and Farmdoc repaired the fence between the holding paddock and the bush.


My task was to hold things and pass them when required. And to take photos.

The fence is now fixed. Until the next tree falls on it of course.

After that we raked up a trailer load of waste hay from the paddock and set up a new vegetable bed in the orchard.

First we lay a thick layer of newspaper on the ground in the shape of the new bed. Then we spread some compost on top of it.

Finally we covered everything with a thick layer of smelly old hay, resplendent with sheep and goat droppings.

In a month or two we'll plant potatoes and pumpkins here.

Reading and Walking

Farmdoc and I have just come back from almost a week in paradise - otherwise known as Cradle Mountain. The plan was that we would each take a pile of the books that we have been dying to read and just haven't had the time for, and in the bad weather that we were bound to experience, we would simply sit in front of the fire and read.

But then, just our luck, we struck a week of mostly fine weather and so were forced out of our armchairs and into our boots. Poor us!

In the end we hit on a compromise. Every morning after an enormous breakfast we headed off for a walk. In the afternoons we'd light the fire in our cabin and read for the rest of the day. In this way we spent hours immersed in nature followed by hours immersed in literature.

My only issue with the scenery of Cradle Mountain is that it's hard to take a photo that doesn't look like one of those wilderness pictures that people who destroy the environment like to display. The kind of thing you see advertising banks, or toilet paper, or on show in airports.

I read five novels:

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver, a two-in-one novel that explores, in alternate chapters, two possible choices made by a woman who is torn between two men.

The Messenger, by Daniel Silva, a thriller about Gabriel Allon, art restorer and assassin, that moves between London, Jerusalem, the Vatican City, Venice, Rome, Paris and another dozen places at least and is utterly unputdownable.

On Chesil Beach, a novella by Ian McEwan. I often think McEwan's books, including Solar, his latest, would be better as novellas. This one is perfect. I actually read it twice. I especially like how the research is fully integrated into the novel and not presented as undigested lumps as McEwan sometimes likes to do and as Shriver does in The Post-Birthday World.

A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore, a writer who I think does short stories best. I loved this novel because Moore is a superb writer so I was prepared to look away when her plot got away from her. But there are too many word tricks and maybe too much of everything for the book to truly work. Sometimes I found the writing so dense I could hardly breathe but at other times, perhaps when Moore isn't trying so hard, the novel just sings.

Wanting, by Richard Flanagan. I would have liked this novel to be longer. Its two subjects, the famous British writer Charles Dickens and the Aboriginal child Mathinna who was picked up and then abandoned by Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin in colonial Tasmania, seem to me to deserve more space. The Tasmanian section is heart breaking, but though Flanagan captures Dickens's England in all its filth and squalor, I didn't find Dickens himself convincing, so for me in the end the book's themes got a bit lost.

Author! Author!

I'm always nervous before an appearance. Will anyone come? How will it go? Yesterday's event at Petrarch's Book Shop in Launceston went very well indeed. Peter and his staff had set the shop up beautifully, and friends travelled long distances from all over the state to be there with us.

As usual at these events I heard sad and remarkable stories. One man bought a copy for the widow of his heart donor as her mother has Alzheimer's. Someone brought along a well- thumbed copy for a friend who couldn't get away as she was caring for her mother who has Alzheimer's. And my blogging friend kittykatmandoo's mother came along on her behalf.

With my Launceston book signing behind me, my next appearance will be in Cooroy, Queensland at the Reality Bites Festival.

Here is what the organisers have to say about the festival:

Discover your reality in the words of some of Australia’s sharpest minds and gifted storytellers. Experience the diversity of issues and ideas currently shaping our world. Enjoy a feast of food for thought during two consecutive weekends of literary events; book readings, panel discussions, in-conversation interviews and workshops, presented by a range of authors, journalists and film-makers.

I'm really excited for this one. I will be on two panels, both taking place during the festival's first weekend. The first one will be:

SATURDAY 24 JULY

2:00pm – 3:00 pm PANEL: Grief, Loss and Recovery

Speakers: Dr Paul Valent, Vivienne Ulman Chair: Annette Hughes Venue: Butter Factory Arts Centre

Paul Valent is a psychiatrist who has specialised in treating victims of trauma. His book, In Two Minds, draws on his almost four decades of working with patients, as well as his own experience as a child survivor of the Holocaust. It's a remarkable book, easy to read and full of fascinating stories, but also thought provoking. What impressed me most about it was the author's humility, and his preparedness to expose his uncertainties and his personal trauma, as well as his undoubted successes. I'm thrilled to be sharing the stage with Dr Valent. I think this should be a fascinating discussion.

My second panel will be:

SUNDAY 25 JULY

10:30 am – 11:30 am

In Conversation: Absent Parents

Speakers: Vivienne Ulman with David Carlin. Chair: Steven Lang

Venue: Butter Factory Arts Centre

I've never read anything quite like David Carlin's Our Father Who Wasn't There. The book, which follows the author's search for details of the father who killed himself when David was a baby, is memoir, detective story, family history and fantasy, all woven together in a beautifully written package. I shared a session with David at the Sydney Writers' Festival and enjoyed it immensely, as did the audience. This is a session that I know will be moving, stimulating and entertaining.

I'll only be in Queensland for a little over 24 hours but I'm so looking forward to being part of this festival and also to the brief respite from the cold.

Ice in the Birdbath

Pretty cold here overnight and early this morning. The temperature plummeted to a low of -4.3 degrees.


We still managed to eat breakfast out on the kitchen deck. One of the joys of a north facing house.

Not so sure about the birds though.

Book Signing

Next Sunday afternoon I will be at Petrarch's Bookshop in Launceston from 2pm for a book signing and discussion event. If you're in the neighbourhood come along. I'd love to meet you and answer any questions you may have. I love discussing my book and issues that arise from it with readers. It makes all those lonely hours at my keyboard worthwhile.

To sweeten the event I will be bringing along a batch of my famous home-baked Launch Cookies.

INVITATION

PETRARCH’S BOOKSHOP

ON BEHALF OF

VIVIENNE ULMAN

INVITES YOU TO JOIN HER

WHEN SHE WILL BE SIGNING AND

DISCUSSING HER NEW BOOK...

“ALZHEIMER’S: A LOVE STORY”

IN THIS INSPIRING STORY VIVIENNE RECORDS

HER MOTHERS ALZEIMERS, HER OWN GRIEF AND

THE WAY HER PARENTS’ ENDURING LOVE SUSTAINED THEM.

“OUTSTANDING IS HER PORTRAIT OF HER FATHER. THE STORY OF THIS WONDROUSLY GOOD MAN WILL INSPIRE AND HUMBLE READERS” – RAIMOND GAITA

WE LOOK FORWARD TO YOU JOINING US AT PETRARCH’S AT

2:00p.m. SUNDAY 27^th JUNE.

Phone: (03) 6331 8088 Fax: (03) 6331 5163

89 Brisbane StreetLaunceston Tasmania 7250

Winter Solstice

Today's the shortest day of the year, which is cause for celebration at Onemilebridge. Now the days will gradually grow longer, and the longer the day the more chance we have of absorbing enough solar energy to run our house. We've run the generator a few times already.

I haven't posted on my blog for ages because I've been writing. That's right, I've been too busy writing to write. I've moved back into the novel I completed before I started my memoir. This is actually the third draft and it's definitely improved in this version I think. In the last draft I dispensed with the first five or so chapters and started later in the action. This time around I've kept that structure. It's meant feeding in a lot of earlier events as flashbacks, and that calls for a delicate touch. I have to take care not to overload the story and not to introduce the flashbacks in a clunky fashion. It's hard work and takes a lot of concentration.

As well as that, in this draft I'm telling the story from the first person point of view. I thought I'd try it and then if it didn't work I'd revert back to third person, but in the meantime I'd have learned a lot about my character. As soon as I made the change the novel sprang to life, as though Charlotte, my heroine, had been patiently waiting for me to come and rescue her.

I'm not sure how far I'll get and even if this is the final draft, but I'm obsessed with it for now and that's a lovely feeling. I love it when my writing takes over my life - demanding time and brain room.

Nevertheless life goes on around the farm and there is always work to do there too. One of the first lessons I learned when I moved to the country was that when a tree falls it will always fall across the nearest fence.


After the recent wild weather we went searching for trees that had come down. Fortunately the driveway was clear but we found a tree had landed on the fence between a patch of bush on our land and the holding paddock. Farmdoc has taken his chainsaw in to be sharpened before he begins the repair job.

And this week we begin daily feeding out of hay to the stock. In one paddock we're experimenting with round bales that we buy from our neighbour. Each round bale is the equivalent of 15 square bales and if it works this approach will mean less hay carting in summer and less feeding out in winter.

The trouble is that goats are greedy, and rough feeders too, and so far it looks like they can eat their way through a round bale in ten days, leaving a lot of wasted hay, trampled and excreted on, in their wake. Looks like the easy way out might not work. Pity.