Brought to you by Blackwattle Books and hosted by The Great Club in Marrickville. It is for readers and writers and those who like being read to.
The launch of The Great Story Club (TGSC) was by turns hilarious, moving and always creatively energising. So many talented writers and the great delight, shared by all, of being read to. Around over 25 attended, with two featured writers, Maria Issaris and Gazala Anver and six reading in the open mic section.
Around over 30 attended, with two featured writers, Maria Issaris and Gazala Anver and six reading in the open mic section. We kicked off proceedings with an interview with the marvellous Gazala Anver, during which she disclosed her deep love of fantasy fiction – even though her present work is not wholly in that vein. Gazala is at the stage of editing and giving form to the 300,000 words she wrote during Covid, of her epic family saga. It is set in an imaginary but clearly subcontinental island in the last century. The section she read from, started mid-argument between Veen Ve Ostyr, the lead character, and her fiancé, Alahad Helenoviz, told from Alahad’s point of view. I was a witty, finely observed comedy of manners in the oeuvre of Jane Austin that left us wanting more.
We then heard from Chris, James and Dylan in the first open mike section. The former comedic, the second providing a much blacker world view. The phrase, “One million dead chickens” is still resounding in my head. Dylan read, with gusto and dressed to great effect in top hat and dress coat, from his re-imagined rhyming version of Beowulf. He promises to give a further instalment at the next TGSC.
After a short break to refresh, Maria told us about her fascination with early Australian colonial history and the overlap with indigenous culture, spurred on by a bag of bush leaves (Sweet Sarsaparilla), in a glass case in the Mitchell Library. The leaves were payment for James Boswell’s successful defence of Mary Broad, leading to a full pardon, in respect of charges related to escaping from NSW to Timor, where she, and the group she led, were caught. It was a great maritime feat of ingenuity which made her and her fellow escapees famous at the time. Maria lamented the terrible state of Australian history as taught in schools and spoke with such love and understanding about early colonial characters (both imported and indigenous) that I was not alone in wanting to know more – and we got more. Maria’s reading took us right back to the last meeting between Mary Broad (also known as Bryant – given the love of white western society of defining women only in relation to the men they married) and said barrister, Boswell, where the leaves changed hands. The exchange was ripe with the smells of a time past, poetry of beautiful words used and taut with the strength of a women well able to seize power in a time when it was not easily seized by a woman.
We then heard from Peter, Nathan and Cristine in the final open mic. All memoirs, but so different as to be each in a category of their own. Peter led with a reading from his book on his early life as a merchant marine. The power and strength of the storm described was palpable and frightening. Nathan’s interior monologue of childhood trauma to healing and rebirth was both brave and moving. Finally Cristine’s chapter about herself as a young boy (yes, you have read that correctly) almost drowning on a round Australia trip with her family while swimming back to shore in Cairns, before realising he could in fact touch the bottom and walk to safety, was both funny and a metaphor for that (then) boy’s life. Things are often not what they seem and panic is often a precursor to improved understanding.
