Iris Lavell's Blog, page 16

Songwriting workshop with Kristina Olsen at the Fairbridge Festival Western Australia

The Fairbridge Music Festival on this weekend is about two hours (of a conservative drive) outside of Perth. This Festival is held every year and features local and international musicians mainly from the off-centre acoustic traditions: Folk, World Music, Bluegrass, all the permutations between, and Singer/Songwriters. The appeal crosses the age range, and the environment is family-friendly. Along with all the performances held in the many venues on site, it includes art and craft stalls, a good range of musical and artistic activities for kids, workshops, and a one ticket entrance covering all activities for the day, or the long weekend if you buy the weekend pass. Camping is available on site. I had a day pass this year and this forces attention to detail in choosing to attend this, that, or the other simultaneously scheduled event. It was good luck more than good judgement that directed me to attend an excellent song writing workshop with the lovely singer/songwriter Kristina Olsen yesterday, although The Retreat took its name a little too literally, and required some finding, especially for a couple of map-reading challenged individuals. We sneaked in late, but the ever gracious Ms Olsen welcomed us all, as people squeezed closer together on the floor, stood around the walls, sat on the chairs along the edge of the room, and peered in through the windows. The workshop spoke to so many techniques of value to writers in the broader context that, with Kristina Olsen’s agreement, I felt it would be worth sharing a few of the ideas from the ensuing discussion, and to point you towards her website. A more comprehensive copy of Kristina Olsen's songwriting tips is found on the link provided here, and has some great ideas for those who are serious about their writing, whatever the genre.As a taster, here are some of the things covered in the discussion yesterday:Get together with a small group of writers on a regular basis - weekly - optimal group size is about five people, and set yourself the task of having a new piece of writing to workshop within the group each week. Don't wait for the muse to visit - if you are working at the writing, she will come at some stage, and you will be ready, tools sharpened.Embody your writing in the senses. Did you know that the predominant sense for love is the sense of smell? Physicality is the doorway to memorable writing.Length doesn't matter. Artistic integrity does.Separate your creative brain from your editing brain - both are necessary to the process but work at different times. If you edit as you are trying to create, you will effectively turn off your creative flow.Be prepared to write bad stuff. The good stuff will often be embedded in this and can be found and worked on later. I'm paraphrasing of course, so to get the words straight from the source, take a look at the section of Kristina Olsen's website (bottom of the page). And if you are a muso and aspiring songwriter you will gain even more!Thanks Fairbridge for inviting Kristina and all the other great musicians to a festival that goes from strength to strength.    

ANZAC Day 2013 - Remembering all those who were hurt and who died in wars. Peace be with you, and with us all.

Trees holding hands Perth, Western Australia.

Episode Seven

The girl had been watching him for a long time and was hiding from him. He was coming, ready or not. This time he saw her. She was crouched down with little him and they were both dressed in leaves and feathers. When her tree-feathers blew out he saw her arm underneath. Dalyon edged his way around so that he could see more of her.
Like him, she was small, or a bit bigger. Her hair was the colour of the sky at night. It hung over her arms nearly to the elbows, and twisted around and around itself like a wound-up swing stopped at the point where it is ready to unwind. She made a smile showing her teeth with her eyes down, looking at the ground. She was holding little him’s hand. Little him was staring straight at Dalyon’s face, learning him. The girl showed him that she wanted to learn him too. Her eyes flicked up to look at his face and back to the ground.

She began to sing, ‘Why do you sit? Why do you go? Why do you sit and go, why sit and go, why are you looking at me in that tree?’ Her voice was clear and green like Ma’s very special glass flower jar.
Little him joined in. He had a lower voice that changed the sound she made in the most beautiful way that Dalyon had ever heard. He wanted the song to go on and on, but they stopped it all at once, still as a rock. Now she looked at him, straight in the face, just like little him. They were waiting for him to answer. Dalyon put a song-join into the sound-space that they had left.
‘Why do you sit and go, sit and go, sit and go, why are you looking at me in that tree, that tree, you sit and go and look at me in that tree,’ he sang. They joined him and all three found the most beautiful song Dalyon had ever sang-heard. She and little him and Dalyon were flying in the song that they were making, high above the forest. All the other birds around them stopped to listen. The tree birds stopped to listen. The feather birds stopped to listen. In her long sleep, Ma listened and saw him flying with his little flock. 
Far off at the other end of the forest, even the tracking animal stopped to listen.
*
Dalyon was staring at a picture of a dog with three heads. One head was looking to where he had come from, one was looking to where he was going and the other head was staring straight back at him. The dog-picture had been drawn in the rock with a sharp knife and filled up with red. There were two words written underneath, one beginning with the letter ‘C’ and the other with the letter ‘H’.  Ma once tried to show him how to read words but Dalyon had not wanted to read words because he liked Ma to sit with him and show him the story, so they could live in it together. Now with Ma away from him, he would have liked to be able to read the words about the dog with three heads.
Little dishes of water had been put in front of the the dogs to drink, but the dogs were not drinking. One was looking back, one was looking forward, and one was looking straight at him. He didn’t like this one that stared and stared at him. He edged past it, watching it the whole time.  It looked back.
Past the dogs was a cave room, which was the house where she and little him lived. Dalyon knew this because it was where they had brought him, and because it was here that they moved about without having to look at what was there. Dalyon did not live here so he looked at everything, picking up what he could, biting on it to test its usefulness, placing it against his cheek to feel its texture, turning it over, putting it back to pick up something else.
It was very light inside the cave room, even though they had walked down and down and down in the dark on bumpy steps, holding each other’s hands, and leaning against the cold walls. They had walked into a blackness so thick that they could only move blindly as a line joined at the hands, but the black got thinner, and now they could see everything quite clearly. The sun seemed to have been caught and pulled inside for them to see by. Dalyon thought that this is what had happened because just inside the cave room there was another picture painted on a plate of tin - a man on a horse that was trying to stand up on its back legs. Dalyon knew it was a horse with a cowboy, from a book about horses and cowboys that Ma had. The cowboy was hanging onto a rope that was tied around the sun. The man was pulling on the rope. Next to this was another picture that had lines and circles and numbers, more words, and not a very good picture of the sun shining on some glass plates with a line joining the pictures of glass plates to pictures of lights that were the lights inside the cave room.
Inside the cave room, past the dog with three heads was the place where she and little him had their beds and some boxes for their tables, and some smaller boxes for their chairs. On the floor was some old carpet with a pattern of double black triangles. Dalyon saw that the pattern on the carpet was just like the triangles inside the glass ball that Terry and Bob gave him to play with sometimes, except that it was bigger.
Later they would all be able to talk in their language and say that their names were Jilda and Lucan and Dalyon, and show each other things in the forest to play with, and things they had brought back here to use, and things that were good to eat and bad to eat. Jilda and Lucan would hold hands and show Dalyon the place where they had pushed away the tables that were already there, but felt scary and brought in the ghosts. Jilda and Lucan would be able to show Dalyon that they had dragged them further into the tunnel that led on from the cave room, and they would be able to tell him that sometimes the ghosts woke up and moved about in there, but that they never came into the cave room. Nobody else ever came to the cave room either, not even a fire that passed over them last summer. Not even the tracking animals. This was a secret place.
But now they were all hungry and thirsty. There was another cave in the wall of the cave room where Jilda kept food and water that she had collected from the forest. She took some out to prepare a meal for all of them.

Art Exhibition

A weekend of learning to negotiate the online and off-line world as an author

Taking a break from blogging, or checking p-mail?For me, it's been a full-on weekend with a workshop on Saturday for Authors conducted by the ASA about the ways in which we can use social media to enable people to find our work. Amanda Kendle ran the workshop and probably changed a few lives in the process. There'll be a few more blogs, tweets and web pages popping up as a result.

On Sunday we had our monthly meeting of the Book Length Project Group. Rosemary Sayer came along and guided us through some exercises on how to talk about our work. A generalisation perhaps, but it seems to ring true that authors tend to be fairly solitary creatures when they are working, and find it hard to put into a few succinct words what it is that they are working on - or have worked on, for that matter. I can't tell you how useful it is to actually practice these skills, and we all had a great session with a lot of laughs. Thank you to the wonderful Rosemary Sayer, for so generously giving up her time to work with the group!

Self Publishing - Hugh Howie interviewed on Radio National's Books and Arts Daily

If you want to hear a great interview on the current debate about the future of the novel and all things self-publishing (or independent publishing as Hugh Howie describes it) go to the Radio National Books and Arts Daily site here where you can download the audio or the transcript to see the whole discussion.
Congratulations to Carrie Tiffany - Inaugural Stella Prize
Books and Arts Daily is a wonderful program hosted by Michael Cathcart on the Australian Broadcasting Commission's 8.10 AM band. You can find your way from this link to other discussions, including information on the inaugural winner of the Stella Prize, Carrie Tiffany for her novel, Mateship with Birds. Congratulations to Carrie Tiffany, and to all those great writers who were in the running for this prize which honours outstanding work by contemporary female writers!

Episode Six

 He was on the fence, climbing with the package tied to his waist.  The hardness and sharpness hurt his hands, and his hands and feet bent to the wire and stone that was the fence. More trees appeared as he climbed, and he noticed again that tree tops were joined to thick posts pushed deep into the ground. He knew that stars under the ground held them up. The picture was clear, and he could see right through to where the arms of the stars reached under the house, and joined with those that came from the other side. This would guide him back, the trees holding hands under the ground, and if Ma listened to the ground she would hear his footsteps as he passed from one star to the next.

Three - Secrets
Dalyon was in the forest, the path that Ma had taken on the day of the tracking animal and the trampoline. The rain had been. The damp climbed up into his shoes and socks and he would have taken them off but Ma had told him to keep them on. He walked with a travelling song, his feet pressing into the floor of dying leaves. He kept on walking into a brown puddle that soon rose to his ankles, and he stopped to watch the water as it met his legs, moving softly. The water was warm and a small black beetle was struggling on its surface. Dalyon bent down and scooped up the beetle. He let the water drain through his fingers so that the little animal could find a dry place to land. It stretched its wings to dry, then tickled across his hand and up onto the inside of his arm. He let it crawl under and up onto his shirt, to his shoulder. Dalyon looked down again and noticed that instead of feet, a wobbly disc of puddle joined to the bottom of his legs. He was stuck there with this new foot so he twisted to see what else was around. A crow called to him, ‘Get going, Dahl-y-on. Dahl-y-on, get going, caw, caw, caw!’ It was laughing at him.He dragged his old feet through the disc, leaving a water channel that closed over behind, reached dry land at the edge of the little lake and jumped out. Jump, jump, jump! Sqwelchsqwelch. He was hopping along the path like a crow. The crow called out, ‘Stop, stop, stop that!’ He didn’t want to be a crow so he turned back into a boy and walked on. Each step made a scrunch-squelch, scrunch-squelch, scrunch-squelch, beating out a new travelling song. His hand felt the heart that lived inside his chest. It was singing along with a pom, pom, pom, pom. He stopped his foot-song and the heart went on singing. Dalyon did a jumping turn to see where he had been. When he landed he noticed how a picture of his foot-song had been left with every scrunch-squelch, and how even as he turned and moved on, and turned back again, that there was a drawing left in the ground from every move. The drawings were made of broken sticks and leaves, and some bent-over grasses and bushes. He wondered if this music would be played by others who would weave their own song into his. Before him were clues to the comings and goings of kangaroos, and some round droppings, big and small, which he stopped to examine. He squatted down. Something smaller than a kangaroo had made the little marbles of poo. He picked up one of the marbles and rolled it around in the palm of his hand, then let it drop down onto the ground. It fell in a new place. He stood up.He stood quite still, listening, his head tilted to one side, a smile in his head. He had stopped and everything else had too. There was waiting that made a gap in the music. The gap ended. A bird spoke behind him, and the crickets started up again. The bird was a whispering bird that told its secret and waited for another to tell it a secret in return. Nobody replied, but they were listening. The bird whispered its scratchy secret again. A warbler answered, telling everyone, ‘Dalyon is coming with a scrunch-squelch, scrunch-squelch, scrunch-squelch. Dalyon is at the sleeping tree.’ He had reached the sleeping tree and stopped to examine its surface. Now that he was close he could see more than he had on the day Ma had passed it by. A soft shiny green blanket had been caught falling from its side. Its head was at one end, with a pillow of dirt, and thick hard hair that stuck out in all directions. There was dirt stuck to its hair, and a scurry of black beetles playing there. Hide and seek, seek and hide, hide and seek, seek and hide. He and Ma would play that game. Dalyon smiled to himself as he saw the picture of them playing together. Ma was counting to twenty, slowing down or speeding up at the end. He found a good place to hide in the time that twenty took. Behind the sleeping tree. Ma took a long time to find him. His whole body started to giggle as she came close, and that was when she found him. She faded away, back to the house, to the bed where she lay so still.He felt sad when he thought of Ma alone in the house without him, and so did the heart. Was she counting to twenty as she slept? He was finding a very good hiding place this time. They would laugh when she found him, but for now she was still sleeping, like this sleeping tree. He was thinking about Ma as he ran his hand along its length, walking along, almost falling over the big rock that was nestled up against it, but he kept his hand on the sleeping tree all the while. Along its top was a smooth place where animals have played. He saw that there was a long crack in the surface, the doorway to a place where the smallest creatures had their houses, where they lived and ate and played hide and seek. Dalyon’s thoughts told him that when the sun was hot a brown snake slept by the sleeping tree, but she was dreaming now beneath the ground, far below the rock. Small silvery-white things, little shelters on stalks grew along the bottom where the tree lay along the ground, and orange and white discs clung to its side. Dalyon looked to where he would go. Ahead the path was clear as it curved towards the bowing tree of the pink and greys. Beyond that he had a picture of the path changing from the thin line to a circle of clearing, with trees bending in on every side, and a moving patch of sunlight. He hugged the sleeping tree goodbye and scrunch-squelched on.Along the way birds had left some of their feathers behind. Dalyon found one with a rainbow drawn above a soft grey and white puff. It was painted yellow and pink, yellow again. It ended in green. This feather was a baby. He placed it on the flat of his hand so that a breeze caught and floated it away. He tried to see where it had landed and found instead a feather from a warbler, long and tough. The stick that went through the middle was bare at the bottom. This was a good place to hold. He twisted it this way, and that. The stick started off thick and blotchy white. The bottom was sharp. As itpassed through the white part of the feather which travelled most of the way to the top it changed from white to black, until the feather itself became black and pointy at the top, separated from the white by a crooked line. He ran his fingers down and found that the feathery bit stuck together. He did it again, and the stuck-together feather tore and separated. A warbler sang an angry song when it saw him do that, so he stopped and put the feather behind his ear. He turned his head to show the warbler. The warbler sang a happy song now, someone else answered, and they went on like this, singing and answering, singing and answering.Dalyon sought more feathers and found one left by a pink and grey. It was pink and white, soft as the rainbow feather that flew away. He pressed it between his fingers and it stuck there. He found another grey, green, black and blue that changed in the light as he moved it around. He stuck this one into his hair. Dalyon was a feather finder. If he found enough he would dress all in feathers and turn into a bird. He looked, gathered, dressed. He saw that each leaf was a feather too, long with a stick along the middle and pointed at the end. He saw that the trees were giant birds stuck to the ground by one big leg. He dressed himself all in leaves and feathers. The forest was happier with him now and it breathed softly, blowing on the bird feathers and leaf feathers. Dalyon was a birdboy. He belonged to the forest.The ground here was soft and damp, and his shoes left shoe shadows behind to say that a boy had walked this way. Ahead were tree feathers all stuck to a thin stick. A vine had wound around them and there were purple flowers growing on the vine. Dalyon sat by the tree feathers, pulled them from the stick and tied them as foot feathers all around his shoes, winding the vine round and round his foot as he went. He stood and walked a little way then looked back to see what sort of shoe shadows he had left. They were the shoe shadows of a Dalyon bird, not a Dalyon Boy. The forest was happy with him. The warblers were warbling and even the crows were cawing softly. The whispering birds joined in, and the tree birds whispered too. Dalyon began to sing. The forest music was good that day, good for a travelling one.

Oral History workshops and performance of Dear Heart at the Alexander Library - Perth, Western Australia April 2013

Free Oral History Workshopsin association with the Battye LibraryThis workshop runs on Saturday April 20th and Tuesday April 23rd from 9.30 am - 10.45 am in the Great Southern Room, 4th Floor, State Library of WA, Perth Cultural Centre. The idea is to share stories and listen to the stories of others, or simply to come along and become inspired to gather your own family's recollections. Includes recollections from AIF and RAAF.

Admission is free but there are limited places so registration is essential. Phone (08) 9384 8158. Light refreshments will be served.

Dear HeartAgelink Theatre Inc's 20th anniversary event by Jenny Davisbased on her aunt's letters and diaries from WWII

Don't miss it! Four performances April - Fri 19, Sat 20, Tues 23at 11am, Wed 24 at 10.30am. (Duration of show approx 70 mins)
Alexander Library TheatreTicket prices: $20 (full); $15 (concession)

Bookings: Online at trybooking.com or phone (08) 9384 8158

Uneven Floor: Another great site for poetry - currently seeking submissions

impression of an uneven floor?If you are a fan of good, gritty, thoughtful poetry, take a look at uneven floor an independent poetry magazine. In the "About" section, the publisher's mission is described as:

MissionTo use the power and simplicity of blogging to get more readers, viewers and listeners for a wide range of awesome new poems and poets from Western Australia and beyond. To encourage readers to support poets, and poets to support one another.

Guest speaker at BLPG April 21 - Rosemary Sayer

Rosemary SayerRosemary Sayer has generously agreed to attend as guest speaker at the next meeting of the Book Length Project Group. We met a few days ago for a coffee and chat, and it was a delight to meet a fellow writer with the passion that we all share for this particular art form. Rosemary's discussion will focus on ways in which authors can present themselves to enable their work to have the best chance of success, and promises to be informal, interactive and allow plenty of time to get to know Rosemary a little better and to ask questions. She is a lovely, approachable person (notwithstanding the impressive Bio that follows!) and the session promises to be a real treat. Rosemary Sayer - BIO
Rosemary Sayer is an experienced international business communications consultant and author.
Rosemary has written two biographies - The CEO, the Chairman and the Board about the former Chairman and CEO of Wesfarmers Limited, Trevor Eastwood, and The Man who Turned the Lights On about Asian entrepreneur, Sir Gordon Wu, the Chairman of Hopewell Holdings. This book was subsequently translated into Chinese. Rosemary is currently working on her third book whilst consulting in the mining and art sectors.
She has held senior executive positions in Australia and Asia for Wesfarmers Limited, Lion Nathan and Standard Chartered Bank where she managed all corporate communications and investor relations in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.
Rosemary is passionate about the promotion of literature and the importance of reading.  She served as a director of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival for four years and has served as a director of writingWA, the peak body for writing, publishing and associated activities, in Western Australia for over three years. 
She began her career as a journalist and worked in both newspapers and radio which gave her broad media experience.  Rosemary currently writes a regular business column for the West Australian newspaper and lectures at Curtin University in professional writing.