LITERARY HIGHÂ TEAS -2016-
Leisurely afternoons of brought to you by UWA Publishing and the UWA University Club
CALL THE UWA UNIVERSITY CLUB ON (08) 6488 8770 TO BOOK
Reading doesn't have to be a solitary pursuit. In fact, we find the best books are conversation starters. To bring some of these conversations to life, UWA Publishing has partnered with the UWA UniClub to host a series of Literary High Teas. One Saturday a month we host an afternoon of petite fours and author talks to inform and entertain. From ecology to urban planning to the imaginary worlds of fiction writers, be lead through
diverse subjects while enjoying delicacies prepared by the UniClub chefs.
a setting in which big questions can be approached in a meaningful and pleasurable way.
UWA Publishing is a small publisher based at the University of Western Australia. We publish books across fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Our books celebrate dynamic voices and local stories; they capture the uniqueness of our place and inspire us to reflect on our position in the world.
To book, call the UWA University Club reception on (08) 6488 8770. Please specify that you wish to book for the "Literary High Tea."
Our Literary High Teas provide
You do not have to be a University Club member to attend these events.
MORE INFORMATION
DIRECTIONS AND PARKING
The Literary High Teas are $45.00 per head, which includes a glass of champagne upon arrival and a dizzying array of canapĂŠs and petit fours.
Address: Hackett Entrance 1, Hackett Drive, Crawley, 6009 The University Club is located off Hackett Drive that runs parallel to Matilda Bay.
Books will be available to purchase at a discounted price both before and after There is parking available in the Arts the author talk. Authors are always happy Carpark, underneath the University Club to sign their books. building or on the opposite side of the road near the UWA Boat Shed. Ask reception to show you to the Literary High Tea dining room, which is located upstairs. For queries please call the University Club on (08) 6488 8770.
FEBRUARY
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 27TH FEBRUARY
LEAVING ELVIS AND OTHER STORIES MICHELLE MICHAU-CRAWFORD We’re travelling light, without excess, into our future. Gran had been rough as she uncurled my hands from their position, gripped around the open car doorframe, and shoved me into the passenger seat. A man returns from World War II and struggles to come to terms with what has happened in his absence. Almost seventy years later, his middle-aged granddaughter packs up her late grandmother’s home and discovers more than she had bargained for. These two stories book-end thirteen closely linked stories of one family and the rippling of consequences across three generations, played out against the backdrop of a changing Australia. A debut collection—as powerful as it is tender—from the winner of the 2013 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize.
FICTI ON
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michelle Michau-Crawford’s short fiction has been published in Australian Book Review, Westerly and Spiny Babbler, and she has also published poetry and non-fiction and had one of her plays performed. In 2013 she won the prestigious ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. She has worked as a university lecturer, speechwriter, researcher and public relations officer, and has a PhD in Comparative Literature. Michelle lives with her menagerie in a house surrounded by vegetable gardens and fruit trees.
MARCH
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 19TH MARCH
REACHING FOR THE CANOPY A ZOO-BORN ORANGUTAN'S JOURNEY INTO THE WILD KYLIE BULLO In 2006, Kylie Bullo and her colleagues at Perth Zoo were part of a bold, groundbreaking experiment that many experts believed was doomed to failure – to return a zoo-born orangutan to the wild. The orangutan they chose was Temara, a fiery redhead with a will of her own. Temara had always been strong, intelligent and independent, but preparing for the return to the jungles of her ancestors would put all her best qualities – and those of her keepers – to the test. This is the story of that remarkable journey and of the remarkable woman who helped make it happen. It proves that the right blend of passion, compassion and hard work can achieve what many thought was impossible. And it brings new hope to those fighting to bring this magnificent creature back from the brink of extinction.
NON -FICT ION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kyle Bullo is a Senior Orangutan Keeper at Peth Zoo and board member of The Orangutan Project. Kylie holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Biology (with Distinction) and First Class Honours in Primate Behaviour. She has been the Senior Orangutan Keeper at Perth Zoo for ten years, where she oversees primate behaviour, diet, enrichment, health and breeding. Kylie’s journey with Temara was a world-first, where a zoo-born orangutan was released into a protected area of the Sumatran rainforest.
APRIL
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 30TH APRIL
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER THE STORY OF PERTH'S FORESHORE JULIAN BOLLETER The Swan River has been flowing the same course for some sixty million years. This book traces the relationship of European-Australian culture to this ancient river system. This historical narrative is viewed through the lens of schemes proposed for Perth’s foreshore, the city’s symbolic front garden. The foreshore has been contentious since the first plan for Perth was drawn up, and has subsequently acted as a sinkhole for hundreds of proposals. An investigation of this archaeological stratum of foreshore drawings allows us to understand changing ideas of what Perth was, what it could have been, and indeed what it can be.
NON -FIC TION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Julian Bolleter is an awarded landscape architect with over 10 years of professional experience and has worked with landscape architectural firms both in Australia and internationally. In 2014, Julian was awarded the WA Medal of Landscape Architecture at the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects for his research. He completed his PhD on ‘Landscape architecture in Dubai’, which was awarded an ‘exceptional’ rating by a noted academic at the Harvard School of Design. Julian lectures and researches at the AUDRC.
MAY
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 28TH MAY
THE SOUTHWEST AUSTRALIA'S BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT VICTORIA LAURIE
NON -FIC TIO N
Victoria Laurie offers us in words and pictures the southwest of Australia, a land triangle that encompasses a multitude of natural worlds. One third of all known Australian plant species is found growing in the southwest, and the region has been designated ‘Australia’s Global Biodiversity Hotspot,’ one of only thirty-four such hotspots in the world and the only one on this continent. Driven by her own passion for this country, Laurie presents us with the voices of scientists and those dedicated to protecting a fragile ecology supporting up to 150,000 species. Life forms and landscapes are a feature of this informative and thrilling discovery of a region that has evolved with abundant biodiversity because of its isolation. This compelling book confirms the southwest of Australia as one of the most intriguing places on earth. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Victoria Laurie is an award-winning journalist. Her career began in ABC radio and TV current affairs, followed by print journalism for The Bulletin, The Australian newspaper, Weekend Magazine and other publications. She has been a Walkley Award finalist three times, is a recipient of an Equal Opportunity Media Award and numerous state awards. She published The Kimberley: Australia’s Last Great Wilderness in 2010.
JUNE
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 25TH JUNE
THE LEADING EDGE INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY AND PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA'S ROYAL FLYING DOCTOR SERVICE STEPHEN LANGFORD The advent of the Royal Flying Doctor Service in the 1930s was a testimony to Australian innovation and ingenuity. Much as been written about the early history of this iconic organisation, adapting aircraft and pedal radios to meet the needs of people in vast remote areas. In this book, Dr Stephen Langford, the Service's longest serving medico, provides a compelling account of the Service since the late 1970s. Langford's history emphasises the technology and innovation that has enabled the RFDS to remain at the forefront of aeromedical care
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NON-F ICTION
Dr Stephen Langford joined the Royal Flying Doctor Service for one year in 1983. As a private pilot with an interest in aviation and emergency medicine, the North West of Western Australia seemed a better fit than the sojourn in the Antarctic he was contemplating. Stephen Langford was the 2016 Local Hero for Western Australia, a title awarded as part of the Australian of the Year Awards.
JULY
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 30TH JULY
VISUA L ART MIRIAM STANNAGE TIME FRAMED EDITED BY LEE KINSELLA Miriam Stannage (b. 1939) is a relentless innovator. Her practice is founded upon a deep intellectual engagement with, and curiosity about, the challenges and nature of contemporary life. For the last fifty years, she has produced a dazzling range of works that resist easy categorisation. Stannage has developed an aesthetic that celebrates the strange and beautiful that can be found in the everyday: from industrial building sites to suburban street verges laden with abandoned goods, and crumbling ghost towns as they disappear into the soil of the vast Australian continent. Miriam Stannage: Time Framed provides analysis on this important contemporary artist’s work, exploring her use of words and symbols, and the concept of vision in all of its senses. This survey presents Stannage’s works, many of which have not been seen publicly, and documents the media she has worked in, specifically installation, photography, painting, video, prints and drawings, and artist’s books. Edited by Lee Kinsella. Contributors: Helen Ennis, Patrick Hutchings, Lee Kinsella and Ted Snell.
ABOUT THE EDITOR Lee Kinsella is curator of 'Miriam Stannage: Survey 2006 - 2016', held at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at The University of Western Australia. She has curated and managed exhibitions at Australian state and national public institutions including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, The Australian War Memorial and The National Film and Sound Archive (formerly ScreenSound Australia). Lee has written catalogue essays, articles and contributed to several books on Australian art, co-editing 'Into the Light: The Cruthers Collection of Women's Art' in 2012 and 'HERE&NOW13' in 2013.
AUGUST
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 27TH AUGUST
THE MIND'S OWN PLACE IAN REID Two women and three men, displaced in different ways by the rapid transformation of Victorian England, travel separately to a small settlement on Australia’s western rim. With them they carry social ambitions and psychological wounds. As their lives intersect in the Swan River Colony, what they encounter is not quite what they expect. Who will struggle, who will thrive, and how will each react when secrets emerge?
FICT ION
Though fictional, The Mind’s Own Place is partly based on the actual experiences of historical figures: a pair of convicts from respectable backgrounds, talented and enterprising but troubled; two female immigrants, free settlers, not equally fortunate or resilient; and the first detective in Western Australia, who eventually uncovers more than he intends. Like Ian Reid’s previous acclaimed novels, this powerful story explores intricate relationships between the shaping of character and the pressure of adversity. It reveals damaged families, mixed motives, and the long shadows thrown by the past.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ian Reid is the author of a dozen books - fiction, non-fiction and poetry - whose work has been widely anthologised, awarded prizes, and translated into several languages. In addition to The Mind’s Own Place, Ian’s previous historical novels are The End of Longing and That Untravelled World, both published by UWA Publishing. He lives in Perth, where he is an adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia and an emeritus professor at Curtin University.
SEPTEMBER PERTH A GUIDE FOR THE CURIOUS EDITED BY TERRI-ANN WHITE
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 17TH SEPT
NON-F ICTION
Where do you find a city’s soul? Where is its pulse, its personality? When we walk across the skin of a city, do we listen for its laugh? Terri-ann White draws together an eclectic group of Perth people in this collection to share their insights on a rapidly evolving city. From an architect’s perspective on heritage to a historian’s ruminations on Perth’s swampy origins; from a walk down streets that don’t exist to Noongar place names; from the union movement to public art to criminal Perth to conversational Perth, this book encourages new encounters with the city. Perth: a guide for the curious traverses social, cultural and political spaces as the reader traverses the streets, kindling a sense of curiosity about a city by unearthing buried treasure. This is not a book of nostalgia. It doesn’t posit a golden age or list a series of laments. This is a book about continuities and unfolding narratives. Perth situates the present in the past and illuminates possible futures. Perth: a guide for the curious is meant to be thumbed through in cafes, stuffed into satchels and walked around the city like a tireless companion. Perth promises to delight and inspire both visitor and local alike. Hear from the editor, Terri-ann White, on the ideas behind Perth: a guide for the curious.
CONTRIBUTORS Terri-ann White; Len Collard, Clint Bracknell and Angela Rooney; Malcolm Mackay; Helen Whitbread; Kate Hislop; Felicity Morel-EdnieBrown; Michel Lewi; Julian Bolleter; Marcus Canning; Peter Kennedy; Clarissa Ball; Diana Warnock; Paul Carter; Geoffrey London; Sarah Burnside; Conrad Liveris; Nick Allbrook; Antonio Buti; Beth George; Alannah MacTiernan; Gillian O'Shaughnessy; Andra Kins; David Whish-Wilson; Craig Smith; Ruth Morgan.
OCTOBER
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 29TH OCTOBER
EXTINCTIONS JOSEPHINE WILSON Josephine Wilson won UWA Publishing's inaugural Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript for her novel 'Exitinctions'. The judges had much to say about the novel, praising its craft and ambition. It evokes a strong, complex sense of Perth, where it is set. It is funny throughout, in a sometimes wry, sometimes absurd laugh-out-loud way, but the humour is often tinged with sadness. The judges loved the beautifully crafted voice of the protagonist, an elderly man facing the denouement of his life. ‘Extinction’ becomes a timely metaphor not only for how we face death and the inevitable losses that come with age, but also for the ecological issues we face that colour our vision of the future.
JOSEPHINE WILSON WON UWA PUBLISHING'S 2015 DOROTHY HEWETT AWARD FOR HER MANUSCRIPT 'EXTINCTIONS'
Wilson deftly handles complex shifts back and forth in time and sensitively portrays the strengths and foibles of her characters. The story progresses artfully and inexorably towards a conclusion that quietly resonates long after the book is over. The use of photographs inserted into the text, a literary device that has become increasingly common since popularized by W.G. Sebald, was seen in this instance as a distinctive enhancement: the images chosen both undercutting and making ironic the text along with giving information ‘gifts’ to the reader. The judges were interested to discover upon making their decision that, by happy coincidence (remembering that the award was judged anonymously), Josephine Wilson’s first novel Cusp was published as the first fiction title at UWA Publishing (then UWA Press) in 2005. Extinctions by Josephine Wilson will be released October 2016.
FICTION
NOVEMBER
2:30-4:30PM SATURDAY 26TH NOV
BAUHAUS ON THE SWAN ELISE BLUMANN, AN ÉMIGRÉ ARTIST IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA 1938-1948 SALLY QUIN German artist Elise Blumann (1897–1990) arrived in Western Australia in 1938, having fled Nazi Germany in 1934. With her husband and two sons she set up home on the banks of the Swan River, and began to paint. Over the next ten years she produced a series of portraits set against the river and the Indian Ocean, and pursued an analysis of plant forms – the zamia palm, xanthorrhoea, banksia and the majestic melaleuca – to brilliant effect.
VISU AL AR T
In this study Sally Quin traces Blumann’s formative student years in Berlin and her first decade in Australia, where the artist reinvented her working method in response to the intense light and colour of the local landscape. The challenges presented by this new physical environment resulted in bold and evocative interpretations of the land. Blumann was a conservative modernist, but the Perth art scene was not prepared for her expressive style, and when she exhibited for the first time in 1944 her art was met with bewilderment. The book considers attitudes to modernism in Perth, and the influence on local culture of European refugees and émigrés newly arrived in the city.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Working in relative isolation and with little critical support, Blumann produced a striking body of work, which prefigured a flourishing of progressive art in Perth from the late 1940s. In the first major art historical study of the painter, Quin establishes Blumann as a significant figure in the story of Australian modernism.
Sally Quin is Curator of the University of Western Australia Art Collection at the Lawrence Wilson Gallery. Her PhD was written on the critical reception of sixteenth-century Italian women artists.
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