Notes of Substance | Writer

Notes of Substance

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25.01.2022 A wonderful essay by Victor Ehikhamenor on his father as record-keeper, archivist, historian. I love how the author discovered mention of his own birth in between school assignments! 'An astute local historian, my father maintained a pristine record of his entire life, and that of other villagers, in notebooks and on loose papers, packs of cigarettes, backs of torn calendars, or any other material he could lay his hands on. Though he never saw a four-walled classroom, B.A. E...hikhamenor was meticulous in handling and recording information. The oldest notebook in this archive has, on the inner cover page, my father’s very first written words in English: My. Name. Benjamin. 1945 and the first page is dated Oct 25th 1945, followed by Dear brother, I want you to send me a reading book.' https://www.guernicamag.com/harvesting-my-fathers-mementoes/

20.01.2022 Re-post from LitHub due to FB Australia news restrictions. TEST (with photo added rather than original link.) "I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means." Joan Didion on Why I Write. 'I, I, I.' ... 'When I talk about pictures in my mind I am talking, quite specifically, about images that shimmer around the edges.' 'The arrangement of the words matters, and the arrangement you want can be found in the picture in your mind. The picture dictates the arrangement. The picture dictates whether this will be a sentence with or without clauses, a sentence that ends hard or a dying-fall sentence, long or short, active or passive. The picture tells you how to arrange the words and the arrangement of the words tells you, or tells me, what’s going on in the picture. Nota bene: It tells you. You don’t tell it.' https://lithub.com/joan-didion-why-i-write/

13.01.2022 Issue 161 is out in the world, and I'm honoured to be a part of this lovely publication. My immersive essay about taking part in a dance production looks at the idea of the individual in the collective, how we can put our faith in ourselves and others and how we can hope to fly. In a murmuration, 'the velocity of one bird affects the velocity of the rest...every shift of the murmuration is called a critical transition.’ "My mouth is filled with dust, my hair is caked in dirt..., bits of gravel stick to my elbows, knees and ankles. I am one, in many. We lean into a line, joined yet separate, facing the audience on the grassy knoll. We’re laughing, smiling, breathing hard, waiting for the soloist to bow. Then we bow. And then the hugs begin, with the joy of what we have created." Thanks, Jude, for the pic from the launch Island magazine Photo credits within the magazine CHUNKY MOVE Pippa Samaya and Adam Wheeler. #simulcast #murmuration #dance #dancemassive #chunkymove #tasdance #yellowwheel

12.01.2022 I sang this song at the top of my lungs this morning. 'This world it wasn't made for women...' You can watch Jen Cloher perform it here with Melbourne Indie Voices. I recommend it! Things have felt fraught, especially lately. Music from strong women is keeping me afloat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGknHz-mkPQ Link to my piece on how this song empowered me: 'Towards the end of the song Jen Cloher sings, I’m sorry, can’t you hear me speaking? How is it now, now that I’m screaming? Oh, I could hear her. And yes, I would be scream-singing.' Raising our voices today! #March4Justice https://anna-sublet.medium.com/let-it-out-18a767da7a

08.01.2022 I love old atlases and have a small collection of them from opshops, but finding dad’s schoolboy atlas was like seeing him on the pages, navigating his early life journey. His signature, scrawled across the torn brown paper cover and looking out over the mountaintops, stamped his place in the world. Daunted and pleased to have written a version of this story for Guardian Australia #atlas #cartography #mapping #maps #memories #family #tracingpaper #layers #stories #signature #home #geography #travel #bartholomewworldatlas #jgbartholomew #worldatlas #persuasivecartography https://bit.ly/2Niwetb

06.01.2022 RE-POSTING my 'news' from my own blog platform, seeing FB has deleted most of the links to original articles. The iso-penpal thing has been so much fun. It really does feel like swapping treasures. Happy to have written about it for The Guardian back in November. The letters don’t just contain words; people have begun sending illustrations, postcards and vintage stamps. The envelopes are decorated with washi tape, notes written on pages cut from picture books and cards made ...from an atlas. #Penpalooza #penpal #handwritten #letters #post #mail #postcrossing #theletterboxproject #connectedaustralia https://notesofsubstance.blogspot.com//penpals-write-from-

04.01.2022 Island 161 is nearly here! Very excited to be appearing in the Arts Features section with my piece 'Dancing with Ourselves'. From the time I first subscribed with birthday money a decade or so ago, I've loved Island magazine, an independent Tassie magazine of 'Ideas. Writing. Culture.' Link to an issue summary: https://islandmag.com/ Front cover image by Nicola Gower-Wallis, Night Bird, 2020. Contents page in comments below.... #literarymags #tasmania #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #features #illustration #australianwriters

01.01.2022 Seeing a NYT byline still blows me away. 'Could singing help me reclaim my voice and calm my fast-beating heart?' Let's see if this works, replacing the link with a photo. https://www.nytimes.com//choir-singing-music-anxiety-stres