Hear This 11th April 2025

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:09):
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take
a look.

S2 (00:24):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Kelland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia radio show, where we
talk about books in the Vision Australia collection. And today
we've got some exciting news coming up about the Melbourne
Writers Festival. And here to tell us all about it
is Maureen O'Reilly, community engagement librarian. Once again, we're here

(00:49):
with Maureen O'Reilly, engagement coordinator here at Vision Australia Library. Hi, Maureen.

S3 (00:54):
Hey, Frances. How are you this lovely April morning?

S2 (00:57):
I know it's nice. Um, autumn, the trees are looking
beautiful at the moment. They're non-native trees with their golden
and Russet tones.

S3 (01:06):
It is. It's really lovely. And everyone's back in the
swing of things.

S2 (01:10):
And the, um, autumnal, uh, reading that you guys, um,
have done. How did that go?

S3 (01:16):
Well, that was actually fabulous. It is just it's I
love it. It's an event that is so accessible to everyone.
Sometimes people think, oh, well, you need to be like
a great writer to do the memoir writing, or you
need to be a brilliant poet to do the poetry workshop,
or you need to be really into children's stories to

(01:37):
be able to do our children's book writing. This really
doesn't have a barrier of entry. You just need to
have a book that you enjoyed. Be able to tell
us all about it. It's not a program that involves, um, interaction,
as in people don't fire questions at you and they
don't question your opinion on that. It's really just you

(01:58):
get the mic, you get to talk about a book,
you like, what you liked about it, what you didn't
like about it, Perhaps what you've read by that author before,
or perhaps you haven't. And everyone gets to walk away
with these new ideas of what they'd like to read,
or equally importantly, what they don't want to read. And
then we also have a critical group of people who

(02:19):
come along and have a wonderful hour with us, and
they listen to, uh, Kylie, who's our children's librarian, who
was chatting about her two books and her two authors
to Vien Nguyen, who was talking about his book and
his author. And then all of the other library members
who contributed about books. Our reading. But they just get

(02:41):
to listen and be entertained and take some notes because
everyone needs an audience. So it's it's something that really
is just accessible for everyone. If you want to chat
about a book you've been reading, it's not difficult. It's
not nerve wracking. It's fun. You just say what you
liked about it and you can't be wrong. I mean,

(03:02):
what you like about it is what you liked about it.
No one can challenge that. Yeah, but there's also the
avenue for other people to just be there and listen.

S2 (03:10):
Yeah, it's all about what's best for you as an individual. Yeah.

S3 (03:13):
And it's a lovely. It's just a lovely, book loving community.
That's what it really is all about, just getting people
to come together and either talk about books or listen
to us talk about books and hopefully get some ideas
of a new author or a new genre, or just
a new release book and think, gosh, that sounds really good.

(03:33):
I want to do that.

S2 (03:35):
There's more exciting news about the Melbourne Writers Festival.

S3 (03:38):
There is. I put a little taster out last month,
and I said to you, I couldn't tell who the
authors were because they're embargoed. And that was very hard
for me because I knew one of them was one
of your favourite authors. Absolutely. So we had the lovely
Kate Grenville joining us. So Kate is a prolific writer
and incredibly popular with the Vision Australia Library members. I

(04:02):
would go so far as to say she's probably one
of the most frequently borrowed authors that we have. And
Kate is going to be interviewed by Daniel James, who's
a Yorta Yorta Melbourne based writer and broadcaster. So I
have the luxury of just sitting in the audience, facilitating,
letting people in and enjoying it. So Kate will be wonderful.

(04:26):
She's going to speak about her latest novel, which is
called unsettled A Journey Through Time and Place. It's a
deeply personal memoir of family legacies and truth telling. And
for her, it's reckoning on what it means to be
on land that was taken from other people. So it's

(04:48):
intertwining her personal family's history with a broader story of
First Nations peoples displacement and dispossession. Considering what it means
to be descended from people who were in the family
who were on the sharp edge of Colonialization.

S2 (05:08):
Wonderful.

S3 (05:08):
So it'll be very interesting. And I think Daniel will
it'll just be wonderful because you'll have two very different perspectives,
perspectives in there as well from historical viewpoint. So we just,
with all our heart, invite our Vision Australia Library members
who live in Melbourne or those that are willing to

(05:29):
travel to come to the Vision Australia offices in Kooyong
in Victoria. We would love to have you attend in person.
So Kate Grenville sold out over the very first weekend
that tickets were released. However, I have retained seats specifically
for Vision Australia library members. So if anybody are listening

(05:52):
today would like to come make sure that you register
for the waitlist and then send an email through to
the library and let us know your details and I
will release tickets to you and we would love to
have you come along.

S2 (06:05):
Oh, absolutely.

S3 (06:06):
And of course, whoever's coming with you as well, if
you have somebody driving you or accompanying you on the
train or the tram or the Uber, they don't need
to be a Vision Australia Library member. They can just
be your your partner for the evening.

S2 (06:19):
When is that happening then?

S3 (06:20):
So that is on the 9th of May, and Kate
will be with us from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
so we invite everyone to come from 530 so that
they can be settled and ready for a prompt start.
It will be in our conference room at Vision Australia
and then after the in conversation, Kate will be signing books.
We'll actually have readings there that are selling copies of

(06:41):
her latest books as well. And then you can either
go home or you can stay for another hour, because
we had the lovely Nardi Simpson that's joining us, and
Nardi will be with us from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m..
So you can make a whole evening of it and
just hang out at the Vision Australia Library for the evening.

(07:02):
So Nadi is an amazing indigenous writer and actually written
a beautiful fiction book. So Nadi has written well. Initially
she wrote her debut novel song of the crocodile, and
this one is a very beautiful story about the bellbird.
It treads the line between everyday and metaphysical, providing an

(07:26):
exploration of a mystery being. It's really a gorgeous, lyrical novel.
It's absolutely gorgeous. She will also be interviewed by Daniel James.
So it'll be, um, very, very different because, uh, Kate's
in conversation is about what's, um, if not purely non-fiction.

(07:48):
It's at least got a very strong factual base to it.
Whereas Natty's book is actually purely a fiction book, and
Nat is actually also a singer. so she's a beautiful artist.
I'm really very, very excited about meeting her. Are there
still tickets available for naughty? We welcome all our guests
to either come for Kate or to come for naughty,

(08:09):
or to come for the evening, and you can stay
on site in between. Have a chat to the authors
when you're doing book signings, and have a chat to
our other library members and be part of the Melbourne
Writers Festival without having to do the big journey into
the city on a cold evening. I know last year
it was very cold. Um, but for all of our

(08:30):
other library members who aren't Melbourne based or aren't as mobile,
we would love you to join us online. So both
of these events will be live streamed. They'll be on
zoom from the comfort of your own home, with a
lovely cup of tea or a little cheese platter and
glass of wine. If you want to be very Melbourne
Writers Festival ish, um, you can listen to Daniel interviewing Kate,

(08:53):
and then an hour later you'll be able to listen
to him interviewing Nardi. They are free events, whether you
come in person or whether you're joining us online. I
was here last year when we interviewed, uh, Louise Milligan,
and we also interviewed Toby Walsh. And both of those, uh,
Melbourne Writers Festival in conversations are in the Vision Australian

(09:17):
Australia Library catalogue. So if anyone wants to get a
taste of what it will be like, they can go
to the library catalogue, look up podcasts and search in
conversation and then they are sorted by date. And it
was May 10th last year. So if you look at
the conversations that were around May 2024, you'll see Louise

(09:40):
Milligan and Toby Walsh, and that will give you an
indication of what this year will be like.

S2 (09:45):
Fantastic. Oh, Maureen, I'm really excited about that. And I
was talking to you just briefly before about, uh, years ago,
I remember Kate Grenville sent in a box of, um,
audio recordings of her books. Just thinking that we would
make good use of them, which we did, and I
sort of thought, gee, it's so nice for an author
to do that with off her own bat without any

(10:06):
request or anything like that. So it's nice to know
that she's been aware of our library service for a
long time.

S3 (10:12):
I must say, because I am comparatively new to Vision Australia.
I've been here a year next week.

S2 (10:18):
Oh, wow.

S3 (10:19):
Yes, I have an anniversary. Yeah, I organized the program
for this year, which involved approaching a lot of publishers
and saying, you know, we'd love these authors. We'd love
to have. And I'm always astonished at how generous they are.
And these are very famous authors, and I'm sure they have, um,

(10:44):
particularly when they've got a new release out. I'm sure
they have commitments everywhere through their PR and publicity people,
and they're always so genuinely keen to either be in
conversation with Vision Australia, or to do the author readings,
or to participate in the Writers Festival with us. And

(11:06):
I just feel that all the authors that I've dealt
with through work have just genuinely been really keen to
engage with our library membership, which is just lovely.

S2 (11:17):
Yeah, it is, isn't it? Oh well, a lot of
happy people and excited people will be looking forward to that.

S3 (11:23):
We, in fact, are the only free events in the
Melbourne Writers Festival. So we are. So I like the
fact that we make the festival accessible, not just from
a blind and low vision perspective, but I think we
also make it very accessible from a financial viewpoint so
that people can come out to Keong, but they can

(11:45):
just also participate in the festival from home.

S2 (11:47):
Yeah. And there's lots of parking here if you are
going to either drive or be driven. Uh, lots of
parking at Kooyong and lots of people that are ready
to help you into the building and direct you around.

S3 (12:01):
Yeah we do. We have a plethora.

S2 (12:03):
Of.

S3 (12:04):
Beautiful volunteers that are with us for the evening, and
some of them are waiting down in the car park
to greet you. Some of them are outside the building
to greet you. Um, many of them will take you
through if you need assistance to the actual room where
the chairs are.

S2 (12:18):
A great evening. Um, so thank you for letting us
know about that. What else is there?

S3 (12:23):
Oh, look, we just have everything going on in our world. Um,
we have, which I did have a chat about last week,
but I will remind everyone. Our poetry workshop coming up
with Maria Takolander and I had the privilege of chatting
to Maria yesterday because we were just finalising some details
and just working out the format, and ah, she's just

(12:45):
so lovely. And Maria did our course a similar course
two years ago in March 2023. 23 and she is
just super excited about coming back. She said she absolutely
loved it. Uh, the experiences that people wrote about, the
enthusiasm they brought, the honesty that they brought, the talent

(13:07):
that they brought. And she in particular was saying, uh,
because one of my beliefs, which we spoke about last month,
was that poetry is very accessible for people because it's
not like writing an entire novel or an entire memoir.
It can be as long or short as you want.
And she said, when people really came out of their
shell in her last program with Vision Australia was when

(13:30):
they did haiku. It was really nice and short and punchy.
And she said they were so excited because it is
just so. It just doesn't have that intimidating length to it.
And she said the haikus that people were putting together
were so powerful still. Um, so it is great. She's

(13:50):
really looking forward to it and we would love people
to join us for that. So our poetry course is
starting on the 6th of May, and it will run
for three weeks, and it's online and it's free. So
that will be the sixth, 13th and 20th of May.
So I really encourage our library members to join us.
And even if you don't traditionally read a lot of poetry,

(14:13):
that's not really a barrier to entry, because one of
the things about poetry is that it's very personal. So,
you know, it may be rhyming, it may be following
a sort of comparatively conservative rhythm, but it often is
very free form as well. I really don't believe that
people have to be avid consumers of poetry to actually

(14:36):
really enjoy the poetry workshop that's happening.

S2 (14:39):
What?

S3 (14:40):
That's on the 6th of May.

S2 (14:42):
6th of May.

S3 (14:43):
And that will be running over lunchtime, which is 11:30 a.m.
to 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So Melbourne time.

S2 (14:51):
And what else is there?

S3 (14:52):
We have a beautiful event from the Children's library. So
we have national simultaneous storytime that is coming up, which
we are very, very excited about. This comes up every
year and national simultaneous storytime is put out by the
Australian Library and Information Association, which is Alia is a

(15:13):
wonderful opportunity to create a community of book lovers to
come together and read the same book on the same day,
at the same time. So we've been promoting this out
to all of our children's library members. Also, all of
the special development schools that we work with, also all
the creatures in kindergartens and schools that have our blind

(15:36):
and vision impaired children attending them. And we're really trying
to get everybody involved because this is book is so gorgeous.
It's a book about belonging, the premise behind National simultaneous Storytime.
So it's called The Truck Cat, and it's written by
Deborah Frenkel. And it's by the award winning illustrator, uh,

(15:56):
Danish Nell. And it's about this beautiful cat that travels
the country with a lonely truck driver. And between them,
they travel around Australia. Until one day, Tinker the truck
cat chases a butterfly. And of course, Tinker gets lost.
And then the book is about Tinker and the truck

(16:18):
driver trying to reunite and the journeys that they have
along the way. So it has a beautiful, uh, descriptions
of Australian outback, uh, the need for belonging, but also
the opportunity to reach out to others. And it's a wonderful,
gorgeous book. So the reason that we're very keen for

(16:41):
people to join our national Simultaneous Storytime is that it's online.
So even if children are at home, they can actually
be part of it. Whether they're blind and vision impaired
or not, if they're home with their grandparents or their parents. Um,
and we've also got on our, um, event page on
the Vision Australia Library website, instructions on how to make

(17:04):
a tactile storybook, just like we have in our Felix
Library kits. So these are fabulous for all children, but
particularly for children who are vision impaired. So there's a downloadable,
accessible set of instructions that are explained to people just
using household items and things that you have around in
your kitchen and your garden shed and, uh, your craft kit,

(17:26):
if you still have one on how to put together
this beautiful story, which the children can then read while
they're listening to our online storytime.

S2 (17:36):
Oh, great.

S3 (17:37):
There's also a video that, uh, we've recorded Kylie, our
children's librarian, has. So that will talk you through, um,
how to make one of these tactile books and it
explains everything that she's doing. So that's really great. If
we have parents or carers who are vision impaired as well,

(17:58):
and it's really about making sure that everyone can have
the most, um, um, the highest level of participation in
this storytime.

S2 (18:09):
Mhm. That's great.

S3 (18:10):
It'll be great. And our, um, audio, um, live audio reading, um,
will also have um, um, audio descriptions of the beautiful illustrations.
So for all of our children and their families at home,
that if they don't have the book in front of them,

(18:31):
Carly will be giving these beautiful descriptions of, um, Danny's
gorgeous illustrations the whole way through. So you don't need
to be blind or vision impaired to enjoy it. I
think it would be great for our library members who
have children and grandchildren with them or if they have
children or grandchildren who are low vision. I think it's

(18:52):
just wonderful for everyone. I love National Simultaneous Storytime. I
just think it it's a great way of having the
sense of community where millions of people come together to
read the same book on the same day, at the
same time.

S2 (19:07):
It is lovely. Oh, what a great event.

S3 (19:09):
So that's on the 21st of May and that's at
10 a.m. Melbourne time.

S2 (19:14):
Thank you very much for coming in today and.

S3 (19:17):
Thank you for having me. I always feel very privileged
to be able to sit here and chat to you.

S2 (19:21):
Oh no, it's my privilege. So thank you very much. And, um. Yeah,
we'll see you next month.

S3 (19:25):
Beautiful. By Francis.

S2 (19:26):
Bye. So just catching up a little bit on past programs,
and we got a lovely email from, um, Gwen, who
was responding to when we talked about or asked people
to let us know about particular books, the first books
that they may have read are what led them into

(19:49):
a life of reading. And Gwen wrote, mum used to
read me children's stories when I was little. Then I
read easy books in Braille in kindergarten and year one.
I joined the Royal Blind Society Library as it was then,
and the first book I borrowed was Little Women. I
borrowed text books in Braille when I was in high school.

(20:11):
I read both Braille and audio. Now I enjoy reading
books and magazines on my Victor Reader stream. I love
that because it shows, um, you know, the whole beginnings
of reading. Um, before technology as well, and now technology
with the Victor Stream. Thanks so much, Gwen, for that.
Little women are one of Stella's favourites. The first, um,

(20:33):
the first book I ever borrowed from the library was
The Folk of the Faraway Tree. Oh, no, the Enchanted
wood by Enid Blyton. And somehow we had this really
old copy of The Folk of the Faraway Tree, which
was further on in the series. So to get that
first book in the series, and I think I was

(20:53):
about eight at the time, and I was so excited
and I remember, um, holding it tightly as I walked
home from school, just dying to get stuck into that.
And my first chapter book probably as well. And hello
to David, who said that he requested Lawson after hearing
our feature on here this that's by Grant-lee Kaiser and

(21:15):
he wanted to suggest Shackleton's Forgotten Argonauts by Lennard Bickel.
He said it's one of the best books he has
recommended to us, so thank you David. The story of
Ernest Shackleton's Ross Sea Argonauts, who, against all odds, laid
food and fuel deposits to support Shackleton's planned walk across
the Antarctic continent. Marooned for two Antarctic winters, they showed

(21:39):
great endurance and courage in a brutal environment. Let's hear
a sample of Shackleton's Forgotten Argonauts by Leonard Bickel. It's
narrated by David Martin.

S4 (21:51):
The Captain Scott saga is now a part of legend.
Yet here, three men and four dogs fought through a
raging blizzard to bring succor to starving men. Only a
few miles from where the famed explorer and his two
companions waited in their tent for death. These two well

(22:16):
known epics, and the coincidence of the grimmest years of
the Great War slaughter, served to throw a blanket across
the feet of the Antarctic castaways, those other Argonauts under
Shackleton's aegis. However, there were other reasons for erasing from

(22:37):
public memory what these men achieved. In 1928, The noted
historian Doctor Hugh Robert Mill wrote, quote, the full tale
had better remain unpublished for some time to come. End quote.
He knew, as did John King Davis, that haphazard organization,

(22:59):
bad planning, and lack of money had resulted in suffering
and loss of life. As well, there was a dearth
of reliable data. The only full diary to come back
to the warm world was that of the redoubtable Ernest Joyce,
an account somewhat lacking in modesty. Dick Richards kept only

(23:21):
brief notes during the height of their peril, while from
the second tent there was little or nothing. Captain Mackintosh
disappeared beneath the ice of McMurdo sound, and Ernie Wilde
drowned in a warmer sea, leaving no personal record of
those grim weeks in the fight for life.

S2 (23:42):
And that was a sample of Shackleton's Forgotten Argonauts are
by Leonard Bickel. Lennard is spelled L, e double l,
e double n r, Bickell is b I c k
e b I c k e l. And that book
goes for 10.5 hours. There is another book by Leonard

(24:04):
Bickell in the collection, and that is Triumph Over Darkness
The Life of Louis Braille, a biography written by an Australian.
This book sets the life and achievements of Louis Braille
in the setting of the political and social life of
France at the beginning of the 19th century, commencing with
the foundation of the Royal Institute for the Young Blind

(24:27):
in Paris in 1786. It describes the constant battle to
improve conditions for the blind. Braille's encouragement by Doctor Pioneer,
director of the Institute Against opposition for the use of
a special alphabet for the blind and the gradual acceptance
of the six dot system, which came only after Braille's

(24:48):
tragic death at the age of 43. So that's Triumph
over Darkness by the Life of Louis Braille, also by
Leonard Bickell. Leonard Bickell was born in 1913 and passed
away in 2002. He turned from journalism to writing books.
I'm reading from his obituary here, from Obituaries Australia. Um,

(25:12):
so that, uh, website is o dot h u for
Australian National University dot. 0.0. It's quite a detailed biography here.
He was born in London, emigrated to Australia in 1952.

(25:34):
He had a background in newspaper journalism before coming to Australia,
where he worked initially for Macquarie Broadcasting Service in Wollongong.
After joining the ABC at the ABC, he worked in
general news as a reporter until being appointed science correspondent.
He did stints for the ABC in Sydney, Melbourne and
in Federal Parliament Press Gallery, Canberra from the ABC. He

(25:57):
went to The Australian as science correspondent, and in that
capacity he was the only writer from Australia invited by
the US government to witness the Apollo, the Apollo two
first moon landing mission, in July 1969. In 1970, he
wrote a biography of Howard Florey, the Australian of Penicillin fame,

(26:19):
entitled Rise Up to Life. It was an instant success.
He chose not to return to journalism. His next hero
was Sir Douglas Mawson, published under the title This Accursed Land,
came out in 1975, and then in Shackleton's Argonauts. A
very interesting person, Leonard Bickel. So thank you, David, for

(26:42):
drawing our attention to him. The many other books that
he wrote aren't available in the library, but perhaps there
could be suggested. Thank you for joining us on here.
This today I'm Frances Kelland. Thank you to Maureen and

(27:02):
thank you to Gwen and David. If you would like
to communicate with the Vision Australia library or with hear this,
you can always email or call. So calling is on 1300 654 656.
That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email library at Vision Australia.

(27:23):
Org that's library at Vision Australia. Have a lovely week
and we'll be back next week with more here this.