Hear This 14th March 2025

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

S1 (00:05):
Let's.

S2 (00:09):
Take a look. You take a look inside the book.
Take a look. You.

S3 (00:24):
Hello, and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Keeland, and
you're listening to the Vision Australia Library radio show, where
we talk about books in the Vision Australia collection. But
be aware also, there's newspapers. There's magazines, um, there's braille.
Lots and lots of ways that you can listen to
our material. So let's start the show. Talking to Maureen O'Reilly,

(00:45):
community engagement coordinator. Here we are once again with Maureen O'Reilly,
talking about things. All. Library. Vision Australia library. Hi, Maureen.

S4 (00:59):
Hello. How are you? Frances.

S3 (01:01):
I'm good, thank you. We're having a bit of a
hot spell of weather down here in Melbourne.

S4 (01:05):
I know it's like the summers from when I was
a kid. I remember them being really, really hot and
it's been, apart from the odd little spurt every now
and then, very mild I feel. Yeah. So this year
we've got an old school summer.

S3 (01:19):
Yes. Those endless days of yeah hot. The library is
pretty much in the new year now. So how are
things going?

S4 (01:28):
We are we are just back in the swing of things.
Everything's going. And it's funny, we had a little hiatus
over Christmas and now everything's going live. So it's lovely
because all that planning that we did at the end
of last year, you're now seeing it come to fruition
like a little plant that you are watering.

S3 (01:45):
Good on you. And what's coming up?

S4 (01:47):
Well, we're in the midst at the moment of our
Let's Get Creative with Fiction Writing course, which is our
first writing course for the year with Andrew Rowe. And
that is just amazing. I've had so much positive feedback
and it's really exciting And we have a lot of
new names. So when I look at the registrations and

(02:10):
I think we had nearly 50 before, I had to
stop it and put a block on it all. Probably 90%
of them are new names, so they're all library members,
but they're the library members who normally just download the books,
or the Braille or the newspapers or the magazines, and
they're not so actively involved in our programs. So it's
really exciting. I think maybe everyone had a New Year's

(02:32):
resolution to do one of our courses, so.

S3 (02:35):
Oh, that's great. And they sound very inspirational. The courses.

S4 (02:38):
Andrea Rowe is amazing. So she does do other types
of writing, but she's best known, I think, for her
children's books, and she's just this wealth of enthusiasm and energy.
And I'm just so envious. I don't know how many
cups of coffee I'd have to have to have that
much energy.

S3 (02:58):
Yeah, some people are just like that.

S4 (03:01):
So that's going really, really well. So that's a great
start for our writing courses and we have our next
writing course, which is open for registrations now, which is
one that we have brought back by popular demand, which
is to discover the foundations on which to build your poetry.
So it's a lovely poetry workshop. Uh, it's with a

(03:23):
facilitator that we use. Last time we ran the poetry workshop,
which was two years ago, back in March, 23, Maria
Takolander and we had wonderful feedback on Maria. So I
am sure everyone will love this course. She's going through
traditional poetry styles or, um, formats. And then on another

(03:47):
week she's going through much more contemporary poetry and looking
at all the different ways there. And then on the
final session of the three week course are people are
encouraged to submit a piece of poetry, which can then
be workshopped by the group. So it's like a sitting
around in a wonderful poetry reading, but it will be

(04:09):
online and everyone gets to share their poetry. And people
can ask questions or just say how much they enjoyed it.
Or you can have somebody else read it out on
your behalf if you prefer. So yeah, it'll be lovely.
We've had a lot at the end of all of
our courses. We do a survey and we say, what
else would you like us to do in the future?
And we've had a lot of requests to do another

(04:31):
poetry course. So very pleased to have this one up
and going.

S3 (04:34):
I've got lots of books in the library. Poetry read
by some wonderful people. Yeah.

S4 (04:39):
And the thing I like about poetry is it's very accessible.
So the idea of writing a whole book can be very,
very overwhelming. And even the idea of writing a novel
or novella, that's the word I was looking for. Again,
that can be very intimidating or a memoir because there's
so much to go through and then to cull it

(05:00):
down and then trying not to offend people. But a
poem can be just as meaningful and hold just as
much history, but is usually a much shorter format. So
I think not as foreboding for people to launch into poetry.

S3 (05:18):
And poetry can be very personal, but you can create
it from a distance as well, because you're honing and shaping,
shaping it.

S4 (05:27):
And I find poetry often, not always. It's full of
metaphors as well, which if people are dealing with something
very personal or something a bit traumatizing, they can write
about it without it seeming that raw.

S3 (05:43):
So yes, that's exactly what I meant. You know, you
couldn't read a book full of metaphors. It would just
be exhausting for the reader and yourself to come up
with them. But in a poem, you can do that.

S4 (05:51):
And it's just, I think, a safer way for people
who are trying to deal with trauma or to deal
with loss, or it's just a slightly safer way because
it's just that little bit third person. Yeah. Not talking
about AI. It's talking about, um, some other metaphor that they've, um,
sort of channeled those emotions into.

S3 (06:13):
So poetry, it taps into that universal human condition, and.

S4 (06:17):
It's something that everybody can write about. I mean, you
can have ones that are comedic. You can have ones
that are written for children. You can have ones that
are highly personal for yourself, and they can be like
a little miniature memoir. They could be just about one, um,
incident in your life. And I think there's there's a

(06:39):
lot of opportunities in there.

S3 (06:40):
Yes. You've got me excited now. I remember poems from
my past that hit at the right time. So thank you.

S4 (06:47):
Well, this will be a three week course and it
will all be online. And that's starting on the 6th
of May. So I really encourage people to come on board,
because I've got so much feedback from our creative fiction
writing course, from all these people that had never done
one of our writing courses before and we have just
been blown away. So I'm hoping that inspires our other

(07:10):
listeners to say, yes, I'll give it a go this year.

S3 (07:12):
And what else is coming up?

S4 (07:14):
Well, we have just finished our in conversation with Emily Maguire.
So our next in conversations that are coming up are
a double barrel one. So we have two on the
same day for the Melbourne Writers Festival. So that will
be on the 9th of May, which is a Friday.
And it will be a hybrid event. So people can
come into the Vision Australia offices in Kooyong, or they

(07:38):
can log in via zoom at home and they can
listen to it live, either in person or from the
comfort of their own armchair. And we will have two authors,
and we'll have one that's coming on at 6:00 for
an hour. And then if you're fortunate enough to be
in Melbourne, uh, there'll be a book signing and so
forth afterwards. And then we have another one at 8 p.m..

(07:59):
So if people are working or they find it harder
to get to that earlier one, or if people just
find they get very tired at the end of the
night and 8 p.m. is a bit late, they can
go to the earlier one or they can do both.
But I can't tell you who they are at the moment,
so you have to watch the space, but that'll be lovely.
It's always a wonderful event and it's great to be

(08:21):
able to offer something that's in person for people that
are able to come in as well.

S3 (08:26):
Yes, absolutely. We wait with bated breath.

S4 (08:29):
Oh you.

S3 (08:29):
Will.

S4 (08:30):
And then we also have our book chat with the
Vision Australian Australia librarians, which we launched in February, which
was our sun kissed summer book chat which was hugely popular.
We had, I think, nearly 40 registrations. And Sarah Bladon,
who is our Vision Australia manager, reviewed two books. I

(08:52):
reviewed a book, then Euan, who's my colleague, reviewed a
book and in fact our children's librarian Kylie came along
as well and she reviewed a book. And then the
majority of the people who attended also provided us a
book review as well, so it was really good. It
was a great success. So our next one of those

(09:12):
is scheduled for autumn. So it's our autumnal April book
chat with the Vision Australia librarians. So it will be
the same format. Uh V will be hosting that from
community engagement at the library. And then we'll also have Kylie,
who's our children's librarian. But she does assure me she
reads more things than just children's books. And then everybody

(09:34):
that comes along has the opportunity to give a review
of a new release book they've been reading or just, uh,
their most recent read or their most favorite, most favorite read.
That's a word. The plan is that everybody who's in
attendance will walk away with that list of books that
they'd really like to read, and also some books that

(09:56):
they know they don't want to so they don't have
to go, oh, I'll give that a go, because we'll
give them the heads up and they can say, no,
that's not really for me. So that is a really
accessible event that we run. Essentially, if you read a book,
then you can come along and you can tell us
about that book. And it's not, um, interactive as in

(10:17):
other people won't really be asking you questions. So you
just get to hold the mic, do your promo on
the book, what you liked about it, what you didn't like,
what you liked about the author. And if you don't
actually feel comfortable doing a review, you don't need to
because all the chatty ones need an audience. So you
can just be there listening and taking notes on all

(10:40):
the books.

S3 (10:40):
That's wonderful. And also, could I just ask with the
summer reads? Yes. Is there a list anywhere of the books?

S4 (10:48):
Not from that, but we do have a book list
that is up on our news page and I will
go to that right now. So on the Vision Australia website,
when you scroll down, there's a section called Library News.
So we have up there a number of reading lists
we put together. We put one up in September last year,

(11:11):
which was Biographies and memoirs in the Vision Australia Library,
and it gives you the list of the books and
also a proceeds of those books. We also then had
a whiz bang new one that went up in November,
end of November, which was holiday travel reads in the
Vision Australia Library. So that was designed for people who

(11:32):
can't necessarily go away on a holiday themselves over summer,
so they can vicariously travel the world. And again, it
has a list of books and a bit of a
price of the book, so you can decide which ones
you're interested in. And then what we also put up
last week was a wonderful book list for International Women's Day.

(11:54):
So we as a library, we are definitively staunch supporters
of female authors, but not purely because of their gender,
not just because they're female, but because there are authors
who write insightful and powerful and enthralling books. So we
really encouraged everyone in the lead up and also post

(12:16):
International Women's Day. Whether your favorite genre is mystery, science fiction, romance, non-fiction,
that there's a female author out there making her mark
on literary history. So we've put up a list of
books by really impressive female authors. For me, that's a

(12:37):
great way for people to celebrate our International Women's Day
by reading an intriguing new book by a female author
they may not have encountered before.

S3 (12:48):
Fantastic. And did you enjoy International Women's Day? Did you
do anything special.

S4 (12:53):
For International Women's Day? I actually well, I ran around
during the day. It was very warm in Melbourne, but
I went out, which is very rare for me as
a mother of three children to an event that was
in the botanical gardens, and it was really quite a
small musical event, and it had Vika and Linda Bull,
who are two of my favorite musicians, and they were

(13:13):
just amazing. And we were just sitting on a rug,
had a little bit of food, might have had a
glass of wine, and they were seriously only probably about
20m in front of me singing. And I got up
and danced and it was just wonderful.

S3 (13:28):
Look, I cannot actually remember because I think I got
the date wrong anyway, but I've been reading one of
the quirkiest and loveliest authors that I know of, Jess Kidd.
There's about three books in the library himself, The Hoarder,
and the one I've just read, Things in Jars. She
writes beautifully about, uh, mysteries and supernatural kind of fiction,

(13:52):
but they're very literary and very beautiful, and the depth
of her human understanding and the ghosts are wonderful. In
this particular book, Things in Jars, there's a character who
is this some woman who helps solve these mysteries in
Victorian London. But she has this ghost that's a bit
enamored of her. Of course, there's nothing that can happen.

(14:13):
He's a ghost, but he's, um. He's an ex-boxer who
died on the ring in Victorian London, and he's this
melancholy soul, and he's got covered in tattoos, and the
tattoos have the life of their own. Like there's a
mermaid on his shoulder that, you know, bites her nails
and flicks her tail and, and she can sort of
see this beautiful, semi-transparent figure. And he helps her solve

(14:35):
the mysteries as well and tries to look after her.

S4 (14:38):
I think that's really lovely. So what is it called?

S3 (14:41):
It's called Things in Jars, and it's by Jess Kidd,
an Irish writer. So I have been reading that and
really loving it. Oh, good.

S4 (14:50):
Well, in terms of what I've been reading since we're
going onto that path now, I have been reading Jacqueline
Bioblitzes second novel, Leave the Girls Behind.

S3 (15:00):
Yeah.

S4 (15:00):
So, Jacqueline's. Well, I'm sure she's been writing forever, but
Comparatively new author. She put out her first novel in 2021,
which was Before You Knew My Name, and that was
just award winning double figure awards, um, including winner of
the Australian Book Industry Award for General Fiction, an amazing

(15:23):
debut novel. I mean, you'd have to be very happy
with those results.

S3 (15:27):
Yes, yes.

S4 (15:28):
So determined not to be a one hit wonder, Jacqueline
is back and she's written a second novel, Leave the
Girls Behind. So I'm working my way through that at
the moment with a view to the fact that we
have Jacqueline coming in for an amazing event on the
24th of March. And when I say coming in, I
mean coming online, not actually coming in. It's a brand

(15:51):
new event for the Vision Australia library. So this is
our author reading. So we have had a lot of feedback.
Everyone is very positive about our in conversations, but constantly
the feedback we get is that they would have loved
to hear the author read part of their book. But
given the fact that all my conversations run over as

(16:12):
it is, we just don't have time to have that
author reading component. So we've put up an entirely different series,
which is a little bit like an in conversation, so
I'll have a bit of a delve into Jacqueline's background.
What led her into writing, what was the journey through
to her highly successful debut novel? And then we'll have

(16:34):
a brief discussion with, you know, no spoiler alerts on
her second novel, and then she's going to choose, uh,
either her favorite part or a particularly enthralling, I suppose,
riveting part of the book. And she's going to read
to us for 20 minutes from that book. So we
all get to sit back and relax and be read to.

(16:56):
But I don't think it's going to be that relaxing
given the type of book it is. Yeah.

S3 (17:01):
Yeah. Her novel, um, the first novel had great acclaim,
and it's also for people who think, oh, mystery writers.
And there's always, you know, violence and, you know, people,
women getting killed quite often. She writes from a very
different perspective. There are women, but she writes very much
from the women's point of view in her book. So yeah.

S4 (17:23):
Yeah. My. And I'm not very good at describing plots
without putting spoilers in, so I'm always very nervous. But
my interpretation of her books is that it's written more
from the perspective of the victims nearly exactly, and the
victim not just being the actual person who has been murdered,

(17:46):
but their family and their friends and the ones that
were left behind. So it doesn't actually give the power
to the, um, the murderer. Mhm. Um, which often I
find those crime fiction books do, it's all about this
Very imposing, powerful person who can wreak havoc at any moment.

(18:10):
Her books don't tend, in my mind, to give them
the power. The story is sitting very much with the victims.

S3 (18:18):
Yes, it doesn't prey on that very popular trope of, um,
women can't escape because there's these men are superior in
intelligence and intellect and, you know, power and all of that. So, um. Yeah,
it is. You're quite right. And gives the woman a
story that.

S4 (18:36):
And it's not always the men who are murderers. A
lot of the stories will also have women.

S3 (18:40):
That's true.

S4 (18:41):
Yeah. The often the power in the story and the
focus on the story is on that perpetrator. Whereas I
find in Jacqueline's books that the maybe not the power,
but definitely the focus is more on, uh, the victim,
but also their family and their friends and so forth. It's,

(19:02):
it's it's a very skewed approach. But her books are,
you know, they're unquestionably, um, terrifying for me because I'm
not a great person. On coping with such things. Yeah. Um,
and it's not surprising, given she says that she has
a lovely habit of hanging around morgues and exploring dark
corners of New York City's parks. So that's a that's

(19:26):
a certain type of mindset. Doing some research there.

S3 (19:28):
Yes, yes. I remember Lynda La Plante in an interview,
another fantastic British author talking about her methods of, you know,
going into morgues. And but that's why they write so
wonderfully as well. They do.

S4 (19:40):
That's why it's got so much authenticity about it. Yeah.
So we will be with Jacqueline at 1230 in Melbourne
time on the 24th of March. So I really encourage
people to come because it'll have the elements of an
in conversation, which everybody enjoys. But then I'll have 20
minutes of this very suspense filled reading by Jacqueline, and

(20:02):
I think, who could possibly read a story and read
characters better than the person who created them. So I
think it would be really, really fascinating. Yeah. And then
everyone can put questions in the chat and questions when
they're registering. And then we'll fire all those questions at
Jacqueline as well.

S3 (20:22):
And it'd be lovely. Yeah.

S4 (20:23):
And we get to sit back and just enjoy on
the edge of our seats probably, um, a reading. And
as adults, you know, you don't get to be read
to like that that often. I mean, obviously, our members
listen to audiobooks, but there's something different from listening to
an audiobook to somebody actually reading to you. It somehow

(20:46):
seems a little bit more personal.

S3 (20:48):
So if anybody has any reflections on listening to audiobooks
and listening to people reading, maybe you've got some reminiscences
about people having read to you as a child. You know,
we're always open to getting that sort of feedback at
the library.

S4 (21:03):
Oh we are. We'd love it if you could send
any emails along those lines through to Vision Australia Library
at Vision australia.org, and all of those will come through.
And if any of them are specifically for Francis, we
will make sure that we get them to her as well.
And it's a great way of helping us shape the library,

(21:26):
because one of the things I always say to our
members is that the Vision Australia Library, unlike most public libraries,
it's very much a members library. So our catalogue is
shaped by the requests and the suggestions that people put through.
When you look at our catalogue, there is definitely a

(21:47):
disproportionate number of books that are autobiographies and crime fiction,
because that is what our listeners always and our members
are always requesting. So it's very much shaped by the
people who are using the library. So if you've got
thoughts or opinions, please send them through.

S3 (22:06):
Absolutely. And also the important thing about libraries is that
they are funded by the amount of people that are
members of that library. So on a very practical and
mercenary level, are libraries are get funded because of the members.

S4 (22:23):
So definitely. And that's one of the things that's really
important is that we have an active membership that's growing
and that we're meeting those members needs so that they
don't just become a library member, but they become an
active library member. And that's a really important to us.
We don't just want people to be a member. We

(22:44):
want them to be actively borrowing books and magazines and
newspapers and listening to podcasts and coming to our in
conversations and our author readings and our writing programs, and
really being part of that library community.

S3 (23:02):
So if you are listening and you've listened to the
show maybe a couple of times, and you have a
print disability of any sort. Give the library a call,
because you may be able to join the library and just, uh,
you know, get these wonderful books and material that they offer.

S4 (23:15):
And you don't just need to be, uh, vision impaired
or blind, which is what a lot of people think. Uh,
the Vision Australia library is also for people with a
print disability. So that essentially means that you find it
difficult or impossible to read a hard copy paper book.

(23:38):
So that may be because, um, there's a physical disability. Uh,
you might be an amputee. You might have an eye
condition where it's difficult to focus on the page. A
lot of our members are dyslexic. So you may have
a cognitive issue. So there's a number of conditions which

(23:58):
would qualify under the banner of a print disability. And
they're not all being blind or low vision?

S3 (24:04):
Absolutely. Thank you.

S4 (24:06):
It's about making our books accessible to everybody who wants
to read them.

S3 (24:11):
Yeah. Thanks, Maureen. Is there anything else? We've sort of
wandered all over the place today, but it's been lovely.

S4 (24:17):
We did wonder. We love a good wander. No, I
think that's it. So my main things that I would
do would be encourage everyone to join us for our
brand new author reading with Jacqueline, because we're sure that's
going to be loads of fun. And that's on the
24th of March, or with some of our avid readers.
Would love to join us for our April book chat

(24:39):
with the Vision and Australia librarians. And that's on the
10th of April. And that's really easy. That's your two
minutes of fame with a microphone. And then the other
one would be the Poetry Workshop. But my one thing
to say is, even though it's a 6th of May,
I really encourage people to register early because our creative

(25:02):
fiction writing are I was oversubscribed and we took as
many people as we possibly could. But in the end
we had to close registrations. So if you love poetry
and you'd like to learn some more about writing either
in traditional or modern styles, then please, please go to
the Vision Australia website which is Vision australia.org/library. Go down

(25:26):
to the What's On section and put in your registration
for the poetry workshop.

S3 (25:31):
Good advice and next time we see you. Oh I
don't know. Might might be a bit longer but finding
out about the Melbourne Writers Festival. I will be able.

S4 (25:40):
To tell you next time. Yeah I will, I'll be
able to tell you who are two wonderful, wonderful authors are.
And one of them I know is very, very, very
popular with our Vision Australia Library members. So there will
be a lot of library members going, yay! So we
have a lot of her books and they are very

(26:02):
frequently borrowed. So and the other one is going to
be amazing. Possibly not one that everybody's familiar with, but
I think it's always very good to put yourself out there.
And again, I won't even give a gender, but this
person is a prolific writer. Absolutely amazing.

S3 (26:22):
Oh God, I'm all excited. Thank you, Maureen, for coming in.

S4 (26:25):
Thanks for having me again. I love coming in here.
It's my favorite part of the month.

S3 (26:28):
Yeah, and it's air conditioned.

S4 (26:30):
I know.

S3 (26:31):
Thanks. Have a lovely. Have a lovely month.

S4 (26:34):
Thanks, Frances. Bye bye.

S3 (26:40):
Thank you for joining us on here this. And thanks
to Maureen O'Reilly, community engagement coordinator. Yes. If you are
listening to the show, I'm always giving the phone number
and the email address at the end of the program,
hoping that there's always going to be people out there
that go, yeah, I'm going to join that library. I'm
going to ring them up and ask some questions. I'm
going to I'm going to email them and anything like that.

(27:02):
We always welcome new members because it keeps the voice
of the library strong in the community. And so people
with a print disability, please give us a call and
find out how the library can best support you. Our
phone number is 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email

(27:25):
the library at Vision Australia. Org that's library at Vision australia.org.
But also thinking about um yeah. Do you have any
memories of people reading to you, um, or your first
audio book that you listened to that made you think,
I love audiobooks or the first Braille book that you read? Um,
if you're a child or a later learner of Braille,

(27:46):
there may have been a point where you got that
book that set you off on a lifelong journey of reading.
Just let us know. We'd love to hear from you.
Have a great week and we'll be back next week
with more here. This.