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You may have heard by now that the Tamar Valley Writers Festival has two new faces in the roles of co-presidents to carry the vibrant organisation into the future. Georgie Todman and Lyndon Riggall are full of energy and passion for words: written, spoken, performed or any other way that sees people interacting with and enjoying this medium that ultimately promotes expression and empathy. We thought you might like to get to know them a little better. Here, Georgie gives us some insight into her world and workings. Next time, we'll bring you Lyndon. Enjoy. What's your day job? I am an English teacher at Launceston College, having recently transferred in from Brooks High School. I am also a foster carer with Life Without Barriers and the president of Three River Theatre Company. Your earliest memory? Gathering plums with my siblings in Beaconsfield. They had rigged up a guttering system to send them down the tree to the wheelbarrow. I thought it was magic! How do you unwind? I love to settle in with a good book or perhaps play a competitive/cooperative board game with friends or watch a good episode on the couch. What's something quirky about you? I'm a vego, I can't feel one of my legs, I complete running events for fun and am about to do my second 25km 'Gone Nuts', I played the violin, I have my certificate one in Auslan and I can't eat onion. What are you reading right now? I just finished Heather Rose's memoir Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here (Allen & Unwin, 2022). We recently attended an in-conversation with Heather and she was so genuine and impressive. I have also enjoyed two very cosy fantasy/sci fi stories in A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Becky Chambers, 2021) and Legends and Lattes (Travis Baldree, 2022) and I'm listening to Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart (Vermilion, 2022) at the gym. Finish this sentence, "If I could meet one person I would choose..." ...to go back in time and mess around with the grandfather paradox, shake things up a bit. Finish this sentence too, "My vision for the future of the TVWF includes..." ...engaging with the wider Tasmanian community, including young people, and fostering a love of language, literacy and community. I would love to see more people coming together to practise their writing craft and getting excited about reading and stories!

You may have heard by now that the Tamar Valley Writers Festival has two new faces in the roles of co-presidents to carry the vibrant organisation into the future. Georgie Todman and Lyndon Riggall are full of energy and passion for words: written, spoken, performed or any other way that sees people interacting with and enjoying this medium that ultimately promotes expression and empathy. We thought you might like to get to know them a little better. Last week, Georgie gave us some insight into her world and workings. Today, we bring you Lyndon Riggall. Enjoy. What's your day job? Like Georgie, I am an English teacher at Launceston College, but I am lucky enough to also have a role promoting books at our school library this year. I can’t imagine what a younger version of me would think about where I have found myself. I wish I could just grab myself at thirteen and say, “It’s okay. You’re going to get to live in the world of books all day, every day.” Your earliest memory? Being a kindergarten student, delighting in those half-days of chaos at primary school. I was absolutely obsessed with two-minute noodles, and while the microwave was running for its allotted time I would charge around the house in enormous excited loops, knowing that I could do about four laps before the timer ticked down. If I was a dog you’d call it the zoomies. How do you unwind? I’m trying really hard at the moment not to use my phone as a soothing device at night. It’s so powerful, and always so available, so it can be challenging not to reach for it as my first option, but I find it’s better if I don’t. Settling down at night, I’ll get the best night’s sleep after a nice cup of tea and an hour reading before I drift away. After a long work day, I’m also rapidly discovering that a good run is like a whole-body reset. If I can just con myself into getting through the first five minutes, I know I’ll feel better for it. What's something quirky about you? I drive an electric car! Last year I bought myself a Nissan Leaf and I absolutely love it. It is such an unusual thing to come home and “plug in” my car to charge (yes, in a regular power-point!), but I’m certainly enjoying not having to go to the petrol station on the way home. It barely whispers on the road and it feels like the future. I’ve always loved driving, but this is definitely the kind of driving for me! What are you reading right now? I am reading Jennifer Down’s Bodies of Light (Text, 2021), the winner of the 2022 Miles Franklin Award. So far it’s an extremely powerful exploration of the foster care system and one woman’s life and experiences growing up. The further I get into it the more nervous I am about where it might be going, but it is without a doubt an exceptional novel and I am just soaking it up. Finish this sentence, "If I could meet one person I would choose..." Terry Pratchett. I recently finished his official biography A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins (Doubleday, 2022), and it will always be one of my biggest regrets that I never had the chance to meet him and experience his wit and wisdom first-hand. One of my prize possessions is an illustration of the Discworld’s orangutan librarian that he has signed. Sadly, that will have to do. Finish this sentence too, "My vision for the future of the TVWF includes..." An expansion of the reading community. We have an amazing army of stalwart festival-goers who are smart, generous and passionate about the written word, but I can’t help but feel that our mission now is to try and grow this group even more. Those of us who are readers know what everyone else is missing out on. I would love to see our literary community continue to grow with new eyes and fresh voices.

Home to Echidna Lane by Eva Scott (Reviewed by Kate Jackson @kate_thebooklover) Back in late 2021, Eva Scott and her family made the Coal River Valley their home after moving to Tasmania from Queensland and, excitingly, her 2023 release is set in the very area she now calls home. Her recent books have followed tropes from '90s romcoms and Home to Echidna Lane (Harper Collins Australia) is no different, drawing comparisons to the Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr movie Hope Floats. I couldn’t get enough of the local Tassie references. There were just so many moments this book made me smile due to the mention of something like a familiar place, the aurora australis, or even just a reference to the Tasmanian way of life. Although the main setting of the book, the town of Winton, is fictional, quite a few Southern Tasmanian towns and locations get a mention, like Richmond and Sorell—and even Eva’s favourite coffee shop, Czegs’ Café, makes a cameo. I just adored the characters in this book; Shane, a local lad, widower, a single father who makes a living walnut farming; and Lacey, Shane’s high school crush, is a local girl who only ever wanted to escape the small-town life for the glamour of the big city. Lacey finds herself back living with her parents in Echidna Lane after her perfect life crumbles live on television. She brings her two boys and a broken heart and it’s her parents and Shane that help to piece it back together. I really enjoyed the banter between Shane and Lacey, and the way they navigate through this new chapter in their lives. The minor characters also really added to the story. Lacey's father had me smiling with his bedtime stories. I loved the walnut-inspired recipes included at the end of chapters. I am definitely going to give some of them a try as they sound utterly delicious! First up will be the Sunday Lunch Tortellini with Burnt Butter, Sage and Walnuts. Chatting via Instagram, Eva has told me that this will be her last Rural Romance novel for a while, and I can say that without a doubt she has gone out with a bang. This one would have to be my favourite of her recent books. I have no doubt that Home to Echidna Lane will be very popular with Tassie readers and lovers of rural romance. Home to Echidna Lane, published by Harlequin Australia, is set for release on August 2 around Australia. Kate Jackson is a prolific bookstagrammer and you can follow her reviews and snippets of life on Instagram @kate_thebooklover

On a Bright Hillside in Paradise by Annette Higgs (Reviewed by Katie Lewis). On a Bright Hillside in Paradise by Annette Higgs (Penguin, 2023) follows the Hatton family, convict descendants living in the Tasmanian bush on a farm called Paradise in the 1870s. The story centres around the arrival of two strangers into their midst, both evangelical preachers from outside Tasmania. The strangers’ arrival causes quite the stir within the tight-knit community as they go from house to house conducting revivals and converting the locals, and the Hatton family start to question long held beliefs about their past and their future. I was completely drawn in by this book. Tasmania in the late 1800s is not a setting I’ve read much about, and I really loved being transported to the rough but beautiful farm of Paradise. The story is told through the perspectives of five different members of the Hatton family, following each character through roughly the same time period. As we move from one character’s perspective to the next, we learn more and more about their lives and their reactions to the arrival of the evangelists. We see the same events through five very different perspectives and, rather than being repetitive, it was nuanced and so unique. I loved how each new perspective added more and more to the story, carefully and delicately layering details on top of each other. It was cleverly done. I also love when the landscape becomes a character in a story and the author does it so well in this book. You can feel the connection she has to this place and its history, and I loved being able to feel that through this story. It was also impeccably researched. This is a quiet but tender book. It was a little melancholy but also eerily beautiful, and I loved how the author highlighted the beauty in the ordinary lives of the Hatton family. The more I learned about this family, the more I found myself sinking into their world. I could smell the gum trees, I could hear the water of the Dasher, and I could feel the cold wind blowing in from the mountain. The writing was evocative and immersive, without being overly flowery, and dialogue felt natural and genuine. I loved the way the author carefully crafted the characters and slowly brought them to life. They felt so real. I’ll be thinking about this family for a long time to come. On a Bright Hillside in Paradise was an extremely enjoyable read and I would definitely recommend, especially to readers who enjoy character-driven historical fiction. Katie Lewis as a prolific bookstagrammer and you can find more of her reviews on Instagram @katie.reads.things More Reviews The Secrets of the Huon Wren, by Claire van Ryn. Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here, by Heather Rose.

The Unearthed by Lenny Bartulin (Reviewed by Kate Jackson @kate_thebooklover) Tasmanian-born Lenny Bartulin is the author of five books and his latest, The Unearthed (Allen & Unwin), is the first of his I’ve read. I was drawn to the setting of the story in my own locality, as well as the fact that I enjoy a good mystery. Set mainly on the West Coast of Tasmania, in and around the townships of Strahan and Queenstown, there were some very familiar places mentioned throughout this book, like Hamer's Hotel in Strahan and the gravel football oval in Queenstown, giving the story a strong grounding and sense of atmosphere. Initially, on finishing the book, I had the strange feeling of not being sure what I thought, but the more I mulled it over, the more I feel it was actually cleverly done. It included several mysteries to be solved and, unlike crime novels I have read in the past, they aren’t solved in the traditional sense, almost allowing the reader to form their own conclusions. This book will make you stop and reflect on what you have just read. Told from multiple points of view and jumping between various timelines in the present day and 1950s, each part of the story reveals pieces of the mystery. When bones are found in the Tasmania wilderness, one of the main characters, Antonia Kovács, discovers through her work at FSST (Forensic Science Services Tasmania) that they are decades old. She has questions for her father, a now retired Police Inspector who had been stationed at Queenstown around the time, so she heads home to where he is now enjoying a quiet retirement in the harbourside township of Strahan. Meanwhile, Tom Pilar the other main character in the book, receives an inheritance. It’s from a man belonging to his past, a friend of his father's, though Tom can barely remember him. He travels from the mainland to Queenstown to get a better understanding of why he was receiving it. I felt the author's description of the drive from Hobart to Queenstown was spot on! There are flashbacks where we meet some post-war migrants and locals working in the mines. It’s through these flashbacks that the mysteries begin to unfold. I found it interesting how the mysteries were revealed, laughing to myself when I realised the clues I had clearly missed. I certainly won’t be a detective anytime soon! I enjoyed the local references; I could tell that the author had spent time in and around the areas described in the book. There has also been some extensive research undertaken into the lives of the migrant workers of the area in the early/mid 1900s. At 274 pages you can easily devour this in one sitting. The Unearthed was released in Australia on August 1st by Allen & Unwin, in paperback, e-book and audio. Kate Jackson is a prolific bookstagrammer and you can follow her reviews and snippets of life on Instagram @kate_thebooklover

Reviewed by Kate Jackson @kate_thebooklover I was absolutely delighted to read an advanced copy of Claire van Ryn’s debut novel The Secrets of the Huon Wren published by Penguin Random House Australia on June 27. This story had me captivated as it circles around two women and the connection that they build after a chance meeting. Set in Tasmania, the story is written in dual timelines. The present day, 2019, is set in Launceston and in 1953 in Caveside, at the base of the majestic mountains of the Great Western Tiers. We begin the story in the present day where we are introduced to Allira Ambrose who is a journalist for a local magazine, and can I just say when I first read her full name I thought, what a great name for a character, Allira Ambrose! It had such a good ring to it and is so memorable, just like her character will be for the reader long after the last page of this book is turned. It’s through a twist of fate that we meet Nora at the nursing home in the present day. Allira has arrived there to interview another resident but when that isn’t possible, Sally, the homes manager, tells Allira of Nora, a dementia patient who sits cradling a doll so lovingly in her arms. Having lost my own grandmother to dementia, the first few chapters really tugged at my heart strings and I felt a huge mix of emotions. The chapters then alternate from the past to the present, with flashbacks to 1953 when Nora is a 15-year-old, free-spirited young lady who doesn’t want to conform to her mother’s belief that her calling in life is to be that of a housewife and mother. Nora’s world is turned upside down when a young Polish-German migrant makes a wood delivery to Nora’s father who is the local undertaker. The titbits the author provides about his profession I found utterly fascinating. As the story progressed, I couldn’t help but enjoy the connection that builds between the two women. It is so heart-warming, and I found their relationship to be an interesting one. They are unable to connect simply by words, but share a similar life-changing experience that bonded them. As Allira continues to visit Nora, she knows there is a story to be told about this woman and the carved Huon wren in her room and I enjoyed how the secret unfolded and the past came crashing into the present. It was a bittersweet ending, with a few soggy tissues tucked into my sleeve as I finished the final chapters. I enjoyed the array of characters within the story; Rae, Allira’s best friend, Her Husband Hamish (picture a hot, hunky paramedic) and Nora’s father won my heart. There was also an interesting dynamic with mother-daughter relationships experienced by both the main characters. This book covers some sensitive topics that are central to the story, but I found the author approached them delicately and with such care that you can’t help but feel empathy for the characters involved. There is so much to like and enjoy about this book, I found it captivating and loved the instant connection I had with the story and setting. It was a brilliant debut novel, and I am excited to read more of what Claire van Ryn has to offer in the future. Kate Jackson is a prolific bookstagrammer and you can follow her reviews and snippets of life on Instagram @kate_thebooklover

Saddleback Wife by Fiona Stocker (reviewed by Claire van Ryn @clairevanryn) After attending the book launch of Saddleback Wife and hearing firsthand its author's delightful British accent and her witty, if slightly dark, sense of humour, I couldn't resist taking a copy home. This is Fiona Stocker's second memoir (you may be familiar with her first, Apple Island Wife) which leans heavily on her experience as an English expat eking out a life in Australia's island state with her husband, Oliver, and two kids. No, you don't need to have read the first to appreciate the second. Nor do you need to have any interest in pigs (phew! I hear you say). Saddleback Wife, with the subtitle Slow Food in Tasmania, is the story of a couple with admirable dreams of rearing Wessex Saddleback pigs and selling premium pork at bustling farmers markets each weekend. The pigs would live long and idyllic lives compared with their mass-farmed counterparts, and the customers would be agog for the delectable, superior pork product made from these happy creatures. It is the dream versus the reality. In fact, it reads like one of those Instagram posts that juxtaposes the glossy, colour-coordinated beauty of a photo with what it took to produce it. The warts-and-all, behind the scenes footage. 'Television lifestyle shows have a lot to answer for. They're responsible for many of the unexpected turns our married life has taken, and we've sourced many of our experimental ideas from them,' Fiona writes in the prologue. A newspaper article about Tasmania was impetus for the family's move to Australia, and the television series River Cottage was responsible for their interest in pigs soon after. 'As we sat on our sofa one evening, watching Hugh preparing a straw-filled birthing shed for his sows, Oliver turned to me. "We could keep those pigs in our bush block, you know," he said. I could have sworn I saw a light bulb flickering over his head.' Saddleback Wife gave me a great appreciation for farmers, particularly boutique-style farmers with high-end product for high-end prices. Her insights on rearing an animal that requires more time for less quantity, made me appreciate the price tags, not to mention the incredible amount of back-breaking work, tenacity and self-belief required to make a go at something they had never done before. At times, the memoir's accounts are frank to the point of being brutal. I'm not sure I would recommend this to someone who has just started a pig-farming operation. Then again, maybe it would help them avoid the same mistakes. In the end, I was grateful for a glimpse at reality. In a world where I make pork stir fry with meat sourced from a plastic tray bought from a supermarket, it's easy to forget that life is sacrificed for our appetites. Whether you're an avid carnivore or a vegan, or somewhere in-between, I think we can all agree that society would be enriched and somehow more intelligent if our our spending habits were more considered. This is a book for that. For understanding the backstory of our food, and allowing time to sit in that potentially uncomfortable place. Thankfully, it's told with Fiona's wry humour which makes it that bit more palatable. Oh, and did I mention there are recipes? The carbonara was a hit in my household! Find out more about Fiona Stocker, her books and her writing here.

We're delighted to share this collection of short stories. It is comprised of the winners of our recent short story competition where the theme was 'The Good Life'. We had some truly incredible entries and our judges had their work cut out for them. The winners are as follows: Grades 5-6: "Pippy: A True Story" by Jade Dickinson from Kingston Primary School Grades 7-9: "The Sleeping Forest" by Erin Grubert from Scotch Oakburn College Grades 10 - 12: "The Midden" by Ena Nichols from Don College Open Section: "Mother" by RT Wenzel The Adam Thompson 'New Voice' Award: "Welcome to the Afterlife" by Mieke Burch from Launceston College The Adam Thompson 'New Voice' Award Highly Commended: "An Affair with the Dark" by Monique Schnitzer from Clarence High School We hope you enjoy them! Tamar-Valley-Writers-Festival-Short-Story-Competition-Winners-2022Download Mieke Burch and Adam Thompson at 'The Power of the Short Story' panel and prize announcement. Hotel Grand Chancellor Saturday Oct 15.

The school holidays are approaching and the Tamar Valley Writers Festival is here to support and engage young writers throughout Launceston and the Tamar Valley.  Our program has been designed for 12 - 18 year olds to work on world building, spoken word poetry, visual language, and more. The workshops are all one hour long and feature Tasmanian talents. Sara Ferrington is the founder and atelierista of Rascal Robot Art Space - an art space to celebrate and nurture young visual creatives based in the West Tamar Valley. Sara will talk about creating visual language and storytelling that doesn't rely on traditional language to communicate meaning and ideas. Jazz Frost, a spoken word poet, recently published her anthology 'Ambiguity', documenting their journey through accepting her queerness, vulnerability, and mental health. They are excited to pass on the freedom of expressing oneself through words and the joy of performing. Jazz has youth mental health first aid qualifications and works with young people from trauma backgrounds, as well as being one of the driving forces behind Launceston's Queer Pride Ball, earning them a special commendation at the Young Tasmanian of the Year Award 2022. Avery McDougall published her debut YA novel in April 2022 with Forty South Publishing. Invisibly Grace has been described as moving, genuinely funny, and honest as it deals with being a teenager, chronic illness, and being the 'new kid'. She is a teacher librarian by degree and a youth worker in practice, specialising in working with those, like her, who collect 'A-Words' (autistic, autoimmune, author, awesome.... the list goes on!). Avery looks forward to helping young people with their world building and dialogue, making characters and settings feel authentic and alive. Mallika Naguran isn't just an author, she's also a very experienced communicator and environmental professional. She has published two books for young people that focus on retelling classic tales for younger readers (Peter Pan and Ramayana: the quest to rescue Sita by Pop!Lit for Kids). She's thrilled to be part of the young writers program and looks forward to helping young people develop compelling voices for animal characters.  For more information on workshops, dates, and times, check out Eventbrite!

The launch of Avery McDougall’s debut young adult fiction novel ‘Invisibly Grace’ was an enjoyable and thought-provoking evening hosted by the Tamar Valley Writers Festival at Petrarch’s Bookshop, attended by headspace Launceston. McDougall was presented in conversation with local literary fixture and Doctor of Creative Writing Cameron Hindrum. Their candid conversation was interspersed with laughter as well as discussion not just about the challenges of writing a novel, but of McDougall’s own complicated health journey. Hindrum spoke highly of main character Grace’s wit and authenticity, as well as the tone and pace of the story. McDougall shared that she wanted the book to not just serve as representation for young people in Grace’s health situation but also as an opportunity to develop empathy and understanding for others who meet people like Grace in their lives. ‘Invisibly Grace’ is the story of sixteen-year-old Grace Turing as she arrives at a new school determined to keep her chronic illness a secret to try and seem ‘normal’. The Examiner wrote about Avery McDougall’s desire to flout the traditional disability or ‘sicklit’ genre for young adult fiction by presenting a protagonist who both has a chronic condition without an ‘end’ and doesn’t serve as inspiration for able-bodied characters in their article on Saturday April 30. ‘Invisibly Grace’ is available from Forty South Publishing’s website, as well as Petrarch’s Bookshop and Fullers Bookshop Hobart. Signed copies are available at Petrarch’s Bookshop in Launceston.

Tamar the Thief is an e-book that was commissioned and created by the Tamar Valley Writers Festival to be shared for free with schools, families and readers everywhere. The project was the vision of the festival’s artistic director Georgie Todman, who brought together in collaboration two Launceston-based creators: writer Lyndon Riggall and artist Grace Roberts. In this blog, Lyndon shares his insight into how the book came to be, beginning with his experience writing the book. * * * * * I have always loved magpies (Go Collingwood!). I love the beautiful pattern of their black and white feathers, the wildness of their eyes, the wardle argle oogle sound they make when they sing of the morning’s arrival… to be honest even their swooping (which luckily we don’t see much of in Tasmania) is fascinating to me. Where I sit to write each morning, above me is an artwork by Graeme Whittle (who I created my first picture book, Becoming Ellie, with) called The Song of the Magpie. When Georgie, Grace and I met, I told them of my love for these birds, and we talked about different ideas for what we might create, including having a magpie visit Tasmania from the mainland on holiday! For me, the first step was always going to be the story. I wanted to know what we, as readers, learn when we turn the final page. In European folklore there are so many tales of magpies being thieves… there is even a famous opera about it! In actual fact, magpies aren’t nearly as interested in shiny objects as we are interested in making up stories (which makes me wonder if some of those famous tales aren’t really just good excuses for when we lose our car keys). Nevertheless, it is true that magpies have been known to steal the odd shiny object to add to their nest. When the creative team behind Tamar the Magpie returned back to our houses, we began playing with ideas privately, and one day my phone buzzed with an image attached from Grace. It was a sketch of a magpie, but there was something special about her… she had the most startlingly human expression on her face. It occurred to me that she looked like I do when someone tries to talk to me while I’m really hungry! That was when Tamar came to life for me. In that face I saw jealousy, and stubbornness, and I knew that this little magpie would do almost anything to try and keep up with everyone else. I realised, suddenly, that as her house grew more and more crowded with the things hoarded away inside it she would get less and less happy with every passing day as the guilt weighed on her wings. From that point on I knew I had the course of Tamar’s journey. Tamar’s tale is really about the fact that sometimes we get confused about what we really need. Tamar isn’t wrong that there is something missing in her life, but like so many of us she tries to fill that hole with things, when what she really needs is a friend. It was very important to me that she found a true friend by the end of the book, and I can’t think of a single creature more deserving of the title than Luka the kookaburra. Luka is patient with Tamar. He doesn’t fight her when she convinces herself that all of the things that she has collected in her house are going to make the other birds like her. He doesn’t try to make her throw anything away. He waits patiently for her to realise for herself that the life that she is living is not the one that she wants, and guides her thinking by being the best example of a better way of living that he can possibly be. The story tells us that Luka knows that any friend who only wants to visit you because of the cool stuff that you have isn’t a true friend, but he doesn’t have to say that. That’s probably what I love most about him: he believes that Tamar will make the right choice if he just cares about her and gives her the time and space to think about what will really make her happy. I am really proud of Tamar the Thief. With Georgie’s passion and hard work to bring the project to life, the enthusiasm of our festival director Mary Machen and the Tamar Valley Writers Festival committee, and of course Grace’s captivating illustrations, I think that what we have created together is a book that people of all ages can love, and laugh at, and even learn from. The best news of all? In the book Tamar realises that holding on to beautiful things won’t make her happy, and so instead she he releases them back into the world. Here we have a beautiful thing that we have made. I am very excited to be giving it away. Author photo: Kate Tulejac * * * * * Read Tamar The Thief

Congratulations to Kyle Perry on the exciting news that his best-selling debut crime novel, The Bluffs, has been optioned to become a TV series by First Option Pictures. Kyle is a Tasmanian author who was a 'full house' drawcard at our Word of Mouth pop-up festival last September and features on the TVWF podcast series, you can watch the shortened or full interview below. Watch the full interview here Kyle Perry is a man of many talents. He is a drug and alcohol counsellor in Hobart, Tasmania. Kyle grew up around the Tasmanian bush and seas and his love for the Tasmanian landscape has played an important role in influencing his writing and spare time. The Bluffs takes us deep into the Tasmanian wilderness and follows the story of a group of teenage school girls who go missing in the fictitious town of Limestone Creek - drawn in Kyle’s imagination from his visits to Mole Creek and the Greater Western Tiers. With several prime suspects under investigation, this mystery thriller is a page turner!