A free Pink Shorts panel at Constellations (Not-Writers-Week) Adelaide 2nd March.
Register at https://events.humanitix.com/constellations-at-the-exchange
An accolade from the wonderful Margot Lloyd (among InDaily’s best books of this century): “Margaret Merrilees‘s Big Rough Stones (Wakefield Press) – Adelaide’s own Tales of the City – is a gorgeous celebration of sisterhood and community.”
See here for the others! InDaily
Yes, I was one of them last Sunday, protesting about Santos sponsorship of the Tour Down Under. Not dignified, but whatever it takes to stop coal oil and gas by midnight tonight. That’s how much time we’ve got left to avoid even bigger climate disasters.
We particularly liked the above headline. As in ‘let’s go down to the beach with some other partially naked pensioners and stroll among the almost totally naked youth’.
In the Advertiser I look as though I’ve been in a pickle jar for the last ten years, but never mind!
Lovely review by Lana Guineay of ‘Fables Queer & Familiar’:
There is so much joy in this pithy collection of 52 short ‘fables’. Starting life as at the online serial ‘Adelaide Days’ and broadcast by Radio Adelaide, the fables – one for each week of the year – are delightful, laugh-out-loud snapshots of the lives of ‘lesbian grannies’ Anne and Julia, their extended family, friends, and community.
The grannies are longtime activists who keep their sharp eyes on politics. They’re outraged by the treatment of refugees. They’re keen judges of the hats at Adelaide Writers’ Week. This is Adelaide through a leftie, lesbian, ageing, and activist lens, full of local references and locations; from the Markets, to beach trips to the Yorke Peninsula, Haighs, the Christmas Pageant and WOMAD.
It’s a wry, affectionate look at “this small dry city on a narrow plain, next to an unspectacular gulf”, as well a politically-engaged story of family, longterm love, ageing, and childhood. Merrilees’ light-hearted style makes it a delight to dip in and out of the fables, or read them all in a single sitting.
By the end you may find yourself agreeing with Alison Bechdel: “I wish I could live in the hilarious, delightful, and very queer world of these Fables”. There’s always its follow-up, Further Fables Queer and Familiar.
Full Adelaide Review Article here:
Here’s a lovely interview with the wonderful Peter Burdon on Radio Adelaide (PS it’s not true that nobody reviewed ‘Big Rough Stones’!!):
Further Fables Queer & Familiar, not just a book (Further Fables) but now also in astounding audio – read by me! Listen in to Radio Adelaide 101.5FM – Packed Lunch at midday every Monday from 17 February 2020, or Arts Breakfast every Saturday 9-11am from 22 Feb.
Here’s a little sample to get you started:
The book was launched in Adelaide on 23/11/19 by the remarkable Rosanna Maeder (read her words here: launch)
And here is my acknowledgement of country – I’ve been trying to work out a more comprehensive version. (Country)
We pay our respects to Kaurna elders – past present and future. This Kaurna country we meet on, like all of Australia, was stolen, was never ceded to us whitefellas.
On this colonised land we developed a society that has been divisive and violent in many ways – to the Indigenous custodians, to other people of colour, to anyone ‘different’, to the land itself.
We are now in a time of crisis, a climate emergency. We have to face what we’ve done and stop doing it, find a better way. Part of that must be, at long last, to acknowledge white power and privilege, and to get on with the job of dismantling them.
This is our commitment to the Kaurna elders, to all Indigenous Australians, to all people of colour (the global majority), to the Earth, and to ourselves.
We CAN do it!
1. FURTHER FABLES QUEER & FAMILIAR Mag Merrilees and Chia Moan
Victoria is delighted to help Gran unscrew the U-bend. She always guessed there was another world beyond the plughole.
Welcome to the hidden complexities of life in an ordinary Australian suburb. Who will fix the plumbing? How do you adapt to a trans person in the family? Fix racism and make a safe haven for refugees? Keep up with the housework? And what on Earth do you do about the climate emergency? Following the earlier volume of FABLES QUEER & FAMILIAR – here we present the sequel, the complete instructions for how to be a lesbian granny.
Join Mag and Chia for the LAUNCH:
Saturday 23 November 2019, 2pm. Treasury 1860,144 King William Street,Adelaide. All welcome!
2. WRITING WORKSHOP Mag Merrilees
LABELS, PRONOUNS AND BEYOND: WRITING QUEER
A safe place to explore the challenges and pitfalls of writing queer lives (whether you’re gay, straight or in between). Everything from profound questions of identity, to avoidance of the token gay brother, to the nitty gritty of pronoun-use. Join Mag for a fun and frank practical session!
Saturday 7 December 2019, 1.30-4.30pm. $115 (Writers SA Members $77)
Registration essential: Writers SA
margaretmerrilees 