Book recommendations from the EWF programming team
The team at Emerging Writers’ Festival (running 15–25 June) have been busy preparing for the beginning of this year’s festival, but – fabulous overachievers that they are – they’ve still managed to find the time to tell us about the books they’re currently reading and enjoying!
Ruby-Rose Pivet-Marsh, Artistic Director
As always, I am reading far too many books at once!
I was lucky enough to be sent a few books by Revarena Ediciones recently, including Residencia Permanente by Alejandro del Castillo. Having read Asiel Adan Sanchez’s M//otherland last year, also published by Revarena, I’m excited to read Alejandro’s collection. We just got Open Secrets: Essays on the Writing Life from Sydney Review of Books in the EWF office, which is so fitting and features a bunch of EWF22 artists and friends of the fest!
Also on the go are Ocean Vuon’s Time is a Mother and SPELLS—21st-Century Occult Poetry (2018) from Ignota Books. They are both just absolutely glorious and I’m so excited to hear some of the works from the latter read out during the festival. I’ve also picked up a copy of Root & Branch by the wonderful Eda Gunaydin and have This All Come Back Now (edited by Mykaela Saunders) and Unlimited Futures (Rafeif Ismail, Ellen van Neerven, Hella Ibrahim) on my very tall stack of reading rotations.
Alejandro del Castillo, Catriona Menzies-Pike and Hella Ibrahim will appear at the
Greer Clemens, Program Coordinator
I’ve always loved short fiction, and it’s great to read during busy periods (like the one leading up to EWF!), when you can finish a story in a sitting. I loved Paige Clark’s She Is Haunted and have gone back to it multiple times. It’s that very special kind of collection where the stories are varied in voice and style, but share common themes or outlooks – similar lights refracted through different lenses. I’m also really excited to read Paul Dalla Rosa’s An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life – I’ve been a fan of Paul’s work for a while now, and it’ll be a pleasure to read a full collection, even if the pleasure will be in staring into the emptiness at the heart of contemporary life under capitalism. I also can’t wait to get my hands on This All Come Back Now, edited by Mykaela Saunders, which is full of work by writers I’ve long admired.
Paige Clark will be appearing at
Jen Nguyen, Associate Producer
I am very casually alternating between a few poetry collections. Time is not my friend right now and poetry feels forgiving (timewise). I’m moving between Evelyn Araluen’s Dropbear, Eunice Andrada’s Take Care, Bella Li’s Lost Lake and Ocean Vuong’s Time is a Mother. I like poetry because I can start and end anywhere; read a poem and sit there for half an hour just soaking it in; read it in the sun; read it in the bath; read it while I’ve got some lo-fi playing the background with some aesthetically depressing title like ‘when you can’t remember your dream, but you were happy’.
I love Nina Mingya Powles’ work and I’ve had her book Small Bodies of Water on my bedside table beckoning me with it’s gorgeous blue, orange and yellow cover. It brings up memories of Year 7 swimming lessons, cute one-day round trip ferry rides and going to Vietnam to meet my extended family for the first and last time.
Eunice Andrada will be appearing at
