Cirrus@Austlit

'A living songbook more than four years in the making, Andrew Ford’s hymnal brings together the words of sixteen contemporary Australian writers – poets, essayists and folksingers – in songs of praise, awe, grief, hope, joy, and natural splendour, dedicated not to a god, but to the land.

'The ever-daring voices of Luminescence Chamber Singers join forces with two rising stars: Hilary Geddes, 2021 Freedman Jazz Fellow and lead guitarist of Triple J favourites The Buoys, and category-defying cellist Freya Schack-Arnott. Red Dirt Hymns unfolds to the evocative imagery of Sammy Hawker, whose art is created within the fabric of country itself: saltwater, limestone and eucalypt.

'From Ellen van Neerven’s dark clouds to John Kinsella’s abundant gardens, Red Dirt Hymns does what a hymnal is meant to do: it draws us closer – to each other, and to the light and shade of our wide brown land.'

Source: Canberra International Music Festival.

'A collection, written in English and Scots, that explores immigration, home and place.

''When I first left my home, the gnawing ache for all I'd left behind - family, friends, my land, my whole life - made me numb and thrawn. Weeping and sobbing - bubblin an greetin, as you would call it in Scotland - would have been too wet and hand-wringy. What I felt was bone-dry and primal; I wanted to drop to my knees, throw my head back and howl. I pined like an animal, without tears.' — Alison Flett

''The people could be poet, family, reader or all of us on this drowning, burning earth. The present could be this moment, or a past so intensely remembered, or a future so powerfully imagined that past, present and future are simultaneously here. We are with a poet who knits intricate patterns of sound and image, line to line.' — Duncan McLean'  (Publication summary)

'Rattled tells a frighteningly honest story of what it feels like to be pursued by a stalker.

'What if your life were suddenly transformed by anxiety and fear? The fear of being alone, the anxiety compelling you to stay in public places and avoid predictable routines. The horrible uncertainty of not knowing whether you should fear for your life, and maybe even the lives of your children. The dreadful knowledge that, ultimately, you are powerless to escape.

'Ellis Gunn's world is turned upside down when she realises that she is being followed by a man she doesn't know-and that she can't make him stop. The experience conjures up other incidents of sexual harassment and abuse that she has endured, incidents she often accepted as 'normal'. Spurred on to look deeper, she discovers that stalking is part of an underlying misogyny that more than half the population is dealing with on a daily basis.

'Alarming, and at times even darkly amusing, Rattled is a thought-provoking, heart-in-your-throat memoir that begins in outrage and ends with a celebration of the howling winds of change sweeping the globe.' (Publication summary) 

'Hello and thank you all so much for coming tonight. It’s Alison Flett and my great honour to be launching Rhymes With Hyenas – the latest poetry collection by our incredible friend and sister-poet Heather Taylor Johnson.'  (Introduction)

Author's note: after Andrew Zawacki and Sarah Holland Batt.