What powers of perception, reflection and remembering are needed to craft a truly great memoir? And what tools can life writers use to extend memoir beyond memory to create literature that challenges, inspires and speaks to our times?
Maxine Beneba Clarke’s career-defining memoir, The Hate Race, is a powerful, funny and at times devastating account of growing up Black in white middle-class Australia. Recently adapted for the stage, it continues to expand into new forms. Ingrid Horrocks blends memoir, travel and nature writing in Where We Swim, chronicling encounters with water across Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, the Americas and beyond. Jessica White, deaf since the age of four, employs ecobiography in Silence is My Habitat to explore how deafness has shaped her relationship with the natural world. And in Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath, S. Shakthidharan takes us to the house his great-grandparents built in Colombo, Sri Lanka, before the civil war. Carried across the seas to Australia, on the strength of his grandmother’s will, this house breathes the joy and grief that has passed through generations.
Together, these acclaimed writers reflect on the craft of memoir and the ways life stories can illuminate both self and the society in which we live.
Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian author of Afro-Caribbean descent. She is the author of the ABIA-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, memoir The Hate Race and many picture books for children.
Ingrid Horrocks’ books include Where We Swim and soon to be released All Her Lives: Nine Stories. She is also the author of a literary history, Women Wanderers and the Writing of Mobility, and two collections of poetry.
S. Shakthidharan’s plays Counting and Cracking, The Jungle and the Sea and The Wrong Gods have won critical, commercial and community acclaim and toured extensively. Gather Up Your World In One Long Breath, with Powerhouse Publishing, is his debut book, and will be accompanied by a major companion artwork with the Powerhouse Museum.
Jessica White is the author of the novels A Curious Intimacy and Entitlement, which won the 2020 Michael Crouch Award for a debut work of biography and was shortlisted for four national awards, including the Prime Ministers Literary Award for Non-fiction. Her latest book is Silence is My Habitat.
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This event is part of the Main Program and included as part of Platinum, Gold, Silver and Saturday Bronze Passes.
Subject to availability, a limited number of single tickets may become available 9 September.
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This venue is wheelchair accessible. Please visit our Accessibility page or email hello@bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au if you have any other accessibility requirements.