a radio feature
There’s a long tradition, or maybe many long traditions, of ships that sail the sky. They’ve been turning up 威而鋼
in different parts of the world for around 1000 years. (more…)
Flying virtuosi
a radio feature
A tiny plane, loads of heart and the finest music in the most remote outback locations. Musician and pilot John Morrison flies world-class violinist Ian Cooper and virtuoso pianist Ambre Hammond around the top end of Australia. Continue Reading
Noel Coward: His talks in Australia
a radio feature produced by Lyn Gallacher
It is 1940 and wherever he goes in Australia, Noel Coward receives rapturous applause. His tour of the great Southern land is tightly packed with luncheons, concerts and fundraisers. 1,500 people attend three different functions on the one day in Adelaide and as he is leaving Sydney 900 business girls (as news reports refer to them) mob him in Market Street. Nurses ask him to sign their uniforms. Solders lift him up on their shoulders. Mayors present him with keys to the city. He is even introduced to a Koala.
Welcome to Swan Hill
a radio feature produced by Lyn Gallacher
Why are refugees from Afghanistan and Africa clamouring to settle in the town of Swan Hill in regional Victoria?
Woolf and Wagner
a radio feature produced by Lyn Gallacher
In 1940, Virginia Woolf wrote, ‘I think of all my books as music before I write them’.
But which music is which book? And why did she come to both love and hate Wagner with such passion?
Counihan’s Cage
a radio feature produced by Lyn Gallacher
Th必利勁
e scene is Sydney Road, Brunswick, Victoria. It’s 19th May 1933 and Friday night shopping is in full swing. But an angry crowd is gathering. These are not shoppers. These are protestors. The depression has hit this area hard. Police are on high alert, and when they hear a young man, called Noel Counihan, speaking from inside a cage, chained to the verandah post, of what is now the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel, tempers fly. The police attempt to break the cage open and finally resort to using a battering ram as the crowd cheers for Noel. (more…)
Latest News: Literature Board grant recipient for 2014
I’m grateful to the Australia Council Literature Board for this grant of $40,000, which will give me the space and time to complete my book about the Australian poet, writer, critic and mentor, Nancy Keesing.
Archive Fever
Australia is leading the world in a new approach to archives. It is challenging traditional archivists to embrace a more multilateral approach, one which suggests many versions of the past. But what does this mean archives are about become? Do they describe our past or our future? If we are to believe in Archive Fever then we might find our archives produce our history as much as they record it. Continue Reading
Remember Me … I Am Forgetting You
by Lyn Gallacher
M
argery has sent me a package by registered mail. The identification number is 497442495011. It cost $13.80 to send and does not contain any dangerous goods. All of which does nothing to describe the contents. As I tear open the top, old family photographs spill out over my desk. And the smell, a particular smell, tumbles out of the envelope. It too is old. It’s that quaint smell of the past, which exists somewhere between remembered mustiness and the time before you were born. Continue Reading
The Catalpa Escape
T
his is the most successful prison break in Australian history. It was an international rescue effort that took years to organise, and which finally freed six Irish prisoners from Fremantle Gaol. The rescue ship was an American whaler called The Catalpa. The escape was so dramatic that it’s now a symbol of human resilience, even resurrection. Continue Reading