May 2015: Other Worlds Zine Fair & Memoir Club

Other Worlds zine fair is back for a second year with an expanded program of talks, workshops and of course the zine fair, which is on Saturday 23rd May, 11am – 4pm. I’ll be there with some new zines and maps as well as some favourites from the past.

Randwick Literary Institute c.1957 by Steve Terrill.

On Tuesday 26th May I’ll be in conversation with Jessica Kirkness at the Randwick Literary Institute for the monthly meeting of the Memoir Club for Readers and Writers. I’ll be speaking about my memoir Ninety9, tips for writing lives, and the possibilities of memoir. The details are:

Tuesday 26 May 2015        6.00—9.00pm
Randwick Literary Institute
60 Clovelly Road, Randwick 2031
RSVP by 24 May: memoirclubsydney@gmail.com

More information on the Institute can be found here.

In My Room: teenagers in their Bedrooms

I’ve been busy putting things together for my launch in Newcastle this weekend, for which I’m making a version of my 1990s bedroom. While I was in my bookcase looking for 90s issues of Rolling Stone, I rediscovered this book of 90s teen rooms, published in 1995.

Ninety9 Sydney Launch

My first consideration with the launch was: what was I going to wear? I’d have to forsake my usual style for a return to the past, back to the days of tie-dyed slips, band t-shirts and big clompy boots. This is what I came  up with.

I was particularly happy with my choice of handbag, although it did feel somewhat strange to walk around with a plastic bag all night.

If you know me, you know I like to generate ephemera – here are some of the things I made for the launch.

Grunge Speak lanyards. Don’t be a lamestain, get with the lingo.

Also part of the Activity Fun Page was the Pulp Questionnaire, based on this NME Material World questionnaire.

Here are my answers:

Thanks to everyone who came to the Midnight Special for the launch last night – it was lots of fun and I hope you enjoy reading Ninety9.

Ninety9 Notes #1

While I was writing Ninety9 I kept a lot of notes – writing from memory I found that details would pop back into my head at unexpected times, and I recorded these on scraps of paper. Once a piece of paper was filled up or had too many teacup stains I’d shove the note into a folder. Occasionally I’d shuffle through the folder to look for useful things, ragpicking over my ideas and fleeting thoughts.  I usually don’t keep my notes, but as I was on the way to the recycling bin I had another look at them, the different shapes of paper and ink stains…maybe these notes are interesting after all.