Stories on the Wireless.

It’s all about mothers on Friday evening at 8:00 p.m. as Cover To Cover on Vision Australia Radio features writing from the Elwood Writers for a special Mother’s Day edition of the program. What better way is there to spend an autumn evening? So turn on and tune in, then settle back and lose yourself in an hour of storytelling. We’re especially thrilled that for this program some of us will be reading our own pieces on the air.

There’s a handy frequency-finder drop-down menu here, and the program can be live streamed here. Don’t forget that VAR now broadcasts in Perth too. Details here.

For Melbourne listeners, the Vision Australia digital radio service is on your digital radio under ‘VAR Digital’. Or you can listen in at 1179AM.

The program will be repeated on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Or, you can listen to the podcast as soon as it’s available on the Vision Australia Radio home page, here. If you’re listening in Adelaide, Cover To Cover airs once-weekly at 7:30 p.m. on Sundays.

We hope you can join us.

Thank you for listening.

Elwood Writers

Lit on the Radio

Don’t forget to tune in to Vision Australia Radio for this year’s Mother’s Day edition of Cover To Cover. The program is currently in production, and will feature the work of the Elwood Writers. We’re very excited to bring you a taste of what to expect from the literary line-up:

Jennifer Bryce was prompted to write her short story ‘The First Day’ when she read her 97 year-old mother’s autobiography. In it her mother describes ‘the overwhelming sense of responsibility’ when she brought the new-born Jennifer home from hospital. In this story, Jennifer imagines her mother’s feelings at that time.

For this special Mother’s Day program, Helen McDonald explores the darker intensities of the mothering experience through poetry and creative non-fiction with her pieces ‘Forbidden’ and ‘The Lake’.

The post-war decades of the fifties and sixties were hailed as the boom times. But what was life really like for a young mother of five, married to an injured ex-serviceman who’d spent four years in a German prisoner-of-war camp? Find out in Margaret McCaffrey’s story ‘My Mother, Lawre’.

In Barry Lee Thompson’s story ‘So Much Lemonade’, a small family picnics on the clifftops at a secluded coastal spot. Sounds delightful, doesn’t it. But will anyone be smiling when the rug’s unfurled? The event is explored through the eyes of the young son.

You can catch the program on Friday 6 May at 8:00 p.m. or listen to the re-run on Mother’s Day on Sunday 8 May at 1:30 p.m.

Coming soon to your radio …

Very excited that the Elwood Writers have been invited to provide the material for this year’s Mother’s Day edition of Vision Australia Radio’s Cover To Cover literary program. Tune in on Friday 6 May at 8:00 p.m. or listen to the re-broadcast on Mother’s Day on Sunday 8 May at 1:30 p.m.

Cover To Cover is heard in Melbourne, Albury/Wodonga, Bendigo, Geelong, Mildura, Shepparton, Warragul, Warrnambool, Adelaide and Perth. Follow this link to find the frequency of Vision Australia Radio in your area:

http://radio.visionaustralia.org

In January 2015, the Elwood Writers provided the material for a Cover To Cover program themed around Starting Over; that program was featured in a Best Of series later the same year. We’re thrilled at this opportunity to continue our involvement with Vision Australia Radio and to support the important work it does in the community.

Podcasts of Vision Australia Radio programs are available to Vision Australia library members via the i-access online catalogue. Information about joining the library is available at:

http://www.visionaustralia.org/living-with-low-vision/library/join-the-library

We’ll be posting more information about the program in the next few weeks.

Jennifer’s impressions from the first day of the Adelaide Writers’ Festival, Saturday 27th Feb

Two sessions on the first day of the festival were of particular interest for me because they dealt with that bridge between what we classify as ‘fiction’ and ‘non fiction’ in relation to telling the stories of family members who are no longer alive. Are we ‘thieves’? Whose stories are they?

Patrick Gale, an English novelist was interviewed about his recent book, ‘A Place Called Winter’. It is clearly considered to be ‘fiction’. The main character, Harry, is based on Gale’s great grandfather. Gale read a passage from it that started dramatically with a wet dream – certainly a good way of grabbing our attention! Continue reading “Jennifer’s impressions from the first day of the Adelaide Writers’ Festival, Saturday 27th Feb” →

ADELAIDE WRITERS’ WEEK 27th FEBRUARY – 3rd MARCH 2016

12733441_561555817343430_4628818046112760300_n Elwood Writers will be visiting Adelaide for Writers’ Week, held in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden near the banks of the Torrens River. Part of the Adelaide Festival Of Arts, there will be sessions with international and local writers on topics as varied as Kerry O’Brien’s biography of Paul Keating, and Robert Dessaix talking about how Enid Blyton changed his life.

This will be the second occasion the group has visited this event together. We meet each morning for breakfast to mull over the program and spend some time workshopping our own writing. The event is a good opportunity to mix with other writers, readers and artists in a stimulating and creative environment.

Look out for more posts about our impressions of this event in the weeks to come.

#ADLWW