As promised, here is last Friday’s Elwood Writers special — episode 603 of the weekly literary magazine Cover to Cover, from Vision Australia Radio. Play at your leisure.
Cover to Cover
Hosted by Tim McQueen, this 1 hour program delivers a diverse feast of book readings and short stories presented by our fantastic team of volunteer readers.
You’ll also find this recording wherever you usually get your podcasts. If you usually get podcasts, that is. And if you don’t, we’d like to let you know that audio is the thing right now.
Elwood Writers was in the Vision Australia Radio studios on Tuesday, recording our twelfth special for the weekly literary program Cover to Cover. The focus of this latest edition is ‘change and place and the overlap between the two’, and features poetry from Helen, memoir from Margaret, and fiction from Barry. The broadcast date is Friday 14 November, to be repeated that Sunday.
We’ve been a bit quiet in the online space these past few months. Normally, we post at least once a month, but our usually razor-sharp attention slipped off the blogging ball in October. Our excuse? That attention was redirected elsewhere — we’ve been busily putting together the radio show. A lot of work goes into building each program, and we’re fortunate to have the support of Tim and the team at VAR along the way. It’s always well worth the effort.
Produced and presented by Tim McQueen, Cover to Cover airs on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons, and can be heard on the radio in Australia, and online from anywhere in the world.
We’ll share more info on ‘Stories of Change & Place” closer to the time — so do stay tuned over the next couple of weeks. We hope you’ll be able to join us on broadcast night.
For now, from sunny (currently!) Victoria, have a very peaceful Sunday.
Here’s the podcast of last week’s episode of Vision Australia Radio’s Cover to Cover, a special edition of the weekly literary program featuring the work of Elwood Writers:
Elwood Writers presents: The Writers’ Choice
‘Elwood Writers Presents: The Writers’ Choice’ features memoir by Margaret, fiction by Barry, and poetry by Helen – all read by the writers themselves.
This episode can also be found over on Spotify, or wherever you choose to get your podcasts. If you’d rather access the recording via a sound file, we’ve got that covered – just click here.
Don’t forget, one of the best ways of supporting our work is to give it your time. So sit back, relax and enjoy being transported by our stories.
If you didn’t catch Cover to Cover on Vision Australia Radio (VAR) last night for ‘Elwood Writers presents: The Writers’ Choice’, there’s another opportunity to hear the program tomorrow afternoon. The repeat airs at Ipm Sunday in Melbourne, but you can check out local times at the VAR website, here. You don’t need a transistor radio, either: wherever you are, you can listen online at the VAR website – just click here and hit the ‘Listen live’ button.
We were moved by Margaret’s memoirs, unsettled by Barry’s ghost story, and carried to a place of peaceful introspection by Helen’s poetry.
EW
If you missed Friday’s broadcast, and you can’t make Sunday’s, don’t worry: we’ll be posting a podcast and recording of the program on this website sometime next week. Make sure you don’t miss any updates by clicking the ‘Subscribe’ button at the end of this post.
🎧 Tune in to Cover to Cover on Vision Australia Radio this Friday evening – it’s another Elwood Writers special! 🎧
Elwood Writers presents: The Writers’ Choice, includes:
📖 Memoirs by Margaret McCaffrey 📚 A new short story by Barry Lee Thompson 🖋️ Selections of poems and haiku by Helen McDonald
Don’t miss this literary showcase!
Vision Australia Radio
Check varadio.org for program times near you. If you can’t join us on Friday, catch the repeat broadcast on Sunday. And if you can’t make that either, we’ll be sharing a recording or podcast of the program on this site next week. So if you haven’t already, subscribe to Elwood Writers below to stay in the loop – it’s completely free and will remain free forever. How fab is that!
Happy listening!
EW
P.S. Do subscribe if you haven’t already – it’s a really good way to support our work, and we promise you won’t be disappointed. That subscribe button is coming up again at the end of the post. Here it comes …
I was enjoying a Marie biscuit and strong lungo yesterday morning when a new blog post from Barry’s website popped into the Elwood Writers mailbox. In the post – linked over there👉– Barry writes about an upcoming episode of Vision Australia Radio’s weekly literary program Cover to Cover, featuring the work of Elwood Writers. We don’t yet have a broadcast date for the program, but it’ll be sometime after the material goes to Cover to Cover‘s producer/presenter Tim McQueen in early October.
Elwood Writers has been contributing stories to Cover to Cover since 2015, featuring in roughly one special episode each year. Our first program, appropriately titled ‘Starting Over’, was broadcast in episode 38 of Cover to Cover on 11 January 2015. If you fancy a bit of a blast from the past, you can listen to that or any of the episodes featuring our work by clicking here. We’re always grateful for the invaluable support of Tim and the Cover to Cover team, and everyone at Vision Australia Radio.
Until my coffee break was pleasantly interrupted by the happy ping of that email notification yesterday, October had felt a long, long way away. And now? Well it’s closing in, but is still six weeks away – and I remember the six-week school holidays used to go on and on and on. We’ll be sure to provide more info about the radio program between now and October. To stay in the loop, make sure you’re subscribed – it’s free, and means you’ll never miss any content.
We visited the studios of Vision Australia Radio in Kooyong yesterday to record the material for Jenny’s tribute on Cover to Cover – all that remains now is for presenter and producer Tim McQueen and the production team to put the program together. More on that, including broadcast details, later.
While we were there, Tim shared the exciting news that his daughter Andrea McQueen has achieved the longlist in this year’s Queensland Writers Centre (QWC) Publishable program. Seems Tim is encouraging new literature on multiple fronts! You can see the full longlist here, and read more about Publishable and other QWC programs here.
Congratulations to Andrea, and the very best of luck with the next stage of Publishable.
The Best Of Cover To Cover 2022: on Vision Australia Radio over two weeks from Monday to Friday at 1:00pm (AEST) 26 December to 6 January. That’s ten of the best episodes from this year.
We don’t know for sure which day the Elwood Writers ‘Adelaide’ program will re-air, but a little bird tells us it might be Thursday 29 December.
To avoid missing out, make this a literary holiday season and listen to all the broadcasts. What better way to transit from one year to the next than by immersing yourself in stories and the soothing sounds of spoken words.
Listening details and further info can be found at the link below:
The podcast of last week’s special episode of Cover to Cover is now available. The program features Elwood Writers and our individual takes on the theme of ‘Adelaide’. If you’d like to listen to, download, or share the podcast, or browse previous episodes of Cover to Cover or other Vision Australia Radio programs, visit the following link:
Barry first visited Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2008, when Elwood Writers wasn’t yet one year old. The event took place every two years back then, and he enjoyed it so much he went to the subsequent weeks in 2010 and 2012. Thereafter, Writers’ Week became an annual affair, and the other members of Elwood Writers began to attend. Since then, one or all of us has attended almost every year. We had a break in 2021 because of pandemic restrictions, and our only representative this year was Jennifer, but it’s fair to say that Adelaide has been and continues to be important to us, and not just because of its literary festival.
And so last year we suggested ‘Adelaide’ as the theme for a brand new Cover to Cover program for Vision Australia Radio. The program’s presenter Tim McQueen liked the idea, and we’ve been putting together our pieces, including selecting musical interludes, over the past few months. We were particularly excited to have the opportunity to record our work last week at Vision Australia Radio, as access to the studios had been restricted until recently.
5 April 2022: Helen reading her poetry at the Vision Australia Radio studios in Melbourne
The program is almost ready to air, and will be broadcast over the Easter weekend, on Friday 15 April at 8:00PM (AEST), repeated Sunday 17 April at 1:00PM . Listen on the radio in Australia (check the VAR website for state-by-state broadcast variations) or online via the ‘listen live’ option from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. A recording of the show will be available to download after broadcast, and we’ll be sharing that here on our website.
So whether you tune in or connect on the day, catch the repeat on the Sunday, or download the recording, we hope you enjoy the show.
Elwood Writers 