Denotes website entries with audio interviews
Independently published, Australia, 2022
Cover design SGB Book Cover Designs
Images from Istock
It is cause for great celebration, I think, that the Canberra region is not only become home to a growing number of fine writers but also that the region itself has finally been accepted as a suitable place in which to set stories. The lamentable cultural cringe our writers have had to contend with for decades has, at last, abated.
Independently published through Broadcast Books, Australia, 2022
Cover design Matthew Oswald, Like Design
Cover photo by the author
It is by no means a new thing to write a book from an animal’s point of view. Such works often have an agenda and others tend to the twee. Neither is the case with Karen Waldman’s smart, funny and insightful work with Sidnie the English Cocker Spaniel in the driving seat.
Ultimo Press, Australia, 2022
Cover design by Ella Egidy
There is much to say about this piece of fine literary fiction by Nigel Featherstone. Let me start, however, with place.
The Playhouse – Canberra Theatre Centre
26 to 28 May 2022
7pm + Sat 2pm
QL2 presents a triple bill – Terra Firma – 3 works exploring the diverse ways we perceive our changing world.
Independently published, Australia, 2022
Designed by Praxis Creative Art, Canberra
Photographs by the author
This book is subtitled Mindfulness, Creativity, Exploration and is at once an instruction manual, an invitation to make time for play and a marketing tool for its author.
With clear and concise chapters, the book takes the novice or would be embroiderer through all the basics from overcoming insecurity to using embroidery in marketing materials like business cards.
Fourth Estate, an imprint of Harper Collins, Australia, 2022
Cover design by Alissa Dinallo
Cover images floral collage ANA & YVY; face and neck by shutterstock
You could read this book as an invitation to young women and girls to find and pursue their joy, free of societal judgment and condemnation and wherever it may lie. Or you could read it as a well-researched, serious thesis on gender and society – citing both empirical and anecdotal evidence. Or, thankfully, you could do both.
Cover design by Christabella Design
Cover illustration (sneakers) by Ben Sanders; images Stocksy and Shutterstock
Megan Albany’s first novel is funny and heart-breaking in equal measure, a skilfully wrought study of the difficult art of dying in our society, told in the voice of a relatively young woman dying of cancer.
Chloe Lankshear soprano, Francis Greep piano
3pm, Saturday 14 May 2022
Wesley Music Centre, Forrest, ACT
Chloe’s idea to construct a program around the life and legacy of Beatrix Potter has led the Song Company to explore a wide range of beautiful Art Song by Claude Debussy, Robert Schumann, Eliot Carter, George Crumb, Ross Edwards, Sally Whitwell, and Elena Kats-Chernin.
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Suki & Hugh Gallery
38A Gibraltar Street, Bungendore, NSW
Saturday 7 May to 12 June 2022.
Robyn Campbell is an artist who works in glass and ceramics. The medium for Where Shadows Fall is clay.
Connor Court Publishing, Australia, 2022
Cover Antony Jeffrey’s daughter Ann
Design Guy Jeffrey
The Poinciana Tree is an homage to the author’s mother, but it is also a portrait of the author, his family and their lives. It is as well a social history of the first part of the 20th century in Australia, especially the years before, during and immediately after the second World War.
The Street Theatre
Friday 13 May 2022
115 minutes
Eastern European gypsy brass band meets jazz big band traditions – the cream of Australia’s jazz and world music present a kaleidoscope of musical styles including brass, piano accordion, percussion and voice.
Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre and FINK + Co
Inaugural 2022 Robert Foster F!NK National Metal Prize
Submissions close Monday 27 June 2022
The Robert Foster F!NK National Metal Prize is open to Australian-based metal working artists who create hollow-ware, flatware, lighting, small scale sculpture and objects.
Robert Foster, who trained in silversmithing at the then Canberra School of Art, founded FINK + Co in 1993 in Queanbeyan, near Canberra. He was killed in a car accident in July 2016.
Self published, Australia, 2022
Cover design Karen May
Internal design Clint Wright
Cover photo depicts Le Bon Mélange Café Patisserie Gungahlin
The Majura Café Poets have been meeting since 2009 under the leadership of Canberra poet Fiona McIlroy. Despite the limitations of COVID lockdowns and uncertainty, the group has continued to gather and enjoy collegial support for their writing over the last two years and has produced this excellent slim volume of selected works.
Self published, through Tell Well, Canada, 2021
Casey Bruning’s first children’s picture book is as cheering as the little girl who is its main character. It’s a work that focuses on many things positive, starting with human kindness.
Humble House Gallery
93 Wollongong Street Fyshwick
30 April to 29 May 2022
Wednesday to Sunday 10am to 4pm
This exhibition of predominantly oils and pastels is the work of an accomplished and assured artist.
The collection includes delicious scenes of idyllic, nostalgia-inducing Paris gardens, immediately arousing wanderlust in the viewer. The combination of all that European greenery, the sculpture, the park benches, the floral borders and the dappled light not only makes for classically composed paintings but also for classically beautiful objects of desire.
