Reading at Manning Clark House in November 2013

I am delighted to have been invited to read my poems at Manning Clark House later this year. The reading will be on Wednesday 6th November at 5.30 for 6pm. Wine and nibbles will be laid on, and of course you can buy my books if the mood takes you.

Manning Clark House is at 11 Tasmania Circle, Forrest (in Canberra’s South). It is indeed the last home of Manning and Dymphna Clark, and is now operating as a museum, library, and working, meeting and exhibition space for writers, artists, historians and other academics. Find out more about MCH here.

I will be one of three featured poets on the night : the other two are Adrian Caesar and Jen Webb, both eminent and much awarded. I feel very privileged to be sharing a bill with them.

The reading is part of a year long series of ‘First Wednesday’ poetry nights. Here is the full program as it currently stands – possibly subject to some slight changes.

Wed 3/4 Wanta Jampajinpa, Keith Harrison

Wed 1/5 Charlotte Clutterbuck, Penelope Cottier, Geoff Page

Wed 5/6 Jessica Wilkinson, Alan Gould, Michael Byrne

Wed 3/7 Theodore Ell, Paul Hetherington, Luke Whitington

Fri  12/7 Anthony Lawrence, Alison Clark

Wed 7/8 Nicola Bowery, John Foulcher, Martin Dolan

Wed 4/9 Kerrie Nelson, Harry Laing

Wed 2/10 Penelope Layland, Paul Magee, Judy Johnson

Wed 6/11 Adrian Ceasar, Melinda Smith, Jen Webb

Wed 4/12 Moya Pacey, David Brooks, Bronwyn Lea

I hope to make it along to several of these. If you are in the ‘Berra it would be lovely to see you there.

#Autism #poetry readings, @geekmook and the Southern Capital

So I am in Melbourne on a mini poetry tour ! Very exciting. Apologies for not giving more notice – the final details didn’t all come together until kind of the last minute, at which point it was too late to post about them as I was already in transit.

Anyhoo, my ‘tour’ consists of three events. The first two are already over so I’ve written about how they went below.

One, a reading from my book of autism poems First… Then…. at Autism Victoria (‘AMAZE’) on Friday 13 July (yesterday). The poems got an amazing reception and felt really privileged to be able to share them with those who attended. I also recorded a couple of them for the lovely people at AMAZE to put up on their website http://www.amaze.org.au/. This will happen early next week. I donated a copy of the book to their library and left a few more at their office for people to buy.

Two, the launch of Vignette Press’s http://vignettepress.com.au Geek Mook (in which appear some Twitter poems of mine, including some autism ones). This was at Bella Union in Carlton last night. Very entertaining night including a live Klingon translation of Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale (!). Also great to meet Amy Espeseth (publisher at Vignette), Adam Ford http://www.theotheradamford.wordpress.com (author of the Twitter novel Aramis Fox [@arfox] among many other things) and Angela Meyer (@LiteraryMinded) and chat to them IRL as we geeks say . Many thanks to @hackpacker and his amazing eyebrows for being my plus one for the evening.

Three, another reading from First… Then… this time for the folks at Casey Asperger’s Syndrome Support (CASS http://www.thecass.com.au ). 2 to 4 pm today Sat 14 July at the CASS Headquarters (20 Agonis St Doveton). It’s not too late to come along if you’re free and in that area – just turn up. Again I’ll be donating a copy of First… Then…to the library so if you miss the reading you can always catch up with the poems later.

So that’s all for now folks – happy quatorze juillet.

(Your poet reporting live from Melbourne)