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Former Hosts
TRENT PEPPERCORN
Trent has been heavily involved in theatre for much of his life, having begun his career as a presenter when he was 16 years old and has worked across a number of mediums including radio and TV.
Recently he has been working in children's television and has been hosting productions such as Curious George, Lazy Town, and Nickelodeon NCL.
Complete Biography
APRILLE 'LOVE'
Aprille Lim AKA "Aprille Love" is a Filipino-born Australian model, actor and TV presenter.
On an international scale, Aprille has guest-appeared several times on popular prime-time TV shows such as Wowowee, ASAP and Showtime on the CBS-CBN Network. Aprille also do a project in 2009 with MTV Japan.
Aprille also has her own fashion label, "LoveAprille" and is a business entrepreneur who graduated from law in 2011.
DESIREE SAVAGE
Desirée Savage has significant interviewing experience from working in the radio for nearly a decade for companies including Nova, Southern Cross Austereo, ARN and the ABC.
Other credits she has includes hundreds of voice-overs, acting for television commercials and short films, presenting for television and the web, performing as an MC, performing stand-up comedy, bit parts in Australian television series, and fashion and corporate modelling.
Lucinda Nicholas was thrown into the world of modelling at the age of 17 when she was asked to compete in the Miss World competition after finishing high school. With her heart set on completing her double degree in Justice and Society and a Bachelor of Law and eventually work as a practicing lawyer, Lucinda found herself torn between new careers when she won the state title.
SWEE AKA DJ MISS TOKIO
Music has always been a passion for Swee Ling Khor, also known as DJ Miss Tokio. Upon moving to Sydney, she took up a DJ course to pursue her music career.
AKIRA GARTON
Akira Garton was born a gypsy to young bohemian punks finding their signature in the burgeoning music and fashion scene in the early 80's. Home was where ever she happened to find it.
Back to Hosts


This year's Kids Count in Nebraska Report featured a commentary debuting our new Index of Race & Opportunity for Nebraska Children. This blog post is the fifth in a series diving into the commentary. In the first post we introduced the commentary and detailed our methodology, the next posts looked at the indicators in the health section, the three indicators in the education section, and our three economic stability indicators. We continue the series today with the indicators in the Child Welfare section.
Voices for Children believes that Nebraska must ensure all children grow up in safe, permanent and loving families. We know that by strengthening families, we prevent abuse and neglect. When maltreatment does occur, our child welfare system must work in a way that minimizes trauma to children and families through swift and thoughtful action.
Children not involved in the child welfare system: This is defined as the number of children per 1,000 who are not involved (court or non-court) in the child welfare system.
State wards receiving in-home services: This is defined as the percentage of children who are wards of the state but are living at home.
Children with three or fewer out-of-home placements: This is defined as the percentage of children living in out-of-home care who have changed placements three or fewer times.


8/25/2014 · How to learn astrology (Planets and aspects on various signs in hindi) in hindi astrological sign dates astrological signs and meanings The University of Melbourne 480,730 views.
Fun Zodiac Signs Fact | Me Virgo. Zodiac Signs Virgo Virgo Sign Virgo Libra Cusp Virgo Horoscope Astrology Zodiac Astrology Signs Astrological Sign All About Virgo Quotes About Virgo Forward Everything makes sense to me nowit's in the stars. 12 Zodiac Signs Dates, Compatibility, Meanings Zodiac Signs Dates, Compatibility & Meanings.
Compare Psychic Call and What Are The Astrological Signs For Each Month and House Number Meanings 5 House Number Meanings 5 that August Rooster then Age 44 Meaning between House Number Meanings 5 Compatibility Check By Date Of Birth with Dark Side Quote with Tarot Readings Melbourne Result.
The Gardening by the Moon planting guide shows you the best times for starting seeds based on moon phases and astrological signs. This easy calendar-style guide also lists the best days for planting vegetables and flowers based on your local frost dates.
The twelve astrology zodiac signs are grouped into four essential "elements"— the." "Having clarity is important to air signs Gemini, Aquarius and Libra." "12 Signs of Zodiac, The New Dates Astrological Signs New Zodiac Signs New Zodiac Sign Ophiuchus; New Zodiac Dates"
Moontime Diary 2019 Your Australian Astrological Lunar Calendar. This moon diary inspires and guides you to navigate your health, home and garden in tune with nature's seasons and cycles.
Astrological Sign - Wikipedia In Western astrology, astrological signs are the twelve 30° sectors of the ecliptic, starting at the vernal equinox (one of the intersections of the ecliptic with the celestial equator), also known as the First Point of Aries.


FUJIFILM X-T2 user Sathya Parthasarathi recently traveled to capture the magic of Morocco – read how he got on!
Photographer Oliver Wheeldon normally shoots adventurous landscapes with the X-T1. In this article he tries the FUJIFILM X-T2 on location in Cornwall and gives us his feedback, along with his top tips on how to engage with the beauty of the natural world.
Instagrammer Darren Brogan takes you on a virtual tour of his trip to Lake Como with the FUJIFILM X-T2.
Humanitarian photographer, Sebastian Rich, was invited to capture the official 74th birthday portrait of Prince Michael of Kent at Kensington Palace. With the discreet shutter of the FUJIFILM X-T2, the shy Prince was made to feel at ease being photographed.
X-Photographer Chris Weston combines the magnification power of his telephoto lenses with the X-T2's Panoramic Drive Mode to reveal a unique perspective on the wildlife of Canada's Great Bear Rainforest.
Steven Hanna is fortunate enough to live close to the beautiful Causeway Coast in Northern Ireland. Spending a lot of time shooting by the sea, he is well experienced to share a few tips to help you get the best from your seascapes.


First of all, He is the Provider whom we depend on. He designed man and woman to be equal but different. Husband and wife are more complete together, than they are apart.
Next, He is Loving. A good marriage must be grounded in love. True love means caring more about someone else than yourself.
And He is also Personal. He is not a distant, far away God; He is near, and wants to have a daily close relationship with His loved ones, Just like a joyful marriage of a man and woman.
For these reasons, a wedding ceremony is a big deal. And in Jesus' day, this was no less the case. In a traditional Jewish wedding, It starts with the groom-to-be asking the girl's father for her hand in marriage. And he shows how much he values his future wife by offering a bride price. That is, offering a big gift of money or precious things to show how much he cares about the woman.
After that there is a waiting period where the bride waits as the husband prepares a place for them. Then at a time that is not determined, the groom goes to get his future wife, and there is a wedding procession. It's like a big parade where family and friends watch as the man and wife make a commitment to live together as one.
Then after that, there is a REALLY BIG FEAST. Family, friends and neighbors all gather together to celebrate a new marriage union that will illustrate to the world just how loving God is.
One day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the celebration.
This was the first miraculous sig happened at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed his glory. And his disciples believed in him.


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Browse recent news articles and other GTT media coverage.
Cape Canaveral Benefiting from Opticom GPS
In the News December 5, 2016
System provides priority to emergency vehicles at intersection for improvements in operational safety and response times. Published first on International Fire Fighter CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – GTT has contracted with the City of Cape Canaveral, Florida for the implementation of its latest-generation GPS-enabled Opticom pre-emption solution. The Opticom Emergency Vehicle Pre-emption (EVP) system works alongside…
Saanich, BC Police Department Implements GPS
In the News November 18, 2016
Saanich, British Columbia uses Opticom GPS to help navigate through intersections quickly and safely. Published first on www.ITSinternational.com BRITISH COLUMBIA, CAD – The Saanich's district Police Department in British Columbia, Canada, awarded Global Traffic Technologies (GTT) a contract for the implementation of its latest-generation GPS-enabled Opticom pre-emption solution. This solution will work alongside the intersection controllers to help ensure emergency…
Improving response times in Spokane
In the News October 17, 2016
Ryan Simms of CBS-affliate KREM in Washington State reports about how Opticom Emergency Vehicle Preemption helps emergency departments in the Spokane area respond quickly and safely to emergencies: SPOKANE, Wash. — Fire departments in Spokane now have access to a device that could help them get to emergencies faster. The traffic signal device could improve…
At Petaluma stoplights, public buses go first
In the News, Transit Signal Priority October 13, 2016
Eric Gneckow of the Argus-Courier reports on Petaluma Transit's Opticom Transit Signal Priority deployment: PETALUMA, CALIF. — New technology giving Petaluma Transit buses a little boost at some of the city's signal lights is proving to have a big impact on the service's performance, notably without drawing the ire of car-bound commuters, according to the…
Washington DC improves riding experience
In the News, Transit Signal Priority October 2, 2016
WASHINGTON, DC – On October 2, 2016 Washington's Top News reported on how transit upgrades in the region, made possible through a federal grant, are giving buses priority and upgrading the rider experience. The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery or TIGER grant was given to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, some of this grant…
Cape Coral, FL Improving Response Times
Emergency Response, In the News June 14, 2016
Charlottesville, VA Advancing Technology in Ambulances
In the News, Opticom™ GPS May 9, 2016
Every second counts when you or a loved needs to be rushed to a hospital. It's up to first responders to get you there fast. On Friday, NBC29 got an inside look at the advancing technology that has nothing to with medicine, but may still save your life. The technology is called an Opticom and each fire…
Opticom helps late buses in Portland area
In the News, Opticom™ Infared, Transit Signal Priority March 4, 2016
The Oregonian's Elliot Njus answers a reader's question about blinking lights on some TriMet buses: What are the blinking red lights on TriMet buses' front route signs? (Commuting Q&A) Some TriMet buses have red, blinking lights on the front readerboard. What are they? Those lights are a secret handshake between buses and traffic signals. They…
Rural Roads in Minnesota
Canoga™, In the News October 16, 2015
Many high-risk intersections in rural Minnesota areas will hopefully be site to less crashes, thanks to intelligent transportation systems that will soon be installed by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. MnDOT is installing Rural Intersection Conflict Warning Systems at 54 intersections across the state. According to MnDOT, the sites were chosen based on various criteria,…
New Analysis Shows Bus Rapid Transit Improves Quality of Life in Cities
In the News, Transit Signal Priority December 11, 2013
Washington, DC (December 10, 2013) — New analysis of four iconic cities shows that commuters can save millions of hours of travel time by shifting to bus rapid transit (BRT) systems. The report from EMBARQ, the World Resources Institute program for sustainable urban transport and planning, draws primarily from case studies conducted in Bogotá, Mexico…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Logotype, commonly know as a logo, is a design, a graphic representation/image/trademark symbolizing one's organization. Designed for instant identification, a logo can appear on company letterhead, advertising material and signs as an emblem by way of which the organization can easily be recognized. Not just the purview of big businesses and conglomerate brands, even small businesses need to create a logo that is representative of what they are.
Originating in the 19th century, after a surge in industrial manufacturing that led to an increase in output, global distribution, and the commencement of competition, logos were created to differentiate between products within the same industry. Emblems or symbols were included on products, packages and labels so buyers could easily recognize the product they preferred.
Logos revolutionized the advertising world. There was a time when only affluent organizations could afford their own crest, emblem or logo. They were, in some cases, a very detailed drawing with many objects. Cost was not an issue and more was considered better. Then, flags were used due to their larger format. They were visible from the craft fields and from long distances. Today, successful companies continue to say that "simpler is better". Especially when the world is advancing so rapidly, you have less and less time to impress your customers. Logo designs, now, are very stylish yet remain conservative, which makes them eye-catching and easier for the brain to memorize.
The most crucial aspect of logo selection is the logo concept. You must first determine what your logo should say about your company. You may come up with an image related to a business like a house for real estate or a car for a car dealer, or your logo could be just an abstract image representing the company's philosophy, for example, a pyramid or a blocky image for a stable, trustworthy company. A very dynamic image with orbits and swooshes, sparks, or particles might be suitable for a very young, modern, high tech company.
Not all businesses, though, can be easily associated with any particular image. For example, a programming company doesn't have many images to associate with (except a computer). In this situation, it would be recommended to concentrate on an abstract image and to represent the feel of the company's business rather than coming up with a specific image.
Companies that deal with more than one business should have a more generic image, but the logo can still be made to look technological by implementing some straight lines in combination with curves, or more corporate with more proportional, symmetrical, geometrical shapes. As a result of the expense involved in changing a logo, a "good" logo shouldn't be too trendy, but ideally last many years before needing a redesign. You need to ask yourself if the design will be relevant in 5 or 10 years.
Once a company has established itself with a specific look, feel and image, it becomes more and more difficult to change as time goes by. Some companies have enjoyed success without ever having to change their logo design. Kentucky Fried Chicken has used Colonel Sanders in their logo since the company was founded in 1952. Aside from some updates on their marketing front, Nike would be another good example (the Nike swoosh). Pepsi took a risk in the mid 1990s by drastically changing their image and logo but did so with success. However, it could have resulted in commercial suicide. If you'll remember, in the 1980s Coca-cola changed their brand image to Coke. Pepsi then took over top seat in the market shortly thereafter. Creating a logo that can appeal to customers and consumers throughout the ages is important, considering that there will always be a risk involved with change.
If, however, you decide that your logo is in need of a face life, here are some points to take into consideration: Does your current logo represent 3 of the key elements that make up a credible and high quality logo design?
Does the logo portray your company in a manner which says that you are an expert in this field?
Is the logo "contemporary", symbolizing a "forward-thinking" look?
Is the message that you are trying to convey to the consumer clear? If you answered yes to all of these questions, then why change your logo?
General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, and the company was apparently unaware that "no va, translated in Spanish meant it won't go, or it doesn't run.
Iconic logos, one of the most common types, are represented by a single graphical element, icon or design which usually includes the company name below or to the side of the icon, for example: Nike, AOL, Micheline. When considering iconic logos, it is important to make the symbol fit any of the geometrical shapes. The best shapes to use are symmetrical geometrical shapes. They can be placed almost anywhere and still show balance and are very easy to handle. There is no obligation, however, as to the kind of shape used, you can use any free form shape you want, but you have to be very careful with the placement, so the logo doesn't look like it is falling apart. When selecting the shape, you should consider how conservative and stable your company wishes to appear.
Logo types consist only of the company name. A unique font or unique layout style can make a great logo, for example: Sony, Kellogg s, Coca-Cola, IBM.
An illustrative logo consists of a unique design; usually representing the company s field of business. These logos are often very eye-catching, detailed and impressive. As a result of their detail and colors, illustrative logos are difficult to reproduce and therefore expensive.
An integrated logo is the combination of a logo type and illustrative logo. These logos are even more rare than the illustrative logos because of their expense.
Less is More in Creating a Logo!
Everyone wants a cutting edge, high tech, cool logo. Consider, however, that some of the most successful logos are simple, and most importantly, easy to remember. Think of Nike, McDonalds, Pepsi, Coca-Cola. These are all very successful images that are, at the same time, very simple. When creating your design, you can get into picky little details and it is important to take a step back, close your eyes and see if you can essentially sketch the image in your head. If it is that memorable, then you know you are on the right track. Remember that "less is more".
Keep in mind, when selecting colors for your logo, that your color scheme should be appropriate for your company. It is also useful to use pantone colors -universal colors which are used by professional print shops. Colors often have a profound impact on viewers. Red and orange are said to produce excitation, red also tends to signify danger. Dark blue portrays comfort and relaxation, and yellow tends to create a feeling of irritation. If you are creating a logo design for a nursing home or a hospital, it may be a good idea to stay away from reds and bright yellows. Exceptions are always made though, such as McDonalds (which has both red and yellow in its logo!). When choosing your color scheme, keep in mind the personality you wish to express for your business. Do you want your company to portray a professional image? Try using black, silver, and other dark colors. Do you want your company to come across and fun, dynamic, and funky? If so, try using bright and vibrant colors. Be creative.
Reproduction costs: The more detailed and colorful the logo design, the more difficult to reproduce, meaning a higher cost.
Size: The prefect logo design will look great on a sign board as well as on a business card or a pen. Logo design companies are by the dozen. Take your time, research different companies and designers and compare packages in order to select a logo design company suited to your needs.
Check your competition. What designs, graphics, and colors do they use? Remember that you need to be competitive. Trademark your logo. If your logo is trademarked, this prevents competitors and other third parties from stealing it.
And last but not least, when in doubt, K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).
Logo design is believed to be one of the most difficult areas in graphic design. A logo is essentially at the heart of a corporate identity. It is the face of an organization! The right logo design can be one of your strongest marketing tools. It delivers the message to the public that a company is unique, credible and professional. Make it stylish. Make it elegant. Make it an impact.
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When the TV is above the mantel, the main attraction of the room becomes...you guessed it, the TV.
I actually went back and forth about the TV placement decision for quite awhile...10 months to be exact. I asked many people and family members for their opinions.
A neutral colored living room allows me to add pops of color in any shade. This month it's orange!
And with the TV out of the way, I can have a Halloween mantel, oooooh, how fun!
A few tall candlesticks (all found at second hand stores,) gives the perfect Halloween touch.
Real mini pumpkins straight from the pumpkin patch and the polka dot orange and black ribbon add to the theme. (ribbon from Hobby Lobby.) More ribbon looped around to add to the Halloween colors.
Oh, I almost forgot. The black crow (from Michaels) is perched on a candle. My son thought the crow was 'epic'.
I always forget how much the kids appreciate the holiday decor...even as teenagers.


Clarion's independent analysis and recommendations for improving vital newborn screening programs were recently published in STAT's First Opinion.
The article discusses the inefficient practices of newborn screening programs and offers suggestions for helping the healthcare community improve existing systems and accelerate nationwide adoption of new tests.
State-run screening programs can identify many affected individuals at birth, but their fragmented nature, as well as delays in incorporating new tests, result in unnecessary suffering for children born with addressable disorders. Many children continue to go undiagnosed because they are born in states that move slowly to adopt screening tests.
Read the full article authored by Clarion principal Robert Moy, Clarion manager Seamus Levine-Wilkinson, and independent consultant and former diagnostics executive Joseph Sterk.


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Kirsten Krauth
Editing & Digital
Wild Colonial Girl Blog
Posts in Varuna – Sydney Writers' Festival
Communicating the incommunicable: celebrating the work of Richard Flanagan
Book Reviews Novels Varuna - Sydney Writers' Festival Writers + Writing	 December 7, 2015	 4 Comments
Through Richard Flanagan's writing flows the destructive power of love, the lyricism of horror, the revisioning of Tasmania, and the gaps between words and action.
Australian novelist Richard Flanagan wins the Man Booker Prize in 2014 for The Narrow Road to the Deep North
High school dropout. Bush labourer. Rhodes scholar. River guide. Environmental activist. Film director. Man Booker prize winner. Indigenous Literacy Foundation ambassador. Whatever way you twist it, Richard Flanagan has had an unusual career. While Flanagan has often publicly stated that he believes writers should be separated from their defining adjectives, it's hard to divorce him from Tasmanian. Given the tidal wave of support following his Booker Prize win in 2014, and the video of US President Barack Obama buying Flanagan's book at a bookstore, former Tasmanian premier Paul Lennon may rue the day he said, "Richard Flanagan and his fiction is not welcomed in the new Tasmania" (ABC-TV News, 2004) but in the new new Tasmania, Flanagan continues to balance his fictional agenda with deeply felt personal essays on human and environmental rights, most recently challenging the Abbott government's treatment of Gillian Triggs (The Guardian,
26 February 2015). At the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2014 he spoke of his novels as being "beyond morality", but his work continues to argue for the many voices not being heard.
Richard Flanagan's debut novel, Death of a River Guide
At a recent Wheeler Centre event in Melbourne, Flanagan was asked how winning the Booker Prize had changed his life. He responded, in a typical gentle deflection, that he nearly drowned once, and that was a life-changing experience. He actually nearly drowned at least twice, probably more: with his mate Jim as he tried to kayak Bass Strait (And What Do You Do, Mr Gable?, 2011); as a river guide, leading an expedition down the Franklin, when he was wedged inside a rapid (Australian Story, ABC TV, 2008); and then there's the story his brother Martin Flanagan tells about a childhood dare, when Martin and Tim goaded their younger brother to swim the mouth of a river.
When Richard returned, they denied seeing him doing it. So he set off again "until in the end he was just a set of nostrils and two flailing hands above the water" (The Age, 13 September 2014). Clearly it's no surprise that the forces of nature, the tides of loss and hope and death and love, flow so clearly through his work:
I came to realise that most contemporary culture, including its literature, is made by people for whom the measure of the world is what is man-made. But the Franklin taught me this: that the measure of this world are all the things not made by man. And it was this sense that has come to inform me and all I have written since. (SMH Traveller, August 2013)
In Death of a River Guide, Harry, the father of Aljaz, shares his knowledge of the spirit of the river with his son. After a period of absence on the mainland, the river calls Aljaz back, tempting and seducing him, and he surrenders to "smelling the river, hearing it run, watching the rain mists rise from its valleys, drinking in the tea-coloured waters from his cupped hands".
Flanagan was one of the first kayakers to go down the Franklin and there's a rapid, Flanagan's Surprise, named after him. In River Guide, though, there's ambivalence. Aljaz notes the marking points of the river with disdain — Side Slip, Inception Reach, Severity Sounds — believing that to name things is a futile attempt at controlling fear, and he yearns for his early trips in the 1970s when "they experienced each day as a surprise, when people remembered the river as a whole, not as a collection of named sites that could be reduced to a series of photographs." While the men in Flanagan's debut novel don't speak much, it's the language of the river, the literacy of the landscape, that Harry and his father, and the river guides, can understand.
The Force, and Failure, of Words
Richard Flanagan + Geordie Williamson, Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival
In a conversation with Geordie Williamson at the Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival in 2014, Flanagan speaks of the role of the writer as being "to communicate the incommunicable". Describing himself as "a child of the Death Railway", he experienced first-hand the after-lives of returned prisoners of war, young men dealing with trauma and wounds that didn't heal in their lives, passing them onto the next generations, inhabiting a place where the silence "left gaps" — gaps he attempts to fill in his Booker Prize winning novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. What resounds is his clear compassion for those "caught up in the machinery of war". Doing research, he met Japanese guards who wanted to ask his father for forgiveness. He called his father to relay their wishes and, from this point on, his father had no memory of the war: a blessed release. Flanagan finished Narrow Road on the day his father died.
Many of Flanagan's central characters struggle with an inability to articulate, with their experiences and emotions — horror, despair, abandonment, grief, even joy — often greater than words will allow. In River Guide, when Harry finds his father killed by a fallen tree, expression is beyond him: "Not that Harry said any of these things or anything at all. Not that Harry even had words for what he thought. But Harry felt it and he felt it as a flame that consumed his body." His son, Aljaz, learns from the very start about the power of words when in his early years deafness (due to pneumonia) means he can't communicate with those around him, and his rage and confusion are palpable: "He now listened to the way in which words were used, the way one word could carry so many different meanings, how every word could be a tree full of fruit. But when he asked questions he was answered only with a quizzical shake of the head."
This experience is mirrored in Flaganan's own early years, his brother Martin relaying on Australian Story: "He had a serious hearing impediment early in his life and for the first six years … he was virtually deaf." I can read this experience through all of Flanagan's work, his ability to translate, to make us listen, his forceful prose, and his empathy for others struggling with language too. In The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Bojan swears in Italian rather than "profane his native tongue". He carries stories from the war in Slovenia (as all the men working on the dam do), stories that he finally cannot tell. He says to Sonja, "You find a language. But I lose mine. And I never had enough words to tell people what I think, what I feel."
In River Guide, when Aljaz is drowning, slowly dying in the river, his visions take him to Harry in the rainforest, felling timber and about to lose his thumb. As Old Bo and Smeggsy go to amputate, Aljaz pleads:
Then he let the axe fall.
Do I have to watch the rest?
Thank god for small mercies.
But Flanagan is generally not so merciful to the reader. We do have to watch the rest as his novels unfold, hear and feel the horror of lyrical moments, impossible to forget: the maggots crawling like "coconut on lamingtons" in the POW latrine; the dead baby's eyelids that fall off when the mother tries to close them; the amputation of Jack Rainbow's mangled flesh. While I may try to close my eyes, Flanagan doesn't give me the chance at the Sydney Writers' Festival, choosing to read Rainbow's amputation in its visceral detail and there's no escaping it in the auditorium; when he speaks it, the horror is impossible to cast off.
The inability to express things in words often takes more solid shape through the characters' attachment to, or disengagement from, various objects: the Mae-West-like picture of a girlfriend that a soldier carries through various horrors, to get him home, only to be gutted by a phone call; the bugle that Jimmy Bigelow plays while bodies burn in the funeral pyre, sold in a garage sale for a few bucks; the tea set that Sonja, at just three, deliberately drops on the ground to smash, then spends her returning years trying to piece back together, a legacy from her father who has "survived by camping in the fragments"; the toy-sized coffins that the children make in the orphanage where Mathinna is finally abandoned.
My favourite novel of recent years: Richard Flanagan's Narrow Road to the Deep North
Talking to Geordie Williamson, Flanagan mentions that when he started writing The Narrow Road, he was terrified about embarking on a love story because "everyone recognises a bad note". It's a curious comment because while his latest novel deals with the mystery of love, in all its forms (as he points out) — marital, sexual, friendship and camaraderie — his earlier novels are also about love in all its ugliness, joy and confusion. In River Guide, Couta Ho (Aljaz's girlfriend) embodies strength and desire, the couple's love played out in a wildly original game of semaphore flags, Couta holding them aloft and signalling to Aljaz what she wants: a blue flag with a white stripe signals "I am on fire". Later, when they meet again, it's the death of the relationship that's flagged, and when their baby dies at two months, they no longer have a language, coded or otherwise, to share this pain.
In Gould's Book of Fish, our unreliable guide tells us that " … to make a book … is to learn that the only appropriate feeling to those who live within its pages is love". But Flanagan doesn't make it easy. Enduring the beatings by Bojan, Nakamura and The Goanna takes a reader to the limits, the violence and cruelty appearing monstrous — but the men themselves are not so easily conveyed as monsters, rather creatures who are a product of certain times and places and systemic abuse, and histories that any of us would struggle to understand. Although Flanagan does not wrench responsibility away from them, they all come from worlds where they have never experienced true freedom.
But it's not all horror; there are small patches of light.
In Narrow Road, Dorrigo quotes poetry at key moments, even when his lovers chide him and desire to hear his own thoughts. Talking to Amy before he leaves for war, he believes it "was if life could be shown but never explained, and words — all the words that did not say things directly — were for him the most truthful". If you talk to Flanagan, or see him on stage, he has an extraordinary capacity for remembering and reciting others' words (apparently his father did too) and you get the sense that he is as happy living in their company as his own.
Self-inflicted Fictions
Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish
In all of his books, Flanagan questions whether there's more truth to be found in facts versus stories, and how we go about creating personal, historical and cultural myths. His novels attempt to uncover the fictions that Tasmanian colonials (and contemporaries) have told about themselves, about Aboriginal people, about the environment, about convict settlement. In Gould's Book of Fish, the "known history" and "official documents" become a burden too great to bear for Gould, "hauling a sled of lies called history through wilderness", as he attempts to escape his incarceration, saved by Twopenny Sal, who tears the pages up and throws them on a funeral pyre. Both Dorrigo and Sir John Franklin feel the weight of the fictions they have created, or that others have imposed on them. In an echo of Dorrigo, Franklin says, "There was about … his position, his own faded ambitions, the utterly unjustified reputation he carried with him as an ever-heavier burden, something intolerable and entirely absurd." In Wanting, Charles Dickens teeters on the brink of collapse (between desire and reason), finding that "his novels were true in a way life was not" and, yet, this is countered by his wife Catherine, who sees that Dickens had "made her that boring woman of his novels; she had become his heroine in her weakness and compliance and dullness".
Flanagan's answer to this crazy mayhem of human endeavours is the power, resilience and beauty of nature, always encroaching, reclaiming: the smouldering ruins of the Commandant's Great Mah-Jong Hall; the workers' camps at the dams overpowered by rainforest; the line of the Burma railway, the cause of so many deaths, disappearing into the jungle: "Of imperial dreams and dead men, all that remained was long grass."
As I traverse Flanagan's novels and non-fiction again, there are continual pulls into the world around me. As I sit with Choi Sang-min in the final hours before his execution, it's the day that Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan face the firing squad singing 'Amazing Grace'. As Colonel Koto speaks of his pleasure at using the sword against a prisoner's neck, a captured ISIS soldier on Four Courners spits out his desire to slice through a captive's neck with a blunt knife. As The Doll goes on the run from a fraudulent charge of terrorism, I see young Muslim men condemned as guilty before proven innocent. As Flanagan's POW veterans return to Australian shores unable to cope post-WWII, I hear Mandy in The Saturday Paper begging the Department of Veteran Affairs to help her husband, a returned soldier from Iraq, who is traumatised, violent, homeless, and unable to acclimatise to daily life.
When asked again at the Wheeler Centre about winning the Booker Prize, Flanagan is careful to point out that while he is lucky enough to have a place in the sun, for the moment, most writers spend their lives in the shadows and do their best work there. He sees his novels not as individual books but as part of one larger work, each flowing into and on from the other. Whether writing in the light or shade, Flanagan's vision continues to resonate because of his willingness to take risks in all aspects of his writing and life, to challenge the powerful, and to use his words as tools of defiance:
Writing my novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North I came to conclude that great crimes like the Death Railway did not begin with the first beating or murder on that grim line of horror in 1943. They begin decades before with politicians, public figures and journalists promoting the idea of some people being less than people … For the idea of some people being less than people is poison to any society, and needs to be named as such in order to halt its spread before it turns the soul of a society septic. (The Guardian, 26 February 2015)
This article originally appeared in the June 2015 edition of Australian Author.
Renovating and housekeeping
Festivals Friday Night Fictions Varuna - Sydney Writers' Festival Writers + Writing	 May 30, 2014	 4 Comments
I'm your number one fan: getting Frog Music signed by Emma Donogue – LOVED Room. Photo: Bette Mifsud.
I've been having a few teething problems since moving Wild Colonial Girl blog to her new home. All the content was sorted and then subscribers got left behind! So, apologies, and hope you are with me now… If the blog is emailed to you, it might now be coming from the very official sounding KirstenKrauth.com rather than Wild Colonial Girl, but I need to get that worked out too.
Just a quick update on what's been happening the past couple of weeks.
I was thrilled to be guest-blogger at the Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival and covered the following sessions:
Richard Flanagan on my fave novel of past years, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Emma Donoghue on her novels Room and Frog Music
Felicity Castagna and me on Here and Now: Debut Fiction
Sally Piper and Annah Faulkner on mothers, guerrilla tactics and the food we share in Grace's Table and Beloved
Black and Blue: an exhibition drawing together illustrators and writers in the Blue Mountains
I've also decided, in a bid to focus on my next writing projects (in limited time), that Friday Night Fictions will have a rest. But please still send me info about any new books, as I'll continue doing profiles of debut authors.
And who says that blogging doesn't pay? Many might remember my personal take on Tim Ferguson's memoir. Soon afterward, he invited me for coffee and cake in Glebe. My 18-year-old self could never have envisaged this happening: the power of social media! And he was as provocative and smart (and funny of course) as I had imagined. Oh, and DAAS have decided to announce that they're touring. While I'll miss the dynamic with Richard Fidler (Flacco is now on board), I'd still like to see them on stage again. Canberra was a success and Sydney shows announced. Hopefully more out my way …
Happy writing, and please comment, so I know you're all still there. Promote your latest book! I don't mind.
"Hell is a half-filled auditorium": Richard Flanagan at Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival
Festivals Novels Varuna - Sydney Writers' Festival Writers + Writing	 May 28, 2014	 2 Comments
Richard Flanagan + Geordie Williamson, Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival. Photo: Bette Mifsud.
Richard Flanagan started his session quoting Robert Frost, while peering out to see the Carrington packed to the rafters. After watching him again down Sydney Theatre-way, I doubt he'll ever have to worry about empty seats again.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is my favourite book of recent years. Its scope, its compassion, its use of poetry, its melding of the Australian/Japanese view, its horror and love, its strange and cyclical stucture: I have it by my bed to dip into, trying to learn its secrets, as it helps me start on my second novel.
Taking part in writer sessions recently has helped me realise the importance of choosing a good interviewer. Geordie Williamson is always sensitive and assured, and I love how he challenges Flanagan with wordy flights and interpretations. Flanagan begins with a reading, and I'm surprised to find it's the passage that some might say is the spoiler. I like the daring of this: bringing up the novel's central dilemma — as Dorrigo Evans walks, he sees his lover after a lifetime without her: will he stop (will she?) or will he walk on by (will she?).
The beauty of the novel comes from the bringing together of hope and horror, inflicting us with obscenities, and then asking us to rise above them. Flanagan laughs when he says he was terrified to write a love story and that he put it off for five novels: that 'everyone recognises a bad note'. In my own writing I know this to be the case; the ugly, the disturbing, the conflict, is much more seductive, but I'm hoping to move on too.
In many ways, Flanagan's power comes from the personal. A 'child of the death railway', the impact on him was all-encompassing. Many audience members who stood up to ask questions echoed this. The young men who returned with severe trauma didn't heal in their own lives, while their wounds were passed on to following generations. Many of us with tight-lipped grandfathers, the ones who would only loosen up after sinking a dozen on ANZAC day, understand this well, the 'gaps between the silence of men'. Flanagan questioned the current infatuation with the ANZAC legend as based on contested ground, leading towards a 'perverted and dangerous national festival … an insult to those who died … a vindication of chauvinism'.
He sees writing a novel as a 'journey into your own soul', his latest book an attempt to translate 'the small acts of extraordinary kindness we show each other', along with the gore and the filth of POW camps. Most clear is his sympathy for those caught up in the machinery of war. He met Japanese and Korean guards (The Lizard) in Japan, and ultimately sees war as demanding evil of innocent people.
When Geordie asked him about the ethical dilemmas of taking fictional liberties with the 'literature of witness' (he includes Levi here), Flanagan says that 'writing can't have ethics … it's beyond morality'. He sees the role of the writer as 'an idea of someone whose task it is to communicate the incommunicable'. What was most important to Flanagan was not to cause offence to his father, his dad's mates, and the people who stumbled and fell along the line.
The novel took over a decade to write. He finished the book on the day his father died.
And through it all is Flanagan's wicked humour. After humbling himself — 'the things that are the best of me are in each book' — he adds, 'the rest of me is an added disappointment'.
Black and Blue: Blue Mountains' stories – Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival
Artists + Illustrators Creativitiy Festivals Uncategorized Varuna - Sydney Writers' Festival	 May 28, 2014
Ron Pretty hosts Black and Blue panel, featuring Mark O'Flynn, Emma Brazil, Michael Streich, Jude Martinez, Craig Billingham, Faye Wilson, Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival, photo: Bette Mifsud
Coming from Castlemaine, a small town in regional Victoria, I can see how certain rural areas of Australia are starting to thrive, attracting artists, writers, filmmakers and musicians. But even so, creatives can often feel they work in isolation, stuck in a studio or cave somewhere, coming out occasionally to see the light.
The Black and Blue exhibition in Katoomba, launched by local resident Tara Moss as part of the Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival, draws on Blue Mountains' stories, bringing together writers and illustrators who live in the mountains. The early stages of the project involved a call-out to locals to submit stories they'd heard: rumours; truths; dark mutterings. Once on the table, there was a selection process and writers and illustrators were paired up for particular tales, free to interpret and make connections. Contemporary stories were put gently aside, with contributors wary of representing people still living in the area (this would have been fascinating, too). The result is a show currently exhibiting at a new gallery, the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, until 29 June.
In a panel hosted by poet Ron Pretty, there was much discussion about the role of the illustrator, and the divide between illustration and art. I'd never really thought about the difference between illustrators and artists (if there is one). Illustrations for children's books are always as important as the words themselves, sometimes more so. Black and Blue was originally conceived as a way to celebrate what illustrators do, and how they fit into the publishing landscape.
Faye Wilson, an illustrator living in the Blue Mountains, is drawn to (literally) the 'mad scientist process' of transforming traditional art mediums in Photoshop, the alchemy of combining the analogue with the digital, layering, 'glaze upon glaze'. She spoke passionately of how primarily culture is about place — that hearing local stories always enriches the spot where you live, and that the Mountains has a deep culture of its own.
There are 16 artists involved – the illustrators are Greg Bakes, Amy Cutler, Wayne Harris, Jude Martinez, Nancy Sarno, Toby Riddle, Michel Striech, and Wilson, and the writers are Craig Billingham, Emma Brazil, Kathy Hale, John Low, Mark O'Flynn,Vanessa Kirkpatrick, Trevor Shearston and Deb Westbury.
More on the Sydney Writers' Festival: Emma Donoghue on Frog Dancing; Kirsten Krauth and Felicity Castagna on debut fiction and the here and now; and tough love in the books of Sally Piper and Annah Faulkner.
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Tough love: Sally Piper & Annah Faulkner – Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival
Australian Women Writers Debut authors Novels Varuna - Sydney Writers' Festival Writers + Writing	 May 21, 2014
Sally Piper + Annah Faulkner, Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival. Photo: Bette Mifsud.
Annah Faulkner has the kind of eyes so sharp they seem to penetrate you to the bone. When talking about her novel The Beloved, you can imagine she is as gusty as the characters she speaks of. Sally Piper, a former nurse, has just released her debut novel Grace's Table, and this is her first appearance at a festival.
Annah talks about how love seems to have changed over the generations, how in the past love could be fierce, so fierce it was like fighting for survival. There can be a point for mothers where they want something so badly (for their child), they're so fearful about what's going to happen (to their child), that their love tips at a point into something else, into desperate control. This reminds me of Jeanette Winterson's adopted mother — evangelical, deranged — in her memoir, who asks: why be happy when you could be normal?
A small comment from a parent to a small child can influence how they see the world, and their place in it, for a long time. Annah tells of drawing at the table and her mother leaning over and saying, just casually, 'Art is definitely not your strength.' Creativity needs to be nurtured not strangled. It was only when she reached 41, that she saw a man in the park, and thought, 'I'd like to paint that'. In a way, she sees writing a small girl character with a talent for art as a way of healing.
Annah reveals that her mother was a journo and photographer in Papua New Guinea. I was born in PNG and returned there for a short time when I was a child. It's more and more on the radar with Australian writers. I look forward to reading The Beloved.
In Grace's Table, Sally's intent was to flout the expected conventions when writing about a 70-year-old woman. She wanted to write an older woman character who had lived (as we all have lived). Sally wrote her novel as part of a degree, and said she had always been fascinated with the 50s, women in the kitchen, the post-war period where after women had the chance to work, their opportunities were then stripped right back.
Sally talked about how the way we share food defines us, and her novel revolves around how food in a domestic setting is not just about loving and caring, but can be manipulative and taunting too. Her university exegesis was about how disempowered 50s women became empowered in the home by becoming guerilla tacticians. I have a vision of someone in a demure apron and a gorilla mask, but I'll read Grace's Table to find out more.
In response to an audience question about characters becoming part of their lives and buzzing around in their brains, Sally admitted to being a 'bloody idiot' when writing and driving (the two don't mix; I can attest to this). I don't mean literally. But having characters talk to you when you're at the wheel can be really distracting.
While Annah, who has set an event in her new novel at a particular block of land that she drives past regularly, always thinks 'There's Fred's place!' as she sails on by…
For more on the Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival, see Emma Donoghue chatting about motherhood and cross-dressing, and a roundup of my Here and Now session with Felicity Castagna.
A room with a view + Emma Donoghue: Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival
Novels Uncategorized Varuna - Sydney Writers' Festival Writers + Writing	 May 19, 2014	 1 Comment
Varuna: a room with a (gothic) view
Walking into Varuna (a residence for writers in Katoomba) from the road is like entering some kind of wonderland. It seems to be a place where you leave your baggage at the gate. I sleep in the Sewing Room, in a small wooden single bed with a patchwork quilt, and read and write here in the Green Room, with wall to wall library shelves, a huge desk, window views and a comfy chair to sit.
Whenever I'm struggling for a metaphor to grab when describing writing and editing, I tend to go with the handicrafts. I do find my own method of putting a manuscript together works much like a hand-made patchwork quilt, writing the fragments and then piecing them together according to colour, texture, style. Editing too has often been described as a kind of tearing apart and stitching back together, hopefully with the stitches seamless and invisible to the reader.
I wake at Varuna to gothic bare trees after a night of red wine and grand talk around a fire with Djon Mundine and Felicity Castagna. I'm here at Varuna not to write this time, but for my first session as part of the Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival, and they've also asked me to guest blog.
In Emma Donoghue's gut-churningly tense novel, Room, there are no windows, no view. Jack is a five-year-old who has been locked up with his mother since birth; Ma was kidnapped. His voice is precise and strikes at your heart, clear as a bell. When I was reading books featuring young characters as research for just_a_girl it was Jack's voice, and Christopher's in Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, that remained with me.
Kate Fagan + Emma Donoghue at Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival. Photo: Bette Mifsud.
Emma Donoghue's session at the Carrington unfolds in her warm and hearty Irish accent. She talks of the ideas behind her latest book, Frog Music, set in the late 1800s about a cross-dresser, a frog-catcher and an erotic dancer. I'm already in love with the sound of it. The women in her novel are rebelling against the rules, refusing to be 'good girls'. She talks about the joys of delving into the archives, uncovering things odd and excessive. She spends a day researching men's jewellery, 'trousers so tight it left nothing to the imagination'.
She also talks of the centrality of the theme of motherhood to her novels, sometimes capturing her by surprise: the pressures of family/work reflecting all our lives and that moment when as a parent you have to consider: 'Will I keep them safe or will I let them live?' She then goes onto describe her own creative processes, and how she achieves balance: 'I weaned my daughter to go on a book tour … I feel so shallow saying that', she says, laughing.
Donoghue's passion for writers and writing shines through in every word. The youngest of eight, she loved the indulgence of being able to read books while her older siblings worked around her. She's only just starting to feel like a grown up (now she has kids). I know how she feels …
Heading off to another day in the mountains…
For more Varuna/Sydney Writers' Festival coverage, see here and now fiction with me and Felicity Castagna, and tough love with Annah Faulkner and Sally Piper.
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