possums in the library

I have a contender for my library of books. Yes, I know I have too many to read in my lifetime, but that's no excuse for possums trying to take over the bookshelves. Three times in the past week I have woken to the scrabbling of little paws and twice to the crashing of glass - first a lamp, and then a vase. When confronted by a woman in pyjamas, the creature has calmly looked up from the bookshelf into my face and turned tail. Each time I have managed to coax her out the way she came in, through the window. Is she looking for a place to nest? Or are possums taking over the world? It seems possible in our corner of Melbourne. In that case, is she selecting suitably civilising authors: Proust, Austen or Orwell? She is still scratching at the window now it is closed.
Does any one else have possums in their library?

Performance stories

Storytelling is an author's backbone, and keeping the backbone strong is healthy for all of us writers. Twelve Australian authors were put to the challenge of telling their family stories at this weekend's launch of The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in A Gala Night of Storytelling at Melbourne Town Hall. They came on to the stage, one at a time, to address the huge audience, with varying degrees of success. Some read their stories, some told them off the cuff, others performed them as comedy or song. Some struggled with the mike in this echoey auditorium. Not all writers are great readers or speakers, as we know from writers' festivals, but here was a chance to make their stories shine.

All but two of the authors stayed behind the lectern. The two who didn't were performers before they became authors. Comedian Judith Lucy used a hand-held mike for her performance. Singer Paul Kelly brought the evening to a spine-tingling close with a story sung a capella. Several others were memorable. John Safran entertained us with a Jewish story that blended humour and pathos. Shane Maloney gave us a change of mood with his dry humour and fine sense of timing. Alex Miller kept his contribution short: a powerful vignette, a lively depiction of his father, complete with Scottish brogue. Cate Kennedy, our consummate short story writer, was intimate and spontaneous, if a little rambling, as she told a story that had a perfect narrative arc and a tight ending.

The remaining writers were David Malouf, Alexis Wright, John Marsden, Chole Hooper, Christos Tsiolkas and Tara June Winch. An author who was notable for his absence was Arnold Zable, one of Melbourne's fine storytellers.

What lessons can be learned from this night of storytelling? What do we need to remember when we tell our stories aloud? What do our listeners want? As a listener, this is what I want from a storyteller: honesty, humour, a satisfying story told with rhythm, pace and variety and a voice that is a pleasure to listen to. Just as a writer redrafts and edits and makes sure the written word is ready for the world, so a storyteller can craft and practise a piece, or improve the art of impromptu storytelling aloud before stepping in front of an audience. Get familiar with the mike, get to know your voice and how best you can use it, and try stepping out from behind the lectern to connect with your audience.

I for one, relish this return to hearing our stories told aloud, and hope this night of storytelling will be the first of many such nights where authors can gain confidence in the spoken word. Poetry has its own performance scene. Prose can follow suit.

What do you think?

Pride, Prejudice and Philippe Petit

It is Jane Austen's birthday today! Happy 234th birthday! In celebration, I watched (yet again) the final part of Lost in Austen, the delicious retelling of Pride and Prejudice through the eyes of a modern Janeite living in Hammersmith. Altogether more affecting and better acted than even the best British TV series of P&P. Yes, Austen is a profound influence on my writing, along with Annie Proulx and Cate Kennedy. What a disparate bunch, all jostling for pole position in my head. My current inspiration is Colum McCann's latest novel Let the Great World Spin, a brilliantly constructed story hingeing on Philippe Petit's 1974 tight-rope walk between the twin towers. Not surprising that a great writer should take that story and run with it.  I saw Petit last year in a Q&A session after the Melbourne screening of Man on Wire, the film about his highwire walk. He could not sit still in the 'comfortable' chair, but sprang up to answer questions. His comfort zone is high in the sky, joyriding on a wire, finding ecstasy through the fine-tuning of his nerves. He keeps alive the spirit of the absurd and theatrical sixties and the romantic and serious seventies. He embodies curiosity, passion and creativity. What better inspiration for a writer!

The season of the launch

The writing studio is frighteningly quiet. But I am getting used to it,  alone with the freedom to think something through without distraction. Yesterday I went round in circles, changing point of view of a short story: from third person, to second person, to first person and back again to third! Changed a few words, ended up with same word count at the end of the day. Should I have taken the day off instead? But it was an interesting exercise, teaching me to analyse some of the inner points of language that we take for granted. Could use it in my teaching next week.

Went to launch of Cate Kennedy's first novel The World Beneath on Tuesday at the Trades Hall bar - grunge city. Buy one copy, and you got a chocolate brownie made by Cate herself, buy three copies and you got a bottle of wine. It was a fun affair, with Shane Howard singing, and friends, family and fans out in force. Cate's speech was full of humourous anecdotes, relating her writer's tales of procrastination and her friendly competition with Dan Brown. She'll be good entertainment value at writers' festivals. Go Cate!

A few friends are launching books now: Joel Magarey and Andee Jones are next off the blocks. I am aiming for mine next year!

room with a view

Still on the subject of space, have just returned from a trip across the Nullarbor Plain on the Indian Pacific train. Two nights on the top bunk, my daughter on the bottom bunk, wondering if I would fall out. I had to keep telling myself I had slept for years on the edge like this in my trucking days, so fear not. All was fine and we slept better than in our own beds at home.

When we first got into the carriage, my daughter had suffered a slight attack of claustrophobia. It was after dark, with no view outside, and we sat on the bench seat facing the blank doors of the bathroom and wardrobe. The next morning, the 'room' was transformed by the vista of sandhills at dawn and all anxiety fled as we stared out the window. A room with a view beats a windowless cell, any day. I know some writers insist on facing a blank wall, but a connection with the weather and nature keeps me sane.

I will have my room with a view of the gardens of a National Trust property tomorrow when I move into my new writing studio. Can't wait.

time and space

The writing is slow this year. I feel confined, need to spread out, am applying for studio space. Yet small isn't usually a problem for me. Watched Grand Designs on tv - English couple building huge house on their Wiltshire farm in England. I can see the advantage of space and certainly love the eco and aesthetic aspects of the design, but would I want to live in such a huge barn of a place? I once helped my partner renovate a barn, creating a large sunny room as a place to spread out while we lived in a truck, but we rarely used it, preferring to live like chickens in the converted lorry. That lorry plays a major role in my memoir. Now I live in what I think of as a normal house with plenty of space but recently found out the neighbours refer to it as The Doll's House!

In David Malouf's memoir 12 Edmondstone Street, he writes about how our first houses set down the way we relate to the world. My first house was a small bungalow and my bedroom a mere sliver of space between the bathroom and my mother's bedroom. One small high window was my outlook on the world.

reading and writing

More than 2 months down the track and I have not returned to the State Library. At least I can count on returning when the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas opens there later this year. My memoir is still unpublished, but the pall that settled on me after finishing it is finally lifting and today has been a frenzy of reading and writing (mostly reading). My head is spinning with reading Francine Prose, Diana Athill, Anne Lamott and Katherine Mansfield. Don't ask me why.  Such is life in the age of the Internet. I was finally waylaid by Freda Balaam, my ex-headmistress. Got lost somewhere on the www trying to find another teacher's name for my memoir. I wrote two more pars, but stalled on that name. She may have to go nameless. The interminable and unproductive days of a twenty-first century writer.