The Memoir Club presents: Martin Edmond in conversation with Brent Clough

Tuesday, 29 April 2014, 6.00 - 9.00 PM

The Randwick Literary Institute,
60 Clovelly Road, Randwick 2031
RSVP: jessica.kirkness@students.mq.edu.au  

 

Martin Edmond has been described as a "memoirist, whose 'memoirs' are quest books, rehearsing investigations, making enquiries, retailing anecdotes and philosophical ruminations in pursuit of some invariably elusive subject" (David Eggleton, Landfall Review).

His prize-winning work of narrative non-fiction, Dark Night: Walking with McCahon, re-traces and re-imagines the "lost journey" that pre-eminent New Zealand artist Colin McCahon spent wandering from the Botanical Gardens to Centennial Park in Sydney, disoriented and adrift, while a retrospective of his work was due to open at the Art Gallery of NSW in 1984.  

Colin McCahon

"Colin McCahon is the most celebrated New Zealand painter of the 20th Century... His explorations on canvas of his relation to the world and his standing place in New Zealand, squinting into the hard sun, represent defining statements about what it means to be 'from here'... McCahon reconceived Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, as the land of the long black shadow [to paraphrase Murray Bail]."—Paul Stanley Ward, NZEDGE.

This month the Memoir Club is pleased to present Martin Edmond in conversation with Brent Clough about, among other things, the ways in which a fascination with the lives of creative individuals and sensitivity to the power of place have mapped Martin's own way in the world.

'Are there not twelve hours of daylight?', Colin McCahon, 1970

Martin Edmond was born in Ohakune, in the central North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. He moved to Sydney in 1981, where he lives and works as an author, essayist, poet, screenwriter and sometime cabbie. In his hugely erudite non-fiction he has explored the life of his father, Pacific history, New Zealand artist Philip Clairmont, drugs and art, travel, and his own paths to self-discovery. In 2013 Martin was awarded the New Zealand Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement for non-fiction.

Brent Clough is a New Zealand-born broadcaster who has lived in Sydney since 1984.







When: last Tuesday of every month (27 May, 24 June, 29 July etc.)

Time: 6.00 - 9.00 PM (come for a cuppa and help us set up at 5.30 PM - please remember to bring your own cup!)

Where: The Randwick Literary Institute, 60 Clovelly Road, Randwick 2031. Tel: 02-9398 5203 (for directions and venue info). Street parking available. Clovelly bus 339 on the doorstep. For how to get there, see: http://randwickliteraryinstitute.com.au/faqs/

What: A communal space to meet other writers and readers and converse about all things to do with reading and writing memoir. We are interested in all kinds of life stories and in different ways of telling them. The genre of life writing and the possibilities of expanding and reworking the genre is exciting to us. Therefore we have a somewhat open and inclusive approach to what makes a memoir, and we hope you do too! Here is a space to connect with others and share ideas, questions and just hang out. Each meeting will start off with a talk, conversation or discussion about a particular topic or book, sometimes with a guest speaker or facilitator, then we move to an informal gathering and catch up.

Donation: $10 at the door for hall hire, refreshments and speakers.

Food: $15 for a plate of delicious vegetarian finger food (different each meeting). Ring or text to book a plate: 0450 907 422.

Future Speakers: Saskia Beudel (May), Mandy Sayer (August).

Look forward to seeing you there! Please do pass information on to anyone who might be interested in this community gathering.

mem·oir /ˈmemˌwär/
Noun. A historical account or biography written from personal knowledge. An autobiography or a written account of one's memory of certain events or people.

"Years of solitude had taught him that, in one's memory, all days tend to be the same, but that there is not a day, not even in jail or in the hospital, which does not bring surprises, which is not a translucent network of minimal surprises."—Jorge Luis Borges

"McCahon, I think, was only Christ in the same way that I am a pilgrim following in his, McCahon-Christ's footsteps. That is, casually, intermittently, opportunistically, wilfully, because only in these fragmentary assumptions of another being's reality can something be said that would otherwise remain unarticulated."—Martin Edmond

"I only need black and white to say what I need to say. It is a matter of light and dark."—Colin McCahon