Our ‘Let’s Talk About Alice’ panel began with words from M.K. Hume’s King Arthur: Dragon’s Child. “Now, in the twenty-first century, Karl Marx’s grave in a London cemetery is no longer a rallying cry to the poisoned idea that the end justifies the means…’
Lauren Elise Daniels at Brisbane Square Library November 26th, 2016
Marilyn Hume, Kristina Olsson and Shelley Davidow, all three mothers, teachers and acclaimed authors, were introduced through the polished diamonds of their words. On Saturday, 26 November 2016 at the Brisbane City Square Library, the ‘Let’s Talk about Alice’ panel discussion on women’s voices and gender-specific awards launched with stellar prose.
Kris Olsson’s excerpt from her multi-awarded family memoir, Boy, Lost illustrated writing as profession: ‘I worked to an uninterrupted rhythm…as I trawled through the notebooks and drafts in the warm salt air, I found this: I’d like to think the pain meant something…That pain is a crucible. That it is something that merely wants to be understood.’
Shelley Davidow’s memoir, The Eye of the Moon, exemplified the role of woman writer: ‘…I read Middlemarch, Lolita, and a hundred others, and found my secret reiterated in numerous versions. It was then that I became aware of something far larger than my individual life, some truth that played itself out again, and again, mercilessly through the ages. I live with the knowledge that this story will quite certainly be told again.’
As the discussion commenced, common ground between authors emerged. These are brave women whose writing explores complex societal taboos, violence and cross-generational grief and displacement along sweeping historical, emotional and geographical terrain. The denouement of their life’s work comes to rest in its endurance; in its tremendous strength and hope for the future.
Our panel explored how women write more books than men but are still underrepresented in literary circles; how women are considered ‘domestic writers’ and ‘uninteresting’; a confounding conclusion when these stories of warring battalions, cultural exorcisms and global migrations are actually read. We discussed how we intend to break the cycle of training both men and women to look only to male voices. Recognition, collaboration and community for emerging and established women writers, as we discussed, are the pillars which lift our voices from obscurity.
As Clarissa Pinkola Estés wrote on social media in the wake of the US election: ‘We were made for these times.’
Our panel exemplified this faith with authors who shared their wisdom with the greatest of generosity and compassion.
Let’s do it again sometime.
‘Only greatness of heart lasts…’
More photos from “Let’s Talk about Alice”
