June’s Lit Live title, Sweet and Sour gave lots of opportunity to choose a selection of lovely stories with a neat twist of sourness!
The queen of sweet and sour is American American poet, critic and satirist Dorothy Parker. From the 1920s through to her death in 1967, she was famed for her sharp wit and eye for urban foibles. She started the famed lunch group Algonquin Round Table, better know as The Vicious Circle, as they engaged in wisecracks, wordplay, and witticisms.
Sarah McNeill read her delightfully funny dinner story: But The One of the Right... published in the New Yorker in 1929.
Sarah also read a new story by Tasmanian writer Danielle Wood (aka Minnie Darke) on the bittersweet idea of settling down, called How to Domesticate a Pirate.
Andrea Gibbs read local playwright Hellie’s Turner’s imaginative day-dream story, Dream On, Molly Marshall, about a country girl waiting for her knight in shining armour.
Andrea also tackled the challenging, sensitive and repetitive ode to memory loss, Diem Perdidi by American writer Julie Otsuka. Published in Granta magazine, Julie said she had been taking notes for the story on the backs of envelopes, napkins, and ATM receipts for many years—ever since her mother was first diagnosed with dementia.
Luke Hewitt read the opening chapter of Afternoons with Harvey Beam, a novel by local writer Carrie Cox on the sour note of an infamous radio shock jock losing his sense of place in the world.
He also read another extract from a novel. Under the Circumstances, about the dilemmas of aging and trying to be seductive, comes from Perth author Iris Lavell’s novel Elsewhere in Success.
Thanks to everyone who came – it was a great night. Please tell your friends, family and book clubs and bring them all along in July!
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