Review of the Brisbane Writers Festival

http://iheartbrisvegas.blogspot.com/2009/09/brisbane-writers-festival-write-up.html

Brisbane Writers Festival - words, old and new friends

I had the pleasure of meeting James A Levine, a guest at the Hachette Author dinner; what a guy! He's the sweetest, Dr/humanitarian/ timid taxi hailer/ and British born author of 'The Blue Notebook' his moving story of Batuk, a child prostitute living in the street of cages in Mumbai.

Brisbane Writers Festival Saturday 12 September Session " My Big Fat Eccentric Family"
Its not every day you get an invitation like this, so I prepared a little performance piece, that involved my fellow panellists; the gorgeous Gary Bryson and Tom Cho playing my beloved Mum & and Dad whilst Cate Kennedy mediated and I ate a bbq chook, re telling tales from my book.

CT & Julia Morris. Oh dear, that hand looks somewhere between a sideways peace sign and a grope, when actually it's a Claw Lawn Bowls grip. (True, we were bowling team mates earlier this year against the Inderpendant booksellers.) Julia was fantastic in her BWF sessions. During her first I officially became a Tena lady.

Lisa Unger, Gregg Huwitz and CT. What can I say 2 out of 3 are international best selling authors and the other one is me. Gregg and I met chasing Vanessa Radnidge down the road and Lisa and I met seeking shade in the foyer of the Mantra Hotel, where we discovered a shared love of language, islands, three year old girls & velvet bags.

Can you believe it? Neither could I that's why i took a picture.

Don Walker, Catherine Therese & Krissy Kneen

Whats Left Out? session at Melbourne Writers festival 29/08/09. I was incredibly nervous before this one..until Don whispered on our way in " Whats the worst thing that could happen Catherine? No one's going to throw a jug at you!" He was right no one did!

Glen David Gold & Catherine Therese

Fellow reverse parkers Glen David Gold and me at MWFestival, musing over Skippy, offshore oil rigs, orchard stalking, and Mrs Doubtfire amongst other things....accompanied by the sound of Vanessa Radnidge's Flipper impersonations - Just a little quiet time before my first session.

Melbourne Writers Festival - Outsiders Catherine Therese, MJ Hyland, Nikki Gemmel

Nikki Gemmel, me, and MJ Hyland signing at the conclusion of our lively red lipstick "Outsiders" session. Between 'fecks, ladies posing as gentlmen, scarf waving and half -a -thumbs' it was a hilarious panel.
"I attended the Outsiders event at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival this evening and it was simply, simply marvellous. The panel was made up of M.J. Hyland, Nikki Gemmell and debut writer Catherine Therese and they discussed what it meant to be an outsider and how outsiders feature in their work. All three panellists were incredibly engaging and wonderful readers when they read aloud a section of their work. I’m not usually a fan of being read to but all were spirited and articulate." Mae ANZ litarary blog

Meeting Anne Michaels at the MWFestival 21 August 2009

On the opening day of the Melbourne Writers Festival I had the incredible pleasure of meeting my favourite author; the beautiful Anne Michaels. She was as gracious and generous in person as she is on the page, a rare rare unforgettable treat. I burst into tears when she asked me to sign my book for her, which I did, sort of (the lovely Readings bookshop girls providing pens and tissues) shaking, mispelling everything, oh dear ...it really was a dream come true.

If you looked up Ken Unsworth in the dictionary it should say ... genius.

His exhibition 'The Ringing Glass" at Cockatoo Island Sydney is breath taking. A love story. Great art. Go, but hurry, its on until August 2nd.

MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL

The ACMI in Melbourne, where Don Walker, Krissy Kneen, Nikki Gemmel, MJ Hyland and Catherine Therese will share the stage on 29th August. Session details available at http://www.mwf.com.au/

I’m a big fan of chick lit. An even bigger fan of crime fiction. So it’s not often a book that does not fall into either of these genres completely blows me away; and has me recommending it to anyone who will listen. The Weight of Silence by Catherine Therese is just that book.
A powerful and moving memoir ... written in a way I can only describe as descriptively poetic, it is certainly one of the most potent books I can remember reading.
Monika www.sweatybettypr.com/blog/?p=1276 -

CT at the Melbourne Writers Festival
Complete program and details available at http://www.mwf.com.au/
August 29th

WHAT’S LEFT OUT?
VENUE ACMI Studio 1 CODE 2974
When writing memoirs where do tell-all
memoirists draw the line? Krissy Kneen,
Catherine Therese and Don Walker discuss
what’s hidden under the white-out.


OUTSIDERS
VENUE ACMI 2 CODE 2926
Isolation, exclusion, trauma and being on the
outside are dealt with differently by adults and
children. Two of our most prominent authors,
MJ Hyland and Nikki Gemmell, come together
with critically acclaimed debut author Catherine
Therese to reflect on how we adapt to difficult
situations.

FIRST TUESDAY BOOK CLUB
Discussion: Suggestion - The Weight of Silence

Author: girlie
Date/Time 09 Jul 2009 8:18:42pm
Have just finished reading The Weight of Silence by Catherine Therese. What a book! An extraordinary achievement for a first-time Australian author on a Varuna fellowship; it's experimental writing, but is a real page turner and difficult to put down. I was just blown away and would love to listen to a discussion by the panel.


Author: Cheq
Date/Time 16 Jul 2009 4:46:40pm
I agree! I would love to see THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE appear on the show. This incredible book has so many points of dicussion and could cause some conflict on the panel.

Author Catherine Therese shares her exploration of language, love and redemption
Monday, June 22, 2009 at 9:54am
Shearer's Tuesday Night Book Club had a blast with Catherine Therese when she joined them to discuss her memoir The Weight of Silence. Quite literally, we were all glued to our chairs listening to Catherine retell her journey which began as a four year old with literary aspirations to the publishing of her memoir in May. She even produced her never published, but nonetheless precious, first work 'The Norty Girl' which is about the adventures of a naughty child (the second chapter follows a good girl) which as a group we all deemed pretty darn impressive. Talk about things to come... She also regaled us with stories about her author-audience experiences, some of which were truly bizarre and was extremely generous with us when we grilled her further about her story. Not your average memoir, The Weight of Silence is all at once an exploration of language, emotion, memory, and redemption. The Tuesday Night Book Club loved this book, and can't wait to hear more from Catherine Therese.

I just wanted to write and let you know what a fabulous night my book club had with Catherine Therese last night. Catherine was so articulate and generous with not only her story, but also with her journey as a published author. My book club stayed back for another half hour just talking about how impressed they were and how much she enriched the book for them. A stupendously huge "thanks" from all of us here at Shearer's. Megan... Shearer's on Norton99 Norton StreetLeichhardt NSW 2040 http://www.shearersbookshop.com.au/

It's Ali, she of the poking seaweed book, I wanted to tell you how fabulous I thought your talk went the other night. You said so many beautiful things which spoke to me about your relationship with writing. You put into words, feelings and relationships to words and writing that I am so completely unconscious of in myself. When asked about my own writing, I only wish I could be as eloquent and as poignant as you were. Good luck with this magnificent book - it's a huge achievement. I'm still reading it - and enjoying it all the more having heard you read your first chapter - which you did beautifully. Truly, the way you read it, was mesmerising, enchanting and well, quite frankly, fucking great!
Alison Whitelock

NEW REVIEW ..CANBERRA TIMES....Emily Maguire

Surviving The Silence of Life in Suburbia
The Weight of Silence is a coming-of-age memoir peopled with familiar character types (alcoholic father, emotionally dangerous teenage crush) and covering all the expected big adolescent moments (first period,first kiss, first sex). Despite this, it never feels tired or cliched. Catherine Therese's skilful narration - which includes dottings of poetry, streams of consciousness and flashes forward and back through time - defamiliarises the ordinary, providing the reader with fresh insight into adolescence, family life and the difficulty of choosing who to be.

Catherine Therese is one of four daughters growing up in Sydney's western suburbs in the late 1970s. Her father is an alcoholic, her mother is in constant denial, the neighbour is - quite literally - murderous and her sisters are convinced that Catherine is stark raving mad. This "madness" is actually -just a bad temper combined with a tendency to express her feelings in a family that favours silence and changing the subject. By her early teens, Catherine has learnt to keep most of her thoughts to herself, but this only increases her anxiety. Most 13 year olds fear that they'll be exposed as being uncool and abnormal, but young Catherine's fears are far more specific than that. She lives in terror of the day that everyone will discover that she is actually "a hated, maybe leso, teddylover, budgie-cutter, hair pulling, fob pocket postcard robber, prickly armed, delusional uncle poacher. . . That this seems - in context - a perfectly reasonable description, should give you an idea of the manic energy of both the child and the adult writer she grows into.

The young Catherine is also constantly anxious over her father. She learns early that his terrible drunken nights must never be mentioned in the sober light of day, because to do so would cause embarrassment. The idea that embarrassment is worse than the thing or person causing it becomes so deeply embedded in her psyche that when a man on the train gropes her she is too embarrassed to tell him to stop. Still, even the most unpleasant memories of her father are suffused with empathy and love. When her dad is drunk with his pants around his ankles, Catherine notes that his singlet is tucked into his undies - proof "that when he dressed this morning he started the day with better intentions than this". The undies themselves are a reminder that there's a ''woman who loves him enough to scrub them out tomorrow".

It's easy to understand where this compassion comes from. Love and friendship flows between siblings and parents, shown through nicknames and untranslatable private jokes embodied in phrases meaningless to anyone outside of the family rather than through direct expressions of love and solidarity.

The relationship between Catherine and her sisters is beautifully drawn and there's a real sense of sadness as, one by one, they go through puberty and lose the intense physical connection only available to children. "Ever since fear of what bits we might accidentally brush against replaced killer instinct, the girls and I had grown out of our ruthless wrestling ..." Therese writes. "With no one to punch, pinch or kick I couldn't trust what my body did next." It's not long before she finds another physical outlet,however. At a school dance she meets Arnold, a sexy juvenile delinquent with an "uncley" name. He walks "like he was being towed, reluctantly, by what was between his legs" and Therese falls for him fast: "Instant gravy, microwave quick; the first time I looked into his old sepia eyes it was already too late".

And so it is that this clever, ambitious Catholic school girl finds herself pregnant at 16. Arnold generously provides $20 for an abortion, but Therese fritters it away on ham and coleslaw sandwiches and spends the next six or seven months hiding behind magazines and desks. The habit of denial is amazingly strong.

A warning here: if you're planning on giving birth to a baby anytime soon (or, actually, ever) you might want to skip the long, descriptive, traumatic labour scene. If childbirth is not on the cards or you've been there, done that, then read it and weep. I mean that literally: it is, like the real thing, messy and painful and, in the end, incredibly, tear jerkingly wonderful.

At this point, I should admit that my enjoyment of Catherine Therese's story was increased by the fact that I, too, was once a nerdy, rebellious high-school dropout in the western suburbs of Sydney. But I'm confident I would have loved the The Weight of Silence even without the extra element of demographic and psychological identification. It's a heartfelt, funny and deeply moving memoir about flawed families, unconditional love and growing up too fast but turning out okay anyway.

The Australian Review

Artful calibration of an observant child's fears

Kathy Hunt | June 06, 2009
Article from: The Australian

The Weight of Silence
By Catherine Therese
Hachette, 284pp, $29.99

AS this book demonstrates, becoming a writer in Australia does not begin with a declaration of intent. This may happen in the US and the old world but it is different here, historically so in a country that loves talk but suspects language. Pots and paintings can be held and hung but, prizes aside, an appreciation of the real weight and value of words is not endemic.

Perhaps this is why so many official ways have been found to legitimise and justify writing, from the humble community house and its creative writing class to the PhD pot of gold at the end of the academic rainbow, where many hands make light work of what should always be an individual endeavour, as lonely as that is.

Publishers also play a role in shaping a nation's literature, as distinct from merely printing and selling books. Hostages to their simple but inflexible financial agendas, they are bookies in all but name, backing the safe and predictable over the dark, bolting horses of originality and talent. Occasionally, however, something unexpected happens in the neatly regulated world of international publishing, and this is it.

Born quietly in 1965 -- quietly because her mother never made a sound in the labour ward -- Catherine Therese wrote the first draft of this memoir when she was four. This would have been about the time her mother chased her on to the family's Blacktown veranda at the point of a purple feather duster, the colour remembered 40 years later by a girl born to write about it.

In a nod to the era, Therese summons up the Vietnam War, Vatican II and the slow erosion of the White Australia Policy. More importantly, it was also the time her father went from liking to needing a drink, just one of the secret burdens implied in the book's title.

Any writer will tell you that living in fear stamps experience on the creative mind. The Weight of Silence is fuelled by the author's childhood fears: fear of her father's alcoholic rages, fear for her mother, fear of being the odd sock in her family and outside it, fear, a writer's fear, of being a nobody, of disappearing in the mix, of never existing on the page.

Therese need not have worried. A force of nature, she explodes in print, leaving the PR girls scrambling after her in a messy, inarticulate attempt to package her themes: the child's experience; family life; the importance of remembering; losing yourself; finding yourself; growing up in an alcoholic household; and, the big one, teenage pregnancy.

"How did I end up a slut up the duff?" our heroine asks, Answer: the same way as everyone else, but with a little more sand in your pants.

Climaxing in possibly the longest, loudest labour ward scene in modern Australian writing, the newborn weight of silence comes in at a good old-fashioned nine pounds, four ounces. It's a boy, fathered by the revolting Arnold, a totally unsuitable and therefore irresistible swain. In one of her pithy observations Therese describes the doomed relationship: "The more we went together the less of him showed up." But "the lost puppy thing he did with those eyes" is addictive, even if his vocabulary is in single digits and rarely goes beyond "Yee-ha."

Being young, Catholic and pregnant is confusing for the girl who took Maria Goretti for her confirmation name. The patron saint of rape victims, the Italian martyr with the multiple stab wounds has it all over a schoolgirl of easy virtue who, for her sins, must climb the mountain of paperwork pertaining to premature pregnancy.

What, for example, does BFA mean? Big fat ankles? Bachelor of fine arts? She is shocked to learn that the initials stand for baby for adoption. Having dished up nearly two pages of full stops to indicate that words have failed her in communicating her stunned reaction to being pregnant, the writer also gives us 1 1/2 of BFAs to emphasise the seriousness of that predicament. It is bold, brave and visually stimulating, a style spike in a book that combines prose, performance poetry and a kind of rap.

Hatched mainly at the Varuna Writers House, in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, a property donated by genteel author Eleanor Dark, such pyrotechnics may seem radical, but Dark herself was no stranger to experimentation or controversy, and if people imagine that Therese is less of a writer for being hip and lively let me disabuse them of the notion.

She may never write another book -- this is, after all, a memoir that has been incubating all her life and is now out of her system -- but what she has done and how she has done it is what good and great writing is all about. Yee-ha.

Kathy Hunt is a literary critic based in rural Victoria.

Inspired programming placed Catherine Therese at the start of the Sydney Writers’ Festival Blue Mountains programme. She delivered completely. As a description of emotional avoidance, ‘The Weight of Silence’ ranks with Mike Leigh’s ‘Secrets & Lies’. Catherine’s moving stage presence and honesty, and the audience’s riveted connection to it, created a dynamic which perfectly launched the Festival.
Paul Cosgrave - Writer & broadcaster www.photoswordspeople.com

Catherine, your years of work, lifetime of experience, and open heart, were handed to us as a gift last night. Thank you. I was priviledged to be in the space.
Will talk later and send pix..when I figure it out. Congratulations goes to your beautiful daughter's very articulate speech....now there is a voice we are going to hear again too! Love Robin

It was wonderful to be at your launch, to meet all your family and see the maidens again... I was saying to Sally Swain, it feels like a wedding and she said -yes marriage to oneself and I added- in my mind... with all family and friends as bridesmaids and best men. I was very happy and proud to be there. xx Jan

I think envy is the besetting sin of writers-maybe artists in general-and I have to say I was a fair shade of green at your launch...the piles of actual three dimensional books, the flowers, the speeches, the Harbour-and most of all, all the people who love you...BITCH!
But it must be proof of my affection for you that I really enjoyed myself, too.
I loved how funny it was-and relaxed-Vanessa choking and banging her head and laughing and you calling for your bag-the BIG bag-no not that one-and your son piping up "Is this it?" from the audience...and your daughter's speech, and your son's. I hope you're enjoying it as much as you deserve to. love Jo

The launch was beautiful, the speeches so perfect and I felt humbled to listen to your story.With all best wishes to you and your lovely family,Fiona

Getting around to posting / post book tour, Sydney Writers Festival, the amazing launch etc.... catching my breath and some zzzzz's and getting used to(don't laugh)this new technology. Huge thanks to all who lifted the Weight Of Silence out into the world! VanRad, Lou, Robert,Hannah,TC x x x Did I really survive this past month? Yehhhhhh I did!