Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:09 Hello and welcome to this special city of Fremantle Hungerford award edition of the Freeman Press podcast. Today we are recording a ola in Wajanja Butcher, and I'd like to acknowledge our first storytellers along with the Noah Elders past, present, and future. My name is Maria PaaS. My novel Skimming Stones won the city of Freeman Hungerford Award in 2020. I'm delighted to be asked to help introduce you to the next round of Hungerford writers. Those four shortlisted writers are waiting at the announcement of the winner on Thursday, the 20th of October. I remember how exciting that was. How lovely to meet all the other shortlisted entries and the hope we all had for each other's future writing successes. Today's guest is Joy Killian ett, whose manuscript is a collection of short stories called The Slow Patients of the Sea and other Stories. First up, we asked Freemantle Press publisher Georgia Richter to describe why she chose this manuscript for the short list.
Speaker 2 00:01:16 Well, a collection of short stories I think is really hard to get right because every short story has to be satisfying, but they also have to work really well together as a whole. And Joy's collection did exactly that, and each of the stories, these really compressed little wor worlds were really immersive. And I found each of her stories quite memorable. And in addition to that, her stories are quite domestic and intimate in nature, but they were also really unexpected and surprising. And for me, that made the collection both fresh and memorable.
Speaker 1 00:01:57 And now let's hear from the writer herself. Joy Killian ETT lives on a rural bush retreat in West Australia's great southern region and has been writing obsessively since childhood. After completing a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing at Cur University, her short fiction began to win or be placed in writing competitions with a number being published in various journals and anthologies around Australia. She was also a participant in the inaugural Australia Council's Emerging Writer program. Joy, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 00:02:29 Thank you very much, and it's great.
Speaker 1 00:02:32 Congratulations on getting this far. I want break the ice by asking you to tell us something about yourself that's not in your writing bio.
Speaker 3 00:02:40 Well, I have been learning German recently. Um, not very well. I'm, I'm pretty terrible at it. My husband's German and we have, he has family in Germany, and my goal is to have a conversation myin in German. So I've been struggling with that. And um, I also like to do craft stuff and I've recently joined a pottery group, so I've been squashing clay around making random heads out of clay, which is also great fun and, um, not terribly good at that either. But I enjoy myself.
Speaker 1 00:03:18 You're also a fiber artist, is that right?
Speaker 3 00:03:21 That's right, yeah. So I'm little bit obsessed with eco dying and getting colors and things from leaves and bark and even tree roots and stuff from the bush and the garden around our house and, um, dying wool and other fibers that are fun. So yeah, I, I have a lot of fun playing with the practical things and it gives me a break from the cerebral side of writing.
Speaker 1 00:03:50 So let's talk about the cerebral side by moving onto your manuscript. We would love to have you read something from your shortlisted manuscript, what have you chosen.
Speaker 3 00:03:59 I'm going to read the opening section of the first story in the collection, which is called Bees Standing on the driveway in the rain with her dressing gown pulled up over her head like a hood. Jenny watches John's taillights disappear, like little red Chinese lanterns bobbing away in the dark. She watches until there's nothing to see, fighting the urge to run barefoot over the gravel After him overhead. The sky is a broad gray wound. Soon it will be dawn and the day will begin and she will be pulled forwards by the relentless routine of it all dragged along the ground like a fallen horse rider. With her foot court in the shivering, she turns back to the house inside a single B buzzes at the corners in the of the wall. She crawls back into bed, His pillow is still warm and still bears the dent of his head, clutching it to her chest.
Speaker 3 00:04:57 She closes her eyes several hours later, the alarm jots her awake, sitting at the table with her mu jenny stares out at the, she can hear the squeaky whe the rubbish a few away. The sky is already cold and white leaves blow across grass, slap against the wire. Me a couple of bees bump against the ceiling up and wonders again how they managed to fireplace in the was sealed there ares on hot, as hot as sits on the bed into wardrobe time. Told him, If you go, don't bother coming back. She had actually said it out loud and John had paused in his packing, but he didn't say anything. Just pulled clothes from a wardrobe and collected his shaving stuff from the bathroom, checked his maps and equipment. His phone had rung as usual, summoning him to another job even though he had only just come back from the last one. And he started plotting roots and dragging his gear out. The she without once asking him or telling her where he would going. And then too soon he was gone. Today she dresses all in black, feets like soft potatoes, stuffed into leather court shoes, snapping on her name badge. She pulls the front door shut behind hers, be tiny Mars on invisible threads. If she were to put her palm against the bricks of the chimney, she knows she would feel the hum of the hive, like a heartbeat, like an electrical current powering the house.
Speaker 1 00:06:46 Thank you so much, Joy. I really enjoyed the visual nature of your language. What was it like to discover you on the city of Freeman or Hungerford Award shortlist?
Speaker 3 00:06:55 At first I thought it was a mistake, uh, like a clerical era, but just making the shortlist feels like a win. It's such a special competition, such a highly respected competition, Never expect anything from it. It's the pleasure of writing and the compulsion to write that, that makes me do it. Um, and I've been doing that in and around raising my kids and working in a lot of different random jobs and life changes. And sometimes there's, there are months or even years between little moments of success like a, a competition place or a publication. And because of that, it's really easy to doubt myself and doubt my voice, whether it's relevant to anybody else or anyone's interested in reading what I write. So whatever the outcome of the competition, I feel like I've already won. So it's great stuff.
Speaker 1 00:07:46 The judges were very complimentary. The report praises your short story collection for its quirkiness and its cohesion. Tell us a bit more about it.
Speaker 3 00:07:56 I've been huge, hugely influenced by the natural world around me. Pretty much all my stories have some mention of the light of the sea or the bush, and also being inspired by my own experiences and those of other people around me. Um, and my dreams as well being present, just taking the time to notice moments and observing things around me, observing the way people act or what they say or bird songs or conversations can really have an effect and inspire a story. So there's all of that caught up in the collection. And I guess I see the way that I've been writing for all this time as almost a mystical experience, a spiritual practice for me, because the writing is my way of being present because just immersing myself in each little world within a story is, is sort of the ultimate, um, mindness. I guess.
Speaker 1 00:09:00 We both know how much time and passion goes into being a storyteller. How long have you been writing and what are some of your career highlights to date?
Speaker 3 00:09:09 I've been writing since I was a child. I was sick a lot as a child and I loved reading about imaginary worlds and making up worlds of my own. When I was 12, I had a Christmas present of an old typewriter and that pretty much sealed it from then on. I, it was one of those kids who hammered out stories and staple books together and designed magazines, one of which was called The Weekly Gossip and inflicted them on family members whenever I had the opportunity. Uh, when I went to cur, I did a Bachelor of Arts and I actually took some creative writing classes and actually learned a bit of craft As for career highlights being shortlisted for this hunger for the award, I think it tops it so far it's, it's such a buzz, but going back, the first story that I ever had published was in Westerly in 1994, and that was a definite, uh, life changing moment when I realized that I could do it, um, that my writing was actually good enough to to be published. And basically every competition win or place or every publication since then, um, and they have been few and far between, has been a career highlight because each one sort of validates that I'm on a path that's worthy of the effort. Every little win is a win.
Speaker 1 00:10:40 You were from the Great Southern. Do you think this award is particularly important for regional writers like you?
Speaker 3 00:10:46 The Hungerford Award is a way of people across the state having access to the same opportunity and it gives us all equal ing. It doesn't matter if you're living in the city or in the region. So I think it's incredibly important. Um, there are lots of benefits to living remotely, like being forced to develop your own voice and being inspired by the amazing environment. Internet's not so good, but yeah, it's easy to feel out of the loop, so it's, it's great. It's very important to have an opportunity like this.
Speaker 1 00:11:21 And lastly, is there anything else you'd like to share with listeners today?
Speaker 3 00:11:27 The community of WA writers is amazing and yeah, there's, there's strength in our cohesion.
Speaker 1 00:11:33 Joy, thank you for being here and sharing your work with our listeners. I will be thinking of you as you're up on stage awaiting the announcement. Listeners, you can meet Joy Killian ETT at the 2022 City of Freemantle Hungerford announcement at Freemantle Art Center on Thursday the 20th of October. Tickets are free and available from the Freemantle Press website or event. Bright. I'm Maria and I look forward to joining you in our next Hungerford podcast.
