Our Readers and MCs on May 27th

MCs Samuel and Mario

Set 1: Alicia, Miranda, Charles, Piri, Mike

Set 2: Dennis, Caysey, Luke, Mark, Marcus, Delana

Set 3: Peter, Melanie, Angela, Mel, Troy, Miles

Poster: next campus event for Flinders Students

Thanks so much to Flinders student Lisa Train for this great poster : )

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Our readers at The Wheatsheaf Hotel April 19th 2011

MC: Peter Beaglehole

Miles Trench


Miles writes poetry and short stories. He has completed an Advanced Diploma of Professional Writing and is now into his third year of a Bed/BA at Flinders uni.

He has also written Holistic Gardening – The Five Principles of Success. His favourite authors are Faulkner and Steinbeck. He hopes one day to complete and publish his novella Runcifal (a horror fantasy).



Mario Pilla


Mario is a second year BCA student. He's of a Salingerian modesty, and has never sent off any work to be published - but he has performed his stories publicly on three separate occasions, and is about to so a fourth time.

Barbara Brown






































Alicia Carter
 
Alicia often complains that she never wins anything. However, since becoming involved in Speakeasy she's won two things. Most recently The Imprints Booksellers Fiction Prize for her short story 'Saturn Devouring His Son' and, previous to that, a can of asparagus soup. She hopes to win at least more soup in the future.





Mel Manson


Mel is a second year first year student and a first year second year student... she's either really clever or somewhat confused. In her shortish life, Mel has overcome alcohol, nicotine, and fundamentalism. Now she refuses to indulge stupidity for the sake of tradition. Surely, we can find a better reason than that. Mel would like to write stories that make people want to blow up parliament and run for prime minister all at the same time. However, she's not really a writer, so, she comes to Speakeasy in the hopes of meeting someone who'll do it for her.

Tami Milne

Hannah Kent

Samuel Williams


Samuel Williams is a second year BCA creative writer. His work has been published in Voiceworks magazine, and this year he was a judge for the third annual Indie book award in the Debut Fiction category.

Tom Drahos


Tom is a creative writing postgrad at Flinders University. He recommends that you watch the films Irreversible, Antichrist, and A Serbian Film. The cinematography in these films is breathtaking. Especially A Serbian Film. Such beauty.

David Sornig

Many thanks to Delana Carbone of Libertine Magazine for taking these great pictures.

All the best to our co-director Margot McGovern

On behalf of the Speakeasy committee, the captivated audiences, and our fabulous readers, I’d like to thank co-director Margot McGovern for all her enthusiasm and hard work over this last couple of years. Margot has left us for an exciting adventure in Dubai and will be missed.

Because of her enthusiasm, support and flair for event planning, we have been able to build an arts community infrastructure for Flinders University students. Margot’s initial enthusiasm helped to develop this project from an idea, and her consistent support with planning and her dedication to providing opportunities for Flinders students has assisted us in making Speakeasy the thriving entity that it is today.

We’d like to wish Margot all the best in the future as Speakeasy moves into a new chapter.

Best wishes
Threasa Meads

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Starry Starry Night …

It was a clear Autumn evening when we all gathered once again—friends, family and followers—for the latest Flinders University Speakeasy Creative Readings. Yes, the stars were bright in the sky, and the fairy lights of the Wheatsheaf Shed’s stage were twinkling beautifully as ever; but the real stars of the night were the readers.

Another incredible array of creative writing talent kept us enthralled with their tales of love, loss, lust, survival, murder and a bit of comedy for good measure. Ranging from nineteenth century Iceland, through to post-war Berlin, and finally to the contemporary angst of suburbia and a war-zone, these readers and their writings gave us an insight into the human condition in all its various guises. The performances were poignant, startling, entertaining and always well delivered. As a creative writer myself, and one who has also stood on that stage staring out into the blackness, the opportunity to perform a piece of written work is one filled with dread but also excitement. To be able to read aloud your own work to a captive audience, with the rhythm and nuances that reading alone sometimes neglects, is a powerful tool in the creative process, enabling both reader and audience to participate in the performance. And this latest Flinders University Speakeasy was no exception.

Experienced readers such as Miles Trench, Mario Pilla, Sam Williams and Tom Drahos entertained us with their stories of contemporary angst and the writing and studying dilemma. Alicia Carter, Mel Manson and Tami Milne also gave great deliveries of well-written pieces about the trials and tribulations of life in suburbia. First time reader and one of our headliners, Barbara Brown, gave a moving performance of life as a small ‘rubble’ girl in post-war Berlin, while Hannah Kent, another of our headliners, dramatically enacted the thoughts of a female nineteenth century farm worker, given the task of watching over the last woman condemned to death in Iceland. Published author, David Sornig, ended the evening for us, relaying a story of male angst in a contemporary war zone, with the well-known sound of planes flying over The Wheatsheaf in the background giving the reading an eerie reality. Congratulations to Peter Beaglehole, MC for the evening, who kept the night moving along, giving us plenty of warning and time to order pizzas and visit the bar, not to mention his witty observations and anecdotes.

Another Flinders University Speakeasy success! And after the raffle was drawn and prizes handed out, which included copies of two outstanding Australian literary journals—not bad for a night of free entertainment—we all gathered round to congratulate the readers and organisers for this well-attended and supported, soon to be iconic, literary event. I can’t wait for the next one. Be there or be square.

Review by Amanda Williams

Amanda Williams is currently completing a Masters Degree in Creative Writing at Flinders University, working on a coming of age novella set in the seventies on the Lefevre Peninsula.

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Our Headliners for April 19th

 David Sornig

David is a writer originally from Melbourne now based in Adelaide where he lectures in creative writing at Flinders University. His fiction, non-fiction and criticism have appeared in Griffith Review, New Matilda, Antipodes, The Age and elsewhere. In 2008 he was awarded the Charles Pick Fellowship at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. His novel Spiel (UWAP, 2009) follows an architect's apocalyptically charged journey through Melbourne and Berlin. He is writing a follow-up about a family at the coalface of climate change and is at work on a series of short stories.

Hannah Kent is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at Flinders University. She is also the co-founder and deputy editor of the journal Kill Your Darlings, and her creative work has been published in Australian Book Review, and Big Issue Australia, amongst others.











Barbara Brown


“I am in the final throes of my Creative Writing PhD at Flinders, and I can't believe my luck. It is a wonderfully supportive creative environment in which to work and explore my chosen field of life writing. Who needs to go to counselling when we can write our own stories?”

Next event April 19th at the Wheatsheaf Hotel

More on the headliners soon... .

Such a talented and varied group of writers

And what fabulous readers they were. For the first time, the on-campus speakeasy event featured a microphone and speakers, and it made a huge difference. Words were no longer caught on the breeze and gone was that awkward silence where the audience tries to discern whether the reader’s lips have ceased moving so that they can applaud. Instead, we were able to savour every word, be it sweet and touching, funny and awkward or downright bloody and morbid. And there seems to be a lot of delightfully twisted minds at work in Flinders University. As our wonderful MC, Courtney, observed, “There’s so much blood today!” Whether it was the tragically bloodied breast of a seventeen year old girl, or the comically bloodied severed leg of a parking inspector, the stories were oozing with it. It wasn’t all gore, mind you, and less grim tales seemed to attract the interest of some very attentive ducks. It all proved too much for one duck, however, whose exit from the event comically coincided with a reader’s mention of “duck hockey.” Having attended both on-campus Speakeasy events, and having read at the first, I was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the readings, both in content and presentation. Everyone seemed incredibly at ease in front of the crowd, aided by the relaxed environment of the Humanities Courtyard and the splendid weather we enjoyed. It was great to hear the work of such a talented and varied group of writers. Writing can be such a lonely enterprise, and it’s a true testament to the organisers of this event that they have created a community where writers can escape from the solitude of their computer rooms to share their brilliant creations with the world. We began the day split into the factions of teachers and students, each side seeking refuge from the sun in the shadows cast by the Humanities building. But as the event wore on, we were brought together by so much more than the passage of the sun across the sky. We were brought together by the shared experience of listening to these wonderful stories. I look forward to the next public event, and the future of Speakeasy, with plans announced to join forces with the undergraduate and postgraduate students of Adelaide University to create a cross-campus event. This sounds like a fantastic way to foster community between both universities, and share our work with each other. Congratulations to all of our incredible readers, and to everyone on the Speakeasy committee for organising such a fantastic event. And special thanks to Margot and Threasa for making Speakeasy happen. I feel like this is the start of something big.



Review by Phillip Kavanagh Phillip Kavanagh is currently completing a Masters Degree in Creative Writing at Flinders University. He has had several short plays produced and is working towards completing his first full length stage play. .

Our fabulous readers

Tom, Alicia, Stephanie, Miles .

Courtney, Eliza, Cara, Mel

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Miranda, Angela, Ronald, Luke .

Anna, Mario, Tamara, Samuel

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19/11/10 on campus event

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