Thanks Arnold for your thoughts on the challenges writers face when chosing to write as a vocation.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Arnold will be appearing at:

Brunswick Library, Cnr Sydney Road and Dawson Street Brunswick on Wednesday 18 February, 6.30 – 8.00 pm
Author talk and readings recount a wonderful story full of myth and mystery, accompanied by acclaimed singer Anthea Sidiropoulos.

For more information phone Brunswick Library 9389 8600 or book online at http://summerread16.eventbrite.com

Warragul Library, 75 Victoria Street Warragul on Thursday 19 February 2009, 6.30 – 8.00 pm
Author talk and readings recount a wonderful story full of myth and mystery, accompanied by acclaimed singer Anthea Sidiropoulos

For more information phone Warragul Library 5622 2848 or 5622 2849 book online http://summerread34.eventbrite.com

Vote for Sea of Many Returns or SMS SEA to 13 46 88

Arnold Zable is next Summer Read author blogging from 27 - 30 January.

Arnold Zable is a highly acclaimed novelist, storyteller, and educator, whose books include Jewels and Ashes, The FigTree, Café Scheherazade and Scraps of Heaven. He was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and lives in Melbourne.

His book Sea of Many Returns is one of the books on the Summer Read shortlist.

Sea of Many Returns tells the story Xanthe who is translating her grandfather’s memoir; his story of leaving Ithaca as a young man and migrating to Australia, encountering race riots in Karlgoorlie and travelling to Melbourne. Absorbed, she slowly begins to understand her Ithacan father’s dark moods; the ache for the sea and the hum of the Ionian winds.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Arnold will be appearing at:

• Brunswick Library, Cnr Sydney Road and Dawson Street Brunswick on Wednesday 18 February, 6.30 – 8.00 pm
• Author talk and readings recount a wonderful story full of myth and mystery, accompanied by acclaimed singer Anthea Sidiropoulos.
• For more information phone Brunswick Library 9389 8600 or book online at http://summerread16.eventbrite.com

• Warragul Library, 75 Victoria Street Warragul on Thursday 19 February 2009, 6.30 – 8.00 pm
  Author talk and readings recount a wonderful story full of myth and mystery, accompanied by acclaimed singer Anthea Sidiropoulos
• For more information phone Warragul Library 5622 2848 or 5622 2849 book online http://summerread34.eventbrite.com

What Arnold says about summer reading

“For years, summer was travel time. I usually had with me a book set in the country I was travelling in. I read at railways stations, on roadsides, on ferries and trains, in tents and hotel rooms, in workers’ quarters and backpackers’ hostels. There were times when passages mirrored the passing landscape. I approached Venice by sea with Thomas Mann’s ‘Death in Venice’, depicting the same approach via the Adriatic. In China, I travelled with the Tang dynasty poets whose poems reflected upon the joys and travails of journeying. While hitch hiking in the USA, Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ was the ideal companion.  The works of Lawrence Durrell and Greek poets George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis, were memorable company when travelling on the Ionian and Aegean. From these authors, among many others, I learnt much about the craft of writing about place and journeys.”

Thanks Ann for your posts sharing both Melba anecdotes and your sailing experiences.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Ann will be appearing at:

• Miller’s Homestead - historic house owned by The City of Knox at the of Cnr Dorrigo Road and Melrose Crt, Boronia on Friday 6 February 2009, from 7.00 pm
 A celtic harp will play in the beautiful garden prior to and following Anne Blainey’s talk.
 For further information phone Ferntree Gully Library 9294 8140 or book online at  http://summerread12.eventbrite.com
 
• Wangaratta Library, 21 Docker Street, Wangaratta on Wednesday 11 February 2009, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
 Students from the Northern Rivers Academy of Music, will accompany Ann Blainey on a  journey through the life and times of Dame Nellie Melba.
 Join in and evening of All Things Melba starting with Melba champagne on arrival.
 For further information phone Wangaratta Library 5721 2366 or book online at  http://summerread18.eventbrite.com
 
• Collingwood Library, 11 Stanton Street, Abbotsford on Sunday 15 February 2009, 3.00 – 4.30 pm
 A choral recital will precede Anne Blainey’s talk and Melba Champagne, Peach Melba  and Melba Toast will be served
 For further information phone Collingwood Library on 1300 695 427 or book online at  http://summerread13.eventbrite.com

Vote for I am Melba or SMS MELBA to 13 46 88

I’m writing to you from a ship near Torres Strait. My husband Geoffrey is the ship’s lecturer, and I’m his “accompanying person”. We are sailing through a sea scattered with tiny islands that look like poached eggs - the ring of sand is the egg white and the vegetation in the middle is the yoke. Some are just a speck, others are miles across. It’s a dream-like seascape - like something out of the happier parts of “Ancient Mariner”. I’ve sailed in the Mediterranean, but I’ve never seen anything as magical as this.

We have just visited Thursday Island, locally known as T. I. I love Thursday Island. So far it has resisted touristic progress. Back in the nineteenth century, its fishing trawlers went after beche de mer - those grim looking sea slugs that the Oriental gourmets prize as a delicacy and an aphrodisiac. Later the trawlers fished for pearls and mother of pearl shells; now it’s prawns and  crayfish. The coral shoals make fishing and sailing a hazardous exercise, particularly  at night. One of the worst disasters in Australian maritime history occurred  near T. I. in February 1890, when the mail steamer the “Quetta”, sailing in the dark, struck a coral reef. A hundred and thirty three people drowned. The tall wooden Anglican Cathedral in the centre of town is dedicated to those lost souls.

I’m especially interested in shipwrecks in Torres Strait because someone from long ago -  someone I’ve come to know well - was mortally injured on a coral reef off T. I. It happened on 27 December 1913. The Dutch mail ship the ‘Tasman” hit a reef  at eleven o’clock at night and it was New Year’s Day before anyone could be rescued. For much of that time the unfortunate passengers huddled on deck, exposed to the howling winds and pouring rain of a cyclone. Among those passengers was Lillan Nordica, one of the operatic superstars of the early twentieth century, on her way home from a concert tour of Australia. I came across her when I was writing my biography of the famous Melbourne soprano Nellie Melba. It’s usually said that those towering divas of the golden age of opera hated one another, but she and Melba were firm friends.  Though born on different continents - Nordica was American, Melba of course was Australian- - they had much in common. Both came from down-to-earth immigrant stock, both valued good sense and both spoke their mind.

Nordica was taken to the hospital at T.I.  There she lingered for months in the tropical heat. Exposure and pneumonia had weakened her heart. At the end of March she was placed on a ship for Jakarta, but she barely survived the voyage, dying in Jakarta early in May.  Melba was travelling in her personal train in the far west of America when she heard the news.  She was due to sing that night, but she wept so hard for Nordica that her manager thought he would have to cancel the concert. That her dear friend had died so close to Australia, seems to have made Melba’s sense of loss the worse.

I would love to receive your comments and perhaps questions.  However internet time on the ship is limited. I will be communicating with you again tomorrow, but please forgive me if I don’t reply to your questions and comments until the day after.