Adelaide Writers' Week

- An Opportunity to Dream

Mar 20, 2025

SA Road Trip: Part 2

What a gift these pipes would have been to have heard their sound!

This is how I came to be here. It was the sound that I made when responding to my dear friend, Sara, ‘I would looove to hear Marcus Zusak speak at the Adelaide Town Hall.’ If you haven’t heard of Marcus Zusak, he is the bestselling author of The Book Thief - this year, 2025 is the 20th anniversary! ‘That’s it!’ she said, ‘Now I know what to gift you for your birthday!’

Listening to Marcus Zusak speak wasn’t about placing him on some imaginary pedestal, it was all about being in receipt of his personal story and how he laboured at the ‘writing thing’ simply because he loved playing with the characters from the stories his parents and grandparents had shared with in him from a young age. I concurred. The difference, he chose fiction while I chose non-fiction, to which he admitted his stories were based on truth anyway.

I purchased a signed copy for my mum who is an avid reader

I found Marcus Zusak to be a humble human and very much enjoyed being part of his 20-year celebrations… Thank you, Sara!!! 💝

Revisiting the city of Adelaide, where I began work as a file clerk for a finance company… which makes me laugh as I type this… me, in the field of finance? Walking the pavement in super high stilettos, confined to a filing compactus for the first 4-months of my internship where I didn’t see the light of day, Fluffy Ducks (drinks) on a Friday nights seated on balconies where one could watch the world beyond and below, the taste of Balfours sausage rolls and apple scrolls, all a distant memory, fading fast.

From the Adelaide Town Hall I walked north along King William Street toward the River Torrens, where I used to run in the weekly Eyewitness Corporate Cup - sponsored by Channel Ten TV - in my lunch hour… those were the days and it still runs today! Pardon the pun!

Just shy of the Torrens I entered the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden…

I sit beneath a large shady tree to laugh along with the crowd listening to Australian comedian, actor, writer and television presenter, Shaun Micallef. Funnily enough, he married ‘Leandra’ (not quite the right spelling, wink wink 😉) in 1988.

When the crowd departed I stayed seated for my next chosen speaker, American author & critic, Lauren Oyler talking about her subject matter: Self-interested, controlling, delusional: The Problem of Public Writing. What stayed with me was her acknowledgement of people not liking her and still being herself.

My last event was, For the Love of a Small Patch of Land by Christine Breen and Niall Williams… together, they published In Kiltumper: A Year in an Irish Garden. I later read they had co-written 4 memoirs. I appreciated how they wrote their way back to nature and talked about their trials (Christine was undergoing treatment for bowel cancer, while wind turbines were being erected 500m from their back door) along with their joys from growing an Irish garden. ‘Every word came from this house and this garden,’ Niall said.

On my way out, I stopped at the Information Desk to inquire about the possibility of speaking at their event next year. The email has since gone out… we’ll see! However, it won’t only be me and will be the Authors Collective that makes up Sea Dream Press.

Adelaide Writers' Week

- An Opportunity to Dream

SA Road Trip: Part 2

Discussion about this post