One's twenties, perhaps, as experienced through memory, are made up of intense discrete moments that, however clear they may be in themselves, can feel irreconcilably remote from one another. It's a time of loosening oneself from whatever structure our childhood has provided. Of different kinds of encounters with different kinds of people, in different settings. Of working out some kind of artistic practice, while perhaps also flailing or drifting. Humorously and seriously, the pieces unravel all of this, and much more besides.

The contributing authors are: Adam Aitken, Luke Beesley, Joanne Burns, Zarah Butcher- Mcgunnigle, Tom Carment, Chris Fleming, Mary Hoban, Emily Kiddell, Kim Mahood, Dani Netherclift, Nicola Redhouse, Advait Thakur, Ruby Todd and Katy Warner

Dani Netherclift's piece, 'An Incomplete Archive of Blue' was the winner of the 2020 Slow Canoe AAWP Creative Nonfiction Prize.

As well as excerpted readings, the night will feature a short film by Audrey Lam, music by Niran Dasika and an audio essay by Prithvi Varatharajan.

And there they all are, in their twenties, on the poster above.

You'll receive a copy of the book with the $12 entry fee. And there will be a bar.

The most powerful memoirs are not just plot-driven page-turners – they are emotionally compelling stories, with rich layers of meaning that resonate with the reader long after they’ve finished reading. In this half-day workshop, author Nicola Redhouse (Unlike the Heart: A Memoir of Brain and Mind) takes you through strategies, exercises, discussions and techniques – like juxtaposition, symbolism and braiding – to get you thinking about how to give your memoir more than just its surface plot. 

https://www.swf.org.au/festivals/festival-2020/nicola-redhouse-taking-your-memoir-beyond-plot/

In a selfie culture of ‘me me me’, writers drawing on their own biographies are compelled to defend the value of the personal. How can we transform private life into something bigger? And how can we use research, critical ideas and theory to bring the personal into broad, widely meaningful pursuits? Award-winning author Ceridwen Dovey (Inner Worlds Outer Spaces: The working lives of others) and debut memoirist Nicola Redhouse (Unlike the Heart: A Memoir of Brain and Mind) consider the personal essay in conversation with ABC Radio’s Sarah Macdonald.

https://www.swf.org.au/festivals/festival-2020/the-limitless-self/

Blurred Lines

Sunday 5th April // 3.00pm-4.00pm // CUMMINGS ROOM, City Hall // Tickets $15 Sophie Hardcastle, Nicola Redhouse and Maria Tumarkin discuss how they have challenged literary boundaries to explore trauma, time and memory. Host / Magdalena Ball

https://www.newcastlewritersfestival.org.au/

Mind the Gap

Saturday 4th April // 1.30pm-2.30pm // MULUBINBA ROOM, City Hall // Tickets $15

The brain is the source of our identity, yet large gaps remain in our understanding of its complexity. Amee Baird and Nicola Redhouse shed light on the brain – and the human condition. Host / Jane McCredie  

https://www.newcastlewritersfestival.org.au/

From Meanjin: ‘We are delighted to be hosting our second pub night after the success of our first pub event in December last year. This time we will be celebrating the launch of our Autumn 2020 edition and journals can be purchased on the night.

Wednesday is burger night at the Grace Darling Hotel so come along and grab a bite to eat, a drink, and hear from some of our favourite writers reading their recent Meanjin pieces.

You’ll hear from:
Claire G. Coleman; Eloise Grills; Timmah Ball; Marija Peričić; Nicola Redhouse; Ouyang Yu; Dominic Gordon; Claire Collie; Nick Robinson; Corrie Chen

Free entry! ‘

‘Deep Brain Diving’: with Hannah Critchlow & Nicola Redhouse / chaired by Clare Wright'

What is the human mind? Where does the brain end and the mind begin? Neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow’s writings include Consciousness, a Ladybird introduction to the brain and how it works, and The Science of Fate, which explores the extent to which our brains are hardwired. Nicola Redhouse’s deeply personal memoir about her understanding of the brain and its relationship with postnatal depression, Unlike the Heart, becomes a rigorous investigation of neuroscience and psychoanalysis. Together they voyage into the depths of the human mind.

https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/2020-writers-week/deep-brain-diving/

‘Mothering in Body and Mind: Nicola Redhouse’s Story’

Full conference brochure: http://www.wch.sa.gov.au/services/az/divisions/mentalhealth/helenmayo/documents/HMH_Conference_Brochure_2019.pdf

POSTNATAL PROGRESSION

Join panellists Megan Blandford (I’m Fine – and Other Lies) and Nicola Redhouse (Unlike the Heart) as they discuss the challenges of motherhood, with Jen Kloester.

Book here: http://www.wordforwordfestival.com.au/session/postnatal-progression/

Join us as Nicola Redhouse launches the Australian release of The After-Normal: Brief, Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet by David Carlin and Nicole Walker. As we face the climate emergency, Carlin and Walker engage in a long-distance dialogue between two writers, creating an improvisational subversion of the encyclopedia, a witty-yet-serious send-up of the concept of a survival guide. The After-Normal is an A to Z of people, places, and phenomena to marvel at, to kick against, to let go, and to fight for.

Free, but please RSVP by registering: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/book-launch-the-after-normal-brief-alphabetical-essays-on-a-changing-planet-tickets-72203858685

Writing ‘shady’ subject matter: readings and discussion

Jo Langdon, Nicola Redhouse, Laura Elizabeth Woollett

Chair: David Carlin

Festival ticket info here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-australian-short-story-festival-tickets-70099634895

In Unlike the Heart: a memoir of brain and mind Nicola Redhouse comes to understand a period of terrible postnatal anxiety in terms of both body and mind: genetics, biology, but also the inheritance of her relationships. In the process, she reckons with questions about how we can attend to mental suffering, whether Freud stands the test of time, and what we gain or lose from bringing science into human emotion. Join Nicola with award-winning science writer and journalist Jane McCredie in conversation about Unlike the Heart.

FREE but book here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/unlike-the-heart-nicola-redhouse-tickets-72192514755

This event is part of the 11th Annual Booklovers Festival 

The most powerful memoirs compel us to read via their story but also move us through their meaning, which is often underlying, symbolic, felt. In this two- hour workshop author Nicola Redhouse takes you through strategies, exercises and discussions that will get you thinking about your personal story in the two modes, and about how to enrich what is inferred.

Bookings Essential: https://yprl.bibliocommons.com/events/5d37c1ab10c3d04500642eeb

This event is part of the 11th Annual Booklovers Festival

Two authors use the motif of the ‘ordinary’ (the ordinary lives of ordinary people) and create two very different responses. Award-winning fiction author Melanie Cheng created Room for a Stranger to explore everyday experiences of loneliness and compassion while author and editor Nicola Redhouse, examined her own experiences with mental health, particularly post‐natal depression, creating Unlike the heart: a memoir of brain and mind that is part‐memoir, part‐exploration of psycho‐analysis. What compels these authors to write about these experiences and how do they approach these topics?

About the Fact/Fiction Conversation Series:
What is at the heart of a story? At what point does fiction cross the border of truth? These questions are at the centre of the relationship between reader and creator and is the cornerstone of curiosity.

Fact/Fiction Conversations pair a fiction and non‐fiction writer together to discuss everything from their books and their writing processes to their influences and the ways in which their genres are more like twins than distant cousins. We have a series of Fact/Fiction conversations throughout the festival.

FREE but register here: https://yprl.bibliocommons.com/events/5d37c1a90744dd3a00042efe

Get ready to chip in with your own opinions when our panellists dip into their library bags to discuss what they really think about the books they’ve been reading. Don’t forget your notepad too as you’re bound to leave this session with a whole new reading list to explore. With Jason Steger, Lee Kofman, Christian White and Nicola Redhouse.

Price: $5 or $30 Author Talks Package

Book here: https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=519580&

Fridays with my Folks, Unlike the Heart and Imperfect are three memoirs that bring extensive research to bear on the authors’ own life experiences. Amal Awad, Nicola Redhouse and Lee Kofman talk to Jane McCredie about how they drew from a wider field of research in order to reflect on their own circumstances.

Kofman’s Imperfect is a deeply personal cultural critique of physical imperfection and how our bodies shape the people we become.Awad looks at ageing and illness in Australian Society through the lens of her father’s illness in Fridays with my Folks. In Unlike the Heart, Redhouse penetrates contemporary neuroscience and psychoanalytic theories to shed light on her struggle with post-natal anxiety.

Price: $5 or $30 Author Talks Package

Book here: https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=519573&

About FOJAM:

The inaugural FOJAM, formerly known as Shir Madness, takes over the Melbourne Recital Centre on September 8 for a day-long celebration of music, performance and storytelling.

There have always been Jewish artists shaking things up and this year we are bringing them into the spotlight under the theme, ‘Walk on the Wild Side’.

FOJAM 2019 features over 135 artists using their work, bodies, voices and ideas to ignite discussion, influence change and spark personal revolutions. So please join us in celebrating the Jewish experience of walking on the wild side.

Tix are not event based but are for Daytime, Evening, Full Festival or VIP passes. Buy tix here: https://fojam.com/tickets/

About Spun Stories:

In Spun Stories, six Jewish writers will participate in a storytelling slam, in the spirit of the original Knitting Factory on New York’s Lower East Side.

As they revel in the risqué, rebel against the status quo and embrace their own wild sides, these writers will pay tribute to the hustling heroes of Andy Warhol’s Factory by whom Reed himself was inspired.

Four women share raw revelations about their experiences white-knuckling through the emotional landscape of parenting. Hosted by journalist and activist Clementine Ford, this diamond MWF19 event investigates motherhood through a lens of disaster and survival. With Joanne Ramos, Nicola Redhouse and Alice Robinson.

Book here: https://mwf.com.au/program/when-we-talk-about-motherhood-5587/

In Unlike the Heart: a memoir of brain and mind Nicola Redhouse comes to understand a period of terrible postnatal anxiety in terms of both body and mind: genetics, biology, but also the inheritance of her relationships. In Imperfect, Lee Kofman uses her own story of bodily scars to investigate and understand the ways that our bodies shape who we become. Come along to an in-conversation with Kofman and Redhouse, where together they discuss what they have come to know and understand about how mental experience, our sense of ourselves, bodily appearance and the way our bodies feel all contribute to the people we become and the lives we live.

We know becoming a parent is truly life changing, and that it is not always a pleasant road. It requires sacrifice and patience and a whole heap of love.

Join authors Alice Robinson, Clementine Ford and Nicola Redhouse as they discuss the highs and lows of motherhood with Readings’ events and programming manager Christine Gordon. These three authors have written, between them, a novel (Robinson’s The Glad Shout), an expose (Ford’s Boys Will Be Boys), and a memoir (Redhouse’s Unlike the Heart) about parenthood.

This event is free, but please book here: https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=493577&

Join authors Nicola Redhouse (Unlike the Heart: a memoir of brain and mind), Julienne van Loon (The Thinking Woman), Lee Kofman (Imperfect) and Sonia Orchard (Into the Fire) for a four-part panel presentation on the theme of Woman at the wonderful Jock & Eddie Cafe in Eltham.

Entry: $ 45.00, includes a copy of one of the featured books or a $30.00 gift voucher, a glass of wine, finger food and a scintillating conversation

Prepaid bookings are essential. Please call ELTHAMbookshop on 9439 8700 or visit them at 970 Main Road, Eltham, 3095.

https://www.wheelercentre.com/events/secrets-and-lies-edition

About The Next Big Thing:

‘Want to meet tomorrow’s literary stars today? Let us introduce you.

Our long-running Next Big Thing series is our showcase for great new local talent. You’ll hear emerging writers reading from bold and adventurous work. Enjoy a delicious drink and a bite to eat at the Moat, while your future favourite authors knock your socks off.’

About the Secrets and Lies Edition:

What happens when we betray confidences? And what secrets do we keep from ourselves?

At The Moat in April, we’ll hear from writers whose work is concerned with hidden mysteries. J.P. Pomare’s new thriller, Call Me Evie, is about the fallibility of memory. Sonia Orchard’s Into The Fire is a novel about female friendship and betrayal and Nicola Redhouse’s memoir, Unlike the Heart, is an examination of post-natal depression and psychoanalysis. Caitlin McGregor's 'in defence of watching paint dry' comes from issue #113 of Voiceworks, 'Flare'.

‘LOVE AND HATE’

Slow Canoe Love and Hate, on February 1st at Schoolhouse Studios.

$15 entry with chapbook!

https://www.slowcanoe.com/Live-Journal-1

As per The Slow Canoe flyer:

‘For the chapbook, we've asked twenty eight writers to write these really wonderful little 'Dear Canoe' advice seeking letters. See the poster for who they are -- a whole lot of wonderful writers. They're funny, they're smart, they're seeking.

Then we have Nicola Redhouse and Eleanor Elliot Thomas collaborating on a story via correspondence. I really can't wait to see this.

SJ Finn, a superb writer we've wanted to have at the Canoe for years now, is writing an essay on how our understanding of love and of hate have changed over the years.

Music-wise, we've lined up the kind of wild and brilliant sax player, Scott McConnachie.

And finally, we have this tough and beautiful film by Lara Gissing. ‘

BEYOND STEREOTYPES: WRITING MENTAL ILLNESS

How do you go about writing a lived experience of mental illness? Is it all right for people without that experience to write about such subjects and, if so, how? Writers with a diverse range of experiences wrangle these complex questions. With James Best, Annaliese Constable, Peter Polites, and Nicola Redhouse (chair)