By Melissa Burns
True Story Festival will return to Coledale Community Hall on November 15-17 with a star-studded line-up of authors, including Rick Morton, Bruce Pascoe, Rosie Batty and Gina Chick. Find the full program at the South Coast Writers Centre website.
As well as a series of conversations over the weekend, 2024's festival will include two Friday workshops: Attention and Devotion by memoirist Ailsa Piper and Researching and Writing Biography by Jo Oliver, a writer, printmaker and librarian at Wollongong City Libraries.
Jo holds a Master of Arts and has worked for many years in oral history and historical research, including her biographies on Australian women artists Jessie Traill and Adelaide Perry (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2020 and 2022).
Do you love reading about other people’s lives? Thinking about or started writing a biography? Jo's Friday masterclass will give you the opportunity to develop ideas, learn research skills and find sources. You will receive tips on planning and organising your work, applying for fellowships and grants and finding publishers. There will be practice writing an engaging narrative and a chance to share work with other writers.
The Researching and Writing Biography workshop will take place on Friday, 15 November, 10am-2.30pm with limited placement. Catered lunch included. Tickets are available at Humanitix.
Thanks to Jo for taking the time to tell us more about her work.
What inspired you to write the book you'll be speaking about at the True Story Festival?
I am committed to bringing to light the lives and work of Australian women artists who have been forgotten or obscured by the dominant male narrative. I have written published biographies of artists Jessie Traill and Adelaide Perry and will be facilitating a workshop on Friday of the festival on researching and writing biography. Participants will have the opportunity to develop ideas, learn research skills and find sources. They will receive tips on planning and organising work, applying for fellowships and grants and finding publishers. There will be practice writing an engaging narrative and a chance to share their work with other writers.
What do you love about it and what challenges you?
I love the thrill of the research chase, finding out about these women’s lives by deep diving into manuscripts and archives. I love going to places the artists lived and worked and absorbing the atmosphere of the place. I am amazed by the serendipitous connections I have made with people who knew or were connected with these women and their excitement and generosity for the project. I am challenged and humbled by the knowledge we can never completely know another human being. I am moved by the decisions women have had to make, especially about relationships and children, in order to follow their art.
Which book made you want to be a writer?
Children’s books by Ethel Turner, Eleanor Spence and Hesba Brimsmead which I read in primary school. Their characters brought history to life and made me understand that people in the past were people just like us.
The book you reread?
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a slim but profound meditation of stages in women’s lives represented by five different shells. I first read and discussed this book, chapter by chapter, over five weeks with a group of women when we had young children and I have reread it by myself a number of times.
Your favourite non-fiction book of 2024?
Slipstream: a memoir, an autobiography by writer Elizabeth Jane Howard. She took many years to understand and accept herself. She was married three times including to naturalist Peter Scott and writer Kingsley Amis. Hilary Mantel said everyone should read Howard’s fiction which I am now doing. It shows an incisive understanding of people and a wonderful humour.
Jo's Researching and Writing Biography Workshop will be held on Friday, 15 November from 10am-2.30pm at Coledale Community Hall. Book here.
