Crow Books is delighted to celebrate the launch of Sisonke Msimang’s memoir, Always Another Country.

Join us to hear Sisonke in conversation with Will Yeoman (Books editor & arts writer for The West Australian).

Ticket Cost: $10
Your ticket includes nibbles and entitles you to a special event price on the book of $25 (RRP $32.99)
Drinks can be purchased at the bar.

Bookings: https://www.trybooking.com/409632
Book now as places are limited.

About Sisonke and her book:

‘If I were given five minutes with my younger self—that little girl who cried every time we had to leave for another country—I would hold her tight and not say a word. I would just be still and have her feel my beating heart, a thud to echo her own—a silent message that, no matter the outcome, she would survive and be stronger and happier than she might think as she stood at the threshold of each new home.’

Sisonke Msimang was born in exile, the daughter of South African freedom fighters. Always Another Country is the story of a young girl’s path to womanhood—a journey that took her from Africa to America and back again, then on to a new home in Australia.

Frank, fierce and insightful, she reflects candidly on the abuse she suffered as a child, the naive, heady euphoria of returning at last to her parents’ homeland—and her disillusionment with present-day South Africa and its new elites. Sisonke Msimang is a bold new voice on feminism, race and politics—in her beloved South Africa, in Australia, and around the world.

Praise for Sisonke Msimang and Always Another Country

‘Few of us have felt the grinding force of history as consciously or as constantly as Sisonke Msimang. Her story is a timely insight into a life in which the gap between the great world and the private realm is vanishingly narrow and it bears hard lessons about how fragile our hopes and dreams can be.
– Tim Winton

‘Msimang pours herself into these pages with a voice that is molten steel; her radiant warmth and humour sit alongside her fearlessness in naming and refusing injustice. Msimang is a masterful memoirist, a gifted writer, and she comes bearing a message that is as urgent and timely as it is eternal.’

– Sarah Krasnostein

Join Crow Books and UWA Publishing in celebrating the release of Falling Backwards: Australian Historical Fiction and the History Wars by Jo Jones

• Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
• Light refreshments provided.
• This is a free event.
• RSVP to books@crowbooks.com.au

To be launched by Paul Genoni, Associate Professor within the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at Curtin University.

About the book: 

Some stories are hard to tell. During a period known as the Australian History Wars, consideration of the national past was vexed, contested territory. There was marked vitriol – to an unprecedented extent – in public debate about the “reality” and interpretation of the events of colonisation. This study investigates the output of novelists who were brave enough to contribute to this vital cultural moment and the issues of politics and form they attempted to negotiate.

Join Crow Books and Bitter Lemon Press in celebrating the launch of Stratos Gazis crime series by Pol Koutsakis.  

• Pol Koutsakis in coversation with David Whish-Wilson
• Copies of the books, Athenian Blues and Baby Blue will be available for purchase and signing.
• Light refreshments provided.
• This is a free event.

About Athenian Blues:

Stratos Gazis hates being called a contract killer. What he is, is a conscientious fixer. He fixes problems that are only mentioned in whispers. That very few can fix. Things that people are willing to pay handsomely to get done, without wanting to know about the small stuff – just that the job was carried out. Stratos is their man, provided that his meticulous research shows him that the targets deserve their fate.

But now, in the midst of the Greek economic crisis and political turmoil, this film-noir loving assassin with the strict moral code is about to get involved in the most high-profile case of his contract killer career. He finds himself caught between the most beloved lawyer in Greece, known as “the guardian of the poor”, and his actress and model wife, the most desirable woman in the country. They are both in dire need of his killing services, but which one is telling the truth?

Join Crow Books in celebrating the release of 6222 Syllables by Sarah Furtner.

• Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
• Light refreshments provided.
• This is a free event.
• RSVP via the Facebook event page https://www.facebook.com/events/510794636113201 or email books@crowbooks.com.au

About the book: 

6222 Syllables is Sarah Furtner’s debut collection of poetry, featuring 366 haikus.

Sarah looks at love,

suburban life, Instagram,
friendship and laundry.

She has a laugh at
‘Reality TV’, and
feeling like a fraud.

She also explores
drinking, family and her
hopes for the future.

Curtin University, through the Centre for Human Rights Education (CHRE) is proud to present the 2019 Annual Human Rights Lecture, delivered by journalist, writer, filmmaker and refugee advocateBehrouz Boochani.

Tickets

• Bookings essential via the link below.
• This is a free event.
  https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/curtin-annual-human-rights-lecture-tickets-60292796377

About the lecture

The Curtin Annual Human Rights Lecture, established in 2016, is a key initiative of the CHRE. In 2019, Behrouz Boochani will deliver a presentation by a combination of video and live link from Manus Island where he has been forced to remain since seeking asylum in Australia in 2013.

In his forthcoming lecture Mr Boochani will focus on the refugee experience through the lens of human rights and politics. In his words: “I will explore the role of art and literature as an important language to challenge Australia’s inhumane detention systems and refugee policies and share my experience as a person who has been fighting against what I see as dehumanisation.”

The inaugural Human Rights Lecture was delivered by Professor Gillian Triggs, Former President of the Australian Human Rights Commission in 2016, and by Dr Waleed Aly, media commentator and academic in 2017, and last year the Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG delivered the lecture.

About Behrouz Boochani

Behrouz Boochani is an Iranian-Kurdish journalist, human rights defender, poet and film producer. He was born in western Iran and has been held on Manus Island since 2013. Boochani is the co-director, along with Iranian film maker Arash Kamali Sarvestani, of the documentary Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time, has published numerous articles in leading media internationally about the plight of refugees held by the Australian Government on Manus Island, and has won several international literary, film and human rights awards.

His memoir, No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, won the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction in January 2019. The book was tapped out on a mobile phone in a series of single messages over time and translated from Persian into English by Omid Tofighian.

Join Crow Books and Ventura Press in celebrating the launch Special by Melanie Dimmitt

• Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
• Light refreshments provided.
• RSVPs essential via https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/a-very-special-book-launch-tickets-65167517800
• This is a free event.

Most of us expect to meander through the motions of love, marriage and (textbook) baby in the carriage, but once in a while life has something a little more special in store…

Special is an uplifting, candid companion for those in the early stages of navigating a child’s disability, offering honest, reassuring and relatable insight into a largely unknown (and so, initially terrifying) part of our world.

It features antidotes to the obsessions at the forefront of a newly minted special-needs parent’s mind: Why has this happened to me? Will I ever stop comparing my child to typical children? How will my relationship survive? Will I be able to work again? Should I have another baby? And the big one: What will my future look like?

Inspired by the author’s own crash-landing into special-needs parenthood, and shaped by her conversations with parents of children with wide-ranging disabilities, alongside specialists, psychologists and researchers, Special shares stories, guidance and simple coping strategies to soothe and surprise anyone whose life has taken an unexpected turn.

About the Author

Melanie Dimmitt is an Australian journalist who has written for publications including The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Collective Hub magazine, Broadsheet, The Tot and Mama Disrupt magazine, and has created content for Smack Bang Designs and You & Co Media.

A Perth native, who has also lived in Melbourne and London, Melanie currently lives in Sydney with her partner and two young children.

PRAISE FOR SPECIAL

‘Raw, brave and compelling. This book airs a parent’s most guilt-riddled thoughts and then turns them on their head.’
MIA FREEDMAN

‘Special is so beautifully written, touching, helpful and insightful. I wish, wish, wish I had it ten years ago! If I had known the joy and happiness being a special-needs mother would bring, my blanket of suffering would have been lifted. It’s going to be a lifesaver for special needs parents.’
ONDINE SHERMAN

‘Bold, honest, sometimes funny and always illuminating without being didactic, Special will shatter your heart and put it back together again. This book will do much good in the world.’
LEE KOFMAN

Join Centre for Stories, Wild Dingo Press and Crow Books  in celebrating the release of The Palace of Angels by Mohammed Massoud Morsi.

• To be launched by storyteller and author, Sisonke Msimang.
• Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
• This is a free event.
• RSVPs essentail via Centre for Stories https://centreforstories.com/event/book-launch-the-palace-of-angels/#book-tickets

The Palace of Angels is a collection of three stories praised by the likes of Geraldine Brooks and Ilan Pappé (Noam Chomsky’s co-author).

The stories are discrete and exquisitely written, set in Palestine from the 1990s to the present day. The reader is lead to question how we discover who we really are, and what we wish to become. The stories are united in exposing ‘the clash between love and hate, revenge and compassion, within an impossible and abnormal reality of occupation, colonisation and ethnic cleansing’ (Ilan Pappé).

Vital, brutal and tender, The Palace of the Angels is written with the urgency of breaking news and the delicacy of poetry. This is Morsi at his passionate best. — Geraldine Brooks

Crow Books is delighted to host an evening with award winning Young Adult author Holden Sheppard to discuss his debut novel, Invisible Boys.

Join us to hear Holden in conversation with Alicia Tuckerman.

Ticket Cost: $5
Your ticket cost is redeemable against the purchase of a copy Invisible Boys on the night.
Drinks can be purchased at the bar.

Bookings: https://www.trybooking.com/560446
Book now as places are limited.

About Holden and his book:

In a small town, everyone thinks they know you: Charlie is a hardcore rocker, who’s not as tough as he looks. Hammer is a footy jock with big AFL dreams, and an even bigger ego. Zeke is a shy over-achiever, never macho enough for his family. But all three boys hide who they really are. When the truth is revealed, will it set them free or blow them apart?

Holden Sheppard is an award-winning Young Adult author born and bred in Geraldton, Western Australia. His debut novel, Invisible Boys, won the 2018 City of Fremantle T.A.G. Hungerford Award and the 2017 Ray Koppe Residency Award, and was Highly Commended in the 2018 ASA Emerging Writers’ Mentorship Prize.Holden’s novella ‘Poster Boy’ won the 2018 Novella Project competition and was published in Griffith Review. His true story ‘Fight, Deny, Delete’ was published in the 2019 Margaret River Press anthology Bright Lights, No City. Holden’s short fiction has been published in page seventeen and Indigo, and he has also written for Ten Daily, Huffington Post, ABC, DNA Magazine and FasterLouder. He graduated with Honours from Edith Cowan University’s writing program and won a prestigious Australia Council ArtStart grant in 2015. Holden serves as the Deputy Chair of WritingWA, and as an ambassador for Lifeline WA.

Holden has always been a misfit: a gym junkie who has played Pokemon competitively, a sensitive geek who loves aggressive punk rock, and a bogan who learned to speak French.

About Alicia Tuckerman:

Alicia Tuckerman is a driving force for young LGBT voices within Australia. Author of If I Tell You, Alicia was raised in rural NSW before she left home at the age of sixteen, she accepted a position to study at the Hunter School of Performing Arts.

Described as having an overactive imagination as a child, she recalls writing stories her entire life. Alicia attributes surviving her teenage years to the comfort, release and escape writing offered and she hopes to inspire the next generation of readers and writers to embrace their true passions.

Alicia was inspired to write If I Tell You after finding a lack of YA novels featuring two central lesbian characters. She draws on her life experiences to explore the joys, triumphs and cruelties of modern day adolescence and considers there is no fantasy world she could create that is more terrifyingly beautiful than the one we’re expected to live in.

Please join Julie Sprigg, Fremantle Press and Crow Books to celebrate the launch of Small Steps: A Physio in Ethiopia.

• To be launched by Anne-Louise Willoughby, author of Nora Heysen: A Portrait.
• Bookings essential via: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/book-launch-small-steps-a-physio-in-ethiopia-by-julie-sprigg-tickets-116078482867
• Ticket cost $5 (plus eventbrite booking fee). Book now as places are limited.
• Ticket proceeds will be donated to 100 Women , a Perth based women’s philanthropic foundation.
• Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
• Refreshments available to purchase from the venue.

About the Book

As a child, Julie dreamed of being somewhere else, of making a difference. Now, she can’t wait to meet the nuns she will live with and the children she will provide physiotherapy for in Ethiopia.

But Julie has trouble sticking to convent rules and soon finds herself wondering how much difference a single physio can make anyway.

When she takes a teaching role at a university, Julie finally feels closer to fulfilling her dreams – training Ethiopia’s first physiotherapists, treating paediatric patients, and losing her heart to a handsome colleague.

Then civil unrest reaches the university, forcing Julie’s students to choose between their safety and their future. When it comes to being a part of change, why do all steps feel like small steps?

About Julie Sprigg

Julie Sprigg is a Perth-based author whose debut book Small Steps: A Physio in Ethiopia was shortlisted for the 2018 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. She worked as a physiotherapist for ten years before switching to a career in foreign aid with programs improving the rights of people with disabilities. After years of regular travel to China, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, Vanuatu and Ethiopia, Julie returned to Perth and now evaluates government programs to overcome social disadvantage. When not writing or working, she can be found reading a picture book atlas with her young son and delighting in domestic adventures.