With publication of The Edge of Memory in August 2018, I was honoured to be invited to participate in a number of writers’ festivals. At the Brisbane Writers’ Festival the following month, The Edge of Memory was officially launched by Suzy Wilson of Riverbend Books in Brisbane.
At the same Festival, I was invited to participate in a panel with Billy Griffiths, author of the compelling Deep Time Dreaming, about Australian Histories Discovered, chaired by Kabi Kabi Aboriginal elder, Maurice Serico, an especial honour for me as The Edge of Memory was written on the ancestral lands of the Kabi Kabi people. Here is a shot of the three of us.
The following year, in February 2019, I appeared at the Perth Festival, an idyllic event blessed by balmy conditions, held at the University of Western Australia. The first event was a one-on-one conversation with Cassie Lynch that everyone seemed to enjoy. Unbeknownst to me, Melinda Tognini was in the audience and wrote afterwards that
“Patrick Nunn’s fascinating and informative session was the first I attended at Perth Writers Week this year. The Edge of Memory is my surprise book of the festival: the one I didn’t know I needed but in the end just ‘had to’ buy“.
Below is a photo.
Later that day, I participated with Dr Joëlle Gergis and others in a session on The Great Moral Challenge of Our Generation, that being (in pre-COVID-19 days) climate change. Joëlle is perhaps more pessimistic about humanity’s will to cope with the future but her book Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia is nevertheless a wonderfully informative read. Here is a photo.
The next month, I was invited to the Adelaide Festival. Crowds were huge (because it is free?) and I chatted to lots of interesting people. Dr Danielle Clode deftly chaired my session on a sunny afternoon (see below).
In August 2019, I also appeared at the Byron Writers Festival, participating in three events. The first of these was an evening event, The Story of Our Past, also involving Tim Flannery and chaired by historian Dr Clare Wright. There was standing room only – and an informed and appreciative audience. Photo below.
The next day I joined a lively session about Preserving Indigenous Languages, chaired by Adam Shoemaker (Vice-Chancellor of Southern Cross University) and starring Indigenous author Tara June Winch and Dr Samia Khatun. All of us with feet in contrasting cultures and experiences that had evolved along contrasting routes, this was a memorable session indeed. Photo by Dr Anne Leitch below.
Finally, I joined a session with Dr Clare Wright (a real historian) and Dr Samia Khatun, ably chaired by Michael Williams, on The Role of Historians in Shaping National Identity. Photo below.
As you would expect, the global pandemic brought a halt to many live events of this kind, but it also gave me an opportunity (that I might not have had in a ‘normal’ world) to participate in the 2021 Edinburgh Science Festival. This coincided (well, almost) with the publication of my new book, Worlds in Shadow: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth by Bloomsbury Sigma, so I was honoured to be given a half-hour slot to talk about it. You can access the entire talk here – below is pretty much what you will see for 32 minutes!
