This year, Kill Your Darlings is celebrating the work of debut writers by bringing you the First Book Club, a series of free in conversation events with local authors.
Join us on the second Wednesday of each month at Melbourne’s Happy Valley bookstore to hear newly published authors discuss their books, the craft of writing and the publishing process in a relaxed, inclusive setting. The First Book Club discussions are facilitated by KYD‘s Online Editor Veronica Sullivan, and drinks are provided, thanks to Beer Gypsies.
KYD also continues the literary discussion online, with supplementary content and reviews of each book on our Killings blog, and live-tweeting of all First Book Club events.
2014 Kill Your Darlings First Book Club authors and dates:
Wednesday May 14, 6.30 for 7pm – Maxine Beneba Clarke, Foreign Soil (Hachette)
Maxine Beneba Clarke is a widely published Australian writer and slam poetry champion of Caribbean Heritage. Her debut story collection Foreign Soil won the 2013 Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award. Clarke’s stories give a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated.
Wednesday June 11, 6.30 for 7pm – Emily Bitto, The Strays (Affirm)
Emily Bitto has a Masters in Literary Studies and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne, where she is also a sessional teacher and supervisor in the creative writing program. The Strays follows the emergence of an avant-garde circle of artists in 1930s Melbourne. It is an engrossing story of ambition, sacrifice and compromised loyalties.
Wednesday July 23, 6.30 for 7pm – Jock Serong, Quota (Text)
Jock Serong lives and works on the far southwest coast of Victoria, and was a practising lawyer when he wrote Quota. Serong is a features writer and the editor of Great Ocean Quarterly, and writes for various Australian surfing magazines. Quota is a mystery novel set in a remote coastal town.
Wednesday September 17, 6.30 for 7pm – Eli Glasman, The Boy’s Own Manual to Being a Proper Jew (Sleepers)
Eli Glasman is a Melbourne-based writer whose work has appeared in Voiceworks and Sleepers Almanac. The Boy’s Own Manual To Being A Proper Jew tells the tale of Yossi, a young man growing up in Caulfield’s Orthodox Jewish community and grappling with his sexuality.
Wednesday October 8, 6.30 for 7pm – Omar Musa, Here Come the Dogs (Penguin)
Omar Musa is an award winning rapper and spoken word poet from Queanbeyan. Here Come the Dogs is a riveting and powerful exploration of hip hop and masculinity in contemporary Australian culture.
Location:
Happy Valley: Design, Books, Art
294 Smith Street
Collingwood 3066
Please RSVP to [email protected]
See you there!
