Available 31 October 2011
In a world of the short and swift, of texts and Twitter, there’s something of special value about a carefully composed letter.
In homage to this most civilised of activities, Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire created the literary afternoons of Women of Letters. Some of Australia’s finest dames of stage, screen and page have delivered missives on a series of themes, collected here for the first time.
Claudia Karvan sends ‘A love letter’ to love itself, Helen Garner contacts ghosts of her past in ‘The letter I wish I’d written’, Noni Hazlehurst dispatches a stinging rebuke ‘To my first boss’, and Megan Washington pays tribute to her city and community as she writes ‘To the best present I ever received’.
And some gentlemen correspondents – including Paul Kelly, Eddie Perfect and Bob Ellis – have been invited to put pen to paper in a letter ‘To the woman who changed my life’.
By turns hilarious, moving and outrageous, this is a diverse and captivating tribute to the art of letter writing.
Click here to read an extract – Judith Lucy’s letter
All royalties for this book will go to Edgar’s Mission animal rescue shelter.
About the Editors
Marieke Hardy is a screenwriter, blogger and radio broadcaster. After many years writing a humorous television column in The Age, she moved on to regular political columns for ABC’s The Drum and senior contributing work for Frankie magazine. She has been screenwriting Australian television drama for over fifteen years.
Her six-part black comedy series, Laid, premiered in Australia in 2011. In the guise of literary reviewer she makes Jennifer Byrne’s life an unbridled misery once a month on ABC TV’s First Tuesday Book Club. She lives in Melbourne with a dog named Bob Ellis. Her memoir You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead is available now.
Michaela McGuire co-curates and hosts Women of Letters. Her first book, Apply Within: Stories of career sabotage, was published in 2009.
I put this clip here – the editors had no say in the matter:
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