The book launch for Crying in the Car was yesterday. Preparations for it, and the party we had at our house afterwards, wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Adam and my mother-in-law, so a big thank you, straight up for that.
I took the camera down and got some photos before people started to arrive and the chaos began.
Here I am, kicking off the proceedings:
Photo by Emily Cavanough
Rachel Power formally launched the book and has allowed me to post the video of her talk online.
Due to a technical issue, my own talk wasn’t able to be recorded – but those of you who are interested, here is the transcript.
I just want to say a few words today ahead of the necessary and important list of people I wish to thank.
Earlier this week I was reading a pull quote from an introduction, written by Michael Cunningham, to Mrs Dalloway where he states that he feels one of Virginia Woolf’s chief arguments in the novel is that “there are no insignificant lives, only insufficient ways of looking at them.”
This is how I regard personal blogging, and by extension of that I include ‘life writing’ too, where we take an opportunity to summon our grace and actualise a way of expressing the challenging, beautiful, reflective, poignant or moving experiences that dot our world together. In such a frame of mind, I would always argue that a blog post is not simply ‘just’ a blog post. I personally believe that in articulating our experiences, not only as women, but men, and as parents and people, that we are achieving more than we think in redressing the ways we have been underrepresented in other forms of media over the years. Not only are we speaking for ourselves, but we are acting for ourselves and this takes courage.
As for Crying in the Car, going back to Cunningham, once you have read it as well, you might see that I also think that there are no insignificant moments or events in life, if one looks hard enough. Strange and particular things resonate in my imagination sometimes and I often feel challenged to the task to see if I can communicate this to others to see if they feel the same way. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect,” Anais Nin said, and I would agree.
And so I urge all the bloggers and writers here today to keep on creating and working, tasting life and all its flavours. You are making a difference.
Thank you
I first would like to thank Eltham Library for hosting us today. I’m down here all the time and they probably get sick of the sight of me! I’d also like to thank Meera from Eltham Bookshop for also being here selling books. If I can plug another piece I have coming out, in Island next month, it’s about bookshops and Meera gets profiled in that as she was awarded the 2012 Bookseller of the Year award.
If people would turn to the acknowledgements page you will see the people who need thanking: Kirsten Krauth, Tiggy Johnson, Veronica Foale, Penni Russon.
People have complimented me on the book cover and I’ve said all credit to that goes to Cate Furey. Angela Draper did the internal layouts, and this is our third book together and we’re still friends so I think that’s awesome. Sam van Zweden has a great eye, and is a fabulous writer herself and she proofread the book.
To my husband, who doesn’t know this, but I’ve done the math and realised that we have been together as a couple for 15.5 years today. Thanks for everything.
Finally, I’d like to thank Rachel for being here today.
For more photos, there’s some on the Twitter hashtag #citc
I’m pretty tired at the moment, so better words fail me, but I would just like to thank everyone again who came and who wanted to come but were with me in spirit.
Edited to add: it’s also available on Kindle now!
Early to bed tonight!
