Outspoken puts on between four and eight events a year. It is rare for us to be able to present not just one but two writers of this quality. Elspeth Muir, with her new non-fiction work, Wasted, and Mireille Juchau, with her Victorian Premier's Award winning, The World Without Us, are both master practitioners, crafting sentences that constantly take your breath away.


author of the highly acclaimed novels
The World Without Us
Burning In
and
Machines for Feeling

The World Without Us, Mireille's third novel, is set somewhere in the Hinterland of NSW's north coast, and concerns the Muller family, Stefan, Evangeline and their two daughters. Stefan, a beekeeper, is originally from Germany, while Evangeline grew up on a commune in the hills behind where they live. The story is woven around the absence of a third daughter, Pip, and the way they each deal with the grief her loss has provoked. At the same time it also braids within its cloth the radically changing landscape wrought by the work miners and loggers, as well as the mysterious failing of Stefan’s hives.

The novel has attracted remarkable reviews:

Alberto Manguel, writing in the Guardian says, Juchau’s style is perfectly poised, elegant and restrained. Almost any page of this astonishing novel offers proof of a writer of great poetic power… [it is] a revelation, a masterly story involving the refuge of silence, the fate of bees, and the shadows of old sins.

Geordie Williamson in The Australian writes, [it is] a bright, bracing marvel of a book…[Juchau's] prose, too, is a marvel of balance: witty and sensual, self-aware but not jaded, and capable of making poetry from anything…

Kate Saunders, in the London Times: Powerful and poetic … the unfolding of the truth, layer after layer, is superbly done; though this novel is too classy to pigeonhole as a thriller, it has all the pace and invention of the classic thriller. What makes it unforgettable is Juchau’s sensitive portrayal of a family poleaxed by grief.

The World Without Us won the Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the NSW Premier's and the Booksellers' Awards

And, Introducing:

Elspeth Muir,

talking about her new book

Wasted, a story of Alcohol, Grief and a Death in Brisbane.

Ms Muir's work has also been receiving remarkable reviews. Try this one for size, from The Saturday Paper:

'The prose style of this unheralded writer, whose previous works have been published in journals such as Voiceworks and The Lifted Brow, is so achingly beautiful and assured, Helen Garner might be pleased to hand her the keys to the creative non-fiction kingdom and ride off into the Carlton sunset.'

In 2009 Elspeth Muir’s youngest brother, Alexander, finished his last university exam and went out with some mates on the town. Later that night he wandered to the Story Bridge. He put his phone, wallet, T-shirt and thongs on the walkway, climbed over the railing, and jumped thirty metres into the Brisbane River below.

Three days passed before police divers pulled his body out of the water. When Alexander had drowned, his blood-alcohol reading was almost five times the legal limit for driving.

Why do some of us drink so much, and what happens when we do? Fewer young Australians are drinking heavily, but the rates of alcohol abuse and associated problems—from blackouts to sexual assaults and one-punch killings—are undiminished.

This event marks the commencement of Celebration of Books Maleny. Please follow the link to view the exciting program which runs over the weekend July 1-3.

About Us

Outspoken is organised by Steven Lang and Chris Francis.

We begin each evening with a fifteen minute interview and/or reading with an ‘Introducing’ author, a writer our audience may not be so familiar with but whom we believe to be worthy of their attention. The main part of the event takes the form of approximately one hour of conversation between the invited author and Steven Lang, including time for questions.

Please visit our website for more details and a list of our programmed events.

Maleny Community Centre will be running a bar so please come from 5.30pm to enjoy a drink and sample our complimentary cheese and biscuits (from Maleny Cheese). There will be a special presentation at 6.00pm of Corrie Wright's work.

Proceedings start at 6.30 pm sharp.

For upcoming events, or to sign on to receive these emails, or for more information, please visit our website.

Booking

Outspoken events can be booked through
Maleny Bookshop, Shop 2, 41 Maple Street, Maleny 5494 3666
Maleny Bookshop accepts eftpos and credit cards,
Hours of business are 10am-4pm seven days a week.
Tickets can be purchased over the phone but all tickets must be paid for at the time of booking.
Outspoken would like to express our gratitude to Maleny Bookshop for volunteering to sell tickets for our events. Their continued support is essential to our success.

Rosetta Books operates as bookseller on the night, copies of both Mireille and Elspeth's books will be available for signing and purchase. Outspoken would like to express our gratitude to Rosetta Books for their continued support.