Caroline Reid Writes

Sometimes reading nice things about me and my work can be challenging. I often blush when receiving compliments, do a foot shuffle, stare at a spot on the floor. It's taken me a week to be able to revisit the SIARAD launch speech that Rachael Mead delivered in Adelaide. I cried a little while listening to Rachael, partly because I didn't quite recognise myself in her words, and partly because I did. Rachael is such a brilliant, generous writer and I'd like to share a slice of what she articu lated so well, echoing my feelings of what the team at Spineless Wonder/ES-Press publishing achieved in the making of this book, SIARAD. "Look at this book. It may not be a garlic press but it is a metaphor. (You’ll get that when you read the first poem). This book is a piece of art in the way that Caroline Reid is an artist. The art resides not just in the poetry and prose. There is art in every detail of its being. The cover, the dimensions, the visual art...

SIARAD - Bio One of the  most difficult things I had to write for SIARAD was the biography. The first draft was a dry linear account of where I'm from, what I've published etc. But it felt dull and I wanted something a little different, something that was a little more in line with the flavour of the work. Then serendipity stepped in: I discovered that Margaret Atwood and my mother (who I'm dedicating the book to) share the same names and that gave me a way in to a different kind of tone. So, I have succeeded in writing one of my literary heroes into the bio of my debut collection. I think that qualifies me as some kind of genius. Oh, and the font is Artegra Slab, in case you were wondering (of course you were ). Sexy, huh? C x

Back in 2018. Pamela Boutros and I worked together create my first video poem LOST . I've been working with Pamela again, only this time we turned our attention to Australia's Aged Care Industry. 600, 000 is the result. We went for a completely different feel and look in 600, 000. We wanted it to be more static (less distracting for the viewer), and thought black and white would work better to tell this story. Patrick Zoerner also used black and white when filming TO TOUCH AND TASTE A COMET . It's partly an aesthetic thing, and partly vanity because I reckon I look better in black and white! What do you think? I performed 600, 000 in the Sydney Opera House in 2019 where I qualified for the final round of 5 poets. From the feedback I got it seems that a lot of people relate to this story. Please fee free to share. The full text for 600, 000 appears in SIARAD , which will be launched in Adelaide on March 2nd . C x

There are boxes in my hallway where there shouldn't be boxes. I sleep with my bedroom door open and the cardboard boxes are the first thing I see when I wake up. Sometimes, before I am fully awake, I mistake them for my dog or a statue. But no, they are definitely boxes and inside them are books. My books. All with the same title, SIARAD; published by ES-Press, an imprint of Spineless Wonders . This part of the process of book writing and publishing feels strange. It's the part where ownership of what's inside the books, the poems and stories, no longer feel like they belong to me. Perhaps they never did. It's a little strange and also a little nice. It helps with the slight worry over what people will think of the book. I'm pretty sure this worry is normal and I'm trying to pay it no mind. A debut collection of prose and poetry is not exactly The Da Vinci Code so there aren't hundreds of boxes in my hallway. There are three boxes, actually. It's ...

book cover design and illustration by Bettina Kaiser I've been consumed by a new project these past few months. It's long been a goal of mine to gather together some of the shorter works I've written over the past decade or so and put them in a collection; and finally, it's happened. The name of the collection is SIARAD, a Welsh word meaning to talk, to speak. It was the first word I chose. Then I went off on a tangent of worry about how non-Welsh speakers might pronounce the word and if it might put them off reading the thing. So I set myself a deadline and trod a long journey to find a different word. Turned out to be a circular loop that took me back to the start: SIARAD. None of the English words I found were as satisfying in sound or look; nor did they have the weight of Welsh culture behind them and that was important to me (my Mum is Welsh and the book is dedicated to her). The 's' is pronounced 'sh', the same as Sinead or Seana. I really l...