Preparing presentations! Events move quickly.

When I last wrote, I think I was updating progress toward getting a Jazz Baby book together so that I could make some progress on a presentation. A bit of a whinge about how hard it all was, I think.

I’m well pleased today, however. As things stand, a book ‘Ida: Searching for The Jazz Baby ‘ is at the printers and I’m expecting to play with a digital proof by the end of the week, and today I have mapped out my Symposium presentation, making speaking notes and lining up PowerPoint slides to distract the audience, in case I stumble.

I think it is a good sign when the material almost writes itself and is still fascinating, even after extensive work with it and with the characters it focuses on. Lovely.

That’s the Symposium in Wagga. Soon, I’ll need to turn my mind to the Canberra Poetry Conference materials and do the same thing.

The title I’m working to for this one is ‘Why Aren’t You Writing? Don’t You Know There’s A War on?’ The difference for this presentation is that I have already finished my work on preparing the books – subject to a meaningful revision now that I can focus on what might be needed or useful – and I actually wrote a paper on the subject ‘hot’ at the time I sent off my submission, so (hopefully), the material will be ready for a bit of massage into shape and assembling a few visual aids. Shouldn’t be too big a problem, given that 2 books are completely derived from the images of war that inspired the work in the first place.

All in all, I’m content (today) with the state of play.

Tomorrow may be different.

~

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