News - June 2023
Tuesday 20 June - 7:30pm General Meeting
VENUE: Old Sunday School, St Johns Park Precinct
GUEST SPEAKER:Moira McAlister
TOPIC: The Tricky Business of Fact and Fiction
In 2015 Moira McAlister published the biography of her great, great grandfather, Dr Barry Cotter who was the first doctor in Melbourne. Dr Cotter arrived in Hobart in 1830 and spent five years in the Campbell Town area.
His was an interesting story, full of adventure and surprises and well documented in newspapers and public records. Moira noticed too, some fascinating inconsistencies regarding his wife, Inez Seville Fitzgerald. Inez, like most women of the 19th Century, left little evidence of her life and Moira decided that in order to tell her story, she would have to employ fiction.
Based heavily on fact, but always in the interests of great storytelling, Moira published Izzy in November 2021. Treading the path between fact and fiction is always a tricky business.
Moira has spent most of her life in the classroom, either as a teacher, a teacher-librarian or as a student. It was while studying for her master's in writing and literature that Moira first developed an interest in writing historical fiction. Moira also writes book reviews, short stories, rhyming stories, and stories for children, some of which can be found on her website (moiramcalister.com).
More for Your Diary
Thu 15 June - 10.00am Branch Committee Meeting
VENUE: Branch Library, Bellerive
Thu 15 June - 1.30pm DNA Group Meeting
VENUE: St Marks Church Hall, Scott Street, Bellerive
Thu 22 June - 2pm Library Committee
VENUE: Branch Library, Bellerive
Tues 18 July - 7:30pm General Meeting
VENUE: Old Sunday School, St Johns Park Precinct
SPEAKER: Judith Mudaliar
TOPIC: My Two Convict Grannies: the De Roock family in Tasmania
Volunteers Needed
With recent resignations, illness and several members absent on holidays during the next few months, the library is seeking replacement volunteers, particularly on Tuesday and Saturday afternoons. If you are able to help on either of those days, please contact Judith Mudaliar.
Library Accessions May 2023
Books
* Banks, Annette, et al; THE FAMILY OF GEORGE BURGESS AND ANN HAINES [Q929.2 BUR]
* Cannon, Michael; LIFE IN THE COUNTRY - Australia in the Victorian Age: 2 [994 CAN]
* Clark-Hansen, N; THE HUON SHOW 1947-1996 [Q994.62 CLA]
* Davison, Graeme; JOURNEYS INTO HISTORY - Australia's Foremost History Writers Reflect on the Landscapes of the past [Q994 DAV]
Dunn, Cathy; LOVE AND LAND: Female Landholders Norfolk Island 1788-1814 [929.39482 DUN]
Dunn, Cathy & Glen Lambert; THE PEOPLE, SOLDIERS AND VICTUALING BOOK OF THE KITTY TRANSPORT ERA: NORFOLK ISLAND 1793 [929.39482 DUN]
* Edwards, Paul; OF YESTERYEAR AND NOWADAYS - My Children's Family History. [929.2 EDW]
* Elliott, Samuel; A JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE FROM LONDON TO VAN DIEMENS LAND IN THE 'WILLIAM METCALFE' 1836 [Q910.4 ELL]
* Gee, Helen & Janet Fenton; THE SOUTH WEST BOOK - A Tasmanian Wilderness [Q994.62 GEE]
* Geeves, Lance; SOUTHERN TASMANIAN MEN OF THE 40TH BATTALION [355.30994 GEE]
* Legge, J.S; WHO'S WHO IN AUSTRALIA. 1974 [R920.094 LEG]
* Pitt, Douglas Davison; THE JOSHUA PITT FAMILY OF THE HUON VALLEY, TASMANIA [Q929.2 PIT]
* Plomley, N.J.B; WEEP IN SILENCE - A History of the Flinders Island Aboriginal Settlement [994.67 PLO]
* Rhee, Margaret Eleanor Briner; HENRY BRINER HURBURGH (1811-1877) [Q929.2 HUR]
* Robson, Lloyd; A HISTORY OF TASMANIA; VOL. 1 Van Diemens Land from the Earliest Times to 1855 [994.6 ROB]
* Sellar, W. David H. & Alasdair Maclean; THE HIGHLAND CLAN MACNEACAIL (MACNICOL) [Q929.2 NIC]
* Telfer Family History; FROM THE BORDERS TO THE BUSH [Q929.2 TEL]
* Denotes complimentary or donated item
Marita Bardenhagen Memorial Award for Local History
The Marita Bardenhagen Memorial Award for Local History is a biennial prize acknowledging outstanding original research in the field of local history with significant Tasmanian content.
Entries open on 14 June 2023 and close 30 September 2023.
How to apply: Application forms are available from Dr Dianne Snowden AM.
Forgotten - Hobart Playhouse 14 July - 16 July 2023
This riveting play on the Parramatta Female Convict Factory Rebellion 1827 relives one of the few female rebellions in World History. Written by acclaimed playwright Cate Whittaker it comes to the Playhouse after its second successful season at the Riverside Theatre, Parramatta. This inspiring drama of 220 courageous convict women, facing guns and bayonets, broke out and ran to tell the colony they were being starved to death. Without such determination to survive the horrors and abuse of transportation, one in seven Australians would never have been born. Sadly, some paid the highest price and lost their lives. Forgotten gives all these women back their voice and their rightful and respected place in our history.
Whittaker's Factory women, who comprise the majority of the talented cast, can and do move you to tears, then; but they make you laugh just as often. Indeed, Whittaker excels in her mission to, quite literally, turn up the volume on voices that were too often silenced or distorted in their own time and have, subsequently, been almost entirely lost to ours. Dr Mikayla Cameron