- Published on
By Kit Fennessy
To catch it in the telling, and make it stand up.
Aye, that’s the trick of it.
I walked out on a painted scene
The sky the pale blue of early morning
White clouds applied in a flat way,
Two dimensional.
They wouldn’t convince a set designer
But for all that, they were real.
The cry of corellas,
A flock wheeling in the sky.
Gallahs on power lines waking up in the new dawn.
An old lady walked a greyhound,
Returning from her journey,
Me just embarking on mine.
‘There’s a note of spring in the air,’ she said when we nodded.
‘Don’t get ahead of yourself…’ I replied, then felt guilty.
‘I love it,’ I added, by way of apology.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
On the beach road I paused,
The sun low, a glaring eye in orange
Staring straight down a strip of black tar.
The gallahs on the line across the road,
Against a fibro home set piece,
Like something out of a Jeffrey Smart painting, Antennas black against the dawn.
The flock wheeled
A truck in the distance bearing toward me
As a shimmer passed through the light.
The waking world.
Aye, that’s the trick of it.
I walked out on a painted scene
The sky the pale blue of early morning
White clouds applied in a flat way,
Two dimensional.
They wouldn’t convince a set designer
But for all that, they were real.
The cry of corellas,
A flock wheeling in the sky.
Gallahs on power lines waking up in the new dawn.
An old lady walked a greyhound,
Returning from her journey,
Me just embarking on mine.
‘There’s a note of spring in the air,’ she said when we nodded.
‘Don’t get ahead of yourself…’ I replied, then felt guilty.
‘I love it,’ I added, by way of apology.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
On the beach road I paused,
The sun low, a glaring eye in orange
Staring straight down a strip of black tar.
The gallahs on the line across the road,
Against a fibro home set piece,
Like something out of a Jeffrey Smart painting, Antennas black against the dawn.
The flock wheeled
A truck in the distance bearing toward me
As a shimmer passed through the light.
The waking world.
Cape Paterson author and publisher Kit Fennessy has won third prize in the short section of the Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with Sands of Time, a witty slice of memoir that seamlessly weaves together metaphysics, geology, history and Jimmy Hendrix.
Kit has self-published a number of books, short stories and novels, which are available through ArtSpace (Wonthaggi) and the library, and released a
new thriller titled ‘Cornerstone’ in October.
Kit has self-published a number of books, short stories and novels, which are available through ArtSpace (Wonthaggi) and the library, and released a
new thriller titled ‘Cornerstone’ in October.
- Published on
By Jim Connelly
The day begins with the smell of wood smoke and the crackle of burning kindling. Mum is up and calling us. It’s cold inside and dark outside, but the fire brings physical and spiritual comfort. Porridge, toast and fried egg. Always egg. Schoolbag packed; lunch stowed. Good old Mum! The others have already left. If I run I might catch them, but they’ll be running too. Along the track, through the bush, and down the Garfield Hill. The sun will soon be up, but the street lights burn brightly. Across the railway line, walking now. I join the gaggle of kids outside Simmy’s shop. Three of them have ridden their bikes from Tynong. Someone says, ‘Charlie’s gonna be late. It’s nearly half past seven.”
The day begins with the smell of wood smoke and the crackle of burning kindling. Mum is up and calling us. It’s cold inside and dark outside, but the fire brings physical and spiritual comfort. Porridge, toast and fried egg. Always egg. Schoolbag packed; lunch stowed. Good old Mum! The others have already left. If I run I might catch them, but they’ll be running too. Along the track, through the bush, and down the Garfield Hill. The sun will soon be up, but the street lights burn brightly. Across the railway line, walking now. I join the gaggle of kids outside Simmy’s shop. Three of them have ridden their bikes from Tynong. Someone says, ‘Charlie’s gonna be late. It’s nearly half past seven.”
Jim Connelly, a retired teacher and church minister living in Warragul, has won second prize in the short section of the 2022 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with One Morning, on the Way to School, a rollicking snapshot of the daily school bus ride from Garfield to Warragul in the 1940s.
Jim started creative writing in 2014 and has self-published 13 books since then, including Around and About in Gippsland.
Jim started creative writing in 2014 and has self-published 13 books since then, including Around and About in Gippsland.
- Published on
By Grace Elizabeth Elkins
It is nearly 7am on Phillip Island and the fog sits low. Clouds coat the trees, the pie shop on the corner, the road. Cars pierce through the haze, unfazed. They do not slow, they know the roads; each pothole and undulation from the bridge to Wonthaggi (or wherever it is they are headed).
I drive with them into
It is nearly 7am on Phillip Island and the fog sits low. Clouds coat the trees, the pie shop on the corner, the road. Cars pierce through the haze, unfazed. They do not slow, they know the roads; each pothole and undulation from the bridge to Wonthaggi (or wherever it is they are headed).
I drive with them into
white space.
Driving across the bridge, I cannot see the tide coming in beneath us. I cannot see it, but I know its rhythm, the ocean is infinitely unpredictable, and yet so certain. Obscured from view, it is frightening to think anything could be beneath us. Obscured from view, it is thrilling to imagine anything could be beneath us.
Blankness gives space to create.
Grace Elizabeth Elkins, a Cape Woolamai writer and teacher, has won the short section of the 2022 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with She and I (and truth and fiction).
The judges commented: "Using fog on the Phillip Island bridge as a metaphor for writing memoir and the discussion of the blurred lines between what is found and what is imagined, the writer shares excerpts from her autofictional memoir to show that 'fictionalisation creates the freedom to tell complex and uncertain truths' in this cleverly conceived and executed piece.
Grace is finishing a masters in writing at Deakin University and has had short fiction published in literary journals in Australia and the US.
The judges commented: "Using fog on the Phillip Island bridge as a metaphor for writing memoir and the discussion of the blurred lines between what is found and what is imagined, the writer shares excerpts from her autofictional memoir to show that 'fictionalisation creates the freedom to tell complex and uncertain truths' in this cleverly conceived and executed piece.
Grace is finishing a masters in writing at Deakin University and has had short fiction published in literary journals in Australia and the US.
- Published on
By Lucinda Bain
In truth, the kind of life I lead with a houseful of young children can easily become monotonous. But at least once a year our domestic routine is interrupted by packing lists, camp gear and late night batch cooking and we find ourselves - my husband, three daughters and I – facing into the wind on the crisp shores of Norman Bay, our long shadows reaching into the earth, the oceanic air washing us clean of suburban tedium. After a long drive, countless are-we-there-yets, and with laundry baskets full of woollen jumpers, books, ground coffee, pasta, small canisters of soap and myriad other effects, we are at the Prom. It’s hard to imagine this place is always here, existing in parallel to our daily reality.
When my mother was 12, in the late 1960s, her family started holidaying at the Prom, Yiruk Wamoon. Black and white photographs in sticky old albums reveal three weather beaten children – Mum and her two siblings – on walking tracks all over the Prom, often sulking, particularly as the children in the photos become teenagers. With paper bags full of homemade scroggin (don’t forget the chopped apricots, Mum likes to remind me) and only occasionally wearing hats, they would hike with my grandfather while my grandmother tidied and swept their canvas tent and, no doubt, sat down with a book and a cup of billy tea or perhaps a sneaky white from the flagon. Upon hearing our familial stories I used to wonder why my grandmother often chose to stay back at the campsite and miss the beauty of a hike. Now as a mother myself, opting to stay back to get dinner ready or tidy the tent, I know the reasons intimately.
In truth, the kind of life I lead with a houseful of young children can easily become monotonous. But at least once a year our domestic routine is interrupted by packing lists, camp gear and late night batch cooking and we find ourselves - my husband, three daughters and I – facing into the wind on the crisp shores of Norman Bay, our long shadows reaching into the earth, the oceanic air washing us clean of suburban tedium. After a long drive, countless are-we-there-yets, and with laundry baskets full of woollen jumpers, books, ground coffee, pasta, small canisters of soap and myriad other effects, we are at the Prom. It’s hard to imagine this place is always here, existing in parallel to our daily reality.
When my mother was 12, in the late 1960s, her family started holidaying at the Prom, Yiruk Wamoon. Black and white photographs in sticky old albums reveal three weather beaten children – Mum and her two siblings – on walking tracks all over the Prom, often sulking, particularly as the children in the photos become teenagers. With paper bags full of homemade scroggin (don’t forget the chopped apricots, Mum likes to remind me) and only occasionally wearing hats, they would hike with my grandfather while my grandmother tidied and swept their canvas tent and, no doubt, sat down with a book and a cup of billy tea or perhaps a sneaky white from the flagon. Upon hearing our familial stories I used to wonder why my grandmother often chose to stay back at the campsite and miss the beauty of a hike. Now as a mother myself, opting to stay back to get dinner ready or tidy the tent, I know the reasons intimately.
Eltham writer Lucinda Bain has won the 2022 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with The Prom, her personal interrogation of the writer’s place in nature in the midst of a climate emergency.
The judges said of The Prom: “Lyrical writing, tying past, present and future: the acknowledgement of the past, the fear and beauty of the present, the ever-diminishing hope for the future. It feels slightly bleak, yet ends on a hopeful, simple (yet profound) fact …
“Fantastic interrogation of the complexities of living under a constant and imminent existential threat in the context of privileged albeit sometimes mundane modern living.”
The judges said of The Prom: “Lyrical writing, tying past, present and future: the acknowledgement of the past, the fear and beauty of the present, the ever-diminishing hope for the future. It feels slightly bleak, yet ends on a hopeful, simple (yet profound) fact …
“Fantastic interrogation of the complexities of living under a constant and imminent existential threat in the context of privileged albeit sometimes mundane modern living.”
- Published on
By Catherine Watson
LUCINDA Bain has won the 2022 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with The Prom, a personal interrogation of the writer’s place in nature in the midst of a climate emergency.
Lucinda, who wins $5000 for her essay, showed the value of perseverance after a third equal placing in the 2020 prize and an unsuccessful entry last year.
The judges said of The Prom: “Lyrical writing, tying past, present and future: the acknowledgement of the past, the fear and beauty of the present, the ever-diminishing hope for the future. It feels slightly bleak, yet ends on a hopeful, simple (yet profound) fact …
LUCINDA Bain has won the 2022 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with The Prom, a personal interrogation of the writer’s place in nature in the midst of a climate emergency.
Lucinda, who wins $5000 for her essay, showed the value of perseverance after a third equal placing in the 2020 prize and an unsuccessful entry last year.
The judges said of The Prom: “Lyrical writing, tying past, present and future: the acknowledgement of the past, the fear and beauty of the present, the ever-diminishing hope for the future. It feels slightly bleak, yet ends on a hopeful, simple (yet profound) fact …
- Published on
By Roman Kulkewycz
The much welcome Autumn rain began to fall on Friday night and during the night there were intermittent heavy downpours. However this was not unusual for this rich dairying district of East Gippsland.
Most years this region experiences such heavy rainfall with occasional flooding involved. Unbeknown to all, this year was going to be very different.
The following morning rain began to fall steadily without causing any undue concern to the local farmers. But it was a different story high up in the mountains in the catchment areas where by Friday night the total rainfall had exceeded 400mm which in the old Imperial measurement is over fifteen inches; all within a 24 hour period.
The much welcome Autumn rain began to fall on Friday night and during the night there were intermittent heavy downpours. However this was not unusual for this rich dairying district of East Gippsland.
Most years this region experiences such heavy rainfall with occasional flooding involved. Unbeknown to all, this year was going to be very different.
The following morning rain began to fall steadily without causing any undue concern to the local farmers. But it was a different story high up in the mountains in the catchment areas where by Friday night the total rainfall had exceeded 400mm which in the old Imperial measurement is over fifteen inches; all within a 24 hour period.
In the 2021 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction, Garfield writer Roman Kulkewycz was commended for Rescue at the Bridge, his vivid account of a bad flood and a brave rescue.
Roman was born in Germany in 1947 of Ukrainian parents who were taken from their homeland as forced labourers during WWII. The family migrated to Australia in 1950. Roman spent his working life as a laboratory technician and later as a nurse, but always loved writing and has been a regular contributor to local newspapers all his adult life.
- Published on
By Leonie Margetts
It came out of desperate times and desperate times mean desperate things. A case of kill something or be killed. That is how it came to be when I found myself drumming my fingers continuously into the arm of the chair in the loungeroom to the point that I was so annoying and distracting that my daughter Justine threatened to break something over my head if I didn’t cease. We were all on edge, everyone in the house. Nothing was normal and would never be again. My daughter, my girls’ sister, had died and nothing at all was right in our world. Everything was all kinds of wrong and I had no recognition that I was drumming my fingers; that tears were pouring down my cheeks then off my face; and that my being in that state was really just too hard to deal with when my girls were trying to deal with their own emotions.
It came out of desperate times and desperate times mean desperate things. A case of kill something or be killed. That is how it came to be when I found myself drumming my fingers continuously into the arm of the chair in the loungeroom to the point that I was so annoying and distracting that my daughter Justine threatened to break something over my head if I didn’t cease. We were all on edge, everyone in the house. Nothing was normal and would never be again. My daughter, my girls’ sister, had died and nothing at all was right in our world. Everything was all kinds of wrong and I had no recognition that I was drumming my fingers; that tears were pouring down my cheeks then off my face; and that my being in that state was really just too hard to deal with when my girls were trying to deal with their own emotions.
Leongatha writer Leonie Margetts was highly commended for Saved by Martha, Two sticks of Wood and a Woolly Sheep, her memoir of a devastating
grief and the surprising way she survived it.
In a cover letter, Leonie noted: “I have wanted to write since I was a child but didn’t feel brave enough to do so until my daughter Peta died. Together we wrote her cancer journey, Being Peta, which I completed for her after her death. It was my promise to her. Because of her I am getting brave to have a go at the age of 62.”
- Published on
By Judy Vradenburg
Koolasuchus cleelandi – A large prehistoric amphibian named in honour of its discoverers Lesley Kool and Mike Cleeland. A fierce predator with sturdy legs, a thick tail, and a flattish spade-shaped head, it lived in fast flowing rivers and grew to the size of a modern salt-water crocodile. Its jaws were discovered near San Remo in 1990 and a partial skull, pectoral girdle, ribs and vertebrae were found in rocks along the Bass Coast dated at 125 million years. Koolasuchus is the youngest known temnospondyl in the world. [*1]
On Saturday 6th June 1987, Jim Kennan, State Minister for Planning and Environment, looked around the crowd at Apex Park on Williams Street in Inverloch. He had never seen so many people interested in a piece of ground. With 39% of Inverloch residents aged over 60, there was high demand and huge public support for the development of elderly persons accommodation, and the Inverloch Apex Club had suggested Apex Park as a site for the complex.
Koolasuchus cleelandi – A large prehistoric amphibian named in honour of its discoverers Lesley Kool and Mike Cleeland. A fierce predator with sturdy legs, a thick tail, and a flattish spade-shaped head, it lived in fast flowing rivers and grew to the size of a modern salt-water crocodile. Its jaws were discovered near San Remo in 1990 and a partial skull, pectoral girdle, ribs and vertebrae were found in rocks along the Bass Coast dated at 125 million years. Koolasuchus is the youngest known temnospondyl in the world. [*1]
On Saturday 6th June 1987, Jim Kennan, State Minister for Planning and Environment, looked around the crowd at Apex Park on Williams Street in Inverloch. He had never seen so many people interested in a piece of ground. With 39% of Inverloch residents aged over 60, there was high demand and huge public support for the development of elderly persons accommodation, and the Inverloch Apex Club had suggested Apex Park as a site for the complex.
Inverloch writer Judy Vradenburg won third prize in the 2021 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with Wallace Avenue Community Park, Inverloch, an insider’s account of the realities of community activism.
The judges commented: “It ties together community, politics, history, future planning and volunteers and is a fascinating story of dedicated community action. The author is part of this story, nervous, unsure, yet honest, open and forging ahead. It is a story which engages and informs and with a happy ending which makes this a rare gem in the annals of local activism."
- Published on
By Graeme Wheeler
The start of the May 1964 school vacation was a busy time for Margaret Howard and June Weston. While June’s car, a little Volkswagen was being thoroughly checked the two young women packed their travelling clothes, and by the end of the first week they were ready to leave. They had planned a car tour, a three-legged route that would take them through Gippsland, north across the Dividing Range to the plains of Wangaratta, then homeward to Melbourne along the Hume Highway, not a long journey but one that would encompass much interesting country.
Saturday, May 23 dawned fine, and with a small carton of refreshments, farewells said, they left the suburbs on the first stage of their trip. Both were teachers in their early twenties; they relaxed as they spun along, glad to be on the move at last, confident that their methodical checking had left nothing to chance. The Highway took them through the lush dairy lands of Drouin and Warragul, a sealed ribbon that traversed the foothills of the Strzelecki Ranges that paralleled it a few kilometres to the south.
Light of heart they skimmed along passing the smoky towers of Yallourn’s power stations and through the sickly cloud of Maryvale’s paper mills, emerging from the industrial pollution to the clean, fresh air of Rosedale.
The start of the May 1964 school vacation was a busy time for Margaret Howard and June Weston. While June’s car, a little Volkswagen was being thoroughly checked the two young women packed their travelling clothes, and by the end of the first week they were ready to leave. They had planned a car tour, a three-legged route that would take them through Gippsland, north across the Dividing Range to the plains of Wangaratta, then homeward to Melbourne along the Hume Highway, not a long journey but one that would encompass much interesting country.
Saturday, May 23 dawned fine, and with a small carton of refreshments, farewells said, they left the suburbs on the first stage of their trip. Both were teachers in their early twenties; they relaxed as they spun along, glad to be on the move at last, confident that their methodical checking had left nothing to chance. The Highway took them through the lush dairy lands of Drouin and Warragul, a sealed ribbon that traversed the foothills of the Strzelecki Ranges that paralleled it a few kilometres to the south.
Light of heart they skimmed along passing the smoky towers of Yallourn’s power stations and through the sickly cloud of Maryvale’s paper mills, emerging from the industrial pollution to the clean, fresh air of Rosedale.
Foster writer Graeme Wheeler has won second prize in the 2021 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with The Snow Girls, an account of the search for two young women missing in the Gippsland high country in the 1960s.
Graeme first wrote the story soon after the events described and was prompted to revisit it when he learned of the Bass Coast Prize. Now aged 93, he said he spent many happy hours revising the story and recalling the events. "At my age, there isn't much future, so your attention turns to the past."
Graeme first wrote the story soon after the events described and was prompted to revisit it when he learned of the Bass Coast Prize. Now aged 93, he said he spent many happy hours revising the story and recalling the events. "At my age, there isn't much future, so your attention turns to the past."
- Published on
By Catherine Watson
CAPE Paterson writer Rees Quilford has won the 2021 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with an evocative essay documenting his experience of returning to live in Bass Coast, the place of his birth and childhood.
Adrift in shallow waters outlines his attempt to reacquaint himself with the place through a daily routine of swimming, walking and photography at Cape Paterson’s Bay Beach through the first Covid winter.
A PhD candidate with the non/fiction Lab of the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Rees wins $5000 for his essay.
He said the prize was a valuable and financially significant prompt to inspire local creativity, reflection and storytelling.
CAPE Paterson writer Rees Quilford has won the 2021 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with an evocative essay documenting his experience of returning to live in Bass Coast, the place of his birth and childhood.
Adrift in shallow waters outlines his attempt to reacquaint himself with the place through a daily routine of swimming, walking and photography at Cape Paterson’s Bay Beach through the first Covid winter.
A PhD candidate with the non/fiction Lab of the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Rees wins $5000 for his essay.
He said the prize was a valuable and financially significant prompt to inspire local creativity, reflection and storytelling.
- Published on
By Rees Quilford
Each day of our first COVID winter I left the warmth of our new home, meandered through sleepy streets, over the dunes, down to the same secluded stretch of sand that marks the threshold between shore and sea. I walked the vacant coastline then dove into the bracing cold to swim in the sea. Every day of that arduous winter, all ninety-two of them, I returned to the same place in search of something different. Once there, I sought to reconnect with that once familiar place.
The shoreline I visited is a place of my childhood and adolescence, the Cape Paterson Bay Beach, the unobtrusive shoreline of a quiet seaside village in the heart of Victoria’s Bass Coast. It’s a haunt I’ve known since birth, one that elicits fuzzy recollections of sunburnt skin, chapped zinc smeared lips, and dawdling fishing.
Each day of our first COVID winter I left the warmth of our new home, meandered through sleepy streets, over the dunes, down to the same secluded stretch of sand that marks the threshold between shore and sea. I walked the vacant coastline then dove into the bracing cold to swim in the sea. Every day of that arduous winter, all ninety-two of them, I returned to the same place in search of something different. Once there, I sought to reconnect with that once familiar place.
The shoreline I visited is a place of my childhood and adolescence, the Cape Paterson Bay Beach, the unobtrusive shoreline of a quiet seaside village in the heart of Victoria’s Bass Coast. It’s a haunt I’ve known since birth, one that elicits fuzzy recollections of sunburnt skin, chapped zinc smeared lips, and dawdling fishing.
Every day of that first arduous Covid winter, Rees Quilford dived into the bracing cold of Bass Strait, took a Polaroid photo, and documented his thoughts. The resulting essay has won the 2021 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction.
- Published on
“I then had to look for another home, and there being plenty of places for sale at the time I travelled about a bit, but saw nothing I liked better than around Moyarra.”
William Rainbow, in his pioneering memoir published in
The Land of the Lyrebird, 1920.
The Land of the Lyrebird, 1920.
By Jillian Durance
Prologue: The Promise
In the summer of 1997, we went looking for a home in South Gippsland. We were a couple, not so young, but newly together. The late February afternoon was breathless with heat. The hills rolled away in every direction, their shoulders taut and dried under the sun.
The car pulled up in the dense shade of an enormous pine tree. Its bark was ravined and craggy, like the wrinkled skin of an ancient giant, its trunk the width of three or four people holding hands to encircle it.
At the green wrought iron gate, half open, we caught a glimpse of the old homestead: the outline of a gabled roof, a brick chimney lined with tufts of grass, a window under the deep brow of the return verandah, weatherboards bare of paint. It carried an air of weary charm that cast its spell and slowly reeled us in. We walked through the welcome cool of a rambling garden.
Prologue: The Promise
In the summer of 1997, we went looking for a home in South Gippsland. We were a couple, not so young, but newly together. The late February afternoon was breathless with heat. The hills rolled away in every direction, their shoulders taut and dried under the sun.
The car pulled up in the dense shade of an enormous pine tree. Its bark was ravined and craggy, like the wrinkled skin of an ancient giant, its trunk the width of three or four people holding hands to encircle it.
At the green wrought iron gate, half open, we caught a glimpse of the old homestead: the outline of a gabled roof, a brick chimney lined with tufts of grass, a window under the deep brow of the return verandah, weatherboards bare of paint. It carried an air of weary charm that cast its spell and slowly reeled us in. We walked through the welcome cool of a rambling garden.
Jillian Durance was highly commended in the 2020 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction for Nothing We Liked Better: a house remembered, a home restored, six excerpts from a longer memoir.
- Published on
By Lauren Burns
What if he didn’t like me?
What if I was an unwelcome reminder of past regrets?
What if he just wanted to look at me once, for curiosity, and then cut off contact?
I sat in the passenger seat nervously twisting my fingers, staring out the window at suburbia as my partner Gerard steered the car south through Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. We were headed for the coast.
Height: 5’11” Hair colour: Fair Eye colour: Blue
Weight: About 11.5 stone (73 kg) Race: Caucasian
For the past five years these non-identifying facts were all I knew about donor C11, my biological father. This reduction gave me nothing of his essence. What did he care about? What made him laugh? Did we look alike, or share interests? Did it matter?
What if he didn’t like me?
What if I was an unwelcome reminder of past regrets?
What if he just wanted to look at me once, for curiosity, and then cut off contact?
I sat in the passenger seat nervously twisting my fingers, staring out the window at suburbia as my partner Gerard steered the car south through Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. We were headed for the coast.
Height: 5’11” Hair colour: Fair Eye colour: Blue
Weight: About 11.5 stone (73 kg) Race: Caucasian
For the past five years these non-identifying facts were all I knew about donor C11, my biological father. This reduction gave me nothing of his essence. What did he care about? What made him laugh? Did we look alike, or share interests? Did it matter?
Lauren Burns was highly commended in the 2020 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction for her memoir Cape Connection. This essay is part of a book entitled Triple Helix which will be published by University of Queensland Press in 2022.
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By Fiona Power
I HAD just turned five when George Bass sailed into my consciousness. It was the mid nineteen seventies and my family lived on a dairy farm near Warragul. I roamed a known territory; if I wasn’t shadowing my father up and down grassy slopes, I was building cubbies with my older sister or playing with my dolls on the veranda when she went off to school.
I took my bearings from seasonal markers. I celebrated my birthday in September, and it seemed that the natural world did too. It was then that it began to transform and grow before me. Blossom burst out on branches, daffodils bobbed beneath the orchard fence line and black and white calves appeared in the green pasture and staggered to their feet for their first drink.
I HAD just turned five when George Bass sailed into my consciousness. It was the mid nineteen seventies and my family lived on a dairy farm near Warragul. I roamed a known territory; if I wasn’t shadowing my father up and down grassy slopes, I was building cubbies with my older sister or playing with my dolls on the veranda when she went off to school.
I took my bearings from seasonal markers. I celebrated my birthday in September, and it seemed that the natural world did too. It was then that it began to transform and grow before me. Blossom burst out on branches, daffodils bobbed beneath the orchard fence line and black and white calves appeared in the green pasture and staggered to their feet for their first drink.
Fiona Power’s essay On the Shore of the Wide World was highly commended in the 2020 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction. A wry account of growing up in Bass, on the edge of Western Port, it cleverly merges memoir with local history.
- Published on
By Karen Bateman
THE first time I saw Patrice Mahoney was at the leaving do of a colleague. It was early evening at the hub. I was hiding behind a table of hors d’oeuvres to avoid being dragged into a kooky conga line, encouraged by a riotous brass band. I was in the sort of mental quandary that all introverts will recognise (contradictory desires, to both cut loose like those brazen extroverts and quietly sneak home and read).
Patrice was stood near the community house door, chatting to people whose name I don’t know and whose faces I can’t remember. I do remember she was wearing an orange shawl and seemed so still among the chattering bustle. The music stopped, the speeches started, and Patrice took centre stage. I don’t recall much about the speech. What sticks is Patrice telling the crowd that there were no crows in this area, only ravens, and how contained Patrice seemed, how entirely solid and sure of herself in this hub, in this town.
THE first time I saw Patrice Mahoney was at the leaving do of a colleague. It was early evening at the hub. I was hiding behind a table of hors d’oeuvres to avoid being dragged into a kooky conga line, encouraged by a riotous brass band. I was in the sort of mental quandary that all introverts will recognise (contradictory desires, to both cut loose like those brazen extroverts and quietly sneak home and read).
Patrice was stood near the community house door, chatting to people whose name I don’t know and whose faces I can’t remember. I do remember she was wearing an orange shawl and seemed so still among the chattering bustle. The music stopped, the speeches started, and Patrice took centre stage. I don’t recall much about the speech. What sticks is Patrice telling the crowd that there were no crows in this area, only ravens, and how contained Patrice seemed, how entirely solid and sure of herself in this hub, in this town.
Karen Bateman was highly commended in the Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction for her essay No Place Like Home. Can we ever know a place that we didn’t grow up in? The author is caught between gratitude for the beauty of her adopted home in Bass Coast and longing for another place where she has deeper roots.
- Published on
By Max Hayward
1. Christmas at The Cape
The path to the beach seemed endless as a ten-year-old. Dried up banksia seed pods and barky sticks poked out of the dirt path that transformed into sand as you approached the dunes. A thick and heavy tangle of tea tree limbs and eucalypts filtered the sunlight, so it didn’t burn until you got out onto the beach, which was dazzlingly bright and invariably windy.
Victoria’s coastline is uncomfortable. There are rocky headlands that abut vast sandy beaches only reachable by boat or kayak. Dense banks of scrub fringe most of the Eastern shores, while there are also stretches of marsh, and cliffs built of crepe-like sand around the bays, with limestone escarpments plunging into the surf in the south-west. Gales batter and cold fronts whip across the worn-down coast through the year. And in the moments of calm, when Victorians clamber to the shore for a swim or surf, we plunge into icy water that never reaches New South Wales temperatures. Defying logic, we wallow with the sharks and clumps of shark-like kelp, thrilled to be in the wildness of it all.
1. Christmas at The Cape
The path to the beach seemed endless as a ten-year-old. Dried up banksia seed pods and barky sticks poked out of the dirt path that transformed into sand as you approached the dunes. A thick and heavy tangle of tea tree limbs and eucalypts filtered the sunlight, so it didn’t burn until you got out onto the beach, which was dazzlingly bright and invariably windy.
Victoria’s coastline is uncomfortable. There are rocky headlands that abut vast sandy beaches only reachable by boat or kayak. Dense banks of scrub fringe most of the Eastern shores, while there are also stretches of marsh, and cliffs built of crepe-like sand around the bays, with limestone escarpments plunging into the surf in the south-west. Gales batter and cold fronts whip across the worn-down coast through the year. And in the moments of calm, when Victorians clamber to the shore for a swim or surf, we plunge into icy water that never reaches New South Wales temperatures. Defying logic, we wallow with the sharks and clumps of shark-like kelp, thrilled to be in the wildness of it all.
Max Hayward won third equal prize in the 2020 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with Sometimes Nothing Can Happen but Fire. Part family memoir, written in the wake of the summer bush fires, it explores our relationship with these fire-prone lands contrasting Aboriginal notions of custodianship of land (including controlled burning) with European concept of ownership.
- Published on
By Lucinda Bain
I thought I knew something of death. Until, on the 20th of May 2016 – my 34th birthday – I found myself breastfeeding my third baby in the same room as my dead grandfather. It was at this point, sitting stunned and limp, feeling only the gentle tug of Pearl’s round-o-mouth around my nipple, that I realised: I knew nothing.
My mother had phoned me in January that same year to tell me of my grandfather’s illness. It was a shock: my tanned, robust, skiing, camping, stoic grandfather unwell? His mother had lived to 93 and to me, even in my thirties, he still held that kind of dream-like invincibility of my childhood.
In my mind I knew him to be at home by the sea, looking out over the black windows of evening alone, as my mother told me the news. At that moment the water was crashing into the cliffs of Cape Woolamai just as it had always done, caring little for the man sitting with death inside him, a stones throw from where it relentlessly hurled itself upon the shore.
I thought I knew something of death. Until, on the 20th of May 2016 – my 34th birthday – I found myself breastfeeding my third baby in the same room as my dead grandfather. It was at this point, sitting stunned and limp, feeling only the gentle tug of Pearl’s round-o-mouth around my nipple, that I realised: I knew nothing.
My mother had phoned me in January that same year to tell me of my grandfather’s illness. It was a shock: my tanned, robust, skiing, camping, stoic grandfather unwell? His mother had lived to 93 and to me, even in my thirties, he still held that kind of dream-like invincibility of my childhood.
In my mind I knew him to be at home by the sea, looking out over the black windows of evening alone, as my mother told me the news. At that moment the water was crashing into the cliffs of Cape Woolamai just as it had always done, caring little for the man sitting with death inside him, a stones throw from where it relentlessly hurled itself upon the shore.
Lucinda Bain’s has won third equal prize in the 2020 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with Paper Thin. A parallel memoir of a grandfather’s death and a daughter’s birth, the story draws you in from the first intriguing sentence to the last powerful moment.
- Published on
or RUN if you hear the word Peri-urban
By Jeannie Haughton
While most of us were anxiously locked in our homes in April 2020, wondering if a global virus might change our lives forever, a development company slipped into a section of Drouin, calmly carried on their normal routine of destroying natural environments to create man-made ones, and actually did change my life. Forever.
Within a few days over 80 mature, Protected trees were felled on the small regional road where I have lived for over thirty years.
Along one side of McGlones Road (northern end) remnant trees 150 years old as well as bush, understory and grasses (all wildlife habitat) were razed. Numbers of trees on the other side of the road were also removed. In the next few weeks a meandering creek disappeared, teeming wetlands and soggy places were scoured and carved into shallow waterways and basins. Pumping stations and pipelines were created to control the seasonal waterflow.
While most of us were anxiously locked in our homes in April 2020, wondering if a global virus might change our lives forever, a development company slipped into a section of Drouin, calmly carried on their normal routine of destroying natural environments to create man-made ones, and actually did change my life. Forever.
Within a few days over 80 mature, Protected trees were felled on the small regional road where I have lived for over thirty years.
Along one side of McGlones Road (northern end) remnant trees 150 years old as well as bush, understory and grasses (all wildlife habitat) were razed. Numbers of trees on the other side of the road were also removed. In the next few weeks a meandering creek disappeared, teeming wetlands and soggy places were scoured and carved into shallow waterways and basins. Pumping stations and pipelines were created to control the seasonal waterflow.
Drouin writer and theatre director Jeannie Haughton won second prize in the Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with Who Speaks for the Trees and Creeks? or RUN if you hear the word Peri-Urban.
- Published on
I acknowledge the Bunurong/Boon Wurrung people,
the traditional custodians of the land upon which this narrative is set.
I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging
and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
the traditional custodians of the land upon which this narrative is set.
I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging
and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
By Linda Cuttriss
At Screw Creek, in the dead of night on the far edge of town, a man crept silently aboard the Lizzie. His plan was dangerous and risky but he was fed up being paid a pittance for long hours of back-breaking work. This would teach his boss a lesson and settle things once and for all.
The sound of the explosion would have boomed across town, rattling windows and shaking the townsfolk from their sleep. There would have been quite a fuss the next day as word got around that Lizzie had been blown to pieces. Many would have known that local man, Jack Graham had the contract to ‘metal’ the ‘all weather’ approaches to Screw Creek bridge just outside of Inverloch and that he was using Lizzie to carry stone upstream from the nearby Cuttriss quarry, but I wonder how many knew of the dispute that had been smouldering. The report in the local newspaper would have kept them guessing:
At Screw Creek, in the dead of night on the far edge of town, a man crept silently aboard the Lizzie. His plan was dangerous and risky but he was fed up being paid a pittance for long hours of back-breaking work. This would teach his boss a lesson and settle things once and for all.
The sound of the explosion would have boomed across town, rattling windows and shaking the townsfolk from their sleep. There would have been quite a fuss the next day as word got around that Lizzie had been blown to pieces. Many would have known that local man, Jack Graham had the contract to ‘metal’ the ‘all weather’ approaches to Screw Creek bridge just outside of Inverloch and that he was using Lizzie to carry stone upstream from the nearby Cuttriss quarry, but I wonder how many knew of the dispute that had been smouldering. The report in the local newspaper would have kept them guessing:
Bass Coast writer Linda Cuttriss won the 2020 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with this essay, part true detective story, part local history, part family history.
- Published on
By Catherine Watson
WHILE these are grim times for the arts community, for many writers, artists, musicians it's also a time to step back from the usual noise and bustle and actually create.
The second Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction has been brought forward to take advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown when many writers have more time for writing.
Entries are now open for the 2020 Bass Coast Prize, one of the richest competitions for non-fiction in Australia, with a total of $10,000 in prize money. The first prize winner will receive $5000, second $3000 and third $2000.
Given the cancellation of exhibitions, concerts, plays and arts festivals, including our own Phillip Island Story Gatherers Festival, the non-fiction prize keeps the literary flame burning in Bass Coast.
WHILE these are grim times for the arts community, for many writers, artists, musicians it's also a time to step back from the usual noise and bustle and actually create.
The second Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction has been brought forward to take advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown when many writers have more time for writing.
Entries are now open for the 2020 Bass Coast Prize, one of the richest competitions for non-fiction in Australia, with a total of $10,000 in prize money. The first prize winner will receive $5000, second $3000 and third $2000.
Given the cancellation of exhibitions, concerts, plays and arts festivals, including our own Phillip Island Story Gatherers Festival, the non-fiction prize keeps the literary flame burning in Bass Coast.