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Melbourne Rare Book Week – launch

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The program for the annual Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) was launched on Monday night. MRBW is held from 5–14 JULY 2019 . Have look at the wide variety of talks on offer,

2019 sees the eighth Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) and the 47th Australian Antiquarian Book Fair, presented by the Australian Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) and Rare Books Melbourne (RBM). 

The program will be presented by both regular and new MRBW partners. It will include a wide variety of interesting topics on book-related themes, and entry to all events is free of charge. There will be something for all interests and taste. We welcome bibliophiles, established collectors and those new to book collecting.

I am honoured to once again be the official sketcher on location at MRBW events.

I have also been working with Melbourne Library Services to draw the posters for their events in the week. This year the focus is crime. There are four events and a display. Below are my drawings that feature in the program and on posters.

Event 1 An exploration of the 1880s Melbourne of Fergus Hume.

Hosted by Dr Lucy Sussex, an expert on Australian detective fiction, explore the sites of Melbourne featured in the books of Fergus Hume, the author of Mystery of a Hansom Cab. Hear extracts from the works of Hume along the way.

Event 2 Views from outsiders: cooking, culture and European crime fiction

In some crime fiction, the setting and the cultural details are as important as the crime itself. Join Chris Browne, an avid fan and collector of this genre of popular crime fiction, for a comparison of four European cultures as he explores the worlds of Bruno, Brunetti, Gunter and Zen.

Event 3: The Knife is Feminine: discovering Charlotte Jay

Join our panel discussion with Sisters in Crime Australia’s Carmel Shute and Katherine Kovacic, with Chris Browne. Readings by Abbe Holmes. Presented by City of Melbourne Libraries and Sisters in Crime.
The first winner of the Edgar Allan Poe award was an Australian woman, forBeat Not The Bones a mystery book set in Papua New Guinea .
But who in 2019 has heard of Charlotte Jay in this her centenary year? Discover an Australian woman who wrote crime and mystery books set in locations around the world. Celebrate the life and works of Charlotte Jay. Find out why The Knife is Feminine.

Event 4: A Portrait of Molly Dean: fiction from true crime

Presented by City of Melbourne Libraries and Sisters in Crime, Katerine Kovacic in conversation with Chris Browne.
Crime fiction is often based on true crime. The murder of Molly Dean in November 1930 in Melbourne has prompted four books and a play.
​Join Katherine Kovacic, author of The Portrait of Molly Dean, for a discussion of the crime and the subsequent fiction of the life and death of an outsider on the fringes of Melbourne’s Bohemian elite.

Display; Who dunnit? Who wrote it?’: an exhibition of crime fiction books

Featuring books from our presentations on European crime literature and the Australian author Charlotte Jay and a range of crime books available from the Footscray Mechanics Institute Library.
Curated by: Chris Browne and Linda Longley . view at Library at the Dock
Saturday 8 June to Sunday 14 July

to see further details for times dates and bookings see the program for Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) .

Clunes Booktown Festival

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Last week I wrote about the amazing opportunity I have to be Social Media Reporter at the iconic Clunes Booktown Festival this Saturday, sketching all day at the event.

After an early start I arrived at Clunes (near Ballarat) at 9.30 Saturday morning. It is autumn here, so the weather was crisp, with people wearing jackets and beanies. Thankfully the rain stayed away and everyone could enjoy the outside and inside events.

I spent all day exploring, attending events, sketching for short and longer times. Almost all sketches were done with Lamy Safari ink pen, then watercolour pencil added on the spot to various areas on the page. There were many Panel Discussions, Book Launches, In Conversation and Author talks to attend. And then there was the main street , closed to traffic and taken over by book stalls big and small . There were arrows on walls to “MORE BOOKS” in unexpected places.. The number of people grew over the day, but it was never crowded. The people were a great mix of ages – everyone loves books !!!

Below are my sketches from the day. The brief was to actively engage with Clunes Booktown Festival , spreading the love of this wonderful regional literary festival through my sketches. I feel as though I achieved this. see all of these is full size on my Flickr site
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alissaduke/albums/72157704944609002

It was a very big and exciting day. Thanks to Jodi for alerting me to the advertisement for the position of Social Media Reporter at Clunes Booktown Festival for the day. I could not have been happier – books and sketching !! and a big thanks to Melbourne City of Literature for the opportunity . Clunes Booktown Festival is an amazing experience in a beautiful historic town and I will be returning !

And did I buy any books ? … that’s another blog post

next weekend – Clunes Booktown Festival

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I am very excited to share that next Saturday I am travelling to Clunes Booktown Festival
(Clunes facebook page ) as official Social Media Reporter for the day . I am there to spread the word and celebrate regional literary festivals that sometimes not celebrated as much as urban festivals.  I will be sketching and posting continuously during the day on my instagram page at alissaduke1  and facebook Alissa Duke Art with the hashtags #FestivalsRoadTrip and #clunesbooktownfestival.

I applied for and was thrilled to be awarded the position as Social Media Reporter by UNESCO Melbourne City of Literature based on my Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) sketches, where I sketch on location at events over the week.  I am very excited as this role combines my love of sketching and books – what more could I ask for ???!!!

Below are some MRBW sketches

Located approximately 90 minutes from Melbourne by car, the small country town of Clunes is a member of the International Organisation of Booktowns, the only one in Australia. The original is Hay-on-Wye in Wales.  A Booktown is a small, regional, community-focused town with a concentration of booksellers – mainly secondhand or antiquarian bookshops.

Each year Clunes (pop 2000) Booktown Festival attracts over 15,000 people across the two day event to the historical town, tempting book lovers with its sensational line-up of speakers and enticing weekend explorers with its culinary delights and surprises.  

Here are photos from last year . I am hoping the weather will be the same – The predicted weather is 16 degrees and possible showers . Fingers crossed for no rain.

I will be sketching everywhere all day – on the streets amongst the books and stalls, at the talks and everywhere in between. As mentioned I will be posting continuously during the day on my instagram page at alissaduke1  and facebook Alissa Duke Art with the hashtags #FestivalsRoadTrip and #clunesbooktownfestival.  I plan to do some very quick sketches 10 – 20 minutes and maybe a few longer ones of up to an hour . Some will be in ink pen, with or without colour and others may be in watercolour pencils.  I will see what happens on the day.  It will be a full on day of sketching walking, looking, sketching and..  sketching.  I will be engaging with the events and sharing impressions of the moment through my sketches. Follow me and see what I sketch on he day.

The Festival features Australia’s largest book shop, with the whole of the main street given over to bookstores, with festival-goers able to browse rare and collectible books, go inside heritage buildings, listen to live music while sampling local food and wine, watch street performers, visit exhibitions, and immerse themselves in stories,

Clunes Booktown Festival is on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 May at Clunes, Victoria. Tickets are $10 from clunesbooktown.com.au. and extra for  some speaker events.

Just going to fill my ink pen and sharpen my pencils now. !!!