At our recent Society of Women Writers meeting, at the State Library of NSW fellow writer,poet and friend, Pip Griffin inspired our gathering with her 3 recently published books. Climbing Back by Pip Griffin and published by Ginninderra Press was a highlight .
Pip told us the story of its development, and read four short evocative poems of grief, and renewal
Her work very much reminding me of Emily Dickenson’s sensibility.
Her award-winning book Margaret Caro, the exraordinary life of a pioneering dentist was
displayed as available and Pip read a poem from it to whet our appetite to read more.
Thirdly her poetic book Secret Diaries :an imagined correspondence between Virginia Woofe and the New Zealnad short story writer Katherine Mansfield. As I wrote for the back cover ,
“Every life is braided with luminous moments” John O’Donohue
For those intrigued over the decades about Virginia and Katherine, Pip Griffin turns to their writings, essays, short stories, diaries and personal letters to detail a sense of what constitutes their intertwining ‘luminous moments’ Pip gives us a window into this intimate and tragic friendship, and with poetic writing full of erotic intrigue captures a sense of provocative possibilities leaving us still with the mystery of their communion to contemplate. Pip’s poetry at its best.
Colleen Keating
As Pip spoke from the podium I felt very happy. for . . . . .
we are back. A resplendent Society of Women Writers meeting. A welcome-back and farewell to our year with an enthusiastic group .
The day actually began with a workshop: Writing with Humour. convened by Carolyn Eldridge– Alfonzetti A great workshop as it was a gentle way to begin again, humour is important to every genre and we got a lot of laughter as we got prompts to remember funny stories.
Our poetry reading were fun with some wonderful performances and finally playwright Donna Abela shared her writing journey at the Royal Commission on Institutional Abuse of children – while it is shocking it also shows how writing can transform this into powerful advocacy for children.
