Peggy Frew is a musician and writer. She is a winner of The Age Short Story Competition and has been published in New Australian Stories 2, Kill Your Darlings, Meanjin, and The Big Issue. Her first novel, House of Sticks, published in 2011, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer, and was shortlisted for the UTS Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing. Hope Farm, her second novel, was published in October 2015.
Catch Peggy Frew at the following Sydney Writers Festival sessions:
Life in the Hive
Tuesday 17 May 3:00PM – 4:00PM
How do we navigate cycles of loss and damage? Lyrical works by Peggy Frew and Mireille Juchau speak about endurance and family cohesion among communal landscapes. Juchau’s The World Without Us is the gripping story of a formidable, grief-stricken family, and the 2016 winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. Frew’s Hope Farm is an absorbing story of childhood’s lost promise. Both take us on a search for identity, belonging and survival. The authors speak with Tegan Bennett Daylight. Presented with Varuna, the National Writers House
Location: Carrington Hotel, Katoomba, 15-47 Katoomba Street, Katoomba
Bookings: single session $15 at the door (subject to availability), Bookings 4782 5674, varuna.com.au
Mick Turner and Peggy Frew: Living, Dreaming, Making
Thursday 19 May 6:00PM – 7:00PM
Life partners and creative co-conspirators Peggy Frew and Mick Turner come together in this special event to play a couple of songs and chat candidly to Anwen Crawford about the intersections of art, writing, intimacy, music and imaginative pursuits their in uniquely creative household. Peggy and Mick muse over the motivations and inspirations that inform their work and how they influence (or interrupt) each other’s practice. Peggy is an acclaimed author, most recently of Hope Farm, and member of the Melbourne band The Art of Fighting; Mick is a visual artist and guitarist for the Dirty Three.
Location: Pier 2/3 Club Stage, Pier 2/3, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
Bookings: $15 Bookings (02) 9250 1988, roslynpackertheatre.com.au/swf
New Australian Voices
Friday 20 May 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Spend the morning with Australia’s best emerging writers as they read from and discuss their work at the beautiful Theatre Bar at the End of the Wharf. Townsville-born Indigenous poet Maggie Walsh reads from her first collection, Sunset. Abigail Ulman discusses her short story collection, Hot Little Hands, which has been seducing readers and critics alike since its release. Peggy Frew speaks about Hope Farm, a wise and elegant tale of broken childhood bonds. Facilitated by Jill Eddington, this event will help you discover some of the most moving, inventive and exciting writing at the Festival.
Location: The Theatre Bar at the End of the Wharf, Sydney Theatre Company, Pier 4/5 Hickson Rd, The Rocks
Free, no bookings
