S2E6: Claire Mabey
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In this episode of Bad Diaries Podcast, Tracy talks with arts festival founder and director, arts events maven, book reviewer, books editor, essayist and novelist Claire Mabey about a life in the arts, the wisdom of teachers, and the transportive power of reading.
Claire’s debut novel, The Raven’s Eye Runaways, was published only two months ago, and is already making its mark, flying out across the book world. Hera Lindsay Bird called it “powerfully atmospheric” and “immersive”; Elizabeth Knox says it’s “sparky and spooky, humorous and luminous”. We dive inside the book, to talk about its origins, its inspirations, the process of writing it.
Claire Mabey co-founded Verb Readers and Writers Festival (initially as LitCrawl), Lōemis festival, and event organising and production outfit Pirate & Queen. More recently, Claire’s taken on the role of Books Editor for The Spinoff. In the podcast, we talk about what it is, what it means, and what it takes to make a life in the arts.
Claire reflects on her diarymaking practice – kickstarted by teacher Lyn Fothergill who encouraged 10-year-old Claire to start keeping a journal; “I started being a writer in her class” – and different ways (increasingly digitised) of diarising a life.
As literary director of Verb festival, Claire first took a chance and booked Bad Diaries Salon for LitCrawl back in 2018, establishing what’s become our longest running festival collaboration – we’ve held Bad Diaries Salon at Meow bar for LitCrawl 6 years in a row, so far, and counting. We’re delighted to embed Claire’s connection with Bad Diaries, by welcoming her to the podcast.
In this episode:
Find out more about Claire on her website, clairemabey.com
Claire’s debut novel, The Raven’s Eye Runaways, was published by Allen & Unwin in Australia and New Zealand in July 2024
Here’s a review of The Raven’s Eye Runaways from Hera Lindsay Bird and an interview with Claire on The Sapling
We didn’t talk about this in the episode, but here’s an essay Claire wrote, ‘The beginning of a book’, about writing The Raven’s Eye Runaways
Tracy talks about watching a recording of (queen!) Deborah Levy at Edinburgh Book Festival 2023, and Claire consequently appearing in Tracy’s diary; Catherine Chidgey also makes a festival-related appearance in Tracy’s diary – photographic evidence in gallery below
Elizabeth Knox is a legend – among other roles, Elizabeth convenes the World-Building Creative Writing Workshop for the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, which Claire talks about
Claire mentions sending her early finished draft of The Raven’s Eye Runaways to Rachael King – here’s an episode we prepared earlier with Rachael
Something we touched on briefly in the episode was Claire’s occasional analyses and close readings of song lyrics (in the way you would close-read a poem) – here’s Claire on Aldous Harding lyrics and on ‘Rolling Moon’ by The Chills
Claire mentioned Dameonologie (1597), or Dæmonologie, In Forme of a Dialogue, Divided into three Books: By the High and Mightie Prince, James &c.
Enid Blyton wrote The Faraway Tree series of novels (1939-1951). Tracy grew up with her mum’s copy of The Enchanted Wood (1939), the first book of the series (and has read it approximately one million times); it includes the world in which everyone gets smacked, Dame Slap’s School (photos in gallery)
Claire and Tracy are both fans of Scrivener software
Claire’s Substack, Domestic Animals, is “Mostly about books. Not always about books.”; Tracy’s highly recommends it
We talk about Claire’s substack post ‘Submarine Bells’; “It’s 6am on 27 August 2024 and the sound of the storm outside woke me up”
Tracy mentions (and also highly recommends) Rosie Whinray’s Substack, Dear Magician, ‘A Wizard's field notes ~ City-watching, beach-combing, omens, ideas ~ A zuihitsu of the weirdinary’; Rosie writes a lot about journalling, and from her journals, including her many-years-long project of daily drawing (a kind of journal in images)
Claire talked in the Submarine Bells Substack post about The Mermaid Chronicles by Megan Dunn (Megan’s mer-sterpiece!), and Claire and Tracy fangrrrl extremely hard on Megan Dunn; here’s a review by Gabi Lardies of The Mermaid Chronicles
Claire loved Days of Heaven, the 1978 film written and directed by Terence Malick, is an original screenplay (written by Malick); Linda Manz is the young actor who also narrates the film; Ennio Morricone scored the film (for which he was Oscar-nominated); additional songs by Doug Kershaw and Leo Kottke
The Roxy Cinema in Miramar is our wonderful local
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Bad Diaries Podcast is recorded and produced in Naarm Melbourne, Australia, on the lands of the Kulin Nation; and in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, on the iwi lands of Taranaki Whānui, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. We pay our respects to Mana Whenua, and to Elders past, present and emerging, of these lands.
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