On Saturday July 20, The Bugle went to two author talks, held at the Kiama Pavilion, as part of the Kiama Readers’ Festival 2024.

Both talks were filled to the max with interested festival goers, reflecting the festival’s success. 

The first talk was with Andra Putnis, who recently released her book Stories My Grandmothers Didn't Tell Me: Two women's journeys from war-torn Europe to a new life in Australia (Allen and Unwin, 2024). It’s about the secret lives of her two grandmothers who lived in Latvia during the Nazi and Soviet occupation during WWII.

Putnis’ engaging and introspective talk analysed the reasons why older generations feel unable to share their past lives with the younger generation.

One of the highlights was the story of how one of her grandmothers would mail scarves from Australia to her mother in Latvia so that she could sell the scarves for money.

Putnis talked about how she imagined her grandmother spending hours at the stall trying to find the perfect scarf, which would bring her mother the most money, and how the other people at the stall had no idea what her grandmother was doing.

“Writing this book has made me far more interested in hearing people’s stories,” said Putnis. “What don’t I know about the person standing next to me at the shops?”

The second talk featured journalists-turned-crime fiction writers Michael Brissendon and Chris Hammer, mediated by The Sydney Morning Herald book reviewer Sue Turnbull.

The talk mainly centred around the two writers’ switch from journalism to crime fiction. They both spoke of how crime fiction brought them more freedom, allowing them to do things they couldn’t within the confines of journalism.

“In fiction, you can touch on greater truths then maybe you can in journalism,” said Hammer.

“You can resolve things and put the world right,” said Brissendon.

Hammer’s novel The Seven (Allen and Unwin, 2023) and Brissendon’s Smoke (Affirm Press, 2024) are both available for purchase.