Tony Popic, Mandy Martin, David Taylor, Guy Fitzhardinge, Chris Dickman, Glenda Wardle.
Desert Channels launched!
Launch photos
View photos from the Longreach launch photos.
Launch speech
Read the launch speech (PDF) delivered by Bruce Scott, Mayor of Barcoo Shire.
ABC Western Queensland feature on the Longreach launch
Read the ABC Western Queensland article covering the launch, and listen to some of the contributors speak about Desert Channels.
A report by Mandy Martin:
There were 17 Desert Channellers at the very successful launch in Longreach, swelling the large crowd to 95-100 people. We sold 30 or so books on the night and did quite a few media releases for radio and newspaper. I sent the links for those to you yesterday
Tropical storms are still rolling around the Desert Channels and Simon and Christine Campbell were cut off by the raging Barcoo River! Nella and Mark Lithgow did make it through from Cravens Peak Reserve, as fortunately did Bruce and Maureen Scott from Windorah and Angus and Karen Emmott from Stonehenge, everyone's vehicles were well plastered with mud though! 10 of us went on and stayed at Noonbah, near Stonehenge with Karen and Angus Emmott on Saturday, to watch the grandfinal of course with pies and beer provided by Faye Alexander. Due to the road being closed, we changed plans and didn't stay with Simon and Christine at Blackall so 8 of us then descended on Maureen and Bruce Scott for the night at Moothandella, Windorah and were able to celebrate with Bob Morrish who joined us for the night also.
Dave Thompson's welcome to country at the SHOF was excellent and people thought the powerpoint he presented, including early, hauntingly damning Hansard records of politicians views of Aboriginal people and counter-visual evidence of long occupation of Country, was powerfully informative. Bruce Scott's opening speech was moving and very much to the point revealing his great love of the Channel Country. He bestowed great honour on the contributors by comparing our quest to write about and make images of the Channel Country with the aims of the celebrated writings of Alice Duncan Kemp. I hope to send you all his text in due course. It was great to see the interchanges in the crowd during the night and a good mob of about 35 went onto dinner after where the discussions continued.
The launch at the Australian Rangeland Society's 'Rain on the Rangelands' conference in Bourke on Monday night was also a big event, 230 participants were seated right on the banks of the old wharf on Bourke and we were given a 20 minute time slot for our launch which put is in full spot light. Geoff Wise was enthusiastic and generous in his speech, I was able to introduce Chris Dickman as the NSW Scientist of the year and once Chris and I had recovered from the shock of talking to such a big crowd, were kept busy signing books for some time after the speeches and when I saw Melinda Chandler from CSIRO last, the following day, shortly after Guy Fitzhardinge's challenging keynote address, she was still selling. Half of the print run has been sold already, it seems, so don't delay your contributor discounted purchases too long into the future!
I'm sorry you couldn't all be there to celebrate this significant achievement but we hope to catch up with more of you at "The Big Wet" National Museum Forum on 22 October 12-2 pm, which will launch the book in another context.
- Mandy Martin
Response from Alaska...
Hi Mandy,
Thanks so much for your brilliant description and accompanying photos of the Longreach Launch and associated adventures. Sounds like quite the multi-day, multi-stop celebration.
What a bonus, that the celebration included Chris Dickman's eminently deserved recognition as NSW Scientist of the Year.
Sorry that some of us were prevented by deep water--the Barcoo River and the Pacific Ocean--from joining the party. Mandy, your account is so detailed and flavourful that it's as if we were there.
Meanwhile, I've been savouring every page of Desert Channels. What I love most about this book is that it not only passes along information about the country and its people, but it also to imparts a feeling for them.
As I read Desert Channels the other night, I remembered a passage that I've always loved, from the journal of Henry David Thoreau:
I have a commonplace book for facts and another for poetry, but I find it difficult always to preserve the vague distinction which I had in my mind, for the most interesting and beautiful facts are so much the more poetry and that is their success. They are translated from earth to heaven. I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant, perhaps transmuted more into the substance of the human mind--I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all.I think Desert Channels is definitely that sort of poetry, and it inspires confidence that this book really will nurture the impulse to conserve.
Thanks again to everybody who made this book so rich and wonderful. And good luck with the upcoming second launch.
- 'Nels' (Richard Nelson).
Launch photos
Longreach, September 2010
View the individual photos on Flickr