meeting the author

Rebecca Rowe

Teacher - English

VCE English can be a demanding course, but it also offers students rare and exciting experiences.  The Brunswick Secondary College English Learning Area continually strives to inspire and engage students using a variety of resources. This program encourages students to approach their studies from diverse perspectives, to  think 'beyond Brunswick' and to be inspired by  others.  Providing opportunities for the cohort to listen to visiting speakers allows students to hear information 'from the source', to instigate and participate in robust discussion and to embrace their studies in a more tangible way. 

This term,  the Year 12 English students were lucky enough to meet Australian author, Cate Kennedy, who came to speak to them about her collection of short stories, Like A House On Fire. This is the first year we have studied Kennedy’s short stories in VCE English and the students eagerly anticipated her visit, with much feigned nonchalance!

Kennedy spoke for an hour, detailing her writing process and speaking directly about the Creative Response SAC, where students must develop their own creative pieces using Kennedy’s work as the inspiration. They were advised to “zoom in” on small moments in life and to focus on details that could create an ‘Ow! Factor’, rather than a ‘Wow! Factor’, meaning that they should aim for the emotions of their audience, rather than telling a complex story.

Kennedy is fascinated with the everyday hero and how we survive the mundane oppression that life sometimes delivers. The students were brimming with questions by the end of her talk. Many lingered afterwards to chat to Kennedy, ask more questions and have her sign their books. Kennedy was extremely generous with her time and even forwarded a previously unpublished story for the students to read as further inspiration. We will waste no time in booking her in again for 2019!

More about Cate Kennedy

Cate Kennedy is a born storyteller, although it wasn't until her 30s that she began to think she could be a writer. Now she's one of those rare authors who's had their work published in The New Yorker, the holy grail for short-story writers.

Kennedy is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People's Choice Award in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards in 2010. It was also shortlisted for The Age fiction prize 2010 and the ASA Barbara Jefferis Award 2010, among others. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has been published widely. Her collection, Dark Roots, was shortlisted for the Steele Rudd Award in the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards and for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Cate is also the author of the travel memoir Sing, and Don't Cry, and the poetry collections Joyflight and Signs of Other Fires. Her latest book is The Taste of River Water: New and Selected Poems by Cate Kennedy, which was published in May 2011 and won the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards CJ Dennis Prize for Poetry. (www.penguin.com.au)