Everton Park’s Toasted Café has hosted a Wild Readings North by North-West – an author and reader event.
It is the first time Wild Readings has been held on the northside of Brisbane, and it is hoped that its success will lead to further events in 2019.
Wild Readings was established in West End in October 2016 by a group of talented and passionate writers.
The aim was to bring out the story-teller in everyone, regardless of media, genre, or level of development.
Since then, Wild Readings has enjoyed increasing interest from aspiring and established artists.
Readers have included playwright and actor Margi Brown Ash, novelist and essayist Ashley Hay, director and screenwriter Evan Clarry, filmmaker Katrina Graham, music writer and novelist Noel Mengel, visual artist and writer Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox, and comedian Michelle Janssen.
The eclectic nature of the Wild Readings events offers new audience experiences at each event, and has built a strong, cross-pollinating community of artists in Brisbane.
The potential of that cross-pollination was demonstrated when co-founder Lisa Southgate worked with local songwriter Francesca de Valence on Beware of Boys, a moving musical memoir which debuted at the 2018 Anywhere Festival.
‘Francesca and I had spoken about song writing at Wild Readings and she had performed some fantastic songs during our open mic at the end of the evenings, so I approached her to help me write some songs to go with my play. I was thrilled when she agreed,’ said Southgate.
Café owner and author, K. M. Steele wanted to bring the Wild Readings format to the northside, and worked with Lisa to get the event going at Toasted.
The audience was treated to Toasted’s friendly service and tasty, affordable meals, with generous sides of science fiction, modern fiction, comedy, short fiction and essay.
Tracey Lloyd read a charming short story, Balmain in Love, and Vicki Stevens read from her book Shaking the Tree, a suspenseful Australian mystery about the fear that keeps truth hidden, even from the ones we love.
On the open mic end of things, wildly creative author Dean Blake read a piece from his short fiction collection, Surface Children.
Watch this space because the teams from Wild Readings and Toasted are hoping to bring another event to the northside in the near future.
‘The hope is that we will get enough interest on the northside to host an event every four months, because it’s a fantastic opportunity to read in front of a supportive audience,’ said Ms Steele.
Watch this space for the next Wild Readings Northside / Toasted Cafe author / reader event.
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