TALKS / READINGS / WORKSHOPS / PRESENTATIONS
Speaking at the Avon Valley Festival (photo: Amanda Curtin)
Like most established writers, I’m happy to discuss my books and related matters with all sorts of groups. I enjoy public speaking – formal or informal occasions – and have taken part in countless sessions over the years in libraries and literary festivals, bookshops and writers’ centres, universities and schools, prisons (as a visitor!) and clubs, meetings of historical societies and other professional associations. I’m particularly glad to conduct writing workshops.
There are many other public occasions where my role as presenter isn’t tied specifically to my work as a writer, though they’re indirectly connected. For instance I’ve been a keynote speaker at state or national conferences for various organisations including Museums Australia, Australian Association for the Teaching of English, Australian Corporate Lawyers Association, Local Government Managers Association, Australian College of Health Service Executives, and many academic bodies. Recent public lectures include one given at the joint invitation of the National Trust, ICOMOS and the Institute of Advanced Studies (UWA) to celebrate the International Day of Monuments and Sites (more information about that event here) and one on “History’s Grist and Fiction’s Mill” given in my capacity as the 2015 Battye Memorial Fellow.
CONSULTANCIES
As an experienced consultant my commissioned work has included writing, editing and other projects (often on curriculum matters or organisational communication) for more than 20 universities in Australia and overseas, a few secondary schools and several educational agencies (e.g. Victorian Curriculum & Assessment Board and the WA Curriculum Council). I’ve also undertaken contract research and report-writing for (among others) the Australia Council, Australian Universities Teaching Committee, , Business/Higher Education Roundtable, Education.au, City of Mandurah, City of South Perth, IGL Oil & Gas, Westonia Mines Ltd, Museums Australia, Local Government Managers Australia, and Routledge Pty Ltd. And I’ve been hired as a confidential mentor or executive coach for senior people in several organisations.
Details and testimonials on request.
VOLUNTARY COMMUNITY WORK
Current or previous pro bono / volunteering activities include board memberships (Australian Society of Authors; Volunteering WA; Museums Australia National Council; State Library Board – ministerial appointee; Open Universities Australia; Community Leadership Australia; Guildford Grammar Council; Channel 31), chairing of the WA Premier’s Literary Awards Judging Panel and the Deafness Council Scholarship Panel; membership of the WA Heritage Council Register Committee; and Westcare ambassador.
I am analysing a poem called Alfred and the Phone-boxes in my year 10 English class and just wanted to verify that you were in fact the author. Although I cannot find any other fiction writers by the name of Ian Reid I have been unable to find documentation that you are in fact the Ian Reid who wrote the poem I’m looking at. If you are the writer please know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Hi Amber – What a pleasant surprise to hear from you! Yes, that’s my poem, written many years ago. I’m glad you like it. I wonder where you may have encountered it… If I remember rightly it was included with a few other early poems of mine in an anthology titled Pattern & Voice – perhaps that’s your source? It’s part of a little group of ‘Alfred’ poems (another one was anthologised in The Oxford Book of Australian Light Verse) that first appeared in a long-out-of-print selection of my poetry. Anyway, nice to ‘meet’ you now through my website. Best wishes. – Ian
Hi Ian,
I have been looking for some elegies for my Grade 9 Speech and Drama class when I stumbled upon your poem “The Coat” which was in the anthology “Pattern and Voice”. I thought this was a great little work for the purpose. On visiting your website I then discovered the “Alfred” poems.
Thank you,
Marjory Compton
Hi Marjory
How nice to know that you’ve found that poem of mine suitable for your class. Your comment encourages me to think of making use of The Coat myself in some writing workshops I’ll be conducting in schools this year. Best wishes!
Hi Ian,
I enjoyed your review of the Aunts Story, thank you. Im three parts of the way through it and your analysis connfirmed my suspicions of what was ‘going on’ in the novel and with the unusual text….even for Patrick White. I would very much like to hear your thoughts on the prolific use of the colour yellow in descriptions.
Thank you, Best regards, Peter
Hi Peter,
White has a strongly visual imagination, and colour is prominent in the patterns of imagery that run through his fiction. Though I don’t think there’s any colour-coded allegorical consistency about it, The Aunt’s Story tends to associate yellow with an external view of things (Theo’s skin looks yellow, the Meroe house looks yellow, and so on), in contrast to the recurring images of blackness that often seem to connote deeper perceptions — more inward and more responsive to mystery. That, anyway, is how I recall it, but there may be more that I’ve failed to see or remember.