Janette Turner Hospital: Author Presentation

Janette Turner Hospital, born in Melbourne, Australia visited Wabash College this week to share some readings and author interpretations of her novel. Two of Janette Turner Hospital’s novels, The Ivory Swing, and Charades won Canada’s seal award and was shortlisted for the Miles Frankling and National Book Council Award respectively. She began the presentation by depicting the background to her life for the audience. She described her mode of movement throughout Australia, Canada, and the US. Janette Turner Hospital explained to the audience how she went about creating all her coveted novels and short stories. She explained how she did the vast majority of her work during the summers since she taught throughout the school year and it left her with little time. When asked if she writes notes or jots down ideas during the school year, she replied that she did not because she allowed it to drift to the back of her mind. She then read to the audience some of her interesting short stories she handpicked prior to the presentation that she believed illustrated a good representation of her work. She talked for a quick stint about how a lot of her works had a theme of tragedy and those real life tragedies such as 9/11 and the London bus bombings occurred within a year’s time of publishing.
In my opinion, Janette Turner Hospitals presentation about her novels and short stories she has created was not only intriguing, but also insightful. It was intriguing to me because it was interesting to hear from the authors point of view, how she tackled sorting her ideas and when she did most of her work. She effectively described a coherent explanation to every question thrown her way. At one point in the presentation she was asked about how she used imagery to paint a vivid picture in the readers mind. In her response to the question she described how she used imagery as a key element in her writing because she believed it helped illustrate ideas more effectively. This was insightful because she described to us the different ways she came up with ideas. She described to the audience one example of an instance in which her personal experience led to her epiphany in beginning a novel. Janette Turner Hospitals presentation at Wabash College was one of the best I have ever been attendance for. She explained to the audience about all her epiphanies of novels and short stories, while providing intriguing motifs that they all shared. I loved how she was able to coherently incorporate the audiences questions and opinions into her presentations focal points. Janette Turner Hospital is a brilliant writer, and I hope that she continues to create masterful pieces of work for all to devour and interpret in their minds.