About the Event
Join Gemma Nisbet in conversation with Kathy Heys, discussing The Things We Live With: essays on uncertainty.
The Mandurah Readers’ and Writers’ Festival is an annual adult literature event presented by City of Mandurah Library Services. The aim of the festival is to foster a love of reading and literature and encourage creativity in our community.
In 2026 the festival will be held from 8 - 10 January at Seashells Mandurah, bringing together an array of established and emerging storytellers from across Western Australia. This three-day festival includes author talks, and panel discussions.
Gemma Nisbet
Gemma Nisbet is a writer and academic living and working on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja. She is a Lecturer in Professional Writing and Publishing at Curtin University and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from UWA, where she is an Adjunct Research Fellow.
Gemma’s writing has appeared in publications including Australian Book Review, Axon, Life Writing, Text and Westerly, and her first book, The Things We Live With: Essays on Uncertainty (Upswell), was shortlisted for the 2024 WA Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer.
The Things We Live With: essays on uncertainty
A meditation on the burden and joy of inheritance, and the strange power of the objects and keepsakes that connect us 'This is how I became interested in things. In their strange pull and power; in the ways they hold on to us and we to them.'
After her father dies of cancer, Gemma Nisbet is inundated with keepsakes connected to his life by family and friends. As she becomes attuned to the ways certain items can evoke specific memories or moments, she begins to ask questions about the relationships between objects and people.
Why is it so difficult to discard some artefacts and not others? Does the power exerted by precious things influence the ways we remember the past and perceive the future?
As Nisbet considers her father's life and begins to connect his experiences of mental illness with her own, she wonders whether hanging on to 'stuff' is ultimately a source of comfort or concern.
Intimate and wide-ranging, The Things We Live With is a collection of essays about how we learn to live with the 'things' handed down in families which we carry throughout our lives - not only material objects, but also grief, memory, anxiety and depression. It's about notions of home and restlessness, inheritance and belonging - and, above all, the ways we tell our stories to ourselves and other people.
Kathy Heys
Kathy Heys graduated from UWA with a degree in English Literature and a Graduate Diploma of Education and embarked on a career teaching in public schools. Recently retired from her role as Head of English at Coodanup College, after 18 years at the school, she is completing a creative writing and professional writing course at Curtin University. Kathy is looking forward to having more time to devote to developing her creative skills, while also working for Curtin University supervising beginning teachers as they embark on their internships.
What to Expect:
11.00am: In Conversation
11.45am: Q & A
12noon: Book sales and signing
Tea and coffee provided.
Festival bookseller is Dymocks Busselton.
Places are limited. Bookings required.
Tickets per event $5, Book Here!
All day tickets $15, Book Here!
