Northern Rivers artist, Bangalow resident Karena Wynn-Moylan, recently won Best Special Interest Programming at the National Australian Audio Awards, a project built around an idea she believes could change the way people discover books.
Her series, The Narratives Library, syndicated through her acclaimed BayFM program Arts Canvass, triumphed over productions from major commercial broadcasters at the awards.
The concept behind the award-winning project is simple: give people five minutes with a book before asking them to commit to reading it. For anyone who has wandered through a bookshop unsure what to choose, The Narratives Library is an elegant and effective solution. Instead of reviews or recommendations, listeners hear five-minute excerpts read by the authors themselves.
“Everybody loves stories,” says Karena. “It’s so easy to sit there and have somebody read to you, and it’s even better when it’s the actual voice of the author not an actor, but the person who wrote the words.”
The library features hundreds of authors reading extracts from their works, including Markus Zusak, Jane Harper, Kate Grenville, Graeme Base, Morris Gleitzman, Bruce Pascoe, Chris Hammer, Pip Williams and Suzie Miller, inviting readers to discover both celebrated names and emerging voices.
For Karena, the project is also about extending the life of books in an industry where new titles can vanish almost as quickly as they arrive. “So many books are published, become popular for a few months and then disappear,” she says. “This is a way to help those stories continue to find new readers.”
Born in Sale, Victoria, Karena grew up in a creative family. Her father was a cartoonist, nurturing her appreciation of storytelling and the arts from an early age. Today she is recognised throughout the Northern Rivers as an accomplished visual artist, broadcaster and passionate advocate for literature.
“The biggest thing we’re lacking is education about the arts,” she says. “If we paid as much attention to the arts as we do to sport, we’d realise just how neglectful we’ve become. That’s true right across the board.”
Ironically, it was her experience as an artist that inspired her to create a platform for writers. “It’s incredibly difficult to get a book published, seen and sold in this country,” she says. “I didn’t think there was much I could do for visual artists. Other art forms already have opportunities to connect with audiences through exhibitions, performances and screenings. Books needed another place where readers could simply discover them.”
Karena says reading and storytelling occupy unique places in our culture. “I truly believe books are where people learn things and get ideas,” she says. “So, I thought, maybe I could come up with something that helps a book live on a little longer.”
The Narratives Library has been programmed at a number of writers’ festivals, and the recent national award provides further recognition that audiences are eager to engage with literature in fresh ways.
At this year’s Byron Writers Festival, Karena will not only be onsite expanding The Narratives Library’s already extensive catalogue but will also chair a session for the first time.
On Friday 14 August, from 10.30-11.30am at the Haven Gallery, she will be in conversation with internationally acclaimed poet Julio Carrasco to explore the relationship between poetry, art and activism. Julio is renowned for his extraordinary ‘poem bombing’ projects, in which poetry is distributed throughout communities affected by conflict, replacing messages of destruction with words of hope.