Writer, editor and writing blogger and teacher Roz Morris hosts The Undercover Soundtrack series, where she invites writers who use music as part of their creative environment, ‘perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold a moment still to explore its depths’. In a post for The Undercover Soundtrack (27 April 2016), I write about some of the music that helped … Read more…
theremin
‘Aardvark author Tracy Farr on her debut novel’ interview
The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt will be published in January 2016 by Aardvark Bureau. In this interview, Tracy Farr speaks about the inspiration behind her debut novel and its unforgettable main character, Lena Gaunt: musican, octogenarian, junkie. I have a complicated relationship with the sea…unlike Lena, I find the sea magnetic and sustaining from … Read more…
‘Soundtrack of my life’ interview, Sunday Star-Times
Ahead of my appearance at 2014 WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival, I was asked to provide the (or perhaps ‘a’) soundtrack of my life for Sunday Star-Times. Read ‘Soundtrack of my life: Tracy Farr’ online
The intriguing theremin
Some of the most interesting responses I’ve had to my novel, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, have been to do with the musical instrument that Lena plays: the theremin. Readers have thought I made it up, that it couldn’t possibly be real. I’ve written a few posts about the theremin: here and here, … Read more…
Debut author profile: Tracy Farr
Australian author Kirsten Krauth‘s debut novel, just_a_girl – it’s been described as “Lolita with a webcam” – was published by UWA Press last year to great reviews. Kirsten is also a generous and enthusiastic promoter of other debut novelists, particularly via the Friday Night Fictions feature on her blog Wild Colonial Girl. The Life and Loves of … Read more…
Theremin in the (a)ether(wave)
Okay, what the hell is going on? Everywhere I look it’s theremin (TV), theremin (film), theremin (novel). Is theremin the new ukelele? The new black? Or is it just out there in the (a)ether(wave), morphically resonating? Theremin on television All over Twitter this last week was the episode of American Horror Story: Coven titled … Read more…
‘Life, love and the theremin’ interview on RNZ
Tracy Farr talks with Lynn Freeman from Radio New Zealand’s Arts on Sunday about the theremin, the nature of home, and The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt. The interview was broadcast on Arts on Sunday (6 October 2013), prompting the show’s musical motif of tracks featuring theremin. Listen to the interview: You can read show notes and … Read more…
A might, mighty night – New Zealand launch of The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt
On Saturday 21 September, at Mighty Mighty bar in Wellington, Dame Fiona Kidman declared “The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, and your mysterious gorgeous character, well and truly launched”. Here’s a taste of how the evening progressed. The velvet curtain backdrop of the Mighty matched the novel’s cover, displayed gloriously by Alex and Todd on … Read more…
‘Tracy Farr’s The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt’ interview, ABC RN
When I was in Perth last week I talked with Miyuki Jokiranta from ABC Radio National’s Books and Arts Daily about sound and light, theremins, the space between, and my novel The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt. The interview was broadcast today, and you can download audio or listen here.
It’s instrumental
In my novel, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, the eponymous Lena Gaunt – musician, octogenarian, junkie – is Music’s Most Modern Musician; theremin player of legend. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about theremins for the last few years, while I’ve been writing the novel. I may even have become a little obsessed with them … Read more…