Music, Writing and More!
I thought winter was a time for snuggling into the couch, whacking on some reading socks and your favourite beanie and getting cosy with a good book. But it seems the May/June period is writer festival central. Over the past few months I have been whizzing around to Bellingen Writers, Storyfest on the NSW south coast as well as Melbourne and Sydney Writers Festivals and even managed to squeeze in an appearance at Vivid. Needless to say beautiful times were had with wonderful writers, deadly yarns and warm communities. The upcoming months have a definite musical air with performances at the Sydney Opera House and Stiff Gins album tours to Brisbane, Victoria and South Australia. I have also managed to chuck a couple of compositional premiers into the quieter moments! With NAIDOC coming up and trips to Garma and Lightning Ridge this part of the year is about to get really travelly and quite moovey. Check out the Events section of the website for more information on upcoming performances and panels and hope to see you at a do near you soon.
NEWS
Stiff Gins Video Clip Launch
Nardi is really pleased to share her band Stiff Gins latest video clip. Working with great friend Enda Murray and the wonderful team at Four Legged Fish Studios 'Bear & Bee' is live ready for your listening and watching pleasure!
Bear & Bee was produced by Syd Green at Jervis Bay Recording Studios. Check it out and share below.
Stiff Gins latest album 'Crossroads' will be available here on the 27th June. Click the link to pre-order and don't forget to share the love.
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Some big shows at the Sydney Opera House will round out a busy June with Nardi taking part in the concert series Music on Tubowgule with Ensemble Offspring and deadly First Nations artists Melanie Mununggurr and Eric Avery. NAIDOC celebrations ramp up with performances at the National Indigenous Art Fair and Singing Up Country in Sydney and on the compositional front Nardi will have a vocal work premiered at the Sydney Chamber Choir's 50th anniversary Gala event.
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In the writerly world, Nardi will be dropping into the launch of 'The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation'- of which she is a contributor- at Gleebooks on July 1. This promises to be an awesome night with Miles Franklin Award winner Shankari Chandran, editor Jennie Orchard and Nardi in conversation with Nicole Abadee. Saturday 28th will see Nardi back in her old stomping ground in Marrickville for 'From the Page to the Sea,' featuring (among others) Allison Whittaker, Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Sara M. Saleh and Kirli Saunders at Addi Road.​
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Check out the events pager for further details and links to tickets!
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BOOKS
the belburd
'Mothers are experts at overflow . . . You may forget the words or kisses or gifts they give but that doesn't mean they didn't happen . . . We don't need to remember all the love poured into us. We need to be thankful that it makes us. When it comes to love, it's all about being. Not remembering so much.'
Ginny Dilboong is a young poet, fierce and deadly. She's making sense of the world and her place in it, grappling with love, family and the spaces in which to create her art. Like powerful women before her, Ginny hugs the edges of waterways, and though she is a daughter of Country, the place that shapes her is not hers. Determined and brave, Ginny seeks to protect the truth of others while learning her own. The question is how?
And, all the while, others are watching. Some old, some new. They are the sound of the belburd as it echoes through the world; the sound of cars and trucks and trains. They are in trees and paper and the shape of ideas. They are the builder and the built. Everything, even Ginny, is because of them.
The Belburd is a powerful story that shows us we are all connected from before we began to long after we begin again.
SONG OF THE CROCODILE
"Darnmoor, The Gateway to Happiness. You feel some sense of achievement; that you have reached a destination in the very least. Yet, as the sign states, Darnmoor is merely the measure, a mark, a point on the road you begin to move closer to where you really want to be. Darnmoor itself is nothing."
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Darnmoor is the home of the Billymil family, three generations who have lived in this 'gateway town'. Race relations between Indigenous and settler families are fraught, though the rigid status quo is upheld through threats and soft power rather than the overt violence of yesteryear.
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As progress marches forwards, Darnmoor and its surrounds undergo rapid social and environmental changes, but as some things change, some stay exactly the same. The Billymil family are watched (and sometimes visited) by ancestral spirits and spirits of the recently deceased, who look out for their descendants and attempt to help them on the right path.
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When the town's secrets start to be uncovered the town will be rocked by a violent act that forever shatters a century of silence. Full of music, Yuwaalaraay language and exquisite description, Song of the Crocodile is a lament to choice and change, and the unyielding land that sustains us all, if only we could listen to it.
EVENTS
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BIO
Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaraay storyteller and performer living in Sydney. Training as a musician, Nardi began her artistic journey as a songwriter and performer with vocal duo Stiff Gins. This has seen her travel both nationally and internationally for over twenty-five years releasing four albums, two singles, an EP and countless compliations during that time.
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Nardi was a winner of the 2018 Black & Write! Fellowship for a manuscript that would eventually becoe her first novel, 'Song of the Crocodile.' Published in 2020 by Hachette Australia, Song of the Crocodile won the 2021 ASAL Gold Medal and was long listed for the 2021 Stella Prize and Miles Franklin Awards. Nardi's second novel 'the belburd' was published by Hachette in October 2024.
Nardi continues to perform with Stiff Gins, works with student ensembles and directs cross-cultural choir Barayagal at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She is also currently undertaking a PhD with the ANU School of Music. Whatever the creative project in front of her, Nardi remains committed and active in the making and sharing of culture, music and story in both her Sydney and Yuwaalaraay communities.
IN THE PRESS
the belburd
Written with the same lyrical prowess and evocative tone as her award-winning debut, Song of the Crocodile, Yuwaalaraay storyteller Nardi Simpson's second novel, the belburd, is a powerful ode to the interconnectedness of everything and the creation of life.
With a lyrical mastery only further cultivated since her debut, Song of the Crocodile, Simpson finds the sublime in the quotidian, elevating experiences (as base as being born or dying, as complex as grief or motherhood) to an art form. She shows that life is a series of becomings, experienced by humans and animals and the world alike – we all become together.
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LISA SCHUURMAN
BOOKS + PUBLISHING
TEDDY PEAK
READINGS
Song of the Crocodile
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Rich, complex characters who’ll stay in your thoughts long after you’ve closed the book, a gripping story that moves effortlessly through time and space, and a voice suffused with music and warmth. SONG OF THE CROCODILE is a moving, wise, deeply rewarding novel from an astonishing writer.
Simpson doesn’t shy away from the complexity and nuance of the characters, who are at once survivors, victims and perpetrators of trauma grounded in dispossession and injustice. However, nor does she deny these characters joy and meaning in their lives – bringing their stories to the page with great tenderness and lyricism. This book is necessary reading for all Australians.
It’s hard not to drown Song of the Crocodile in awed praise but this book deserves every skerrick of hype. That it is Simpson’s debut feels like a magnificent question: what else might she bring us? For now, just surrender to her storytelling, rich with Yuwaalaraay language and song.
EMILY MAGUIRE,
AUTHOR OF AN INSOLATED INCIDENT
BEEJAY SILCOX
THE GUARDIAN
STELLA PRIZE JUDGES' REPORT
MUSIC
Musician
As a founding member, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter with Indigenous duo Stiff Gins, Nardi has performed and travelled nationally and internationally for the past 25 years. Meeting in 1997 at the Eora Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Visual and Performing Arts in Redfern, Sydney, Stiff Gins have toured the US, UK, Middle East, Africa and the pacific and have released three albums, 2 singles and an EP. Stiff Gins continue to perform at festivals throughout Australia.​Thanks to funding from Sound NSW Stiff Gins are currently recording their fourth studio album. It is due for release in April 2025. You can listen to Stiff Gins here on Spotify.
Composer
Nardi is a graduate of Ngarra Burria First People’s Composers - a partnership with Mooghalin Performing Arts Inc, ANU School of Music, The Australian Music Centre and Ensemble Offspring. Her commissions include works for ABC Music's Fresh Start Program, the Royal Australian Navy Band and Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Nardi has been Composer in Residence at The Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Monash Classical Music Department and Ensemble Offspring and is currently composing work for three new First Nations Operas. Listen to Nardi's work with Ngarra Burria here. You can also watch Nardi's 2022 Sydney Festival show -barra, featuring 70mins of original story and composition here.
Choir Director
Nardi is the current director of Barayagal- a community choir that brings together First Nations and non-Indigenous people to sing and share language, music and culture. Barayagal is a partnership between the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, YARN Australia, Metro Local Aboriginal Land Council and Redfern Community Centre. Stay connected to Barayagal's instagram to learn more out about gigs, rehearsals and tours.
FEATURES
Here you can explore recent podcasts, guest articles, interviews and revies and online content to do with Nardi's writing and musical world.
