Gather Prologue: Meet Minerva's

A quick introduction to your host Amy and to Minerva's Bookshop

@minervasbooksandideas @amytinderbox

Transcript

Gather Prologue: Meet Minerva’s
 
[Dreamy instrumental music opens the show and runs under the voice of the narrator].
 

Woman’s voice, host Amy Tsilemanis: Hey it’s Amy here and a little introduction before you get stuck into the first episode, or feel free to just jump there now, a bookish feast awaits.

Gather is dreamt up and produced in Ballarat, on Wadawurrung country. It’s a regional city about 100kms from Melbourne. My name’s Amy, formerly of Tinderbox Radio, creator of winged things and audio adventures. I have lived in Ballarat for the last ten years or so and made a home here but I was born and bred in Melbourne, so my heart hails from both fair cities. 

Ballarat is known for the Eureka rebellion on the 1850s goldfields, don’t worry there won’t be sound effects of ye olde Ballarat town, and has got a name for itself as ‘old, cold, and gold’ which the city marketers are forever battling with campaigns about earthly riches that manifest in gourmet dining and cutting edge art… But we’ll leave all that aside for now and I’ll tell you about our bookshop, Minerva’s Books and about this podcast…Welcome, it’s wonderful to have you.

In 2016 my husband Julian and I saw a sign up in the local second-hand bookshop, business for sale. Somehow, both in the process of writing PhDs, we pulled the money together and we bought a bookshop. The shop sat beneath the statue of Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom, the icon of the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute (where I was also working as curator as part of my PhD research into doing creative stuff with history). One of our cats also happens to be called Minerva (not even named by us!), and together with the symbology of the owl (often carried by the goddess Minerva) denoting knowledge and bookishness, the owl became our logo.  Of course, many will also think of Harry Potter, so any way, Minerva’s worked. 

Fast forward to 2020, with two PhDs done (almost) and a little global pandemic…it was time for a change so we moved the operation home, and became Minerva’s Books & Ideas online.

This podcast, Gather is an extension of all the things we love, bringing together people, books, ideas and creativity, bringing together past present and maybe the future, bringing together different kinds of art and storytelling. Each episode will be inspired by a book or books on a theme and include the work of musicians and writers, and each will be accompanied by a hand cut collage made by me in response to the theme. Other things might emerge as we go, it seems to be how we roll, hopefully you’ll join us.  

Gather has been germinating for quite some time, this is my friend Sarah speaking to me from Mexico a few years back…
 
 Woman’s voice (Sarah): A sewing box, so this is related to… do you remember we had this great idea of putting a big ball of wool on stage?

Woman’s voice (host Amy Tsilemanis): Yes!

 Sarah: And so I sort of imagined all this kind of wool and needles and everything that you need to kind of put things together in this sewing box. And that’s what I imagine Gather is, like a… a mix of everything you need. (laughs.)

instrumental music begins again and runs under narrator’s voice: 

Amy: The first episode will focus on Melbourne and Ballarat but subsequent episodes we’ll roam around the world, wherever the ideas take us.

Before we get into it a quick shoutout to my parents who always read to me and encouraged a love of books, and a good dose of humour. My mum even used to leave cassette tapes of stories she’d recorded if she went away.
 
 Woman’s voice (Amy’s mum): Well, make yourself comfortable and I’ll read you some stories. The first one is one which nana used to read to me when I was a little girl.

Amy: So that’s a bit about us, and now you can jump into the first episode where we have two bumper parts for you to kick off the show, a bit longer than the episodes will usually be, but a gift for you to close this crazy year. Our first theme is Booksellers & Storytellers, enjoy!
 
 [instrumental music which has been playing beneath the narrator fades out]