By Mikayla van Loon
Having experienced one of the most challenging and unprecedented two years of lockdowns and restrictions perhaps ever seen, Eastern Regional Libraries (ERL) helped turn people’s stories into a document of history.
‘Tales from the Pandemic: An Anthology’ brings together stories of both fiction and nonfiction from 45 contributors to share the feelings, emotions and experiences of the pandemic.
Eastern Regional Libraries customer experience corporate manager Sarah Hopkins said it’s common for libraries to run writing competitions but often it doesn’t turn into a finished product like a book.
“There’s a tradition of libraries holding writing competitions to encourage creative writing either in their immediate area or in their wider area,” she said.
Visiting the IngramSpark print on demand facility in Dandenong, Sarah said it became clear that it was rather accessible for the Library group to print hardback and paperback books in quantities of as little as one and five.
“We could run a writing competition, and then we can actually publish the book, and then we’d have a real book that we could put in the collection,” she said.
Living through the Covid outbreaks and the lockdowns, Sarah said it seemed topical to release a writing competition about the pandemic, something that would keep people interested for many years to come.
“Partly because over the last few years, there was quite a lot of talk about the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, what people did and what it was like, and what daily life was like.
“People were quite interested and I thought, in the future, people are probably going to be interested in what happened during Covid-19.”
From around 280 entries, with a maximum word count of 3000 words each, Sarah said the judges and ERL narrowed the submissions to just 45, with lots of local talent featuring in the final copy.
The writing competition left the storytelling open to both fiction and nonfiction to allow the writer to convey how they felt either from personal experience or through a character.
“Some pieces, it was obvious they were nonfiction and others it was pretty obvious they were fiction, and some you couldn’t tell. I think that actually added to the interest in the story.
“The way people wrote their stories came across as being very heartfelt. Whether that was because this was their exact experience, or this is how they felt and then they put it into a creative shape that really tells that story.
“But fear, isolation, loneliness, frustration, loss, all the things that I think everybody went through in that period in different degrees came through really strongly in the stories.”
This being the first time ERL has published a book of submissions, Sarah said knowing the accessibility of it now, the library group would consider doing something similar in the future.
The book can be borrowed from one of ERL’s libraries or purchased online www.shop.yourlibrary.com.au/product/tales-from-the-pandemic-an-anthology/ or via IngramSpark.
Coming up on 28 March, a number of local contributors will also be part of an event at Ferntree Gully Library to delve into their stories. Places can be booked online here: www.events.yourlibrary.com.au/event?id=39994
