Letter-writers hog limelight to benefit Babes
The Age
Tuesday March 23, 2010
IF EVER you receive a gas bill from Marieke Hardy, regard it as a compliment.This bright-eyed offspring of the maverick Hardy clan chooses to write her letters on the back of such documents, dismissing the standard parchment. "You write one page on the back of the gas bill," says Hardy, "another on the back of a postcard . . . so they get a sense of your life not only from what you are writing but from what you write on."Given Hardy's recent life options, you are unlikely to read any of her thoughts on the flip side of a butcher's invoice. The young broadcaster, writer and TV panellist has turned vegan €” no meat, no dairy products."I started during Vegetarian Week 19 months ago," she says. "I feel amazing."It was during her dietary transformation that she met some of the former piglets from the movies Babe and Charlotte's Web. It was at a place called Edgar's Mission, a sanctuary for rescued farm animals at rural Willowmavin, where she did a photo shoot for the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals."Oh those pigs!" she says. "They're not so little any more but they roll over so you can scratch their bellies. There's no experience like it. When I left, my teeth were so dry because I had been smiling so much."Combine Hardy's twin affections for pig and epistle and you arrive at her latest brainstorm: a monthly event starting this weekend at the Trades Hall called "Women of Letters", a showcase of female penmanship that will raise funds for the Willowmavin sanctuary.Having finished two years of breakfast radio in Sydney, Hardy has now returned to the "comforting bosom of Melbourne" with more time for what she calls her "passion projects".She and writer Michaela McGuire are rounding up "strong, opinionated, smart-arse" women to write, then read out short letters on a range of topics. First up this weekend, "A Letter to a Night I'd Rather Forget", followed next month by "A Letter to my First Pin-up". "There will be a musical break," says Hardy, "and during that time we encourage people to write a letter of their own. We provide the paper, envelopes and stamps."Hardy's quirky lifestyle (she has a dog called Bob Ellis and an ex-husband named Simon who she claims to have married three times) will play a part €” Simon is building a letterbox to be used by the participants. "I'd love to do these events for at least a year," says Hardy. "And we have one starting up in Sydney."As an enthusiastic letter-writer and pen-pal, she sees no paradox in her enthusiasm for Twitter, the message medium that restricts the writer to a handful of words. "I've got a foot in both camps," she says. "Obviously, I'm a huge devotee of books to touch but there is a place for good writing on Twitter. Look at that six-word story by Ernest Hemingway: 'For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.' Desperately sad, a beautiful story."Yes, you have to wade through a lot of muck on Twitter but some of the best writers I have ever met have been on the internet through blogging and Facebook and now through Twitter. It's small-minded of people who love words to dismiss those mediums."The first Women of Letters will be held at the Trades Hall at 2.30pm on Sunday. Tickets $10 at the door.
© 2010 The Age
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