BOOK LAUNCH
Clearwater Retirement Village by Evan Hanford
Join the team at Paperchain Bookstore for the launch of Clearwater Retirement Village, by Evan Hanford. In conversation with Evan will be Geoff Page.
5-6:30pm, Thursday 11 June
Paperchain Bookstore
34 Franklin Street Manuka, Griffith, 2603
Welcome to Clearwater—a fading coastal town where the local retirement village is barely holding it together, and the staff are just as lost as the residents. Amid crumbling infrastructure, bureaucratic indifference, and institutional chaos, one carer quietly navigates the absurdity of aged care with equal parts compassion and gallows humour. Between bingo nights, bedpans, and endoscopies, he finds unexpected wisdom in the war stories of a veteran, the mischief of a rebellious widow, and the sharp-tongued companionship of Rhonda, his enigmatic co-worker.
Told with deadpan wit and piercing humanity, The Clearwater Retirement Village is a tender, darkly funny portrait of life on the margins—where ageing meets apathy, and dignity is a daily struggle. In this world of malfunctioning call buttons and midnight escape attempts, the smallest acts of kindness take on epic meaning.
Evan Hanford’s debut is a masterclass in understated storytelling—equal parts satire, social commentary, and quiet redemption. For anyone who’s ever worked in care, loved someone into old age, or wondered what the hell happened to their twenties, this novel offers a mirror, a laugh, and a gentle nudge toward empathy.
Evan Hanford has, as a novelist ought to do, done many odd jobs. He’s worked as a dockhand, pizza delivery driver, court reporter, copywriter, bass player, member of an anarcho-filmmaker syndicate, tutor to non-English-speaking students and janitor; as a staff writer, editor, researcher and project wrangler for a consultancy supporting government communication and Australian public diplomacy.
His journalism has appeared in student papers at the Universities of Sydney and Canberra and the Australian National University; and in The Queanbeyan Age and The Canberra Times; and he will not waste this opportunity to thank The Australasian Bowling Journal for reprinting one of his Times articles. He recently collaborated on a non-fiction book, Shortcut to Freedom, a well-received guide to navigating the real estate business.
Geoff Page, OAM, is based in Canberra, Australia, and has published twenty-six collections of poetry as well as two novels and five verse novels. His books include 1953 (UQP 2013), New Selected Poems (Puncher & Wattmann 2013), Aficionado: A Jazz Memoir (Picaro Press 2014) and PLEVNA: A Verse Biography (UWA Publishing 2016). He also edited The Best Australian Poems 2014 and The Best Australian Poems 2015 (Black Inc). His Elegy for Emily: a verse biography (Puncher & Wattmann) and In medias res (Pitt Street Poetry) were published in 2019. His latest books are 101 Poems: 2011-2021, Penultima and Secular Psalms, all from Pitt Street Poetry.
Geoff has also read his poetry and talked on Australian poetry throughout Western Europe as well as in the US, Canada, Korea, India, China, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand. Selections from work have been translated into Greek, Macedonian, German, Serbian, Mandarin and Spanish.
He has also reviewed Australian poetry extensively and has run monthly poetry readings and jazz concerts in Canberra for many years.
This event is free but as space is limited please book to secure your place.