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Jo Case

@jocase1975

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Professional book nerd. Writer. Deputy EdItor, Books & Ideas, @theconversationau Co-editor, SOMEONE LIKE ME: AN ANTHOLOGY OF AUTISTIC NON-FICTION
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First immersion in the sea since we moved here! Maybe all year? As the sun sank towards, then below the water, shining orange in the sky and bleeding below the surface, I waded in the water, amazed at my good fortune. Then walked to Semaphore, feet in the sea, cloaked in this wearable towel, got a hot cinnamon donut to eat on the way home … for dinner. by @jocase1975
9
18 days ago
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My top 10 … very hard to say goodbye to some of the books I had to kick off to whittle it down. They include: Fishing in the Styx, the second volume of Ruth Park’s memoirs The World was Whole by Fiona Wright The House that was Eureka by Nadia Wheatley Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung Piano Lessons by Anna Goldsworthy Graft by Maggie MacKellar Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser Barking Dogs by Rebekah Clarkson The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein The Three Burials of Lottie Kneen by Kris Kneen Boy, Lost by Kristina Olsson Games by Robin Klein In Moonland by Miles Allinson (and so much more …) by @jocase1975
10
22 days ago
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Day off to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary with breakfast at Largs Pier, where we got married (or technically, had our wedding reception), followed by a walk around the jetty where we had wedding photos taken, and reprised them a year later when we stayed at the Pier for our first anniversary. Now we live down the road! So grateful to be married to this beautiful man, who I never want to stop talking to, or sitting in silence with. And this year, also so grateful for our house by the beach. Truly blessed. (I don’t care that the word is an Instagram cliche!) Let’s keep growing old together. by @jocase1975
10
a month ago
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So, this morning is a reset. Back to peace and calm, on the jetty and inside my head. Both my neighbourhood jetty friends are in this picture, though you’d have to squint to see them. The woman in the bucket hat drives here from Woodville each morning and walks from Semaphore South to here and back. We always say hello, and sometimes chat. We agree that the natural bounty of the beach in the morning is a gift, better than money. She’s shared her thoughts on Chinese v Western culture, family, health, capitalism and dolphins. I don’t say as much. ‘I thought that was you!’ she said when we exchanged greetings, waving at the silhouette on the jetty bench. ‘I see you in the mornings and I walk behind you, because I think your creative juices are flowing and you must be in your own world!’ I sit at one end of the jetty bench, and lately, an old man sits at the other. We have our beanies and coffees and parkas and we just look at the sea. And I write in my notebook. ‘Have a good day,’ he said as he left this morning. We say hello and goodbye and very little in between. ‘Chapter 5, is it?’ I laughed and said ‘something like that’, though it’s not at all. The regulars here keep asking what I am writing, or if I am a writer. I say, ‘no, I’m an editor’ and usually I disappoint them with the truth, that I’m just writing in a journal, a mental processing and clearing out. But sometimes I smile and don’t dissipate the illusion. ‘Some day we’ll talk,’ said the man, and he walked back towards the shore, and back into the world. And I bent to my notebook, not ready to rejoin it yet. by @jocase1975
0
a month ago
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A truly beautiful morning that felt all wrong, despite these glories. Couldn’t find my reusable coffee cup that my husband got me for Christmas, which I seem to have left on the jetty yesterday. A fishermen on the jetty was crouching among his crab nets over a radio (maybe on his phone) that he switched between stations every ten seconds or so for about an hour. Serenity, not. I wanted to grab his crab nets and shake them, or take his phone and throw it into the glassy, sun-spangled sea. A man with an enormous fighting dog that strained against its studded collar and leash (and that tried to attack a lovely Labrador under the jetty this morning) stood in the middle of the jetty walkway today for ages as the dog strained and squirmed, watching a crab fisherman and then the sea, and I could not leave the every-ten-seconds-a-new-noise radio near me without being in biting proximity to the dog, so I turned back from leaving the jetty and sat with the radio noise and let my head fizz. ‘Got your work done?’ asked the old man who usually sits at one end of the jetty bench while I sit at the other, as I scribble in my journal for half an hour and he looks out to sea, and we both sip coffee. We passed each other as I was leaving (before the dog blocked my way). I waved down at the fisherman and explained his radio. ‘Ah,’ said the man. ‘High tide, that happens. Once I was on Semaphore jetty and a man had a jukebox.’ He shrugged. ‘I usually carry headphones and never use them in the morning,’ I said. ‘But not today!’ Look, I did see a pelican over the water, and constellations of seagulls and black ducks and sparrows. The sea and sky were marvels. But this autistic’s routine was fractured (weirdly not helped by the only absence I have ever noted at 7am of a regular from the Largs Pier as I got a takeaway coffee this morning - which means nothing to me, but rattled me as another wrong detail). What year is this? (Twin Peaks joke.) Yes, I know I am SO LUCKY to be here. But a bit rattled. Need a walk tonight to sort me out! by @jocase1975
0
a month ago
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I was too busy celebrating my dear, ever-handsome husband Luke’s birthday on Friday (his actual birthday) to post about it. Too busy watching him open presents before work, rushing out with him to a leisurely dinner at the Italian restaurant on the corner after work, then walking together beneath a spectacular sunset to watch Citizen Kane at the local cinema. It was a beautiful day, and I chose to be present in it rather than record it. Well … apart from when I took these photos of Luke reading his birthday book, in his birthday Rage hoodie, wearing his birthday backpack, listening to his birthday record (Pink Floyd). And then sitting on his throne in our lounge room. King of my heart. 💓 It felt a bit emotional this year, to be celebrating his birthday in our new forever home by the sea, down the road from where we first celebrated his birthday together nine years ago, at my Largs Bay unit. I brought him pancakes in bed, and a record player as a gift - which has played his birthday record from me every year since. I feel so genuinely lucky to be with this deeply kind, deeply creative, deeply beautiful man, and to share his life, read his words (and edit them!) and talk to him about anything and everything. Bless him for listening to it all! Happy birthday, love of my life, @lukesawfordwrites xo 🎂 by @jocase1975
3
2 months ago
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Full moon over the sea this morning. by @jocase1975
5
2 months ago
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Such a pleasure to be part of the wonderful Dogeared Readings tonight, run by Heather Taylor Johnson and Rachael Mead. I got to talk to my dear friend and beautiful writer (and parent) Tracy Crisp, mostly about her wise, funny, heartwrenching and gorgeous memoir, Pearls. And to listen to Arantza Garcia Ferrand and Cath Keneally read their exquisitely crafted poetry. Thanks to all who came! And to Heather and Rachael. xo by @jocase1975
7
2 months ago
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Massaman fish curry at Fort Largs while I re-read Tracy Crisp’s gorgeous memoir, Pearls, about family and memory and grief and becoming the person you are … and so much more … Both were spectacular. So was reading on the beach in the sun on the way home. And so, too, will be talking to Tracy about her work at the glorious Dog-eared Readings salon this Thursday night, at Howling Owl. If you’re in Adelaide, please come! Tracy is the truest artist I know (along with my son). She’s always creating, in various art forms, though she’s a writer more than anything, and this book is her best yet. It will make you laugh, cry and break your heart … then put it back together. It’s also very wise about writing and performing itself. ‘There is something seductive to me in this idea of persona, a phenomenon that allows me to reveal myself but protect myself too.’ Yes, yes. Yes. 💓 by @jocase1975
2
2 months ago
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Absolutely knackered after an afternoon knocking on doors with a petition about this cement factory, visible from my house and the beach. I spoke to so many strangers in my neighbourhood today, most of them polite, many of them lovely, a few hostile. I went into a house and sat with a very nice retired man and his wife by the TV and patted their golden retriever while I explained the petition. I stood at a front fence and talked for a while with an ex cement factory worker who wouldn’t sign (fair enough) but agreed with all our asks, and told me some stories about industries in the neighbourhood. A woman on a beachside street stood at her door and told me about growing up a few doors down from the factory, cement dust blowing through her bedroom window, and her whole family having respiratory health problems. The petition asks SA parliament to bring the factory into line with stricter global regulations, study the health impacts on the local population, issue fines rather than warnings for exceeding regulations and stop or reduce burning plastics. (They are in the midst of a 6-week trial burning recycled construction materials, with up to 50% plastics.) It feels right to have done my very small part in trying to contribute to change, though I could tell some thought I’m new to the neighbourhood (which I admitted) so am presumptuous to be getting involved with a new form of an old problem. ‘It’s been here longer than I have,’ said one steel-eyed woman from the street behind mine. ‘I have no problem with it.’ But the man next door happily signed, telling me he smells it some mornings, though not for the past couple of months. ‘I know it’s been here for years,’ I told the plumber renovating an enormous 100 year old seaside former boarding house. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he scoffed, ‘if it’s harming people’s health now.’ ‘I agree with them burning plastics,’ said one man. ‘They’ve got to get rid of them somehow. And they’re always monitoring the air around here.’ This point - plastics need to be disposed of - was raised in the retired couple’s lounge. ‘Yes, but they shouldn’t be burned … near homes,’ she said. Good to talk about it all. But SO tired now! by @jocase1975
6
2 months ago
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New camera ... not sure I like it? It's a Panasonic TZ99. The staff at three different camera shops told me this was the one to get if I wanted a camera $1000 or less to use to photograph sunsets and sunrises on the beach, and the odd dolphin. The zoom (x30) is amazing – pic 1 is Semaphore jetty viewed from Largs beach – but the light capture is not great, and when I looked up online after purchase to see if I was imagining that my sunset iPhone images are better, I read that yes, the iPhone is much better for low light conditions and this camera is great for bright light. (So WHY, three separate camera shop staffers, why?) I feel ridiculous for having bought a camera now frankly, though I have wanted a camera to take great beach photos with since I moved to Largs eight years ago. I guess I should have researched it for longer. If anyone knows anything about cameras and has advice (or just wants to say 'you made a bad decision, yeah'), feel free to jump in! by @jocase1975
4
2 months ago
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And the sky and sea are beautiful again, as I trudge the sand and speak to my beautiful husband, and then the best women in the world: Mel, Mum and Jean. (None of whom will see this, haha!) Edit: accidentally posted from wrong account! Sorry for beach spam on the main. by @jocase1975
0
2 months ago
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