S1E9: A Very Diary Xmas

12/17/23 • 60 min

Pickle your beets, sniff your jars, and wrap the Christmas ham in a teatowel! We’ve reached the toe, the toenail, the heel – no, the sole of the year, and Jenny and Tracy are bringing (or at least name-checking) the A-list celebs for A Very Diary Xmas.
In this final episode of Bad Diaries Podcast for 2023, recorded on a thundery (Wellington) and hot (Melbourne) day in December, we bemoan the tyranny of email, and celebrate staying in bed and sensible shoes.
We look to other people’s diaries on our bookshelves (hello, Andy!), as well as mining our own diaries for the good, the bad and the ugly-crying of our diarised Christmases past.
In not-so-Christmas-y content, we ponder the power of photos vs diaries as archives and records. Tracy brings along some diary-adjacent books she’s read lately, and Coercively Controlling Ex-Boyfriend makes yet another cameo.
We finally six-of-the-best each other – as we have each six-of-the-bested our fabulous Bad Diaries Podcast special guests this season – and we look ahead to 2024, and Season 2 of the podcast, bringing you more guests, more chats, and more diaries (and diary-adjacent) content.
Wishing you all A Very Diary Xmas and everything fabulous for 2024.

Find full show notes for this episode on the Bad Diaries Salon website baddiariessalon.com, or get in touch via Instagram or Facebook – we're @baddiariessalon everywhere.
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Bad Diaries Podcast is recorded and produced in Naarm Melbourne, Australia, on the lands of the Kulin Nation; and in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, on the iwi lands of Taranaki Whānui, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. We pay our respects to Mana Whenua, and to Elders past, present and emerging, of these lands.

Previous Episode

S1E8: Nadine Anne Hura

In this episode of Bad Diaries Podcast, Tracy talks with poet, essayist and zine-maker Nadine Anne Hura about diaries, the narrative arc of a life, writing and drawing, and Dirty Dancing.
After reading at Bad Diaries Salon:RADICAL in Wellington in 2022, Nadine wrote about what it was like to prepare for and take part in the salon, in a piece titled ‘The narrative arc of your own life’. In this episode of the podcast, we use that as a jumping off point for a wide-ranging discussion of diaries and journals (keeping them, losing them, and giving them away), about writing and other ways of making art, and about responding to loss.
Nadine Anne Hura is a writer from Aotearoa New Zealand, of Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi whakapapa. Her writing weaves themes of language, identity, equity and climate justice – and it’s full of memory, and of family.
In 2023 Nadine published Narrating the Seasons of Grief, a chapbook adapted from her essay of the same title, about living in the aftermath of the death of her brother, Darren. A short documentary written and narrated by Nadine, ARO WAIRUA: Navigating the Seasons of Grief, was adapted from the essay (available on Māori TV).
At the 2023 Pikihuia Awards (biennial Māori writing awards), Nadine won the Non-fiction in English category for her essay ‘A Dangerous Country’, and her story ‘Affidavit in the Family Court: Ranginui vs Papatūānuku’ was a highly commended finalist in the Short Fiction in English category.
Both of Nadine’s Pikihuia-awarded stories are published in Huia Short Stories 15 (Huia, 2023), and her work has been widely published elsewhere. She writes regularly for online media outlet The Spinoff, she’s an active member of Te Hā o Ngā Pou Kaituhi (identifying, encouraging and promoting Māori writers), and is passionate about grassroots Māori writing and collective publishing.

Next Episode

S2E1: Diarymaking

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome to the blank first page (for Tracy, terrifying; for Jen, not) of season 2 of Bad Diaries Podcast.

In our first episode of the podcast for 2024, we look back at the summer that’s passed since our xmas episode – a summer of busy-ness, bereavement, and a broken bone.
Then we make a schmear on the blank page of season 2, and leap right into it with a chat about diarymaking – whatever diarymaking means.
Usually on the pod we focus on the content, on the words in diaries. In this episode we shift our focus to the physical artefact – whether that’s “the ultimate in wankery” of Tracy’s current fancy notebook, or something more sensible.
We talk aesthetics and logistics, preferences and flexibility, the creative and the mundane. Jen asks whether a diary is really a place where you can be honest with yourself. And along the way we find ourselves wearing purple 80s mohair jumpers, drinking Midori and lemonade, having dalliances in smoky bars.
Looking ahead to the rest of 2024, join us for a new episode of the podcast each month, bringing you more guests, more chats, and more diaries (and diary-adjacent) content. Good to chat! Catch you next time!