I’m having a weekend after two weeks on the road with THE BOOK. In capital letters because it really does feel like that. The book, our book, David Carlin’s and mine is called How To Dress for Old Age* and its having a moment and carrying us along with it. We’ve been joking about having some t-shirts made. Like we are a band on tour. With merch and shit.

We started in Perth. That was fun. I lived there for a while in the 80s, so it’s familiar. That massive blue sky. And the Indian ocean always in reach. I was struck by the trees this time. The jarrah, the karri, and the tuart trees. And corymbia citriodora oiling the air with crushed citrus. We seem to cover a lot of ground in borrowed cars. Dead people’s cars, mostly.

We laughed. There’s a good name for an album. Or the sequel to the book? I’m claiming it here. Dead People’s Cars. Watch this space.

We covered a lot of ground in just a few days. We did David’s nostalgia tour. All the houses he’d lived in and the schools he’d gone to. Certain sacred sites. A visit to beautiful 90-plus year-old woman who had been his neighbour and became

a dear friend to his family. We did our tour of the bookstores. This ran to a tight timetable. (Thanks, JB!) About 20 minutes maximum to get into each store, drop a few pleasantries, take a few photos for the socials, and sign a few books. We’ve come up with a gimmick too. In each store we find a couple of style guides - How to Dress like a Goth, Chappell Roan and Harry Styles dress up books, Unsuitable - a book about lesbian fashion - and we have a friendly bookseller take photos of us, seated, reading, po-faced and absorbed. It’s a hoot. Well. We think so.

The launches have been great too. One in Perth with Robyn Johnston presiding. And then this past week in Adelaide, with Cath Kenneally as our interlocutor. Each of these women put so much care into the shaping and the crafting of the questions. And as I’ve answered them, I’m hearing myself say things that I didn’t think I knew about the book. About the writing of the book. About the concept of elderflowering, which I’m ready to claim, along with its myriad variants – elderflailing, elderflunking, elderflirting – and more.

Substack is new to me. It’s coaching me, telling me 500 words is just about right for the average post. I’d love to know what you think so I’ve set up the chat facility, and I’m keen to write more here. Once I’ve had some rest. Onwards!

· Published by Upswell Publishing and available in all good bookshops, or online.

HOW TO LIVE MEANINGFULLY TO THE END?

Weaving memory, anecdote and reflection, How to Dress for Old Age is a work of love and reckoning showcasing two of Australia’s finest writers at the peak of their powers.

When adult children take up caring for absent fathers and stoicmothers, things can get complicated.

Room 306. Level Three. In inner city Melbourne, David Carlin’s

mother, Joan, is settling in. Five doors away, on the same floor of

the same institution, Peta Murray’s father, Frank, is halfway

through the statistically ordained 18 months he is likely to live

after entering “care”. Each is 86. He—an ex-builder and sometime

bon vivant—has shrunk inside his grey marle tracksuit but still fits

proudly into his Sixth Form blazer. She—a widowed mother of

three since the age of 31, turned activist, community leader and

doer-of-many-things—is throwing on colourful scarves and

preparing to re-invent herself again.

Murray and Carlin take up the labour of care for their ageing

parents while contemplating their own “third age”. Murray is 60

and an early career researcher in a late career body. Carlin is a

newly minted professor at 55, thinking about escape. Each is yet

to fully imagine what comes next.

Tender, funny and confronting, the book’s dual voices unfold along parallel and

intersecting tracks, queer and straight, female and male. Part valedictory, part

costume parade, it charts the complex dance steps of Father and Daughter, and

Mother and Son, as they try on countermoves to the diminishments of age and the

pervasive forces of ageism, inside and out.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Peta Murray is known for plays Wallflowering, and Salt, as well as AWGIE-winning works of community theatre Spitting Chips and The Keys to the Animal Room. Peta’s short fiction has been published in Sleepers Almanac and New Australian Stories. Senior Lecturer at RMIT University in Melbourne, she is a co-editor and contributor to Bloomsbury Academic’s A-Z of Creative Writing Methods. Her essays have appeared in Sydney Review of Books, The Mekong Review and TEXT Journal.

David Carlin’s books include Our Father Who Wasn’t There, The Abyssinian Contortionist, and The After-Normal. His essays have appeared in Overland, Meanjin, Griffith REVIEW, Hunger Mountain, Westerly and Sydney Review of Books. David began his career as a writer/director with Red Shed Theatre, Melbourne Workers Theatre, Circus Oz and Arena Theatre, and has made award-winning films and radio essays. Co-President of the NonfictioNOW conference and Emeritus Professor at RMIT, he co-founded the WrICE cultural exchange program and non/fictionLab.

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1. De Funkt? Moi?

My old website is defunct and I’m not far off myself. But while I still have some funkt left I want to go back to something I have always loved to do, which is splash words about. And what better time to do so that with a co-authored memoir coming out in February 2026? Seems I did have a book inside me after all? (Well, half a book! The other half belongs to David Carlin.)

2. Read all about it

We launch in a few weeks time and will be travelling to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, running a few workshops, visiting a few bookshops. Later in the year we have festivals and a library gig. This Substack newsletter will take readers behind the scenes, and in front of the Q & As. I will share details our adventures as we try to get this book out into the world and start some pointy conversations about how we age, how we decline, and how we die. I hope readers will share their thoughts with me.

3. Ummmmm

I don’t know how often I’ll be posting, but once I get into a rhythm you’ll be first to know about it. And as for subscribers (unpaid and paid) I haven’t got a clue. You tell me and then I’ll list the benefits in bullet points, just like the algorithm has instructed.

4. Coming soon: an image and “subscribe” buttons

A picture will look nicer when I share the post on your social media (click the image icon in the editor to search for copyright-free photos), and it will give colour to my archive as I build it.

[EDIT ME]“Subscribe” buttons (found in your editor under “Buttons'“) will make it easy for new readers to subscribe to your newsletter with one click.[EDIT ME]

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