International guest author in conversation with Oceane Campbell
An extraordinary memoir of anticipatory grief, seventy-two minutes of life and a silent maternity leave, from artist and academic Tamarin Norwood.
Key Information
When: Friday 10 April, 5.30 pm for a 6 pm start – 7.30 pm
Venue: NUspace X-803
Corner of Hunter and Auckland Streets, Newcastle NSW 2300
Cost: Free. Registration essential
About the Event
A few months into pregnancy, Tamarin Norwood learned that the baby she was carrying would not live. Over the sleepless weeks that followed, Tamarin, her husband and their three-year-old son tried to navigate the unfamiliar waters of anticipatory sorrow and to prepare for what was to come. Written partly during pregnancy and partly during the silent maternity leave that followed, The Song of the Whole Wide World is an emergency response to grief held somewhere between the womb, the grave and the many stories that bind them: stories drawn from medical science, poetry, liturgy, vivid waking dreams of underwater life, and knowledge held deep within the body.
This profoundly moving and intimate account offers a lyrical and fearless meditation on birth, death, and the possibilities of consolation.
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‘A work of great and subtle beauty. It expanded my understanding of life, death and what it means to be a mother.’ – Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love: The Story of My Brother and His Sister
‘A heartbreakingly brave, candid and lyrical memoir of baby loss.’ – Leah Hazard, author of Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began and Hard Pushed: A Midwife’s Story
‘This book took my breath away. It’s a journey of love and loss and I’m grateful for Tamarin’s gift to write and articulate so tenderly about what many bereaved parents cannot.’ – Nicola Welsh, CEO of Held In Our Hearts, a charity providing baby loss counselling
‘The Song of the Whole Wide World shimmers. Tamarin Norwood’s poetic writing is gut-wrenching and gorgeous, all at the same time. It is a story for anyone grappling with the forces of gravity of life and death, of medical decisions, and surrendering to waves of love.’ — Amy Kuebelbeck author of A Gift of Time: Continuing Your Pregnancy When Your Baby’s Life Is Expected to Be Brief
‘I’ve never read a book like The Song of the Whole Wide World. It’s a thrilling act of imagination about mothering that illuminates the body and its metaphysical matters. Tamarin Norwood’s writing shows a respect towards her son so pure that I felt both humbled and proud to witness it. I’m still reeling from the piercing pain and joy of this book. Unforgettable.’— Gwyneth Lewis MBE, a National Poet of Wales
Accessibility
The University of Newcastle NUspace campus is wheelchair accessible. If entering from Hunter Street, lift access is to the right of the esclators near the vending machine.
Accessible parking is available on Auckland Street, between Hunter Street and King Street, positioned outside the NDIS office (enter via King Street for the correct side of the road). For more parking options, please visit the Newcastle Accessibility Parking Map.
Getting There
Light Rail: The Newcastle Light Rail runs between Newcastle Interchange and Newcastle Beach, stopping at key locations including Civic.
Bus Services: Several bus routes service the Newcastle area. For specific routes and timetables, refer to Newcastle Transport’s official website. Newcastle Transport
By Car: There is limited parking on the street. Find nearby city carparks here.
About Tamarin Norwood
Dr Tamarin Norwood is an author and academic with a background in fine art. Her literary memoir of neonatal loss The Song of the Whole Wide World (2024) is part of medical and midwifery curricula in the UK and Australia, and her writing on grief and bereavement has been published widely, including in The Independent, The Sunday Times, and The Lancet in which her essay ‘Something Good Enough’ won the 2021 Wakley Essay Prize. As an academic, Tamarin is an Associate Editor at BMJ group journal Medical Humanities and a Leverhulme Fellow researching how families create meaning when grieving reproductive loss. She holds visiting and honorary posts at the Wellcome Institute for Medical Humanities at Durham University, the University of Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, the University of Bath Centre for Death and Society, and the Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory at the University of Turku, Finland. She gained her DPhil (PhD) in Fine Art as a Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford in 2019, and now lives with her family in rural Yorkshire, England.
About Oceane Cambell
Oceane Campbell is a proud and passionate midwife and writer working, living and mothering her three children on the unceded lands of the Awabakal nation. In her latest book, “Labour of Love”, Oceane shares birth stories with illuminating insights into the issues of consent, risk and autonomy that exist in our maternity care system. In “Labour of Love”, Oceane takes as through her own experiences of IVF, miscarriage and birth as she makes mistakes, learns weird and wonderful things about the pregnant body, and every day witnesses the most transformative moment of a person’s life. Oceane’s first book The Silence Between Us: A Mother and Daughter’s Conversation Through Suicide and into Life (2021), is a raw and original double memoir tracing mother and daughter as they try to understand and rebuild their relationship after Oceane’s suicide attempt as a teenager.
Before becoming a midwife, Oceane completed a psychology degree with honours. In 2022, she was named Newcastle Woman of the Year for her advocacy work in mental health and improving LGBTQI+ families accessing maternity care. Oceane has pubished a number of articles for midwifery journals, magazines and The Guardian.