Just Give Me The Pills

Outside The Box Press invites you to the launch of the novel-in-verse “Just Give Me The Pills” by writer and performer Koraly Dimitriadis to be launched by poet and playwright, Emilie Collyer. The night will include a lineup of poets and musicians from migrant backgrounds as they interpret the theme of repression and the metaphor “Just Give Me The Pills” .

FEATURING:
Guitarist-vocalist Pascal Latra supported by Jacob Papadopoulos
Koraly Dimitriadis
Amanda Anastasi
Angela Costi
Kylie Supski
Misbah Khokhar
Tariro Mavondo

ABOUT JUST GIVE ME THE PILLS
In a large, white-picket dream, a married mother selfishly cries. She has everything she ever wanted—a husband, a house, a business degree, a baby—she is at the pinnacle of the migrant dream. Now she is thirty, and it’s as if she is looking at her life for the very first time. The creativity she had kept buried inside all her life birthed out with her daughter, and now her words are taking on a life of their own. Just Give Me The Pills is a story of repression. It is a story of being silenced, and the terror of realising all the choices you’ve ever made are those you were expected to make, and you have no idea who you really are. It is a story of liberation, of rebuilding and finding one’s true self.

“As an Australian of Greek heritage, I know how there can be a culture of silence around taboo subjects within our community. Sometimes this silence is necessary, to protect us from the wider community’s insults and bigotry, but at other times it is violently imposed on the younger generations to restrict us from breaking out of archaic cultural norms. This kind of silence often feeds into a cycle of past traumas borne out of experiences of war and migration. I’ve always seen Koraly Dimitriades as, above all, a viciously fearless poet – and her new collection, ‘Just Give Me The Pills’ is no exception. For Koraly, a second-generation Cypriot-Australian woman, to openly navigate mental health, sexism, marriage, expectation and motherhood in such a vulnerable and clear way is a priceless moment for Australian writing. It makes me proud not just as a writer to know her, but also as a member of a community that desperately needs more vehemently honest voices like hers”
– Luka Lesson, Australian poetry slam champion

“Just Give Me the Pills is an extraordinary composition – a defiant portrait of untamed domesticity that is at once tender and fierce. This verse narrative traces the intimate triumphs and falls on one woman’s journey from repression to self-realisation and silence to words, writing the domestic and inner space with a brutal honesty that is candid, unashamed and shockingly moving. Dimitriadis urgently speaks her truth in a voice that is brave, daring and uncensored – exposing herself entirely in an extremity of vulnerability and strength. A feminist anthem for social justice and self-love, Just Give Me the Pills teems with sexuality and bristles with rage – a riveting and compulsive read.”– Bronwyn Lovell, Val Vallis award winner

ABOUT KORALY DIMITRIADIS
Koraly Dimitriadis is a freelance essayist/journalist/opinion writer and has had countless articles published across Australian news sites such as News.com.au, Rendezview, Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, The Age, SMH, ABC, SBS, The Saturday Paper, Daily Life, Junkee.com, New Matilda, Overland, Mamamia, Neos Kosmos, as well The Independent (UK).

Koraly is a fierce and raw poet and the author of the Australian poetry bestseller Love and F–k Poems which was also translated into Greek with foreign rights sold into the UK. Just Give Me The Pills and Love and F–k Poems form the basis of her theatre show KORALY: “I say the wrong things all the time” directed by Cypriot director Olga Aristodemou which premiered at La Mama Courthouse Theatre. Koraly also directed, produced, wrote and acted in four short films of her poems funded by Australia Council called The Good Greek Girl Film Project. Koraly received a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship and Chantilly Arts Residency for her unpublished fiction novel, Divided Island.
www.koralydimitriadis.com

For inquiries and RSVPs please email info@outsidetheboxpress.com

Proudly supported by the Greek Community of Melbourne and Victoria. Photo Di Cousens.