reeling and writhing

new victorian sunscreen is a book

And it's on again - Reading Victoria has a new name and a smart new blog. The Summer Read at the State Library of Victoria has been launched for 2007-8.

There are no huge surprises on the program, apart from a reduced Celebrities and Critics section, nicely repackaged and retitled as 'Reviewers' Views', and including, this year, Good Reading Magazine editor Alison Pressley and ABC books interviewer Ramona Koval. (I note however that there is a "Celebrities Reading Day" slotted in for Australia Day.) But first prize for most evocative contribution to the Reviewers' section definitely goes in my book to Claire Sutherland, books writer for the Herald Sun:

My teenage summer holidays always meant a banana lounge, sunglasses and an eventual book-shaped white patch on my torso. The white patch could have been left by anything from Stephen King's latest frightfest to a George Orwell novel (I devoured his entire canon in an Orwell orgy one Christmas holidays. Geek? Moi?).

Bless her boots, she also states a firm preference for the meaty, rather than the escapist, summer read, and has named Matt Condon's recent Snowy tract, Trout Opera, as her seasonal viand. (She could, of course, follow that up with Dorothy Porter's El Dorado from the list, if the brain is still feeling undernourished. What a pleasure to see a verse novel on a list like this.)

Along with the books (of course), the best new feature, in my opinion, is the introduction of author posts to the Summer Read blog, which augurs well for a continued increase in popularity in the application of this special new sunscreen called  Victorian reading (as well as some respite from UV rays while people are online posting comments.)

shelving demons

The old brain is, if not reeling this week, occasionally struggling to recalibrate. Liberals falling like mountain ash in a high wind, people openly denouncing WorkChoices in post offices - who'd a thunk it this time last week? David has written one of his finest to mark the occasion (and Ampersand Duck has drawn for it as well.)

Till the end of the year you can cast your vote for a book cover at the Book Design Review blog. Some speccies there, including Marina Lewycka's latest, Strawberry Fields. Link via Chekhov's Mistress.

From Alex Ross's blog comes this extract from a book on pop which gives some background on Roberta Flack's classical training.

I would demur, however, at this writer's claim that Flack 's 'distinctively spare arrangements, predilection for spaciousness, and cool reflective tone' stem from an understanding of Lizst - spots of Bach, yes, but Lizst?

The Free Range Librarian, K. G. Schneider, (who contrary to my earlier posting, is not interchangeable with Jessamyn West, no matter how wonderful I believe they both are) will tell you here why Library Thing is the goods, and why authors should be members. (Don't go anywhere near Shelfari.)

Visited:

Lisa Gorton's launch, Thursday 29 November and heard Chris Wallace Crabbe say that her work in her first collection is 'an achievement that glides so smoothly that you get out of winter in a day,' a line from one of the poems in her first collection, Press Release.
I am surprised it is the first, I seem to have been reading her poems around the traps for ever.

And finally, was delighted by:

this post, book designer Ampersand Duck again, at Sarsaparilla on the design of Michelle de Kretser's new book, The Lost Dog.

all the latest poetry

Two suitable outings in post-election week present themselves to me - Wednesday night is Germaine Greer's lecture on Jane Austen and the Getting of Wisdom (booked out some time ago, but I got in early, hah.)

And Lisa Gorton's new poetry collection, Press Release, published by Giramondo, will be launched this coming Thursday, 29 November, by Chris Wallace-Crabbe. 6.30 pm at the Brunswick Street Bookstore, 305 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

the players have forgotten the writers...again

Rocky Wood has had a useful article on writers and the election published in Eureka Street this week, in which he claims that the film industry is subsidised at the expense of writing and publishing.

In this list of proposals for the next Government, he includes support for the training of editors, an idea also floated by Text publisher Michael Heyward in this passionate and incisive article in The Age back in early September.
Wood asks for the following, (and to the editors' training scheme I'd definitely add his proposal for more oomph to our genre writers):

Funding across the board should be at least 10 per cent of the Arts Budget and no less than that provided to the film industry. This should include an immediate increase in funding for the ELR and PLR schemes.

Writers of genre fiction should be given financial support. Australia has world-leading writers of science fiction, graphic novels, horror and fantasy, but they receive almost no support from local publishing houses. The Literature Board needs restructuring to include genre groups with proper funding, including for Executive Officers.

Our highly-successful book festivals should receive more funding and the Books Alive campaign be extended to cover specific areas, including children's fiction and short stories.

Publishers should be offered project based funding through tax rebates, as offered to the film industry. One hundred writers could be offered a two-year living wage 'scholarship' for around $5 million per annum. An accredited and subsidised training scheme for editors is well overdue.

And Australia needs broadly-based prizes along the lines of America's National Book Awards. It is particularly indefensible that Australia does not have a major prize for non-fiction.

He describes shadow Arts minister Peter Garrett's call for greater support of writers rather than the film industry as "hearkening back to the Whitlam era, when new investment in the writing arts and public debate harnessed to rapid social change invigorated Australian literature,"

and says that

"Another such burst of creative investment is overdue...Today's writers, given voice, could establish a deeper cultural independence, truly engaged not only with America and England, but also with Asia and the broader world community."

(Link via Australian Writers Online.)

making it ever new

I simply had to blog this. From Nextbook, news of the publication in translation of the poems of Polish Holocaust survivors and sisters, Henia and Ilona Karmel.

I think the last eight lines here are particularly fine.

Verses

I bet you’re thinking “Not more poetry!”
You might even add,
“Please, even if it’s not bad.”
But guess what? This isn’t verse at all.
It’s made with the ink of tears.

God has sent down a spell
and a wall and every word
inside is cursed.
This is not poetry. It’s an alarm bell.

It’s a scream, a thunderburst,
syllables in a rush.
The same old sounds
you always hear but now insane.

The universe is distressed
when no one knows how to say things fresh:

“Sorrow, reverie, lamentation, dream,
chaos, wilderness, ruined youth,
disease and desire
for help or revenge . . . ”

That’s the kind of poetry
that this is.

Ilona Karmel

Dymocks kiosk for books, not muffins

From The Australian, a few days ago - Dymocks is to offer e-books, boosting its catalogue to more than 4.5 million titles. (Its largest store, in George Street, Sydney, can hold about 350,000 hard copy books.)
The e-book project has been in development for two and a half years, with Dymocks management keeping a close eye on what has happened in the music industry and recognising that Internet sales are slowly eating away at shopfront distributors' figures. At present it is claimed that 'many...titles would be sold at a discount to their hardcover cousins.'

Update: There is more news on this over at Australian Writers' Marketplace Online, at their Speakeasy blog - it looks as though Dymocks are claiming a world first on this one.

slightly cool news, or slightly warm?

Okay, Perry and HorrorScope have pipped me with this one, which was going to read last week:
"And hot on the heels of my last post on the Sleepers Salon which featured alumni and students from RMIT's Creative Media program comes" news of a new literary journal to hit Melbourne streets next year courtesy of the RMIT Professional Writing and Editing department.

It's called harvest, (probably lower-case is intended there), will be published quarterly, and is seeking submissions before November 30 for its first issue.

See here for more information and to join the mailing list - provisions for subscriptions are still under arrangement. That will teach me to sit on hot news, won't it.

In other secondhand but noteworthy Australian writing news, not only Debra Adelaide has a six-figure deal for her next novel, but Melbourne writer Toni Jordan has snagged one as well. Susan Wyndham has all the details at the excellent Sydney Morning Herald bookblog, Undercover, here.

And graphic novelist Eddie Campbell is enjoying Thurber's biography, particularly the 'begat' section.

To finish, two things that (frankly) stink.

binomial blogging starts here

The Linnaeus Society has decided to publish Carl Linnaeus' letters online as 'a sort of posthumous blog'. The site, at  www.linnaeus.c18.net, is more of a scholarly archive, but points for marketing, guys.
This link providing information comes from the National Library of Australia's online exhibition
celebrating the 300th anniversary of the influential natural scientist's birth. (Yes, it's short and sweet, but there is more in hard copy at the Library. If you are a Canberran, get over there.)

Of sleepers, writers and Napoleon

I got my act together and finally went to my first, and the last, Sleepers' Salon for 2007 on Thursday last, at the Trades Hall bar. I've yet to visit the refurbished corners of Trades Hall (that was, admittedly, quite a few years back now): suffice it to say that the one I visited has yet to have its makeover. (Must go back and visit the International bookshop sometime, though).

Creative writing courses in Melbourne were the focus of this salon, presented as usual by Sleepers publishers Zoe Dattner and Louise Swinn. Antoni Jach, writer and Creative Media lecturer at RMIT, did a session with Sonia Orchard, a published writer who is also one of his students and is close to finishing her first novel, work on which comprised part of her studies at RMIT for a master's degree in creative writing.

Second half of the night consisted of readings by writing students from an array of courses across Melbourne, and was savoured by an appreciative audience of about 120.

I did take some notes when Jach and Orchard were having their parley - I will be looking out for Orchard's novel, as her research involved talking to music industry veterans from '40s and '50s London, and sounds terrific. However I will confess I took a lot more notes when Jach was talking about his latest novel and his experiences with the publication of his other works.