reeling and writhing

Review: Look Who's Morphing by Tom Cho

Review copy provided.
Some of the stories and short prose pieces in Tom Cho's first collection, Look Who's Morphing, are perfect magazine pieces, the kind that gives a literary mag a shot of Viagra if it's too uniform in tone.
Taken all at once, the effect is somewhat unsettling at first, but a completely unhealthy and all consuming obsession with pop culture on the part of this writer does not wear thin, as Cho is playful enough to keep things fresh and lively (see this interview at Peril magazine for more on that).

If I was writing his profile for an Internet dating service I guess I would say that 'Tom Cho has quite an imagination and a great SOH.'
'The Exorcist' and 'Dinner With Auntie Ling and Uncle Wang' were both very funny - everyone should have a possessed relative to inspire them when writing grant applications, and an uncle who has some C++ bugs in his system, shouldn't they? Of course they should.

'Today On Dr Phil' succeeds admirably in making both theory and pop culture look silly together. Intellectualise first, and then riot in the studio. I would like to see what Cho could do with Blazing Saddles, let alone what his Uncle Shen can do with a streetcar named lingerie and the " v*g*nas of strangers".

And I would like to see what he can do with novellas - 'CockRock' is a clever take on Swift and it would be good to see him, shall we say, fully extended. I also liked the short and pithy 'Dinner With My Brother', where Chinese names are discussed - 'if patchy employment history has a name, then that name must be Tom Cho'. 

This collection is a sparkling and polymorphous addition to that history - the energy drink you have when you're not a transformer, but kind of wish you were. I want to see him skip and hop through clover again sometime soon.
(A great time for the Giramondo website to do a morph, as well. Looking GOOD.)

build the Centre for BW&I, and poets will come

Please note that the deadline speedily approaches for this sterling opportunity offered by the Australian Poetry Centre:

The APC is wishing to present a matinee workshop series of poetic monologues in the their new home, the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas, from October–December 2009.

The APC wishes to hear from poets who have a “ready to workshop/perform” poetic monologue. The monologues will be not fully rehearsed but presented in workshop format (somewhere between a reading and performance).

Significant support is provided, including air fares! for the right people. If you are a poet who wants to help bless the new ship of books and ideas and all who sail in her (damn, there's my post title, gone), and have a manuscript available to get into the mail before May 31st, you should definitely investigate this further.
And I look forward to coming to watch some of those who are successful applicants, too. Roll on, October.

emerge, you writers

As Lisa, Angela and other more vigorous bloggers have noted. (I've had my head under a rock I think.)

All happening, this weekend and next - the online program is here and includes some events during the week as well as next weekend, mostly at the Melbourne Town Hall. This time last year I watched my daughter in Scrabble, a night of performance poetry and theatre which has been renamed Wordstock and this time around is inspired by the work of Nick Cave.

I hope to get to a couple of things next Saturday, and maybe look in on the Page Parlour at the Fed Square Atrium (what a terrific venue) as well on Sunday arvo. If I am spared...

Lisa has some great news relating to Express Media,  who organises the former co-host of the Emerging Writers' Festival. She has been asked to edit Voiceworks' 21st anniversary anthology: what a great gig, and what a fascinating publication that will be. Bring it on.

all news now

OH look at that.Scribd Store is open now.

Are you an independent publisher? this might be the way to get the Amazon Kindle to shift a few copies quickly. (Story from The Millions.)

Martin Edmonds has a review of Luca Antara in the New York Times.

Something big is coming - in two volumes and shrouded in mystery. But relax, we are unlikely to be able to read it in English before 2012.

From Andrew Burke comes this exhortation to help a fabulous poetry publisher and buy yourself something good at the same time.

Wow, that renga is finished - here's the final result, and it is stunning.

Finally, at The Complete Review M.A. Orthofer evaluates two new review aggregating sites, and finds his own comes up pretty well (which is hardly surprising, as it is hard to surpass for coverage and general excellence).

Elise Valmorbida: News and reviews

Disclaimer: I studied French and English with the author of these books nearly thirty years ago.
I have not laid eyes on her since, or communicated with her about her writing, but have been following her work with interest for a long time since I found and read her first book, published in Australia as Matilde Waltzing.
Elise Valmorbida now lives in London where she has a communications agency and teaches creative writing. She has a new novel coming out this month in the UK, and has recently written two books which I bought and read a little while ago, and have reviewed quickly here today.

The stories in Elise Valmorbida's 2007 collection, The Book Of Happy Endings, are interleaved with expressive photos by several contributors and with a romance conducted through letters between two people who meet in a bar.
They are fictionalised accounts of the life stories of love given to the author in London, 'the world in one city', as she puts it, by strangers: "It was a happy task, prompting others to tell their tale."

She paraphrases some East London graffiti in her Introduction, 'it's never too late to have a happy childhood,' in order to capture how meeting with some of these people made her feel: "It's never too late to start a happy ending."

read some Granta for free

That venerable UK literary organ, Granta, did a site rebuild recently and has announced via the monthly email newsletter that the online content on Granta.com has been refreshed.

New on Granta.com in May 2009:

'Rhyme and Reason' by Adam Gopnik: In conversation with the award-winning poet and essayist Katha Pollitt.

'Letter from Gaza' by Hisham Matar: The tragic life of Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani.

'Dragon Island' by Laura Fellowes: The most recent in our New Voices series.

'The Last Modernist' by Chris Petit: A consideration of the life and work of J.G. Ballard.

'A Vacation from Myself' by John Beckman: ‘What I gained, and lost, from antidepressants.’

'The Public Poet' by Lavinia Greenlaw: An appreciation of Carol Ann Duffy, Britain’s first female poet laureate.

'Getting Lost' by Heidi Julavits: One wintry weekend in the Berkshires.

It will be noted by the observant that online content is available via RSS in seven categories. I  may have seen this when I first visited this sexy looking new site about a month ago: for some reason it looked overwhelming and I plumped for the email newsletter.

So I guess if I really don't want to know about events I can't possibly attend, I could just subscribe to the half dozen other feeds on the online content page.

Or the email newsletter, which gave me the list above in a neat little bloggable text package. Hey, it's my choice.
Do note that it is also possible to subscribe to New Voices, which is definitely an exciting choice. Enjoy.

what helen garner is reading, via:

There's an interview with Helen Garner in the 'Three Questions' feature on Lynne Hatwell's excellent Dovegreyreader blog - probably most of it has been heard before in Australia, but nonetheless a very attractive interview.
(warning - there are a lot of book cover images on that site, so don't fret if it takes a little while to load.)

And it's certainly not every day that we get a reading list from HG, either. Bravo Lynne. Subscribing to Lynne's blog is a triple whammy of delights - great book reviews, quilting and craft tales and a steady stream of magnificent photos of Devon and the dovegreyreader's home. A very pleasurable space indeed.

keeping up (just)

This is a set of profiles to watch, for all you magazine submitters out there. Go on, submit, you know you want to...

John Crowley at The Believer on genre - read it and let me know what you think, I've had a hell of a week and it's still in the To:read pile. Link via Maud.

Allison Glock blames blogs, and thinks poetry is the answer (but what is the question, Allison?) and Tao Lin puts a different spin on it (probably to be expected given that his blog is highly popular.) Both at Poetry Foundation.org

This is worth checking out just for the covers display, but the idea is nice too.

Finally - Tom Cho's story collection, Look Who's Morphing, has its Melbourne launch tomorrow night at Hares and Hyenas bookshop, Johnston St, Fitzroy (Collingwood? On the border!) - 5 pm for a 5.30 start. Read an extract here, and catch up on more news at his blog and website.
Apart from being a bright new star on the short fiction scene, Tom is also generous with his advice to other writers about grant applications, having spoken at VWC about same; and in that spirit he's put two sample applications online. I hope to be reviewing his book soon, if life settles down enough - in the meantime, his reviews page will have to keep you informed.

it's all print

It appears that a bigger Kindle is in the offing, and that some are bruiting the possibility that this will assist in the online shift for newspapers.
It appears more likely to me that it will also assist in increasing the digital divide, but it would be good to hear what these guys think about it too.

Meanwhile at Newspaper Death Watch (horrible, horrible name for a blog, isn't it), it is reported that there is an upsurge in enrolments in journalism studies in the States. So there will continue to be writers and critics who prophesy with their pens...but they must keep their eyes wide for that chance.

Update: Details on the Kindle launch here, at Mobylives.

playing their own trumpets because 'they're worth it'

The Australian Chamber Orchestra is attracting some terrific reviews in the States - was I surprised, of course not. Bravo. Not only that, there's plenty of Web 2.0 goodness on their excellent blog.

ACO | Vivacious from Australian Chamber Orchestra on Vimeo.

Check out this video of Helena Rathbone, principal second violin, and director Richard Tognetti, speaking about their completed Four Seasons tour. You could do worse things with your time than click through all their videos. You could.

tweet renga

This has been driving huge amounts of commenting traffic to Cordite, so go have a look. The slowly maturing result is magnificent, too.

Remember book trailers? and how awful they were? Apparently they are improving. (It looks like Sloane Crosley, of eating cake fame, put a lot of work into hers too.) Via Boldtype.

People are never satisfied, are they?

Here is a fine swag of Queensland writers, via the Empty Pages blog at the Queensland Writers' Centre.

Posted this mainly because I just like the name of the feature (and our shed is in need of a Howards Storage World makeover). I like the Cloffice, too, mainly because I have half a room...and it's a real mess right now.

This book has a foxy cover, as Kath might say - but even more impressive is its author's completely silly rider.

This is such an impressive use of technology. Flick on the slide show and enjoy your own West Wing.

Here's another amazing local cover, coming in October to a shop near you.

And finally, why did I not know about this till I got an OzBallet newsletter? It's already been going for a month: check out David McAllister's post on the So You Think You Can Dance final (and note he was not given a seat in the house on the night, tssskk.)