reeling and writhing

the seventh 'page' from Page Seventeen is out today

Issue 7 of the evergreen anthology, Page Seventeen, will be launched today at Burrinja Cafe (part of the gallery) in Upwey from 1 pm.

Work from seventeen (heh) new writers is featured, along with stories and poems by Sean M Whelan, Emilie Zoey Baker, Graham Nunn, Maxine Clarke, Amelia Walker, Ashley Capes, Peter Farrar, Christopher Currie, and David McLaren. There will be a regular poetry gig, The Word Tree, to follow, and an invite with some cover art can be found here. Just so you can find it easily in the shops (scroll down), if you don't get along today.

a library of news made by many hands

Peta Hopkins reports at the LINT blog that the digitisation 'crowdsourcing' project the NLA has been conducting in recent times, in order to edit enormous quantities of scanned text from Australia's newspapers, has received its most recent review, which can be read here. 

There are pictures on the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program website which give a visual account of the scanning process by which NLA staff have been adding more and more early newspapers to the database, which now holds 4.3 million fulltext, searchable articles. There are, regrettably, no pictures of library users editing scanned text in the comfort of their own homes, but that's not to say that the program is not receiving support from the punters - as Rose Holley says,

Users have demonstrated a willingness to work towards the ‘common good’, to volunteer their time, energy, skill, knowledge and ideas and to be involved long term in a program of national historic significance. The collaborative activity from this new community is enhancing the quality of the data and therefore the accuracy of full‐text searching in a way that the National Library of Australia could never have achieved using its own resources alone.

The Project details page where this report is published also carries a document of comments from those who volunteered to correct text.

Not only can Australians assist the library by going online, registering and helping to correct scanned text of old, often poorly printed newspapers - if you are aware of old papers that are missing from the library's collection, you can assist the work of the Australian Newspaper Plan by checking them against the list of titles, here. (Lists and shots of found titles, here.) The online documenting of both projects make for interesting reading.

weekend news 3: come see the magic theatre

This beautiful exhibition (click on the image for details) is running at Craft Victoria from October 23rd to November 28th.

Taking its cue from Hesse’s surrealistic landscape (in Der Steppenwolf), A Key to Help Make Your Own World Visible presents a series of hidden interior topographies; worlds existing somewhere between the pain and beauty of things past.

Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison have worked collaboratively for the past ten years, chiefly using paper as their medium. From carefully constructed limited edition artists’ books to works on paper, they record, deconstruct and rebuild miniature worlds.

Do please check it out. Louise Jennison's fine blog is elsewhere (so to speak) and you can see more of their work there.

weekend news 2: neighbour wins Bristol short story prize

It is not every week that I go out for bread and bump into a neighbour who has won the Bristol Short Story prize. Saves me a bit of feed-reading!! and makes our little shopping square a larger place to be, all of a sudden.

'Beyond The Blackout Curtain', by Elizabeth Jane, took first prize of 500 pounds, publication and a Waterstones' gift card, and sits first in the 2009 prize anthology, which can be purchased at several UK outlets. The prize is awarded with the aim of finding stories to publish in a 'vibrant, original short story anthology' to be stocked in as many bookshops as possible, including high street chains, and to promote the profile of the Bristol Review of Books.

It was awarded way back in July (yes, my neighbour is modest and did not email me about this. I hope she keeps in better touch next time she does something astonishing) and entries for next year's prize will be accepted between December 2009 and March 2010.

Belated and heartfelt congratulations, Liz. BRAVA!!!

weekend news 1, with a remark on Gerald Murnane

HEH. What I said I would not do any more.

But I cannot resist notifying you of these podcasts of treasure  from Radio National - has the programming there been sensational this week or what?

CAN HAZ Gerald Murnane, the writer of Tamarisk Row, The Plains and his latest book Barley Patch, on fiction for an hour (PURE GOLD) and Sonu Shamdasani, the editor of Jung's Red Book for twenty minutes? THOSE BASES BELONG TO US thanks to the national broadcaster and Team Koval. Thanks to Peter Mares for both interviews  - regrettably the Shamdasani interview has doubtful sound quality, so it will be easier to deal with when the transcript is up in a week or so.

Thanks to Giramondo I have already read Barley Patch, and what can I say? so much more to digest and think about regarding this thing we call fiction. I bought two volumes of his stories (out of print) from AbeBooks for myself for an extra birthday present. Velvet waters, indeed.  And he mentions in the radio show that he has completed a novella, A History of Books, so I hope we will see that sometime soon as well.

Barley Patch is provocative, teasing, bracing, all sorts of good things. Suffice it to say that upon finishing it, I started in on Vikram Seth's An Equal Music with the sense that I was seeing everything through the cleanest of clear windows. The Seth felt baroquely messy, and I was hearing all kinds of annoying things, including pastiche, even after I realigned my ears and eyes. So I know what to go back to in the future if my reading aids need tuning up. It's unlikely I'll have more to say on this, I have too much to learn.

from my email...

For it is true, some of us live in an Internet world. And isn't "Internet Tendency" just the best name ever for a service delivering an i-Phone app from indie publishers? How 'hubbly jubbly'.

Mc Sweeney's email newsletter promises great things for its new iPhone app, The Small Chair:

No longer will T-Pain be your only salvation on trains, during lunch, and through all the other empty gaps in a day. Allow McSweeney's to fill your moments of solitude, moments of togetherness, moments of intolerable boredom.'

Und so weiter. There's a review making extravagant claims about sales of The Small Chair, here at Boldtype.

Random House Australia to allow publishing at random

Australian Bookseller and Publisher Online announced this afternoon that Random House Australia (RHA) has launched a print on demand (POD) program that will allow it to produce single copies of out-of-print titles:

The program, which has been 18 months in the planning, is in partnership with Sydney-based SOS Print+Media and will cover out-of-print in-copyright Random House titles that sell nine or less copies per year. (Books which sell in small quantities of 10 or more fall into the publisher's short-run program.)

Random House sales director Gavin Schwarcz told WBN the program would ensure the publisher's books stayed in print, but that it was as much about meeting customer expectations as making a profit.

‘It's a reduced margin for us,' he admitted. ‘The author will make the same [royalties on these books], but it's all about service. I think with the world the way it is, the consumer nowadays just thinks if they want something they don't understand why they can't get it.'

Schwarcz said the POD initiative would mean booksellers could satisfy customer requests and added that such a program could even help to promote some out-of-print titles.

countdown

The Millions has a nifty countdown of post-millenium best reads on, compiled after extensive consultation with a large and impressive panel of writers/bloggers/writer-bloggers, with thoughtful reviews of each title provided. Via John Williams at Second Pass.

long may you run

Well, there are prizes. And then, there are prizes.

And speaking of the other kind of prize, three hearty cheers for Sleepers and Steve Amsterdam's win. Not bad for the first novel out of their blocks, is it now. Not too shabby at all.

Someone after Pav's heart.

As noted on Twitter by Jason Ensor, Damien Broderick has published a new story, here.

Want to record and send a 5 min video through Twitter? YES YOU CAN.

Congratulations are due to Jennifer Mills for a nomination for the Blake Poetry Prize. GO JEN.

What would Oscar have wanted to say about Twitter if he was here? something like this, I think.
(In other news, Fry has discovered what he calls Goldilocks Miniblogging using his iPhone.

And congratulations to Mark Rubbo and his crew for the good ship Readings' happy birthday. Many pictures here, long may she sail.

books, spelling, e-readers, ghosts galore

Just In. A simply smashing post on early writing from Penni Russon.

My other top selection for the week is this stupendous post about Venice and Tintoretto, from Fiona's exceptional Strange Fruit blog on painting, photography and writing.

It is time to thank poet and writer George Dunford, of Hackpacker, for his great article on litblogs in last week's Big Issue, which I fortunately got into town to buy late in the week while attending to some panel discussion and the launch of Nathan Curnow's  Ghost Poetry Project, which was a very moving occasion (photos from Sean M. Whelan there). More of that anon. (Update: the article is now available to read on George's blog.)

Feel bad that others can't see what you are reading when you carry your Kindle/iPhone/iLiad/whatsit around? (Not really an Australian problem yet, is it?) Etsy may have the solution. Via Three Percent.

In Readings in Hawthorn this morning, saw a very attractive display of Faber Firsts - enjoy those retro covers for the modern era if you haven't seen them already. (Let's face it, I saw mine in the shop, so I'm last to the party.) They are rather fine, and for some reason I think I like them better than what I've seen so far of the poetry. A little overdone? I just don't know.

just waiting for me to find it - bookshow of the century

...and it has no silly visuals, no annoying fake bookshelves, just pure refreshing chat. ONCE A WEEK at this stage, anyway, tune in not just to Lake Wobegon, but to Louise Swinn and Zoe Dattner's radical new take on conversation around books, the Twenty-First Century BookShow.

First seen on the Overland blog, where Jeff casts a sober eye on how we will continue to talk about books, and where.

I know where I'm going to be every week. In this instalment, listen to Zoe talk about YA novels and hiding in the library, and Louise discuss the problems of short story dissemination and the first Cutwater anthology. In one take, like Ella, including a sneeze. FAB.

See you next week sometime, as there's lots going on and I'm off to watch Episode 3 over lunch.

newsheap

Oh to be in England, now that Ted Hughes and Leonard Baskin collaborations are being discussed - thank goodness Lynne is there anyway. This is a ripper post.

Congratulations are due to Alice Pung, who has been chosen to take up a three-month international writer residency at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

From Arts Hub comes this expression of support from the US Authors Guild for the retention of territorial copyright in Australia. Director Paul Aiken said on July 13 that “It’s hard to believe a country would choose to devalue its publishers' backlists in this way, forcing publishers to compete against cheap imports for the very titles they had chosen to invest in.”

Jhumpa Lahiri has a story in Narrative Mag for you all.

You do, of course, need to know who is part of the team covering the Australian Ballet's new production in progress, Concord, selected as they were from the great unwashed army of citizen cultural journos - so here they are.

I starred this news in Google Reader last week - what a novel idea, to serialise a work on 42 different sites.

(Between posts here, you can always check out what I've marked in my feeds from the box on the lower right.)

Via The Book Bench at the New Yorker, there is news of Random House planning to publish fourteen previously unpublished short stories of Kurt Vonnegut's as 'single story e-books', to be released in advance of a new collection of his short fiction.

candide gets an e-reader

I saw this video from French publishing company Editis and downloaded it last night from its original source thanks to a tip off on Twitter from Maud. However, the original video is full bandwidth quality and takes forever to load (I checked 250 feed items and was still waiting), so the obliging folk at if:book have found us a lower -res version on YouTube, which still looks quite good in high-quality mode.

It does give a tantalising glimpse of how the ideal e-reading solution might work in the best of all possible worlds. I could well be in line when they beam these up.

surfing the ephemera at Sheaff's

As noted recently by the wonderful Peacay at Bibliodyssey, and also Ampersand Duck. Oh my ephemera, my new-found land... This is for exploring.

There is a blog mentioned there to promote The Handy Book of Artistic Printing, a publication from Princeton Architectural Press which looks delicious - the Sheaff site says, 'This 2009 softcover book by Doug Clouse and Angela Voulangas very nicely covers many aspects of Artistic Printing, and shows examples.' 

I really should apologise for turning Peacay's links around the other way, but it's the way I travelled there. Via. How's those skating owls.

there will be links

A new online mag - via Stephen Romei, the ALR editor at the Ragged Claws blog, there's news of a shiny new publication with a contributors' page living in Facebook Land called The Group.
It will be curated by Larry Buttrose, Mark Mordue, James Bradley, John Birmingham and Billy Marshall-Stoneking, and its main interface is here.

And if I were in Britain, this would be fun.

Speaking of the UK (and also Ireland) the Australian Poetry Centre's international circuit places have been awarded to Robert Gray and Alison Croggon (reported here by the Currajah weblog at Walleah Press.)

I've been coming across Ivy Alvarez' work here and there - and found this Hong Kong journal, Cha, via the Canongate writers' network, Meet at the Gate, with two of her poems in the current issue.

Would you just look at this lovely thing (and the great snaps).
And these 'nice publications'.

Hardly a bustle in the hedgerow - more of an alphabet.

And finally blogpost title of THE WEEK.