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.

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.

a pressing reason to take in some fine art

Oh My. This is going to be very beautiful indeed.

Looking at the pictures again and reading the post makes me sad, because I can't get to Duck's first solo show myself.

If you can get to Canberra between September 2 and 12, make sure you see this show. I saw some of her work here in the State Library in 2007 and it is simply wonderful, so don't miss out.

that festive time of year for writers and readers

There is truly something for everyone at MWF this year, though fewer sessions with individual poets than one might expect, and an attempt has been made to save festival-lovers some dosh by packaging tickets together, so I hope that goes down well with those of us who are a little less decisive in our purchases. (Maybe a discount on purchases of four or more tickets across the fortnight is on its way?)

Congratulations are due to Rosemary Cameron for allowing the festival to expand to fit its new Fed Square spaces across the last two festivals - best wishes for the future to this retiring director.

Do look out for fantastic festival blogger Estelle Tang on the MWF blog as she will keep you posted on many good things. (She can also be heard on SYN FM on Saturdays.)

I am hoping to get to hear Dennis Loy Johnson of Melville House and MobyLives fame at some point, and though I am delighted she is here, I am pretty much keeping away from MJH so that her mystique is preserved. There are some authors who really should keep out of the limelight so we keep asking questions - I'm a bit odd about that, but one day I'll hold forth on the matter in more detail. For now, I'm happy for her to tell us she's boring wherever she chooses to do so - and I respect her, dammit! for doing that - and to find her books completely compelling instead.

So enjoy whatever you get to - there's plenty happening. Congratulations are due to Tom Cho and Kate Middleton for receiving nominations for The Age Book of the Year awards, winners of which will be announced tonight - you can read the shortlist here.

To kick off my infinitesimal contribution to publicising the presence of a digital publishing program at MWF this year, accept this update on matters digital from Kate Eltham, CEO of the Queensland Writers' Centre, who is appearing at some MWF events after this steam punk publishing venture with the ABC's Pool.

Kate, Nick Earls, Kim Wilkins and Hinemoana Baker are travelling through Queensland by steam train to commemorate the 1990 Writers' Train, and blogging and collaboratively publishing about their trip as they go.

In other digi news, publishers at MWF can see first hand what CommentPress and Sophie (this one, not this one) are all about by attending a workshop with Bob Stein of the Institute for the Future of the Book. I am surprised to learn that these tools have been in development for close to seventeen years - I first came across CommentPress in 2007 or thereabouts, as part of the publishing platform for McKenzie Wark's 2007 publication, Gamer Theory. A more recent example of how CommentPress can be used for publishing discussion is here. I am looking forward to hearing Stein speak at a couple of things on Thursday 27th.

And now, for something not entirely different -  Richard Nash, elsewhere, speaking of another festival in another town, is inviting people to vote on SXSW programs, including a proposal for The Novel in 2050:

"...The spiel is “Research shows reading a book for as little as six minutes may cut stress levels in half. But have Twitter-length attention spans decreased demand for novels? What is the future of the “non-networked” book? This panel will debate the relevance of novels in a networked world.”

Questions to be asked include:

Will novels exist in 2050? What will they look like?
Have modern Twitter-length attention spans decreased interest in novels?
How might crowdsourcing and collaboration contribute to the creation of a novel?
What are some recent examples of networked books?
Are young people reading novels?
Does a novel communicate differently on a Kindle, iPhone, or other electronic device?
Is the Internet more of a threat to publishing than film or television were in the 20th century?
Why is technology mostly absent in the plots of contemporary novels?
How might novels use games and cross-platform storytelling?

What about novels should be preserved? What needs to change?"

I can't help thinking that a 20 year old reading this proposal in 2050 will label it 'poignant' as my son did when recently perusing my reprint of Marshall McLuhan's The Medium Is The Massage. Happy festivals, everyone.

do ghosts wear jeans and sneakers, Kevin Brophy?

 As noted by Angela, the launch of Nathan Curnow's Ghost Poetry Project,
a work over three years in the making, was held at the Old Melbourne Gaol last last Friday night, and I was suitably spooked by the setting for starters. The sepulchral mood was also enhanced by the presentation of one poem, in as much darkness as the custodians of Ned's bits and pieces would allow, as a call and answer piece, with assistance from Geoff Lemon; and by Nathan's observation that his four little daughters and their mum, Kerryn, were sitting under the gallows where Ned swung. (I can haz Ned and Four Little Girls LOLCAT? Cannot Haz, so the book cover will just have to do.)

 Good red wine served by Sean M. Whelan himself doesn't quite cut the chill of a space like the gaol in the half-light - I once visited the chapel which is now used by RMIT students and staff, elsewhere in the building, and that was upsetting enough. (Not so for Simonne Michelle-Wells, who assured me she loves prisons.)

In performing the launch rites, Kevin Brophy told us that Nathan's father was a minister in a remote Mallee town, Pinaroo, and prior to that had been a Tivoli vaudeville artist, from which he drew the engaging conclusion that ministers were performance artists. He had many other good things to say and I was rather distracted by the possibility of taking a photograph, so missed some of them, but take issue with his description of Nathan's work as somehow tidy, careful, his poems wearing 'clean jeans and sneakers.'

This is not the impression I carry of the work in The Ghost Poetry Project, but perhaps I'm old-fashioned. At a quick look, high points are certainly the Monte Cristo section, and the poems 'Ultrasound' and 'Whale Song'. There will be more on this anon as I have lent my copy to a librarian. You can read a poem, 'Denial', from the Richmond Bridge suite online, as well as 'Bed and Breakfast' (in the Old Adelaide Gaol, if you don't mind.)

Nathan was interviewed on the Book Show by Radio National last August (you will need to download the whole program, and start it about halfway through.) He is currently working on a play with its roots in convict stories and escape myths. You can also catch him at The Toff In Town during MWF for a very special event in homage to one of the larger spirits of the last century.

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.

a big Melbourne week of short fiction

This is the week when you should be looking out in Melbourne for your Big Issue vendor, and purchasing the Fiction Issue, which has a new story by Cate Kennedy, and a bit of adult fiction by successful YA writer Penni Russon.
(Regular issues, of course, carry fiction reviews edited by the Readings bookshop newsletter editor, Jo Case, and are worth your five dollars just for those.)

*Update: Get it at once, it is EXCELLENT. Ask your street vendor if he/she still has copies this week.

I should open a book on how many of these will make Best Oz Stories '09. Fabulous selection, Jo.

this garden universe vibrates complete

Dena Kahan has an exhibition, Strange Garden, opening on the 17th of June at Red Gallery in North Fitzroy

Another opportunity to report on the work of someone who has gone on to more exciting things since we studied lit together, and a show to visit! - and a beautiful picture for this blog to display (photo by Ian Hall).

'Dena Kahan’s paintings of miniature glass marine specimens address the historical relationship between art and science.

These most recent works are based on photographs taken by the artist while visiting specialist glassware collections in the United Kingdom, and are an extension of her previous work with the Victoria and Albert museum in London. Strange Garden reveals the shifts in translation incurred in the movement between objects and representations, softly prying apart the paradoxes inherent to taxonomy and systems of museum display.' (www.redgallery.com.au)

Strange Garden will be at:
Red Gallery
157 St George's Rd.
North Fitzroy 3068
tel: 9482 3550
17 June – 4 July . Opening hours Wednesday – Saturday, 11 – 5.

beanie season at Artisan Books

Artisan Books, one of my favourite stops on the way into the CBD, advises that their annual Beanie Exhibition is open now.

Do click on their other exhibition invites to the right of the homepage to see what other beautiful things are able to be viewed there, apart from a constantly magnificent selection of books on art, textiles, photography, design, gardens and all manner of crafts

The lovely piece on the invitation is the work of Margaret Lanne.

Emerging Writers' Festival - this wheel shall explode

The zine fair that was once the total Festival has truly emerged -

sitting alongside our usual cultural icons in this Marvellous City of Literature and GT Fords.

A very fine ten day festival, and I  only got to a tiny bit of it. The wrap at Arts Hub reports director David Ryding expressing delight at a 55 year old writer's ability to get four publishers interested in her work due to contacts made at the festival.

People are, justifiably, making very agreeable noises all over - Estelle has given some great reports on 3000 Books especially - leaving me scratching my head saying, "Who IS David Ryding?" (apart from being the nice man who answered my complaint about the proposed change to the name of the Scrabble event some time last year, after my emerging comedian took part in it.)

Anyway. Early last year enterprising young theatre blogger Chris Summers of Theatargh went head to head with Ryding  about what he is hoping to achieve as festival director, and I feel is close to realising after only two years in the seat. It's a fine interview, and captures the feel of EWF in lots of ways - Ryding turns the interview format on its head and asks a few questions of his own, in much the same way his festivals do.

The program advisory committee has also played its part - with people of this calibre on board, a good result's guaranteed.

news flash: Readings shop to open at State Library of Victoria

This news, just to hand.

And this as well - I've read three of them, for once, and loved The Pages and Breath as well as this. Might just pick up Ice anyway, because 'I'm worth it'.

(If you'd like a chance to win them all, enter the Readings competition.)

help! there's a comedian in my family and she still collects McDonald's toys

Very kind review from Mr Watts.

Go Mighty Ducks. And their hats.

(Google alerts for A Lot Of Bread are to be avoided, by the way. A Lot Of People write about Bread on their blogs.

Hats and ducks, on the other hand bring up all sorts of rural posts with quite a bit of character.)

Also the Breadsters won themselves a Trades Hall competition with a kooky video last night, about fax machines that play the Fireman Sam
theme. There's still time to catch them with two weeks of shows left, Wednesdays to Saturdays, 9.30pm at Trades Hall.

And here's last year's Age review from the Fringe anyway. Because I Can.

The Age, October 5 2008.

So Summer Read mooches on

It was awards time at the State Library on Friday night as the Summer Read, a statewide reader development initiative now in its fourth year, came to a close with presentation of prizes and awards to readers, libraries and authors selected by popular vote.
I am agnostic about popular votes, but I was not agnostic about the expression of rampant favouritism for Ann Blainey's superb biography, I Am Melba.

The list of voters' favourites included Beaten By A Blow by Dennis McNamara, the true story of a shearer's life; the Miles Franklin-longlisted Addition, by Toni Jordan; and (surprise!) Radical Melbourne (in two volumes), by Jeff and Jill Sparrow, as well as Jarad Henry's crime novel, Blood Sunset. Here is a list with links, and here's Angela Meyer's coverage of more features of the event at Crikey.

I did mean to congratulate the Sparrows at the time, so I'll do it here instead.  There's further analysis (and an invitation!) after the fold.

wall to wall intelligentsia at the Potter this summer

Update: hear more about this exhibition at Radio National's Artworks program for the rest of March, here.

Intelligentsia, a retrospective exhibition of Louis Kahan's celebrated portrait series for Meanjin, has opened at one of my favourite art spaces, the quietly shiny Potter gallery at Melbourne University. A goodly crowd turned out in searing heat last Wednesday on February 29 to hear guest curator Vivien Gaston and writerly/academic representative and poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe speak on the singular experience of standing in a room full of 'faces with thoughts inside' as Wallace-Crabbe so succinctly put it.

One of Kahan's portraits of Patrick White is on display - another garnered the Archibald Prize in 1962 - as well as many fine ink drawings of top writers and thinkers published in Meanjin from 1955 to 1974, including a couple of people I used to know and barely recognised, as of course they were MUCH younger then. Also on display is a video of writers included in the portrait series talking about Meanjin - I did glimpse Dame Mary Gilmore, but will return to watch it in a quieter moment as I could not hear very much of what was said.

Of the process of sitting for Kahan, historian Geoffrey Blainey is quoted as saying, "When I left, I had a slight feeling that I had been x-rayed."
Poet Fay Zwicky is quoted in Gaston's notes, which can be found on the Potter site:

'it seemed an easy thing to do, to sit

and let the master work his miracle,

humming away over black pots and nibs,

the sunny room, the light, the harmless ease of it.'

There are some beautiful photographs of Kahan at work in his studio too.*

This is quite a show, and I am assuming that some of these were among portraits by Kahan collected in a volume by Melbourne University Press in 1981, Australian Writers: the Face of Literature. The mind boggles at the thought of the cost of similar commissions for such a journal today. Many thoughts, many voices, indeed, and Kahan's inimitable style, fluid and emotionally intelligent, unites them all.

My favourites at first viewing I think are the captivating, surprisingly angular Patrick White portrait, the Miles Franklin, Francis Webb, Marjorie Barnard, Alan Marshall and the series of dinner sketches capturing Clem Christesen, Stephen Murray-Smith and a bunch of others at Meanjin's 21st anniversary dinner. There's a sense of listening in over their faces, rather than their shoulders, that's quite arresting. (So nice of Ms Gaston to pop all the notes on the website like this. Made to blog, and I hope they stay there.)

Louis Kahan was born in Vienna in 1905, and had a rich and fascinating creative life in Europe, North Africa and the US before coming to Australia in 1950. He was qualified as a master tailor, like his father, but used his father's customers as his first artistic models before taking on portraiture in the Army in the Second World War, where he felt his true artistic apprenticeship was served:

From 1943-5 Kahan began his personal contribution to the war effort, drawing thousands of portraits of wounded allied soldiers, mostly Americans, signing them modestly "by a guy from Paris". Copies of these portraits on 'Victory Mail' were sent to loved ones back home and many of the original drawings are held in War Museums in Australia and the United Kingdom.

In 2005 several hundred of these were presented to the Red Cross Museum in Washington by his family. Through these portraits, Kahan honed his skills and his ability to capture the essence of his subject with economy and speed. These qualities proved useful on his return to Paris after the war, when Kahan was employed as a staff artist by Le Figaro to cover the war trials of Pétain and other collaborators and they remained the hallmarks of his work.

(http://louiskahan.com)

He designed sets and costumes for the National Ballet and Sadler's in the UK as well as for Australian theatre and opera productions, and on his 90th birthday his peers awarded him the Australian Painters and Sculptors Medal, an honour given only to a handful of artists. More about his remarkable life and work, here; I hope to borrow Lou Klepac's 1990 bio soon from a public library near me.

Kahan drew painters and musicians in Australia as well as writers, and clearly had developed the art of capturing the face of creativity, if that's not too hackneyed a way to come at it. My thanks to Dena Kahan for inviting me to the opening, a truly moving and momentous occasion in Melbourne life and letters.

The exhibition will be at the gallery on Swanston Street (near the corner of Elgin Street) until April 22nd.

you gotta love this hairy city of books

HAH. Only ONE WRONG. On teh first try. I'm arrogant (that's a clue to the one I got wrong.)

Miriam Burstein found some dead cakes here, which reminded her (and others) of Miss Havisham's wedding feast.

Another week, a new blog to read - what fun. Linh Dinh describes her travels around the States in a recent tour, here on Harriet, the Poetry Foundation blog.

Antipodean SF#126 is now available, link via HorrorScope. TEN fabulous original science-fiction, fantasy, or horror mini-stories of about 500 words each that will entertain, yet won't take hours to read.

To coincide with his tour, Text Publishing will release two Leonard Cohen novels here.(And I say Hallelujah because Google Reader helped me pull a feed off their new website.)

Mark Thwaite alerts us on ReadySteadyBook to a notification site for new DRM-free e-books.

And according to Bud Parr, there's some Pynchon-lite on the horizon.

She's a famous librarian who writes like a dream, she was here very recently (I could not really justify the outrageous price of the seminar without a current job), and she loved the joint. Of Melbourne, K.G. Schneider, the Free Range Librarian, says:

'Melbourne is a lovely city about as old as San Francisco, with similar Gold Rush origins. It’s the first city I’ve been in for a long time that felt truly sui generis.

Some old cities feel like a set piece, some have had their souls rebuilt into chilly commercial canyons, but Melbourne has kept a lot of character (not without proactive help from its citizens). From the Vic Market to the funky little cafes in alleys, Melbourne resists being bottled. Sydney is beautiful and tidier, but Melbourne has broader shoulders and a way of tossing its hair that says, “I’ve been through a lot.”'
(And yes, I've cut the links to her photos there, but you can see them from her site.)