reeling and writhing

speaking of emerging writers...Chris Meade and others report

It is such a pleasure to see video making its way into reportage from the truly excellent Emerging Writers' Festival - three cheers for director Lisa Dempster who has been packing her video camera every day. Here's Chris Meade from if:book London (who clearly packs a camera as well), interviewing Lisa earlier this week (taken from his blog BookFutures.)
Meade has another video at that post, and earlier on the blog has reported on the Bloggers' Brunch and the festival. The very fine discussion at the Brunch on digital publishing and writing futures is still open for latecomers (you will see me promising to come back if you get to the end of it...obviously I didn't quite make it.)

Meade is posting more videos later this week, so clearly the festival made a good impression. Go EWF team.

Update: I did say others - here is Andrew Wrathall at Fancy Goods, the Bookseller & Publisher blog, with a terrific wrap of events up to Friday 28th. The weekend is still to come...hoping to get to hear Jill Jones tomorrow, and see Derek Motion pick up the Overland Poetry Prize. That's my Saturday.

there will be one week in September we want to remember

It is a busy busy town we live in now, with our centre on wheels of books and writing.

I saw the great man, Colm Toibin, last week, and thoroughly enjoyed all he had to say about writing in general - not so much what he politely supplied in answer to questions on his latest book, as I had read an awful lot of that kind of thing already. (Keep an eye on this link as there will be a video of the evening at some point (YES, THERE IT IS now).  Also keep a very keen eye on LiteraryMinded for Angela's upcoming interview.)

However, as anyone who listened to La Throsby last Friday can attest, whatever he has to say about writing is like gold. I have been thinking all weekend why that might be so - he is very quick, I think, to respond concisely to any questions about craft and clearly has plenty of insight into his own work, which is not always something available to writers, or something they are happy to share . I was interested to hear that it was reading the work of Alistair McLeod that brought him to the realisation that it would be good to revisit Ireland as a subject for his fiction.

News that came to hand with Throsby's interview is that Toibin's limited editions press, Tuskar Press, picked up The Slap and is running hot with it in the UK at present. If you start listening to the Throsby interview at the 48-49 minute mark, you will find out why.

Meanwhile I am insanely jealous that the Sydney crowd got to hear a whole Catalan song from him at SWF (thanks to Charlotte Wood for that news), but it serves me right for being too mean to go up there.

I am very close to rocking up to hear Louise Swinn, indie publisher extraordinaire, interview Peter Carey (Le Carey?). So I guess this rambling introduction is a way of letting you all know that the Wheeler Centre's second programme for the year is up on the site, in the email box, et cetera. The coverage the Centre is aiming at is impressive - not all things I would necessarily attend, but still, something for everyone there, as Michael Veitch used to tell us so long ago.

Things of note include Richard Flanagan's mix tape (though I am being a bit silly there as of course I'd rather hear him talk about writing), a night of erotic fan fiction which has been borrowed from SWF (worth seeing just to hear Marieke H.'s contribution really), Kate Jennings in conversation with Hilary McPhee, a night celebrating Chekhov, conversation between Jennifer Byrne and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a lecture from no less a personage than Jonathan Mills on the state of the arts, a visit from Fatima Bhutto and, finally, the promise of a week in September where the judges of art get well and truly rolled.

A WHOLE WEEK. The critics must be nervous already.

writers are emerging all over Melbourne this weekend...so be there

The Emerging Writers' Festival is kicking off in Melbourne this weekend, with the official opening tomorrow night at BMW Edge (at time of writing, there were a couple of tickets left to this.)

The First Word is …
A celebration of writing, writers and the word.

A night of performance, comedy, spoken word and burlesque.

The official opening of the 7th Emerging Writers’ Festival.

The First Word is …

Dance, comedy, readings and…

The Call to Arms – the Emerging Writers’ Festival’s unique keynote address, this year delivered by romantic fiction writer Toni Jordan.

The Glory of Love – Craig Schuftan.

Love Vs Angst, what makes a better writer? – top writers Josh Earl, Kate Mclennan and Michaela McGuire battle for supremacy in our 2 Sides of the Coin debate.

For a bunch of fascinating events this weekend, scroll down that page, or click here for the full and burgeoning program of festival events over the next nine days.

If you're struggling to get to everything you want to, check out the EWF Online program to see what you can do via your modem. The festival events are, as usual, very moderately priced - and of course, the online program is completely free.

Let the games begin...

 Red Gallery's exhibition program this month includes an interesting group show, Strange Nature, of photography and painting, which opens on Wednesday evening.

This exhibition of new paintings and photography takes a trip into a world where the natural and artificial have seductively merged.

In Dena Kahan’s painting, 19th century glass models of plants and marine life are re-created as surreal objects, more like part of a fantastic landscape than scientific tools in a museum case.

In his studio, Peter Lambropoulos makes “unreal” worlds specifically for the camera. He does so by transforming banal everyday substances into the extraordinary. Micro-sculptures encrusted with crystals are presented as hallucinatory visions.

Jan Parker’s photographs offer viewpoints on nature and the alchemy of light. Through analogue and digital processes, she conjures up uninhabited and often myopic landscapes, cryptic in their placement but also referencing the actual work of the eye.

Other artists exhibiting at  Red Gallery this month include Sarah Gully and Amelia Lackman. So, plenty to see, along with my friend Dena Kahan's paintings of glass models of flowers and invertebrates from the Blaschka collections at Harvard and Cornell Universities. Last year, she exhibited paintings of scientific marine models from UK collections at Red Gallery, and further works on these beautiful subjects are in the offing. Enjoy.

body of water - Fifi's exhibition launch tonight

This will teach me to skip posts saying "I have been busy". Particularly where artists are concerned. Ow, Ow.

 

red dress floating

My blog friend and fine painter and photographer, Fiona Dobrijevich Edmonds, launches her exhibition, body of water, tonight in Darlington, Sydney.

It is at Sheffer Gallery at 38 Lander Street until the 22nd of May.

There are more samples of her work on the blog, but I strongly urge you if you are lucky enough to be in Sydney to go and see it for yourselves. I wish I was going, I have left it too late and now have other things on. Damn, damn, damn.

A Peace Of Wall in Hosier Lane

Yes, I was critical of the lack of news feeds on the new Literary Magazines Australia site, because the following is the kind of news I like to pull down in my feeds.

Martin Hughes, publisher at Affirm Press, invites you to several events supporting the publication of Peace Of Wall, a book of street art from East Timor:

Our motivation for publishing Peace of Wall is to engage a new audience in their plight, to invite people to consider this tiny and fragile country wedged – in more ways than one – between the giants of Indonesia and Australia. I love the idea of a city like Melbourne, so savvy in its appreciation of street art, learning about East Timor in this light, and people have responded really enthusiastically.

We’re bringing over three young artists – Etson, Alfeo and Zito – from Dili this week, to participate in a week-long programme of events we hope will create enduring links between street artists here and in East Timor. (Etson’s visa was delayed while he awaited clearance for TB, which in itself paints a fairly vivid picture of the differences between these neighbouring nations.) The cultures are so different that putting them together in one medium is bound to create some fizz. I’m looking forward to seeing what they make of each other’s work – the stylised scene in Melbourne compared to the more rudimentary, descriptive and political-charged art from East Timor.

Events include:

Saturday 8 May at 5pm
Painting a wall in Hosier Lane, followed by the opening of Chris Parkinson’s Exhibition at the Until Never Gallery.

Tuesday 11 May at 7.30pm

official launch of Peace of Wall – Street Art from East Timor Southpaw Bar, 189 Gertrude St, Fitzroy (with a live painting by the lads and music by East Timorese musician, Gil Santos)

Thursday 20 May

Restoration of East Timorese Independence Day.

For more information, drop Affirm Press at line at info[at]affirmpress.com.au.

it's (all) news to me 27.04.10

The Emerging Writers' Festival program for 2010 is up and at 'em, so go and see what you will be attending towards the end of this month. Thanks to a website revamp under the eagle eye of new director Lisa Dempster, it's a lot easier to see what's going on this year at this incredibly well-priced festival, and I will be posting later on the week on events that have caught my eye.

This is now fairly old news, but... the graffiti artist Banksy had a film opening in the US on the 16th of this month. 

Fresher news comes via Bob Stein of a new article by CraigMod on e-readers, Embracing The Digital Book, following up on his widely read piece on books and the iPad last month.

Most of the news this Tuesday centres on that celebrated member of the linkerati, George Dunford. George has very graciously blogged his Big Issue profile of Anna Dusk at Hackpacker, and has a few remarks on the future of graphic novels up at Readings, where I found out that Paul Auster's City Of Glass also exists as a graphic novel. By the time this is posted I reckon a copy will be on its way to me, thanks to Visa.

George ran a couple of panels at the Wheeler Centre's graphic novels events on the weekend. And introduced me to Oslo Davis last Thursday at the Emerging Writers' Festival launch, to which I swear I went to support my blog friend-the-director, not to meet graphic arts heroes. It is not news, either, that Oslo's Sunday cartoon for the Age, Overheard, will soon appear as a book. One of the finest Christmas presents you could buy.

The calendar at the Wheeler Centre now includes full details of the Deakin Lectures for 2010, focussed fairly and squarely on climate change (there was a splendid two -page spread on this in the Saturday paper as well):

Curated by Professor Tim Flannery, we’ve gathered 30 of the best people addressing the climate problem now. These aren’t the usual suspects spouting fixed positions. At the Deakins you’ll hear from practitioners, from fresh informed voices with practical experience of achieving emissions reduction. These are people working to innovate in policy, business, finance and new technologies to help create a brave, new, low emissions world.

Finally, for those of us who haven't already seen Curious Pages,  here's what John Williams at the Second Pass had to say about the blog on 'recommended inappropriate children's books' earlier and later this year.

Shaun Tan at the Wheeler Centre this weekend

via wheelercentre.com

Where else, I ask, will you get to hear Shaun Tan give a free keynote address on graphic novels and attend a weekend of graphic storytelling related events?
At the Wheeler Centre on the Anzac Day weekend, that's where.

Saturday sees a bunch of panels led by luminaries of the art such as Bruce Mutard, Nicki Greenberg, Tan, Dylan Horrocks and Oslo Davis, while on Sunday there are some very reasonably priced workshops with practitioners such as Bernard Caleo, of Tango fame.

I'm only providing a couple of links today - I would love the Wheeler Centre to provide 'one link to rule them all, one link to find them' - somewhere in that calendar AND Thank you for your comment, Mim, for THERE IT IS NOW!! and doesn't that look a lot better. I like that.  I'll just begin at the beginning, and You can scroll down to find the rest.

you will be distracted by all the dazzling activity, and buy books

SOOOO much going on in the City of Books that my head reels. I told my son I wasn't buying any more books, except for him, and it was an awful lie.  For just look at these nice new things:

1. Puncher and Wattman's latest anthology of poetry, Out Of The Box, a contemporary collection by gay and lesbian writers edited by Michael Farrell and Jill Jones, is to be launched at Hares and Hyenas on February 2 by Christos Tsiolkas and Kathleen Fallon. Jill has details on her blog, Ruby Street, and links to an interview with Scott Patrick Mitchell at OutinPerth.

The new anthology Out of the Box is the brainchild of Michael Farrell and Jill Jones, arguably two of our nation’s most exciting queer voices. Together this poetic duo have brought together an impressive number of poets, among them the likes of David Malouf and Dorothy Porter.

‘We wanted a book that presented poetry being written now which is why, by-and-large, the poets are represented by relatively recent work, explained Jones of the process behind creating Out of the Box. ‘It is quite consciously not historical, nor even a survey of the last 20 or 30 years. We hope much of it is fresh, with just a dash of older work.

You can buy Out Of The Box at bookshops, or online here and here.

2. Karen Andrews is busy putting the finishing touches to a fine anthology of blog writing over at Miscellaneous Press, with a stellar lineup of contributors. That makes three, not two, books I will soon buy (see no.6). I am indeed a God-awful liar about my bookbuying.

And there's more, as they say when selling steak knives, though not all of it for sale.

3. The Wheeler Centre has put more programming online, some of it as far ahead as May.

4. Submissions are being accepted for the sixth Sleepers Almanac, until February 12. And it will also be released as an iPhone app.!

5. There is an impressive stream of independent publishing news from the Australian small press cooperative, SPUNC, whose membership is growing steadily. Their RSS feed is a very good thing to be keeping your eye on, you know you want to.

6. The latest Lifted Brow, no. 6, which looks fabulous, was launched with a themed party last week at the Bella Bar at Trades Hall. I didn't quite make it there, but I believe it was a hoot.

On top of this, it is nice to know, isn't it, that Tom Keneally thinks it is just as well that the new writers' stamps are self adhesive or else he would be licking David Malouf's and Peter Carey's arses. I feel much wiser now, myself. (Going to buy the stamps too, for sure. The early Carey one has a great retro feel about it.)

All a bit too much for this blogger - I am looking forward to quieter distractions, but more anon.

while walking one day on the lower south side...

Strolling in South Melbourne last night, digesting dinner prior to taking in the Christmas instalment of this show, in which a family member got a few shots at the mike, I came across an exhibition in the process of being put together, which I was permitted to inspect briefly: a lovely thing to be able to do on a quiet spring evening.

The exhibition is a group show opening tomorrow night - the people in the gallery were busy attaching large framed glass prints to the roof by chains, so they could hang loose and be backlighted (the production method is being patented by artist Chris Gillard.) I also saw delicate giclee prints of botanical subjects in reds and blacks, some long, narrow landscape oils which whisper of clotted Cezanne, and beautiful fabric and wire sculptures of sea creatures. I can't do justice to one set of oil paintings which were abstract in tone but captured light and water and waving textures - I think this is one of them here, but there were more. 

 

                

                            

wire viper fish sculpture by Cristina Metelli.

                                                                                         Grass by Chris Gillard, photography in 4-colour separation on glass           

Natural Selection is at the greenwood gallery, 1 Hotham Street, South Melbourne, from 3-24 December. It features work by Llewelyn Ash, Patrick Christie, Pip Davey, Chris Gillard, Josef Marzi, Cristina Metelli, Anthony Vanderzweep, Nikai van Garderen, and Dolores Malloni.

The opening is Thursday night, December 3, 6-8 pm, and greenwood gallery is open 11-5 from Wednesday to Sunday.

sun comes up today on a city of books (live here on RW)

The Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas website is well and truly alive today: from Twitter there is news of the media launch this morning, and some programming is already up on the website, as well as a NAME, "The Wheeler Centre" - which is not as clunky as CBGBWI, I know - news of their opening for the masses in February, and other great things in the associated pipelines, including a Reading The City program next March.

I am hardly surprised to read that such a program is in the waters, as the State Library's Summer Read program has downsized itself for a snugger fit with local libraries (it's going online in early December, so keep an eye on that here.)

On first glance, this is a really nice looking website - I like the site map down the bottom. There will be news posted daily on the site from the "Dailies" section, which has an RSS feed? yes. You can also subscribe to Events from that page. Excuse me now, I've liveblogged a website (not the media event, I hasten to add - there are pics of that on Twitter) and I'm off to play.

*Later today - Michael Orthofer has heard the news, and spread the word, but also speaks of ANOTHER Wheeler Center, in Montana. Zut alors.

reading this week at Collected Works Bookshop: Susan M. Schultz

Kris Hemensley welcomes all to a reading by Susan M. Schultz, the editor of Tinfish poetry journal, at  Collected Works Bookshop on Wednesday evening this week. (Issue 17 of the journal is available free here from Tinfish Press , and 'centerfold' artworks from the last eight issues may also be viewed online.)

As is usual with the events at the most specialised literary bookshop in this city of books, a gang of other poets will accompany this distinguished visitor, including Michael Farrell. Here are the necessary details. Susan Schultz has a blog on her editing, academic writing and poetry, here.

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.