Sydney Writers' Centre blog

Penguin Classics and the rise of Twitterature

The latest batch of Penguin Classics are out now! Another 50 are now on sale and they include Sartre’s The Age of Reason, Dracula by Bram Stoker, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (one of my favourite books) and Nick Cave’s And the Ass Saw the Angel (another favourite of mine).

Coincidentally (or not), two freshman students at the University of Chicago have scored a book deal with Penguin for ‘Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less’. The book will apparently be a ‘humorous retelling’ of various literary classics in 140 characters or less. Dante, Stendhal, Shakespeare and Joyce have all been mentioned.

Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman’s so-called revolution started in their college dorm. Their idea is to combine two great pillars of our society – literature and Twitter. They believe our love for high literature can be indulged despite our short attention spans.

Whatever. It will be interesting to see if readers are that keen to see The Divine Comedy or Romeo and Juliet reduced to a series of tweets. In fact, readers will presumably have read the classics in question anyway, otherwise, how will they get the joke?

And surely compiling the tweets in a book is contradictory to the spirit of Twitter – I can’t see myself lying in bed with a cup of tea and my laptop reading tweets, as I would with a book. (No offence intended to those of you who do.) I think the ‘joke’ would be more amusing if it were shared on the forum that led to the idea rather than published as a book.

I think I’ll stick with reading the unabridged versions. After all, they're only $10!

Book Rant

Last Seen in Lhasa by Claire Scobie is the story of rare red lilies, Tibet and friendship.

Scobie’s first trip to Tibet in 1997 was in search of a rare red lily in Pemako, an area of Tibet rarely visited by Westerners but a place of pilgrimage for Tibetan Buddhists. During that trip, she met Ani, a Buddhist nun on her own journey of spiritual enlightenment. There were seven more trips after that first one (the lily was found on the second trip) and many of them were in search of her Ani, with whom Claire established a strong friendship.

This book has received a lot of praise and I was curious about it mainly because I have long had an interest in Tibet and the struggles its people have faced since China occupied the country in 1956. Sadly, I found the book rather dull. Perhaps her time in Tibet has influenced her writing – she writes slowly and carefully as you’d imagine a Buddhist might. But I found her style a little boring.

Most frustratingly, the high points of the story seemed to be glossed over. Finding the lily was given not even a page – she found and photographed one of the world’s rarest flowers but seemed strangely unmoved by this. Her meeting with the Dalai Lama also came across as bit of an anti-climax. There was no indication that she was intending to meet him – it just happened all of a sudden! It seemed to come and go with almost no fanfare. She also caught a glimpse of a rare red panda in the wild. I think this frustrated me the most. I wanted to scream at her, ‘Get excited! You just saw a rare, endangered animal IN THE WILD’. Well, I’d be excited.

I also got no sense of the physical difficulty of the trips she undertook. There’s no sense of time in her story, but I’m guessing the treks were weeks long and obviously arduous (I only say obviously because she describes the state of her clothes and shoes at the end of one trip).

Despite all this, I’ve enjoyed reading about her relationships with young Tibetans who struggle with finding work and their identity in Chinese Tibet. It’s sad to read about the monastries and nunneries that have been and continue to be destroyed and the damage that has been done to the Tibetan culture during more than 50 years of Chinese occupation.

The story of Ani’s unusual life is also quite interesting. There are many different types of Buddhism and many different ways to worship and Ani has clearly chosen to take the more difficult path.

Sydney Writers' Centre announced as one of 10 Australian Finalists - Dell Small Business Excellence Awards

We are thrilled to share the news that the Sydney Writers' Centre has just been announced as one of 10 Australian finalists in the 2009 Dell Small Business Excellence Awards. The final overall Australian winner will be announced in September 2009.

We're truly honoured to be included in this group of finalists. At the Sydney Writers' Centre, we've always been committed to using technology to help reach as many people as possible. As many readers will know, we offer online writing courses that now reach people from all over the world. This would not be possible without being able to leverage technology in order to deliver top quality, interactive online classrooms for our students.

In the office today, we're celebrating at this lovely recognition, but it would not be possible without our team of wonderful and dedicated presenters. In particular, it would not be possible without the inspiring students who pass through our doors. It's your enthusiasm and interest in learning that keeps this Centre the buzzing, dynamic place it is today. Thanks to everyone who has helped us achieve this!

Click play to watch our new video.

What's happening in July?

A couple of literary events have grabbed my attention so I thought I should share them here. If playwrighting is your thing, these two talks should be very interesting.

On Sunday 5 July, the legendary American playwright, Edward Albee, will speak at the Sydney Theatre. In his only Australian public speaking appearance, Albee will be chatting with Jonathan Biggins about the role of theatre and the arts in our society.

Edward Albee is an acclaimed playwright most famous for his play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize three times and one of his more recent plays, The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? played in Sydney in 2003.

This is a rare opportunity to hear from a man The New Yorker describes as ‘the greatest living playwright’.

When: Sunday 5 July, 2pm
Cost: Tickets start at $28 for concession and $38 for full.
To book visit www.sydneytheatre.com.au or phone 02 9250 1777.

Also in July, Nick Earls will be appearing at Gleebooks, and will chat with Dominic Knight, about his new book The True Story of Butterfish. Earls’ latest book is the Daily Telegraph’s Big Book Club monthly pick for July. It is the story of Curtis Holland – an ex-rock star who suddenly finds himself living an unremarkable life in suburban Brisbane.

Dominic Knight is a Chaser founding member and author of Disco Boy. (Keep checking our author podcast page for our recent interview with Dominic about his writing journey.)

Nick Earls is the author of 13 books including Zigzag Street, Bachelor Kisses and Perfect Skin. He has also adapted four of his novels for theatre and The True Story of Butterfish is his first work simultaneously written as a novel and a play.

When: Thursday 9 July, 6.30pm for 7pm
Cost: Tickets are $10 or $7 concession.
Visit www.gleebooks.com.au to reserve a place.

If you’d rather not have to leave home to hear from some great authors, visit our author podcast page during July. We’ve recently interviewed Dominic Knight, Susannah Fullerton (Brief Encounters), Craig Silvey (Jasper Jones), and Louise Bagshawe (Passion). Visit www.sydneywriterscentre.com.au/podcast to hear from more Australian and international writers.

Books about writing

Most people are familiar with Stephen King’s book On Writing. Perhaps the fact that it was written by one of the most successful fiction writers of our time has helped its popularity. (Not only did it sell phenomenally well, it was listed in 'The New Classics: Books - The 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008' by Entertainment Weekly.) But King’s is only one of the many thousands of books out there on writing, so any budding author should be able to find something to suit their style. Here are just three writing books on offer.

The Little Red Writing Book by Mark Tredinnick
The beauty of this book is that it is possible to read it as a non-writer and still enjoy Mark Tredinnick’s lyrical style. It’s full of practical advice and also really good writing – the best way to learn how to write well is to read good writing, right?

Mark Tredinnick has many years experience as an editor as well as a writer so he certainly has the background for teaching writing. For me, as a non-writer, I found the book practical without it feeling like I was reading a text book.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the writer within by Natalie Goldberg
This one was recommended to me by a friend who is writing her PhD. For those in the know, it’s considered a classic text for writers. Natalie Goldberg is a creative writing teacher and Zen practitioner. The book was written in 1986 and has sold over one million copies worldwide.

This book is less of a technical tome on the task of writing and more a spiritual exploration of creativity as a whole. There are practical writing exercises throughout the book but they don’t have the disciplined approach you might find in other books about writing. Obviously Goldberg’s expertise in Zen influence her views on writing and creativity, so be prepared for some new-agey type theories here. But the book comes highly recommended and all the reviews I read online were positive.

Writing From Start to Finish by Kate Grenville
Kate Grenville has written four books on the process of writing, including one with fellow author Sue Woolfe. You could do a lot worse than take advice from Kate Grenville - she is writer-in-residence and Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney and has a doctorate in Creative Writing from UTS, so she really knows her stuff. She has published five novels and won a number of prestigious prizes for her work, including the Orange Prize for The Idea of Perfection in 2001. 

Writing from Start to Finish was also published in 2001. This is a practical guide to writing and outlines Kate’s own Six-Step-Method – gather ideas, choose the best one, make an outline, write a first draft, revise, and edit. The book is easy to follow with each step given its own chapter, which is then split into three sections – About, Example and Doing It. The book also includes a basic grammar and punctuation guide. It’s a book for everyone – experienced writers or those new to the craft, classes or individuals, poets, screenwriters or writers of fiction.

These are three very different approaches to writing and each one will benefit different people in different ways. Of course, I don’t claim to be an expert and if anyone out there can suggest a book on writing that they think should be part of any writers library, I’d love to hear from you. 

                          

Book Rant

Booker Prize winning novelist John Banville describes himself as a ‘slow’ writer, a writer more concerned with his prose than his characters and stories. So, writing under his pen name, Benjamin Black, represents a massive change for him stylistically. Banville describes his alter ego as a fluid writer who loves telling stories; he treats him almost like a fictional character going so far as to ‘confront’ him in a revealing interview on Black's website.

I’ve almost finished reading Christine Falls, the debut novel from Benjamin Black. Set in 1950s Dublin, this crime novel follows the pathologist, Quirke, a single, 40-something widower living in a small apartment in Mount Street (the very same apartment building that John Banville lived in as a ‘struggling young writer’ in the 1960s). After an office party one night, Quirke stumbles on his brother-in-law altering the file for a body that has arrived in the morgue that evening. His consequent investigation opens up a can of worms leading to discoveries about Dublin’s powerful Catholic network and his own family.

I thought I was going to enjoy this book more than I did. I was looking forward to a more literary take on the crime novel, something that offers the page-turning suspense of an airport novel but with writing of a more bookish style. But the start of this book felt a little clumsy to me. I wasn’t really attracted to any of the characters, certainly not Quirke (whose physical attraction to his 19 year-old niece just felt creepy), and the writing also felt uncomfortable in a way. Here’s a description of Quirke’s brother in law, pediatrician Malachy Griffin:

“Husbands at visiting time sighed when their wives began to speak of Mr Griffin, and many a boy-child born here at the Holy Family Hospital was obliged to venture out upon the obstacle course of life bearing what Quirke was sure would be the not inconsiderable handicap of being called Malachy.”

Try saying that ten times quickly.

But it does improve in later chapters, almost like Black was just warming up in the early stages and found his rhythm later on. It never quite gets there in terms of suspense, but it is an engaging story and I think that’s more important to the author. I still have a few chapters to go (yes, I know – it’s taking me forever to get through these books), and it all seems to be coming together now. Who knows, maybe once I’ve finished it I’ll take it all back and write a glowing rant next week!

Selling your book means marketing your book!

Tim Winton is now in the happy position of being a sure fire hit in publishing. His publisher, Penguin, apparently spares no expense on marketing his books – his latest book, Breath, even features on bus advertising! Winton is highly sought after for festivals around the world and his speaking dates here in Australia often sell out. But none of this means he can be complacent – even Tim Winton needs to keep selling his books.

Of course new authors don’t always have the benefit of a big publisher, and a big budget, to help market their books. Take a look in any bookstore and you’ll see why a great marketing campaign is pretty much essential for new releases. Imagine trying to sell your book in one of the larger bookstores in the city – there must be tens of thousands of books in some of these stores, many of which are positioned spine out on an endless line of book shelves.

Large publishers will have entire departments devoted to marketing and many also hire publicists to work on certain releases. So what do you do if you don’t have access to those resources? If you’re self-publishing or you’re a new author, you may have to do a lot of marketing yourself. This isn’t a bad thing – having control of this part of your publishing journey gives you the freedom to decide how and where your book is marketed. And there are so many ways now that you can market your book from home. Online options are endless! Google ‘book marketing’ and you’ll have access to thousands of websites and blogs with advice on how to market your book.

Former Sydney Writers’ Centre student Amanda Falconer is living proof that an effective marketing campaign can turn your book into a success story. She’s a brand and marketing expert, and also author of The Renovator’s Survival Guide. She has over 20 years' experience in marketing so it’s not surprising that her publicity for The Renovator’s Survival Guide has been so successful – she’s appeared on two morning tv programs, had an article published in the Sunday Telegraph and has done a number of radio interviews to promote the book.

Now, she’s coming back to the Sydney Writers’ Centre, but this time to teach! The new course, Marketing Your Book, is an intensive, three session course that will give authors the inside knowledge they need to get their book out there. Online marketing, media interviews, generating publicity – we'll tell you about all of it!

Marketing Your Book with Amanda Falconer
When: Every Wednesday evening starting Wednesday 22 July 2009 for three weeks
Time: 6.30-8.30pm
Cost: $235

Win a copy of "Inside Steve's Brain: Business Lessons from Steve Jobs, the Man who Saved Apple"

For your chance to win a copy of Inside Steve's Brain: Business Lessons from Steve Jobs, the Man who Saved Apple by Leander Kahney, you'll need to answer the question in the video. Simply email your answer, full name and postal address to competitions@spindriftmedia.com.au by 5pm, Friday 12 June 2009 for your chance to win.

Catcher in the Rye sequel

I saw an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald today about a sequel to J.D. Salinger’s classic novel, The Catcher in the Rye. The sequel has been written by John David California, and follows the adventures of a certain ‘Mr C’ who has escaped his nursing home to wander the streets of New York. Sound familiar?

It’s called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Salinger is suing the author and publisher, Windupbird Publishing. While Salinger is notoriously litigious – so litigious, in fact, he’s even sued to prevent his own work from being published – this latest attempt to halt the publication of a book is certainly justified.

This isn’t the first time an author has taken on the task of writing a sequel or prequel for a classic book – authorised or unauthorised. There are almost 20 sequels and prequels listed in Wikipedia for Peter Pan. Les Miserables also has a number of sequels written by various authors, most of which are not liked by Hugo purists. The author of Brideshead Regained was sued by Evelyn Waugh’s family, though they eventually agreed he could publish his sequel for Brideshead Revisited provided he make it clear it was not approved by the Waugh estate. And there are countless books based on Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings series.

But if a work is not yet in the public domain, or the copyright is still current, it can be tricky to get away with basing your work on another novel. Sequels and prequels can be extremely lucrative to publishers and authors, but surely any publisher with even a basic understanding of copyright would steer clear of something like this.

The author says he wrote the book because “[Caulfield] deserves to have another life than just his 16 years". Does he? Catcher in the Rye is rightly considered a 20th century classic and is not going to fall out of favour any time soon, but that is not reason enough to assume the role of one great character’s saviour by reviving him 60 years later.

This will either be an interesting case or, if Nick Sarno of Green Lantern Press is right, we’ve all fallen for yet another literary hoax.