Sydney Writers' Centre blog

5 Great Australian Writing Blogs

These are just five blogs that I visit and read regularly. There are countless blogs on writing and reading, but I often find I’m reading blogs from America or the UK. These blogs all offer a uniquely Australian view.

Literary Minded
This is the blog of Melbourne based writer and reviewer, Angela Meyer. There are plenty of book reviews here but also lots of insights into her own journey as a writer and also the publishing world in Melbourne and Australia.

Girl with a Satchel
We’ve featured this one before in our newsletter but I think it’s worth another mention here. If you’re into magazines (especially glossy, fashion ones) this is a really interesting blog. It’s written by Erica Bartle and regularly dissects the latest ‘glossies’, with a view to finding the ‘good in gloss’.

Speakeasy – The Australian Writer’s Marketplace blog
This is the blog of The Australian Writer’s Marketplace, which is an annual directory for writers in Australia and New Zealand. Their blog’s all about writing and publishing news and events around Australia. Plenty of interesting and informative posts on just about everything to do with writing in Australia. 

Electric Alphabet
Kate Eltham is the Chief Executive Officer of the Queensland Writers Centre and also a writer and blogger. This one appeals mainly because of the title! But it also has plenty of interesting posts about writing and publishing in Oz, particularly on e-books, mobile content and digital publishing innovations.

Overland
Overland magazine has been around since 1954 and is committed to publishing new and marginal writers. This blog actually uses a number of writers, mainly Overland staff. There’s lots of interesting articles about the world of publishing and also info on competitions and events.

Obviously I’ve barely scratched the surface here. There are plenty more Australian authors and bloggers writing about their experience as writers and publishers. Apart from the useful information - some of which can be found in a myriad of other places - it can often be the blogger's voice that offers insight into the industry and a unique take on what's really going on.

Writing competitions in August

These are just few of the many writing competitions closing in August - hopefully enough to keep you busy for the next couple of weeks!

Entries for the David Harold Tribe Fiction Award (which we mentioned in our newsletter back in April this year) close on Friday 7 August 2009. This is an incredibly generous award - $11,000 will go to the author of the best original piece of short fiction. Visit the website for more details and an entry form.

Also closing on 7 August is the Manchester Fiction Prize. This one is open to writers over 16 years of age from anywhere in the world. The prize of ₤10,000 will be awarded to the best short story of up to 5,000 words in length, on any subject and written in any style. Only works that have not been published or submitted elsewhere can be entered. Full details and an entry form can be found on the Manchester Metropolitan University website.

A little closer to home, the annual Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize is now open. Sponsored by the University of Southern Queensland’s Arts Faculty and endowed by the popular Australian poet Bruce Dawe, the $1500 award is to encourage the arts and particularly poetry in all universities in Australia. Entries close on Friday 14 August 2009 and full details and an entry form can be found on the Faculty's website. (I had some problems with the link to the entry form so call the faculty if you also have problems.)

If you’re more interested in hearing from other people who write, the Melbourne Writers Festival will be held 21 to 30 August 2009. The program is now available online at www.mwf.com.au and it looks like it will be an intensive week of workshops, panels, concerts and other special events. If you’re in Melbourne, it will be well worth a visit. If you’re not in Melbourne – get there! And get there quickly – sessions are already selling out.

Book Rant

American Rust is the debut novel for author Phillip Meyer. Meyer has an interesting background in, well, lots of things. He worked for some years as a derivatives trader for UBS and then decided to pursue writing full-time. His depleted savings prompted him to take work in construction and also as a medical technician.

He had planned to train as a paramedic when he was offered a fellowship at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin. He has since received fellowships and residencies at a number of writing organisations in the US. 

I’m not sure I should be enjoying this book as much as I am. All the characters are just so miserable! But it’s an accurate portrayal of life in America’s rust belt, where once prosperous towns and cities are now decaying and residents flee seemingly as quickly as American jobs are sent overseas.

Isaac English and Billy Poe are high-school friends. Isaac is a genius (he has an IQ of 167) but he’s stuck at home looking after his disabled father, while his sister heads off to Yale. Billy is a former football star who should have gone on to college and a better life, but whose lack of motivation and violent tendencies see him living at home with his mother – no job and no prospects. Isaac decides to leave town but on his last night, him and Poe find themselves in a situation that leads to murder and the unravelling of all Isaac’s plans.  

The story is told from the point of view of six different characters. Meyer writes as his characters think – sentences are sometimes long and nonsensical and he often leaves out questions marks, particularly in Poe’s chapters.

Meyer’s website notes that ‘he believes that the representation of internal consciousness is one of literature’s most important capabilities; much of his writing is influenced by the work of pioneers such as Joyce, Faulkner, Woolf, and Hemingway’ and I had thought of Joyce as I was reading American Rust, though I think Meyer does the stream of consciousness thing much better – there’s no pretension in it and it’s not meant to confuse the reader. I actually found the characters much more appealing as I really felt like I was getting inside their heads.

And I’m utterly gripped by the story! It’s so engrossing, probably because of its accurate reflection of life in these towns and of the hopelessness caused by unemployment and boredom. There’s often an overwhelming sense of doom – with only a few chapters to go I’m really not confident that things are going to turn out well – but there’s nothing like a well told story, with amazingly well-written characters, to keep you going.

Productivity Commission's verdict is in

This week, the Productivity Commission released its report on parallel importation rules for the Australian publishing industry. 

This has been a thorny issue for some months now and the report, not unexpectedly, has been greeted generally with horror by authors, publishers, printers and various writers’ organisations. 

It’s a tricky topic to cover in great detail if you’re not familiar with the legal and economic implications of parallel importation, which was implemented in the early 1990s by the Hawke/Keating government. 

So how do you make a decision on where you stand on this issue? Both sides have great arguments. Authors and publishers want to protect our culture as well as the income of writers. Certain booksellers (certainly not all) want to be able to sell cheaper books. Book buyers are increasingly turning to cheaper online bookstores for their books. 

There have been some really interesting blog posts and articles written in response to the report and I thought I’d share them here. The Australian Bookseller and Publisher site has a good article outlining the issues on its website. The Australian Writers’ Marketplace blog, Speakeasy, also has an excellent summary.  

For arguments against the commission’s findings, check out the Australian Society of Authors website as well as some author responses - Garth Nix and Nick Earles, and Shane Maloney. 

For the arguments for, see Bob Carr’s editorial in The Australian as well as author and publisher Michael Wilding’s response in The Sydney Morning Herald. 

You can also view the recent debate between Don Grover, CEO of Dymocks, and author Garth Nix on ABC's Lateline in May. 

Of course, these links are just the tip of the iceberg, but I hope they help to make sense of what's becoming an extremely emotive and political issue. 

Last minute poetry competitions

There’s nothing like a deadline to inspire your writing so here are three poetry competitions closing very soon.

Wednesday 15 July 2009 – Max Harris Poetry Competition
You really do need to get in quick with this one. The Max Harris Poetry Competition is sponsored by the Poetry and Poetics Centre at the University of South Australia. It was established in 1993 with the support of the late Max Harris, an acclaimed poet and author of many collections including The Coorong and Other Poems, A Window at Night and Poetic Gems.

Poets are invited to enter up to three poems and the first prize is $3,000 and publication on the Poetry and Poetics Centre website. Up to ten shortlisted poems will also be published. Entry fee is $10 plus an extra $5 per poem for additional poems (up to two). For full details and an entry form visit www.poetryandpoetics.com.

Thursday 16 July 2009 – Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize
This is a biennial award offering an Australian poet the chance to visit Ireland (in alternate years, an Irish poet visits Melbourne). The prize includes airfares and some living expenses to the value of $10,000.

The prize was established to commemorate the life of poet and critic Vincent Buckley, who was also a Professor of English at the University of Melbourne.

If you have a body of work and a plan for your time in Ireland, you have until this Thursday to get your application in. For full details and an application form visit www.australian.unimelb.edu.au.

Friday 31 July 2009 -  Ipswich Poetry Feast International Competition
You can breath a little easier with this one – entries don’t close until the end of the month. The Ipswich Poetry Feast is held annually and comprises competitions, workshops and school events held throughout the year.

There’s over $6,000 in cash prizes on offer in a range of age groups and categories. Children as young as five can enter poems and there are three ‘Open Age’ categories – bush poetry, local poetry and other poetry. For full details and entry forms visit www.ipswichpoetryfeast.com.au.

Book Rant

 This is a good book. A really good book.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid was published in 2007 and short-listed for the Man Booker Prize that same year. It’s a story about a Pakistani man called Changez. One evening, in a café in Lahore, he meets an American man and Changez tells him the story of his time in New York – and what drove him back to Pakistan.

I was sucked in from the first page. Although I found the one-sided conversational style slightly awkward to start with, within a few pages I was used to it. Changez’s American companion is a paranoid and nervous character (who never speaks to the reader – the conversation is conveyed through Changez’s responses only) – a fitting representative of the general paranoia that swept the world after 9/11. From Changez, you get a sense of the frustration that many people in countries such as Pakistan must have felt (and probably still do) in the years since the terrorist attacks on the US.

Changez frustrated me in parts of the book. I couldn’t quite understand his tendency towards self-destruction. His demise was ultimately his own doing, certainly in his professional life, but eventually you get a sense of the importance of family to him and also his latent animosity towards America and its international clout – and how these drove him to make the decisions he made.

His fundamentalism is actually quite ambiguous. You never really get a sense of what his intentions are in his role as a reluctant fundamentalist – the title could mean anything. I think that makes the book’s message all the more powerful.

It’s a very political book, but I think it deserves to be read as much for its beautiful writing as its message.

More July happenings

Here are a couple of interesting events that have caught my eye. 

For poets in Sydney, the Live Poets@Don Bank meet again on Wednesday 22 July 2009. This month they’ll be featuring ‘Voices from Asia’. Chinese born Sherry Chan will read from her bi-lingual book of poetry, Moonlight of Romance. From Sri Lanka, Tamil poet and actor Bhagavadas Sriskanthadas will also be reading some of his work, as will Dona Zappone from Malaysia.

As usual, the open section will also welcome anyone who’d like to recite their own work, sing a song, tell a story or just entertain!

For further info phone 02 9896 6956 or 0422 263 373, or email dannylivepoets@yahoo.com.au. Entry is $7 including supper and drinks. Live Poets @ Don Bank is held at 6 Napier Street, North Sydney.

 In Melbourne next week, the Reader’s Feast Crime and Justice Festival will be held at the historic Abbotsford Convent. From 17 to 19 July 2009, you can catch Australian and visiting international authors such as Lamar Waldron, author of Legacy of Secrecy: the long shadow of the JFK assassination; Scott Frost, screenwriter (Twin Peaks and The X-Files) and author of the Lieutenant Alex Delillo crime novels; Jay Dobyns, undercover agent and author of No Angel; and Linwood Barclay, whose latest novel is Fear the Worst.

(Watch our podcast page for interviews with Linwood Barclay and Scott Frost coming soon!)

Australian authors will also be well represented with Barry Maitland, Garry Disher, Kerry Greenwood, Mark Abernethy, Robert Sims, Fiona McIntosh, Robert Gott and Angela Savage all making an appearance.

The festival combines high quality crime fiction with discussion of law, human rights and social justice. Panel discussions will look at issues as wide-ranging as the politics and culture or killing, the fairness of the justice system, and the legacy of John F Kennedy’s assassination.

Tickets are on sale now and you can buy them directly through the website, www.crimeandjusticefestival.com. For more information you can also contact Reader’s Feast Bookstore on 03 9842 9740 or visit www.readersfeast.com.au.

New Writing Prize for Women

Aurora Metro Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Richmond-upon-Thames in England. This year is their 20th anniversary and to celebrate, they’ve launched a new writing competition for women.

The Virginia Prize for Fiction is named after Virginia Woolfe, who published her first novel, The Voyage Out, while living in Richmond. The organisers have named the prize after her to celebrate her literary contribution and as an inspiration to young women writers.

Any woman over the age of 18 can enter an unpublished novel in English. Entries from around the world will be accepted. The shortlist will be compiled in October and the £1000 prize will be awarded in November at the Book Now! Literary Festival in Richmond. The winner will also have their entry published by Aurora Metro Press next year.

If you’d like to enter visit www.aurorametro.com for more details and an entry form. You have until 15 September to enter your manuscript.

Allen & Unwin Iremonger Award

Entries are now being accepted for the annual Iremonger Awards from Allen & Unwin. This award represents a unique opportunity for authors of non-fiction to submit a proposal to one of Australia’s best known publishers.

If you have an idea for a book of ‘political, social and cultural commentary with contemporary Australian relevance’, check out the entry guidelines at www.allenandunwin.com. On offer is prize money of $10,000, guaranteed publication, royalties on sales, and editorial support to turn your proposal into a finished manuscript. 

The award was instituted by Allen & Unwin in 2003 in memory of John Iremonger, who was a publisher with the company for almost 20 years. He was well known for his strong social conscience and compassion.

Previous winners include Irfan Yusuf, for his book Once Were Radicals (2009) and Bob Burton for Inside Spin (2005).

Entries close on 1 September 2009, so get that proposal started now!

HALP!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures