Matilda

I love it when I read blogs out of the US and find people complaining about the price of books there: $12.99 for a paperback! $26.99 for a hardback!  That sort of thing.  For those who do the complaining have a look at this interview in "The Courier-Mail" with Jeff Lindsay, author of the Dexter series of crime novels.  Check out the last line, containing the price of his latest novel in Australia.  I think my hardback copy of The Dome by Stephen King cost me just on fifty dollars, and that was, what?, 10,000 pages or so.

Christos Tsiolkas has been touring the UK promoting The Slap, and appears to have created a bit of a stir at the Edinburgh festival by complaining that European literature is "dry and academic, and not in the best way, but in a cheap, shitey way".  

The nominess for the 2010 World Fantasy Awards (for works published during 2009) have been released.

Of interest to Australians are the following nominees:

Novella

"Sea-Hearts" by Margo Lanagan

Anthology

Eclipse Three edited by Jonathan Strahan

Special Award - Professional

Jonathan Strahan for editing anthologies

The awards will be presented at World Fantasy Convention 36, to be held in Columbus Ohio, USA, October 28-31, 2010.

The winners of the 2010 CBCA Book of the Year Awards have been announced. These awards honour the best in Australian books for children.

Older Readers Book of the Year
Winner
Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen (Penguin Group Australia)

Honour Books
The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke (Allen & Unwin)
A Small Free Kiss in the Dark by Glenda Millard (Allen & Unwin)

Younger Readers Book of the Year
Winner
Darius Bell And The Glitter Pool by Odo Hirsch (Allen & Unwin)

Honour Books
Pearl Verses The World by Sally Murphy (Walker Books)
Running With The Horses by Alison Lester (Viking, Penguin Group Australia)

Early Childhood Book of the Year
Winner
Bear And Chook By The Sea by Lisa Shanahan and Emma Quay (Lothian Children's Books, Hachette)

Honour Books
Clancy and Millie and the Very Fine House by Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood (Little Hare Books)
Kip by Christina Booth (Windy Hollow Books)

Picture Book of the Year
Winner
The Hero Of Little Street by Gregory Rogers (Allen & Unwin)

Honour Books
Fox And Fine Feathers by Narelle Oliver (Omnibus Books, Scholastic Australia)
Isabella's Garden by Glenda Millard and Rebecca Cool (Walker Books)

The Eve Pownall Award for Information Books
Winner
Australian Backyard Explorer by Peter Macinnis (National Library of Australia)

Honour Books
Maralinga: The Anangu Story by The Yalata And Oak Valley Communities (Allen & Unwin)
Polar Eyes: A Journey to Antarctica by Tanya Patrick and Nicholas Hutcheson (CSIRO)

Monkey Grip by Helen Garner, 1977
Cover photograph: Noni Hazlehurst as Nora, from the film adaptation of the novel
Penguin edition 1983

The shortlists for the 2010 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards have now been released.

Fiction

Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America, Penguin Group (Australia)
Brian Castro, The Bath Fugues, Giramondo Publishing Company
J.M. Coetzee, Summertime, Random House Australia
Steven Lang, 88 Lines About 44 Women, Penguin Group (Australia)
Alex Miller, Lovesong, Allen & Unwin

Emerging Queensland Author - Manuscript Award

Matthew Lamb, Down to the River
Nikki McWatters, The Desert of Paradise
Noel Mengel, RPM

Unpublished Indigenous Writer - Arts Queensland David Unaipon Award

Sam Cook, ACES, DEUCES, KINGS and QUEENS
Tjanara Goreng-Goreng, The Red Earth
Jeanine Leane, Purple Threads
Shawn Wondunna-Foley, Dingo finds a friend

Non-Fiction Book Award

Krissy Kneen, Affection, The Text Publishing Company
Mary-Rose MacColl, The Birth Wars, University of Queensland Press
Alasdair McGregor, Grand Obsessions: The Life and Work of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, Penguin Group (Australia)
Mark Tredinnick, The Blue Plateau: A Landscape Memoir, University of Queensland Press
Brenda Walker, Reading by Moonlight: How books saved a life, Penguin Group (Australia)

History Book - Faculty of Arts, University of Queensland Award

Bain Attwood, Possession: Batman's Treaty and the Matter of History, Melbourne University Publishing Limited
Maria Hill, Diggers and Greeks: the Australian campaigns in Greece and Crete, University of New South Wales Press
Ian Hoskins, Sydney Harbour: A history, University of New South Wales Press
Grace Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, Allen & Unwin
Thomas Keneally, Australians: Origins to Eureka, Allen & Unwin

Children's Book - Mary Ryan's Award

Bronwyn Bancroft, Why I Love Australia, Little Hare Books
Glenda Millard, Isabella's Garden, Illustrated by Rebecca Cool, Walker Books Australia
Glenda Millard, All the Colours of Paradise, Illustrated by Stephen Michael King, HarperCollinsPublishers Aust Pty Limited
Sally Murphy, Toppling, Illustrated by Rhian Nest James, Walker Books Australia
Narelle Oliver, Fox and Fine Feathers, Omnibus Books

Young Adult Book Award

Phillip Gwynne, Swerve, Penguin Group (Australia)
Justine Larbalestier, Liar, Allen & Unwin
Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son, Penguin Group (Australia)
Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan, Illustrated by Keith Thompson, Penguin Group (Australia)
Richard Yaxley, Drink the Air, Richard Yaxley

Science Writer Award

Elizabeth Finkel, "Black harvest" (Cosmos: The Science of Everything - Issue 27), Luna Media
Elizabeth Finkel, "The trouble with genes" (Cosmos: The Science of Everything - Issue 31), Luna Media
Clive Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: Why we resist the truth about climate change, Allen & Unwin
Sonya Pemberton, Catching Cancer, December Films and Pemberton Films
Julian Pepperell, Fishes of the open ocean: a natural history and illustrated guide, Illustrated by Guy Harvey, University of New South Wales Press

Poetry Collection - Arts Queensland Judith Wright Calanthe Award

Peter Boyle, Apocrypha, Vagabond Press
Jennifer Maiden, Pirate Rain, Giramondo Publishing Company
Les Murray, Taller When Prone, Black Inc.
Maria Takolander, Ghostly Subjects, Salt Publishing

Australian Short Story Collection - Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Award

Peter Goldsworthy, Gravel, Penguin Group (Australia)
Karen Hitchcock, Little White Slips, Picador
Thomas Shapcott, Gatherers and Hunters, Wakefield Press
Archie Weller, The Window Seat, University of Queensland Press

Literary or Media Work Advancing Public Debate - The Harry Williams Award

Annabel Crabb, Quarterly Essay 34: Stop at Nothing - The Life and Adventures of Malcolm Turnbull, Black Inc.
Clive Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: Why we resist the truth about climate change, Allen & Unwin
Marcia Langton, "The resource curse", Griffith Review
Mary-Rose MacColl, The Birth Wars, University of Queensland Press
Michael McKenna, "Shocked to the core", The Australian, 23 June 2009

Film Script - Screen Queensland Award

Shirley Barrett, South Solitary, Macgowan Films Pty Ltd
David Michôd, Animal Kingdom, Porchlight Films Pty Ltd
David Roach, Beneath Hill 60, The Silence Productions Pty Ltd

Drama Script (Stage) Award

Daniel Keene, Duets
Joanna Murray-Smith, Rockabye, Currency Press Pty Ltd
Melissa Reeves, Furious Mattress
Sven Swenson, The Bitterling
Rick Viede, Whore

Television Script - QUT Creative Industries Award

Glen Dolman, Hawke, The Film Company
Peter Duncan, Rake Episode 1 "R v Murray", Essential Media and Entertainment Pty Ltd
Peter Gawler, A Model Daughter: The Killing of Caroline Byrne, Screentime Pty Ltd
John Misto, Sisters of War, Australian Broadcasting Corporation/Pericles Film Productions Pty Ltd

The winners will be announced on August 31st.

A shabby volume on the ledge;
   An idle hand that drew it forth;
Like him who slumbered in the sedge,
   There dwelt the Prophet of the North.

Wayfarer! --- Erst with heavy tread
   The paths of Story wont to trace---
What glamour on thine eyes is shed;
   That fain thou lingerest in the place?

Methought the Masters all were gone,
   Or quenched their fires --- by age bestowed;  
Yet now, behold, a light hath shone;
   Once more a message is bestowed!

From shores held sterile there hath sailed
   A galleon filled with richest freight.
O truthful picture slow unveiled!
   O precious word long untranslate!

We gazed --- yet scarce might understand.
   We hearkened --- to the voice alone.
We praised the labour of his hand,
   And still his heart remained unknown.

We drank with him the joy of Spring;  
   In Cossack foray learnt to ride;
With him we heard the gipsies sing---
   The cannon by the Euxine tide.

Then --- sleepless in the hour when none
   Save humankind unslumbering lie---
When stars are pallid and the sun
   Unlit, and weaklings faint and die--  

With sudden skill we read the rune---
   All tremulous and yet elate---
"Dread thou no dole; crave thou no boon;
   Be Duty unto thee as Fate!"

First published in The Queenslander, 1 June 1889

It seems that we have to go through a long experimental stage in order to find ourselves. This is only natural in a nation composed of so many diverse stocks as ours. But out of all the chaos the national muse will emerge at last, smiling and serene, for, above all other things, the Australian is intent upon all that he does. From the galloping rhymes which stirred our fathers we tend now to swing to the other extreme. Most of our poets are busy studying style and the lore of other countries, and in that we can only be imitative. Take the work of Dulcie Deamer and Bettie Riddell, both of whom spend much energy upon classical legend. The legend of the Maori and the aboriginal should lend themselves to rhyme as much as the classical myths. In the abstract the mournful aboriginal and the courageous Maori are poetical -- equally with the noble Red Man so lauded by American poets. Especially the Maori. His appearance, his prowess in war, his mysterious origin -- all these should provide much scope. But apparently our poets are left cold. Every wild race has its yearnings and ideals -- emotions often incomprehensible to the white mind, because the dark man cannot or will not explain them. If we could contrive his unity with nature, in addition to our book-learning, what poets might arise!

The Great Out-of-Doors.

This intangible something is every where at hand in the bush, but, unfortunately, poets tend to congregate in towns. Any morning the essence of many secrets can be felt rising and wreathing about one like incense in the great outdoors. It seems to be waiting for the eye and the ear that can understand. Many bushmen feel it, but they could not express it in words. It is the magic that would emanate from a very old woman, who retained the beauty of youth until her death -- a "She" incarnate. Who is going to seize upon the weird glamour and sing of it? If we are ever going to have any characteristic poetry of our own it must strike the happy medium between the old galloping rhymes and the modern tendency to stray into other pastures. In the great area of this continent there must lie plenty of scope for hundreds of pen-points, hundreds of bards. We are ready to enjoy any type of good poetry, but it seems inevitable that the poet who will be selected as our national one will be a man or woman who inter- prets the message of the Australian landscape. From the foam of the Pacific, the sands of the desert, the opal-tinted ranges, the mines, the wells of oil and water, the grassy plains, his inspiration must come. And that it will come there is no doubt.

Foreign Inspiration.

In the meantime it is of little use to complain that our poets turn to other countries for their subject matter. If they live in towns they cannot understand the true Australia any more than a man in New York or London or Ontario could fully grasp the American, English, or Canadian countryside. Perhaps, in their ambition and thirst for knowledge, they read too much. There may be such a thing as cramming, even in regard to poetry. Otherwise, why do Mabel Forrest, Dorothy MacKellar, and Myra Morris persistently introduce foreign climes, Eastern pageantry. Why are the Celtic mystics so much felt in the poems of L. Lucas and S. Neilson, the classical influence in Z. Cross and H. M'Crae? Even Edward Vidler himself, in his exquisite little play, "The Rose of Ravenna," went to old and mellow times for his plot. Still, all this is excusable. Poetry is universal, and all who run may read. A poet cannot be bound any more than a bird. Cage a feathered songster, and the best of its songs are mute -- certainly the fresh, wild ecstasy goes. It is useless to tell a poet that he must turn this way or that way for his subject matter. It only hampers and embarrasses him.

And it is not a scrap of use to be ashamed of being Australian. In the first place, why should we? It was with mingled feelings that I read in the "Galmahra" of October last the following sentiments re Jack Lindsay's publication, "Vision":

"It represents one of the landmarks of Australian literature, for it crystallised the growing revolt of the younger literary generation both against the shackles of 'local colour,' and against the too-convenient Swinburnian dress that Australian verse had, for the most part, worn since the days of Adam Lindsay Gordon and Kendall."

The Place of Local Colour.

Let that "too-convenient dress" "go by all means, but why, in the name of reason, should we be averse to "local colour"? If one takes up a book of verse by a poet from South Africa, does one hope to read of larks and dells and fens? No, one probably finds, and certainly hopes to, a thing like "Zulu Girl":

When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder,
   Down where the sweating gang its labour piles,
A girl throws down her hoe and from her shoulder,
   Unslings her child tormented by the flies.
She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled
By thorn-trees; purpled with the death of ticks.

-something that breathes of veldt and kopje and vast space. Any Australian ought to be equally typical of his country, or, if he is not, wishful of being so. Otherwise he is denouncing that which should be nearest and dearest to him. If he is reluctant to be Australian, then what is he going to be?

While oversea critics may label our work as doubtful because of its very atmosphere, I am confident they respect us all the more as they watch us developing along our own lines; watch the Australian--

Above the level desert's marge
Looming in his aloofness large while
From his life's monotony
He lifts a subtle melody.

to quote Arthur Adams' very true picture of "The Australian."

We are in a state of transition. Not that the stockman, sheep, or cattle have disappeared from our landscape. But other things have come as well. To our old interests new ones have been added, so that poets, as well as ordinary people, have new and universal themes. All we have to do is to be patient, and to encourage, to have faith in our poets and ourselves. It is very certain that there is light ahead.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 8 September 1928

The shortlists for the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards have now been announced.  These awards honor the best Australian writing within the crime genre during the previous year.  They are presented by the Crime Writers Association of Australia.

True Crime

Peter Doyle, Crooks Like Us, Historic Houses Trust
Kathy Marks, Pitcairn: Paradise Lost, Harper Collins
Robert  M.Kaplan, Medical Murder, Allen & Unwin

Best First Fiction

Andrew Croome, Document Z, Allen & Unwin
Mark Dapin, King of the Cross, Macmillan
Robin Adair, Death and the Running Patterer, Penguin

Best Fiction

Lenny Bartulin, The Black Russian, Scribe Publications
Michael Robotham, Bleed For Me, Hatchette
Garry Disher, Wyatt, Text

SH Harvey Short Story Award

Lucy Sussex, "The Fountain of Justice"
Zane Lovitt, "Leaving the Fountainhead"
Robert Goodman, "The Travertine Fountain"

Lifetime Achievement

Peter Doyle

The winners will be announced on Friday Sepotember 3rd during the Melbourne Writers Festival.

...postings has been pretty lightweight around here of late.  For months probably.

You can basically put this down to the work I'm doing helping to organise Aussiecon 4 which is currently occupying my thoughts for just about every spare waking hour, and quite a number of the sleeping ones as well.  In three weeks' time I'll be onto the last day of the convention and staring at the rest of my life when I never do this again; which is something to look forward to.

The activity hasn't been overly unpleasant, just time-consuming to an extent that I had hoped wouldn't occur.  But we make our choices, and we take our chances etc etc.

Don't expect much here for the next three to four weeks.  I'll be back in better shape later in the year.  Just for now, I'm simply trying to hang in there.

"Let others traverse sea and land, and toll through various climes, I turn the world round with my hand, reading these poets' rhymes." -- LONGFELLOW.

Grant me, ye bards of olden times,
   Of these thy melodies,
That I may give unto these rhymes
The charm which bears your mellow chimes
   Across the centuries.

Give me of this that I may sing--    
   In pleasure hunting days--  
Of the pure pleasures that you bring
To him who listens, wondering,
   Enraptured with thy lays.

There is no theme of this our earth,
   Or of the heavens above,
But that ye sang me from my birth;
Betimes in sorrow, oft in mirth;
   Of vengeance or of love.

Ye sing tbe future, and I see
   With thy far-reaching eyes
The bright days in the years to be
Wherein man shall, unsullied, free,
   To his true stature rise.

Ye sing the hate that brings unrest;
   The love that tenderly,
From realms on high, to many a breast
Comes soothingly, a welcome guest,
   And sings of Arcady.

Of war ye sing, and then of peace,
   And back the soldiers roam;
Of Life's long marchings -- Death's release --
Of Voice that bids our marchings cease,
   And bugles sounding "Home."

Thus in my heart the melody
   Is ringing, and I pray
That never may the hollow glee
Which masks the suff'ring debauchee
   E'er tempt my thoughts away.

But as the years the ages throng,
   And the long aeons fly,
Oh, still may thy "undying song"
Uplift tbe right, stamp out the wrong,
   And lead men to the sky.

First published in The Queenslander, 28 May 1898