AustLit

‘Why is it that comparatively few writers in Australia – a mere handful I am told – can state on their Income Tax Returns that their sole occupation is ‘Author’? I am convinced that the primary reason is cold feet, a state probably induced by the nerves waged on the prospective writer almost from the hour that he declares his intention. ‘In Australia it can’t be done,’ he will be told. ‘Even overseas it is hard enough and without an international reputation and outlet it is impossible.’ So unanimous and apparently authoritative is this advice that few ever set out with grim determination to disprove it. I humbly believe that something of my experience is worth passing on. I would prefer this piece not to be read if it is to be interpreted in any other light.’ (p. 17)

‘Someone, with a greater sense of arithmetic than one normally expects in literary commentators, once calculated that, if all the writers in the world who make a good living from literature were gathered together, they could be fitted into a single, reasonably sized room. He didn’t enlarge on the disastrous possibilities of such an exercise, but he did make his point that there is a vast and spiritually hungry population of us who do not now, nor ever shall, have access to that gilded room. ‘(p. 18)