Australian Publishers 'Fair' Well
Australian publishers were generally pleased with their reception at the 2005 London Book Fair. Australia and New Zealand were the 'Market Focus' countries for the Fair. Alistair Burtenshaw, Exhibition Director for the event, said he was 'delighted to be able to focus in on Australia and New Zealand [...] especially given the creativity, variety and vibrancy of their publishing industries'.

Writing for the Age (19 March 2005) at the conclusion of the Fair, Andrew Wilkins of Australian Bookseller & Publisher said that in addition to the official Australian and New Zealand stands there were seminars to introduce overseas publishers to the local book markets, official receptions and two 'very boozy parties'. Some of the sales prospects and successes reported by Wilkins include:

• Delia Falconer's forthcoming novel, The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers, attracting strong European interest
• Christos Tsiolkas's new novel of vengeful vampires, Dead Europe, being tipped for sale to the US, British and foreign-language markets

and

an offer on Kerry Greenwood's Phyrne Fisher series for translation into French

The one sticking point Wilkins noted was the issue of convincing UK publishers that Australia is a separate market. 'Many British publishers still insist on acquiring Australian rights to books when they buy UK rights, effectively squeezing Australian publishers out of the deal. And many US publishers won't sell books to Australian publishers for fear of offending the Brits.'

Is It Really the 'Best'?
Journalist Rob O'Neill has taken the unusual step of lodging a complaint under the Trade Practices Act with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). O'Neill has taken issue with Frank Moorhouse's The Best Australian Stories 2004, contending that 'the collection is not what it purports be: the best.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 25-27 March 2005) O'Neill, already dissatisfied with the selection process for the collection's inclusions, was further incensed by Moorhouse's claim ('To Cut a Long Story Short ...', Sydney Morning Herald, 19-20 February 2005) that his selections were of a superior quality to those found in The Best American Short Stories, 2004. O'Neill disagreed and decided to test the ACCC's regulations that businesses 'must not make false or misleading representations about products or services' (although they are permitted to use 'puffery' in the knowledge that 'nobody could possibly treat seriously' their claims). O'Neill acknowledges that the ACCC may receive his complaint with 'some bafflement', but hopes that in time 'we will all come to appreciate the commission as a permanent part of the literary landscape, the final court of appeal on matters of literary quality.'

Moorhouse has responded to O'Neill's argument, pleased that 'the short story can still arouse passionate argument.' However, Moorhouse has had no second thoughts about any of the anthology's stories: 'they were there because they told a fine story in Australia in the year 2004'. He also suggests that 'Most readers would intelligently construe the term best as a publishing or marketing title [...] but not a term to be taken papally by anyone I know...' (Sydney Morning Herald, 5 April 2005)

Details of the ACCC's regulations pertaining to Misleading and Exaggerated claims are available on the Commission's website.

Canberra Poet to Chair ACT Cultural Council
ACT Chief Minister and Minister for the Arts, Jon Stanhope has appointed Paul Hetherington as the new Chair of the ACT Cultural Council. Making the announcement Mr Stanhope said 'As an editor and poet, with extensive experience in the cultural sector, Dr Hetherington will bring leadership, a sound knowledge of government policy development and a broad expertise in the arts to the Council's deliberations.' (Media release, 4 April 2005)

Dr Hetherington moved to Canberra in 1990 to take up a position at the National Library of Australia. In addition to his poetry writing, he has edited the National Library of Australia News and The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 2 and Volume 3.

Australian PEN Honours the Work of Thomas Keneally
Australian PEN Centres has established a new award recognising 'an achievement in promoting freedom of expression, international understanding and access to literature as expressed in the charter of International PEN.' The award is named in honour of Thomas Keneally for 'his lifetime's commitment to the values of PEN'. The inaugural recipient of the prize is Joesoef Isak, the Indonesian publisher and translator who was imprisoned for ten years for publishing such works as the novels of Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

One of Keneally's activities in promoting freedom of expression is his highlighting of the plight of refugees in Australia. To that end he has been instrumental in gathering the writing of asylum seekers and making them publicly available. Another Country features the writing of people held in Australian detention centres and those recently released. It is co-edited by Keneally with Rosie Scott and was originally published in 2004 on behalf of PEN in a limited edition. It has now gone into its third edition and this latest version will be launched outside the Baxter Detention Centre on 30 April 2005.

Further information on the Keneally Award and the launch of Another Country is available on the PEN website.

Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Added to Fisher Library Collection
Colin Steele, Emeritus Fellow and former Librarian at the Australian National University, has donated his extensive science fiction, fantasy and horror collection to the Fisher Library at The University of Sydney. Steele's collection is recognised as 'one of the largest and most significant private collections in Australia. Built up over many years in England and Australia, this comprehensive collection includes complete works of leading overseas and Australian authors, reference works and anthologies and rare early journals and fanzines.' (Rare Books Library, Colin Steele Exhibition) The Friends of the University of Sydney Library celebrated the donation with a function on 8 March with fantasy writer Garth Nix launching the new addition to the Library.

A display of materials from Steele's collection, along with other rare works, is on show for several months in the foyer of the Rare Books Library, Level 2 of the Fisher Library.

Barbara Blackman Revives the Fortunes of Classical Music in the ACT
Following years of careful investment Barbara Blackman has decided to set aside $1 million to establish Enterprises for Contemporary Music Audiences. The organisation will support a number of projects in Canberra and will offer a grant to the Australian Chamber Orchestra to commission new works by Australian composers.

Blackman grew up in Brisbane during the 1930s and 1940s and was influenced by the group of writers surrounding the literary magazine Barjai. After graduating from The University of Queensland she lived in Melbourne before spending time overseas with her husband, painter Charles Blackman. Blackman always maintained her links with Australia's artistic community, particularly through theatre and radio. She moved to Canberra from her Kangaroo Valley home several years ago.

YA Novelist Fosters 'Footy, Beer and Girls' Programme
Author of young adult fiction, Scot Gardner, is running a schools-based programme known as 'Footy, Beer and Girls'. The programme was developed by Gardner and social worker Peter Little as a response to community violence perpetrated by young men and is aimed at adolescent males who are at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Gardner's commitment to the programme stems in part from his own school days. Bored with the whole experience, Gardner left after Year 10 and took up an apprenticeship. He gradually found his way back into the education system studying massage, counselling and psychotherapy. Gardner's novels reflect his insights into the world of young Australian males. His latest book, The Legend of Kevin the Plumber, is a humorous look at a boy's coming-of-age experiences.

Gardner's and Little's submission to the Parliamentary Committee Enquiry into Boys Education can be found on the Parliament of Australia website.

Entertaining Writers
Two of Australia's most popular current novelists have been included on Business Review Weekly's list of the nation's top 50 entertainers. Bryce Courtenay appears at no.29 and Matthew Reilly at no.44. The list, headed by children's entertainers The Wiggles, is dominated by actors and musicians.

Updates on stories covered in previous AustLit newsletters:

From Academy to Marketplace (February-March 2005) –
To follow the discussion on the morphing of academic theses into marketable books see:

• 'Hawking Our Wares' by John Byron, Executive Director of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, in Symposium, no.29, March 2005

and

• 'Commentary' by publisher Tom Griffiths in Australian Book Review, no.268, February 2005

Consternation over Sale of Patrick White's Home (November-December 2004) –
The National Trust of Australia requested a three-month postponement of the auction of Patrick's White's home after it was listed for sale on 24 November 2004. In the early months of 2005 the Trust sought to raise $4 million from the general public and through federal, state and local government support. However, no government support was forthcoming and less than $100,000 was raised from private donations. The auction of the Centennial Park property was re-scheduled for 6 April 2005 but was passed in after attracting only one bid.

The Trust now hopes to revive government interest in retaining the property as part of the public estate. Following the abortive auction, NSW Executive Director of the Trust, Elsa Atkin said she was still committed to providing the Australian public with the opportunity 'to sit in the study of a man who wrote those wonderful novels that told us what it was like to be an Australian.' (AAP transcript, 6 April 2005)

Emeritus Honour for Margaret Scott
The Australia Council has recognised the distinguished career of poet, novelist and teacher Margaret Scott by awarding her the Writers' Emeritus Award. Honouring Scott's contribution to the arts, Australia Council CEO Jennifer Bott acknowledged the Tasmanian's 'remarkable literary talent. Her storytelling ability, the ease with which she blends the colloquial and the luminous in her poetry – coupled with her famous sense of humour – make Dr Scott a unique and much-loved Australian icon.' (Media release, Australia Council, 6 April 2005)

Scott migrated to Australia in 1959 and settled in Tasmania. In addition to writing, she taught at the University of Tasmania, generously supported local writers and established a long involvement in broadcasting. Despite losing her home in the 1967 bushfires (and a second property in a 2003 house fire), Scott retained her love of the Tasmanian landscape, particularly the Tasman Peninsula. It was her close association with this area, evoked in much of her poetry, that led to her being invited to write a response to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

Scott's award coincided with the release of a new collection of her writing, A Little More : Celebrating a Life of Letters.

Hemensley Recognised as Writer of Distinction
Melbourne poet and bookshop owner, Kris Hemensley has won the 2004 Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) Christopher Brennan Award. The prize is awarded annually to an Australian poet who has 'written work of sustained quality and distinction'. Jane Sullivan (Sunday Age, 27 March 2005) wrote that Hemensley thought the Victorian Branch of the FAW was 'pulling his leg' when they contacted him to tell him of the award, but he was reportedly proud to be in the company of other winners such as Philip Salom and Jennifer Maiden.

Hemensley's first collection of poetry, The Going and Other Poems, appeared in 1969 and he has not published a compilation since the limited edition collection, Sit(e) in 1987. All volumes of his poems are apparently now out of print. Hemensley's main occupation these days is running his poetry bookstore, Collected Works. According to Sullivan the shop has been called 'the major poetry and ideas bookshop in Australia, and some besotted fans insist it's the best bookshop of its kind in the world.' Hemensley has not given up writing altogether. He told Sullivan, 'it's an existential act, it's vocational, a necessity, a way of working things out.'

For those interested in seeking out Hemensley's bookstore, Collected Works is located on Level 1 of the Nicholas Building, Swanston St, Melbourne.

Autobiographies Dominate National Biography Award
Around 80% of the 50 or so books entered in this year's Australian National Biography Award were autobiographical in nature and all five shortlisted books fell into this genre. The eventual winner, announced at the State Library of New South Wales on 2 March, was Robert Hillman for The Boy in the Green Suit. Hillman's memoir tells the story of his youthful journey through the Asian sub-continent, the Middle East and Greece in the mid-1960s. The judges' citation describes the book as 'a memoir of great sophistication and artfulness, that is also dramatically moving and laugh-aloud funny...' Hillman received $20,000 in prize-money for the award – an increase of $5,000 from last year's prize.

The other shortlisted works for 2005 were:

• Midnight Water by Gaylene Perry and Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin

and two prose works from poets –
• Inside Out by Robert Adamson and The Sparrow Garden by Peter Skrzynecki

Hillman's agent, Mary Cunnane, reports that overseas rights to The Boy in the Green Suit have been sold to Summersdale in the United Kingdom and Gaino Editore in Italy.

Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2005
On 29 March Booktrust announced British writer Andrea Levy as the winner this year's Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book. Levy, in her novel, Small Island, was judged to have displayed 'consummate narrative skills in blending multiple voices in a framework resonant with humour, irony, understanding and a lot of fun'. The South East Asia and South Pacific candidate for the award was Australia's Andrew McGahan for his novel of family conflict in rural Queensland, The White Earth. The Best First Book prize went to Nigeria's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Purple Hibiscus.

In the Prize's 18-year history only one Australian has won the overall award for Best First Book – Adib Khan in 1995 for Seasonal Adjustments. Australians have won the overall Best Book category on six occasions, most recently in 2002 with Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan.

In November the eight regional winners including Levy, Adichie, McGahan and Larissa Behrendt (winner of the SE Asia and South Pacific Best First Book award for her novel, Home) will gather in Malta for a literary programme. Full details of the overall and regional winners can be found on the Commonwealth Writers' Prize website.

Australians Take Places in Barnes & Noble Award
Australians have filled second and third places in the fiction category of the 2004 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Awards. Michelle de Kretser's already much-awarded work, The Hamilton Case, was described by the judges as being 'a stunning, lush and labyrinthine novel [...] Comic, tragic, haunting, hallucinatory and elusive, but vivid and exact...' Following de Kretser's second place was M. J. Hyland in third. In How the Light Gets In, the judges drew attention to Hyland's 'particular brand of witty, hyper-observed and observant pathos...'

Additional details of the Award are available on Barnes & Noble's website.

Fredy Neptune Not 'Lost in Translation'
Les Murray's 1998 verse novel Fredy Neptune is continuing to collect prizes in its translated versions. In 2004 the Italian-English version won the Premio Mondello award and now Thomas Eichhorn, Fredy Neptune's German translator, has won the Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse prize at the 2005 Leipzig Bookfair. Eichhorn will visit Australia in May for the Sydney Writers' Festival. On 26 May he will give a reading and talk about poetry, and on 28 May he will be joined by Murray, Catherine Rey and Andrew Riemer to discuss 'Australia in Translation'.

The May issue of Australian Literary Studies will feature an article by German-born AustLit team member, Irmtraud Petersson, on the reception of Murray's verse novel in German-speaking countries and will also include an interview with Eichhorn.

ABR Announces Winner of Inaugural Poetry Prize
Stephen Edgar's 'Man on the Moon' has won the first Australian Book Review (ABR) Poetry Prize from a field of over 400 entries. The Prize's judges, Morag Fraser, ABR editor Peter Rose and Peter Steele 'were impressed by the overall quality of the entries [...] but the final decision was quick and unanimous because of the formal and imaginative qualities of Stephen Edgar's poem.'

The March issue of ABR includes the six shortlisted poems, and Edgar's prize-winning poem is re-published in the April issue. Edgar receives $2,000 for his win.

Children's Book Council of Australia Shortlist Announced
The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has announced the shortlisted books for its 2005 awards. Two books received dual nominations. Mem Fox and Judy Horacek's Where is the Green Sheep? has been shortlisted for the Early Childhood category and Horacek has also been nominated for the Crichton Award for illustrators. Stephen King's Mutt Dog! is shortlisted in both the Early Childhood and Picture Book categories.

CBCA judges' chair, Ernie Tucker, said that over 350 books were entered in this year's awards and commented that 'the short listed books reflect a broadening of cultural contexts with writers and illustrators exploring historical and contemporary events to find the common core of humanity at the centre of different cultures.' (Media release, CBCA, 5 April 2005)

Historical periods represented among the shortlisted books include:

• Gregory Rogers's The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard – set in 16th century England
• Jan Ormerond's Lizzie Nonsense – a 19th century pioneering tale of Western Australia
• Sonya Hartnett's The Silver Donkey – the story of a soldier in World War I France

and

• Roy James's Billy Mack's War – exploring World War II memories from 1940s Tasmanian setting

Two shortlisted books portray refugee experiences:

• Rosanne Hawke's novel Soraya the Storyteller – 12-year old Soraya flees Afghanistan and journeys through a Pakistani refugee camp to Indonesia and then on to Australia by boat

and

• David Miller's picture book Refugees – two wild ducks who go in search of a new home, exposing themselves to danger, violence and rejection

Award winners will be announced on 19 August 2005. The full list of shortlisted works is available on the CBCA's website.

International Shortlists
Shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire is the sole survivor from among ten Australian works included on the original longlist. Hazzard's novel was nominated for the Award by the National Library of Australia and by two American libraries. The winner will be announced in Dublin on 17 June. Details of other IMPAC shortlisted titles are on the IMPAC website.

No Australians appear on the shortlist of eighteen writers for the inaugural Man Booker International Prize. Peter Carey, David Malouf and Tim Winton were all included on a popular list for the new prize, but none attracted the judging panel's favour. The award will honour 'a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language'. The shortlist includes writers from thirteen countries of whom ten are writers in translation. Nominees include Margaret Atwood, Gunter Grass, Milan Kundera, Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan and John Updike.

Shades of Grey - Inspiration, Research or Plagiarism?
In recent months several Australian writers have been accused of plagiarism or have felt themselves mimicked by another author.

• A play by American Heather Raffo, currently showing in New York, is titled Nine Parts of Desire, the same title as a 1995 work by Geraldine Brooks
• Playwright Janelle Evans read the New Year edition of The Big Issue and found striking similarities between Jessica Adams's 'The Circle' and Agatha Christie's 'The Idol House of Astarte'
• Mario Sergi Conti met with Peter Robb and provided information for Robb's A Death in Brazil but was unsatisfied with Robb's acknowledgement of his assistance

and

• Murray Bail copied text from the reference works Eucalyptus volumes 1 and 2 (1969, 1978) while researching his novel Eucalyptus, but no acknowledgement appeared in the published novel

The specifics of these cases diverge along varying fault lines. Brooks's 1995 non-fiction work dealt with the lives of Islamic women as does Raffo's play. However, while Raffo admitted having read Brooks's book, a charge of plagiarism was unfounded, as titles are not subject to copyright. In any case Brooks's title was a quote from a much earlier source. The seventh century Muslim teacher, Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib wrote, 'God created sexual desire in ten parts; then he gave nine parts to women and one part to men.' (The saying is also translated: men were created with nine parts of intellect and one part of desire while women were created with one part of intellect and nine parts of desire.) Susan Wyndham reports that after Brooks instructed her lawyer to investigate Raffo's work it was determined that Raffo would credit Brooks and pay a small royalty. (Sydney Morning Herald, 29 January 2005)

In the case of Jessica Adams's story it was not the title but the content that concerned Janelle Evans. In the Australian (3 February 2005) Evans detailed the similarities she observed between Adams's and Christie's stories. She read the stories side by side and was 'staggered' by the closeness of plot, characters and relationships. Adams denied any act of plagiarism saying that, while she is a fan of Christie's, the English author was 'not a source of inspiration'.

The New Year Big Issue containing Adams's story also included a story by Brisbane writer, Nick Earls. On hearing of the controversy, Earls took a lighthearted approach and 'outed' himself as a plagiarist. 'I'm a plagiarist of questionable standards. I've actually written only eight books but had 10 published', he said. (Courier-Mail, 4 February 2005) Showing some sympathy for Adams's situation, Earls said he sometimes repeated paragraphs from earlier novels. 'I thought to myself, that's very polished, then realised that, yes it was polished, I'd used it in previous books.' Speaking to Murray Waldren (Weekend Australian, 5-6 February 2005) Adams's literary agent, Fiona Inglis, employed the defence that there are 'only so many stories to tell, and coincidental similarities of character and structure do occur.'

Waldren also spoke to Linda Funnell, fiction publisher with HarperCollins. Funnell said, 'the question of intent is everything ... if plagiarism is proved as deliberate, it goes to the heart of the publisher-author relationship. A writer's reputation is their passport.' On the issue of intent, neither Bail nor Robb were at fault. One of Robb's sources for A Death in Brazil was Mario Sergio Conti's Noticias do Planalto. Robb's book included an acknowledgement of Conti's work, but Conti felt he had been afforded insufficient credit. In an exchange of letters with Conti, Robb said 'No book springs fully armed from the head of its author. Everyone builds on the work of predecessors, and Conti too used material from previously published accounts in his book. But since he feels his own substantial work has had insufficiently direct recognition in A Death in Brazil, I'd like to thank him now.' (Times Literary Supplement, 10 September 2004)

Bail's case is a more complex. In researching Eucalyptus, Bail relied heavily on factual information from Eucalyptus volumes 1 and 2 (1969, 1978) by Stan Kelly, George Chippendale and Robert Johnston. Bail told Malcolm Knox (Sydney Morning Herald, 5 February 2005) that a 'mix-up' occurred due to 'the ridiculous number of bits of paper I had floating around' during the course of research and writing. In an early draft the passages from the reference work were in quotation marks, but Bail 'became concerned that the book was becoming too botanical, too technical.' To prevent his work of fiction becoming 'a factual book about the trees' he removed an intended homage to Kelly et al. Bail said that he is 'normally very courteous' about acknowledging sources and a note may well appear in any future editions of Eucalyptus.

Knox raises the further issue of a writer aiming a 'nod or a wink' at another author. 'Within Eucalyptus, there is a pattern of unacknowledged references to Patrick White and Nikolai Gogol, among others. Bail's earlier story, 'The Drover's Wife', was a direct reply to Henry Lawson's story of the same name ['The Drover's Wife']. In his Miles Franklin acceptance speech, he said: "It becomes more and more difficult to create something individual and distinctive yet ... worthwhile. Even the novelist is standing on the shoulders of others before him, or her."' As Knox points out, 'This kind of conversation between different works is part of the orthodox repertoire in art [...] Yet the practice is riskier when the source text is both unknown and unacknowledged.'

Taking a broad view of the issue of plagiarism, reviewer and critic Imre Salusinszky wonders whether we are 'moving towards a new paradigm on the ownership of ideas, stories and melodies'. (Australian, 12 March 2005) Salusinszky, who 'fled academic life partly to escape plagiarism', asserts that 'only since Romanticism has the pre-eminent notion about the arts been that they make external a set of feelings unique and original to the individual poet.' British writer Christopher Booker (The Seven Basic Plots of Literature, 2004) may be right – there are only seven story lines available to authors. If that is the case each writer can only draw on their unique experience and individual research to create a singular re-telling of age-old tales.

Two recent novels have received mixed reviews from Australian and overseas reviewers. While Elliot Perlman's novel Seven Types of Ambiguity was not well-accepted by some in Australia, it has received generous praise in the USA and France. Geraldine Brooks's March has also drawn a mixed reaction.

Little Women's Father Marches On
In March Geraldine Brooks has created a life for the generally absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Brooks's depiction of Mr March is inspired in part by Alcott's own father, Bronson Alcott. March enters the Civil War as a chaplain to Union soldiers and, in the course of his travels, re-visits a plantation he has known from his days as a pedlar, exposing himself again to the realities of slavery.

Brooks's second work of fiction has attracted mixed reviews. American novelist, Thomas Mallon, describes it as 'in every important way less accomplished than her first, Year of Wonders.' His argument rests partly on what he sees as Brooks's 'distressing contribution to recent trends in historical fiction' which seem to be returning to 'sentimental contrivances'. (New York Times Book Review, 27 March 2005) Not so, says the reviewer for the Economist. 'The novel's voice captures well the flowery, elegant prose of a bookish 19th-century reverend. And the text is anything but sentimental about the civil war itself, whose stench and waste is depicted with brutal clarity.' (Economist, 26 March 2005) Ruth Morse (Times Literary Supplement, 25 February 2005) does not concur. 'Brooks has little feel either for the formality of mid-century New England speech or for the difficulties of rendering dialect...' Providing a perspective from Australia, Peter Pierce, Professor Australian Literature at James Cook University, believes March 'is a distinguished book, a masterly reworking of what fiction and history have afforded Brooks' vibrant and questing imagination.' (Age, 2 April 2005)

Brooks tours Australia during April to promote March. She is visiting Sydney, Brisbane and Perth as part of Dymocks Literary Events programme. In the nation's capital Brooks will be welcomed at a Canberra Times literary dinner and in Melbourne she will be the guest of Reader's Feast bookstore.

Blooming Praise for Perlman
Elliot Perlman's Seven Types of Ambiguity was published in Australia in late 2003, but in January this year it was released in France and will soon hit the bookstands in the UK and USA in a paperback version. Prior to these most recent publications Perlman received a phone call from legendary American critic Harold Bloom. So impressed was Bloom with Perlman's writing that he invited the Australian author to meet with him and later offered a blurb for the new covers. Bloom's offer was accepted and his recommendation reads: 'Seven Types of Ambiguity is an exemplary novel in the tradition of Thomas Hardy and the earlier D. H. Lawrence. Perlman's power is in conveying the strife between personality and character in each of his protagonists. His prose, like his story itself, is vivid, humane, and finally optimistic in a manner that strengthens the reader's perceptiveness.'

In France, Perlman's book reached the top ten less than a fortnight after its release. Emma-Kate Symons (Weekend Australian, 2-3 April 2005) reports that the review in Le Figaro referred to the novel as 'an important work of great substance [...] This novel, which comes to us from Melbourne ... is strung together marvellously in a way that the French don't know how to do.'

Perlman's reception in the northern hemisphere may mollify his feelings after some stinging reviews (see Peter Craven's 'A Blander Shade of Grey', Australian Book Review, no.256, November 2003) greeted the book's original publication in Australia.

Write Now!
Naked Theatre Company is seeking submissions for its Write Now! Competition. Established in 1999, Write Now! promotes the work of playwrights in the 18-30 year old age group. The plays of the ten finalists receive workshops and play readings, and the three winning plays are included in the annual 'Top Shorts' season at The Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo.

Closing date for submissions is 17 June. Entry forms are available on the Naked Theatre Company's website.

Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize
Entries have opened for this year's Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize. The Prize is endowed by Bruce Dawe, one of Australia's most read and studied poets, in light of his belief that 'all universities should encourage the practice of the arts within Australian society.' The award is administered by the Faculty of Arts, University of Southern Queensland and judged by the Faculty's English Literature staff.

Annual prize money is $1,500 and entries close on 31 July. For further information contact:
The Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize
Faculty of Arts, The University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba Qld 4350
Phone (07) 4631 1065
Fax: (07) 4631 1063
Email: daweprize@usq.edu.au

AustLit Takes a Bow
AustLit aims to be the premier resource for Australian literature so it is gratifying to hear when we have met – or exceeded – our clients' needs. Here is a sample of the comments that have been sent to AustLit in recent months:

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and

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AustLit continues to welcome feedback. Users are invited to contact us via email or mail with suggestions for improvements, amendments or additions to the database. Alternatively, the quick survey provides an opportunity for relaying your responses and ideas.

New Horizons for AustLit Editors
Professor John Hay, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Queensland and one of AustLit's General Editors, has been appointed to the Council of the National Library of Australia. The Minister for Arts and Sport, Senator Rod Kemp, said that 'Professor Hay's experience in various roles at Australian Universities and qualifications in English Literature from the University of Western Australia and Cambridge University will be of enormous benefit to the Council.' (Media release, Minister for the Arts and Sports, 31 March 2005)

Another of AustLit's General Editors, Professor Bruce Bennett, is taking up an Overseas Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge, from 18 April to the end of June 2005. Later this year, towards the end of August, he will take up the Group of Eight Chair in The Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC for the 2005-2006 academic year. AustLit Executive Board member, and noted Australian poet and editor of Westerly, Professor Dennis Haskell, is currently occupying the The Group of Eight Chair.

New AustLit Records
During February and March 2005, the Content Development Team added:

• 4,896 new works
• 1,428 new agents (individuals and organisations)

In addition to these new records, over 7,700 existing work and agent records have been upgraded and enhanced.

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