AustLit Wins Australian Research Council Funding for 2006
AustLit's Executive Board of Management and the AustLit Content Team are delighted with the news that AustLit has been successful in an application for Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) funding for the further development of AustLit in 2006. The LIEF grant demonstrates the ARC's recognition of the importance of AustLit's role as national research infrastructure for the humanities as it continues to support original research in Australian cultural endeavours and works towards a comprehensive record of the nation's literature.

AustLit's ARC application, led by The University of Queensland, proposed further development and augmentation of the database over the next three years. The grant was awarded following a rigorous peer review process and internal advice from the ARC. Announcing the grants, Education Minister, Dr Brendan Nelson said 'I congratulate the researchers, their institutions and industry partners on being awarded these prestigious grants and wish them every success for their research endeavours.' (Media release, 9 November 2005)

AustLit's Executive Manager, Kerry Kilner, reports that the research and development work to be supported by the ARC funding includes:

• A major increase in research into the lives and careers of Australian writers to build up further comprehensiveness in the retrospective record of Australian writers and writing within AustLit
• The enhancement of content relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and writing
• The development of a new subset of Tasmanian writers and writing in collaboration with a new AustLit partner, Dr Philip Mead from the University of Tasmania
• Further development on the Writers of Tropical Queensland subset through the partnership with Associate Professor Cheryl Taylor and James Cook University in Townsville
• An expansion of the Multicultural Writers and the Children's Literature subsets through an expansion of the Deakin University partnership
• A special research project into publishers of Australian literature to track the history, principal personnel and publishing activities of companies that brought Australian literature to the book shelves of the world
• Creation and dissemination of a generic version of the successful middleware that AustLit, through the genius of programmer Kent Fitch from Project Computing, is built upon. The middleware will become freely available to other projects creating major web-based resources which could benefit from the robust data model and information management techniques implemented by AustLit.

The AustLit consortium has now grown to 10 Universities and the National Library of Australia and continues to confirm its place as a permanent element in the Australian research landscape.

And Another Win
2006 will see even more specialist content development due to another funding win for AustLit through an internal University of Queensland (UQ) grant scheme. The grant will fund new projects to make available research data already accumulated through the scholarship of UQ researchers in the Arts Faculty but previously unavailable to the wider research community.

Work in 2006 will generate datasets of the literary content of The Queenslander by converting a stand-alone database to AustLit records and further content indexing of a select number of important Australian literary journals of the 20th century.

Vaudeville and Comedy
An exciting new project to be supported through the UQ funding is the development of a specialist subset relating to the vaudeville and comedy world in Australia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Led by Professor Richard Fotheringham, whose scholarship in Australian theatre of the colonial and later periods is internationally recognised, the subset will provide details of the lives and theatrical activities of hundreds of the participants in Australia's thriving theatre industry of the period. This subset will be searchable and, when complete, will be launched with a scholarly introduction.

In addition to the content outcomes for future researchers, these grants provide opportunities for the employment of researchers who bring their highly valued knowledge and expertise to the AustLit enterprise. The quality of AustLit as a research tool is very dependant on the wonderful researchers, librarians and scholars who make up the AustLit team. We are looking forward to welcoming a number of new research staff to the team in 2006.

Watch this space for reports on these and other projects during the next year.

AustLit Deemed 'Essential' and 'Unparalleled'
Bert Almon, Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada, has declared AustLit an 'essential' tool for all library collections supporting the study of Australian literature at every level. In a review in the American Library Association journal, (Choice no.42, 2005), Professor Almon wrote that AustLit 'offers unparalleled coverage of Australian literature.' He noted the free features available to non-subscribers and commended the comprehensive nature of information provided through author searches and through the subsets. Professor Almon reserved particular praise for the design of the website which he described as 'fully intuitive.' He concluded '[t]he only complexities arise from the abundance of materials to explore, but the help facility is always present. AustLit is an indispensable tool for research into Australian literature.'

Family Connections Unravelled During AustLit Research
Terry O'Neill, an AustLit researcher working on one of AustLit's key research projects, The Bibliography of Australian Literature (BAL) Project, has received correspondence from Jennifer Kinmont, one of Joan Kinmont's daughters, highlighting the family connections of the remarkably talented Kinmonts. The correspondence has enabled AustLit to make several previously unknown connections between members of the family. Joan Kinmont is best known for her long poem, This, My Son, dealing with a mother's grief over losing her son in World War I. The poem began as a play in verse before realising its final form. It sold over 100,000 copies, ran to several reprints and was subsequently republished in England with a preface by Australia's then Prime Minister, John Curtin. Kinmont's sister, Rosamond Kinmont-Sharp, also published a volume of poetry (dedicated to her family). Two of Joan Kinmont's daughters are also published authors. Meredith Daneman has written novels, poetry and biography, while her sister, Felicity Fair Thompson, has published a novel.

The artistic talents of the family are evidently not fading. Flora Daneman, a daughter of Meredith Daneman, is a book illustrator and storyboard artist. Another daughter is English soprano, Sophie Daneman. The family tree, through the line of Joan Kinmont's sister, Enid Wollaston, also includes South Australian poet Marc Murrell.

AustLit is grateful to Jennifer Kinmont for sharing her knowledge of the family's literary endeavours.

New AustLit Records
During October and November 2005, the Content Development Team added:

• 3,742 new works

and

• 915 new agents (individuals and organisations)

In addition to these new records, over 5,800 existing work and agent records have been upgraded and enhanced.

Goldsworthy Play to Showcase at Adelaide Festival
A stage adaptation of Peter Goldsworthy's 1992 novel, Honk if You Are Jesus, will be one of the headline acts at the 2006 Adelaide Festival. Goldsworthy and Martin Laud Gray, assistant director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia, have co-written the script for the production. Commenting on the project Goldsworthy reflected that a theatre production 'can do things that a book can't ... What you lose in narrative you gain in performance.' (Limelight, November 2005) Both writers emphasise the value of the novel's humour in adapting it for the stage. Laud Gray told Limelight that '[c]omedy can often reveal society more successfully than serious drama because it takes us off-guard, it unseats us.' Goldsworthy likes the paradox that 'an audience can be confronted with serious questions while choking with laughter at the same time.'

Mirroring current community debate, 'Honk if You Are Jesus' pits scientific method against fundamentalist religion as it explores the issues surrounding reproductive technology and DNA cloning. The production will run from 18 February - 18 March 2006 at the Odeon Theatre in Adelaide.

Brenda Niall Delivers First HRC Seymour Lecture in Biography
The inaugural Seymour Lecture in Biography was presented by Dr Brenda Niall initially at the National Library of Australia on 2 November 2005 and subsequently at the University of Western Australia and Adelaide University. The lecture was delivered under the auspices of the Humanities Research Centre (HRC) at the Australian National University. Niall took as her subject a quote from Samuel Johnson as he prepared to write the biography of English poet, Joseph Addison. Johnson said '[a]s the process of writing these narratives [The Lives of the Poets] is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished ...' Niall developed the image of 'walking upon ashes' as she explored the writing of her award-winning biographies, Martin Boyd : A Life, Georgiana : A Biography of Georgiana McCrae, Painter, Diarist, Pioneer and The Boyds : A Family Biography, and her most recent 'life', Judy Cassab : A Portrait.

The text of Niall's speech is to be published by Pandanus Books. Free copies of the booklet may be requested via the HRC's website.

Niall has also had cause to examine her own life in recent months. In October she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by Monash University. Her acceptance speech, delivered at the graduation ceremony, is available on the website of the English Department, Faculty of Arts, Monash University.

Reilly Snares More Sales with World Book Day Selection
Matthew Reilly's Hell Island, commissioned as a giveaway for the 2005 Books Alive promotion, has been selected for the United Kingdom's World Book Day celebration in March 2006. As part of an initiative to attract reluctant readers World Book Day is inaugurating a series of Quick Reads. Hell Island has been chosen as one of twelve titles to begin the series. The Quick Reads will be backed by 'a massive marketing and publicity campaign ... A central feature of the campaign is the dissemination of 5 million £1-off book tokens for reluctant readers.' (World Book Day website)

According to Reilly's website over 250,000 copies of Hell Island were handed out by booksellers during the 30-day Books Alive promotion. The books were only available for free distribution within Australia and were soon selling for up to $50 on eBay as international readers sought to buy copies. O'Reilly expects the short thriller to reappear in a selection of his short stories at some time in the future.

25th Anniversary Celebrations at Lu Rees Archives
A book-reading of Bob Graham's Max began the recent festivities to celebrate 25 years of archival service at the Lu Rees Archives, University of Canberra. Dr Belle Alderman, Collection Development Manager at the Archives and AustLit Executive Board member, read Graham's story of the reluctant superhero to an appreciative audience of pre-schoolers. The children were also treated to 'the first ever public showing of four original cover designs for the classic picture book. The youngsters were given the chance to vote for their favourite cover, but their choice did not match the publisher's.' (Monitor Online, 1 November 2005)

Graham has donated the original artwork from four of his books to Lu Rees Archives. Other authors who have added their papers and manuscripts to the collection include Gary Crew, Garry Disher and Morris Gleitzman. A list of research files held in the Archives can be accessed via the Lu Rees website. The Archives also takes an active role in maintaining AustLit's Australian Children's Literature subset.

CD-ROM Images May Put Imagination at Risk
Inspired by her childhood wish to visit Tolkien's Middle Earth, Cecilia Dart-Thornton has released her latest novel accompanied by an interactive CD-ROM. The CD-ROM visually depicts the landscape, characters and seasonal changes that occur in The Well of Tears, the second of Dart-Thornton's Crowthistle Chronicles. Speaking to Brigid Delaney (Sydney Morning Herald, 15-16 October 2005) about the new technology, Dart-Thornton commented: '[m]ost of the action in the first book in the series [The Iron Tree] takes place in the marsh. As the characters wander through the marsh, readers can see where the action takes place – houses, swamps, bird life, cliffs. In the second one [The Well of Tears] it's a chateau overlooking a shelf ... It was my idea – I have always been a total fan of special effects.'

Although especially suited to fantasy and science fiction, Dart-Thornton believes the technology could be easily adapted to other genres such as adventure, thriller and horror. Fiona Inglis, managing director of literary agent Curtis Brown, is not so sure. She told Delaney that the images portrayed in a CD-ROM may militate against future film options. She was also concerned about the impact on the reader: 'If a book comes with a package of images, then it does take away from the pleasure of the imagination – and reading books.'

Penguin Pays Massive Advance for Steve Waugh Story
Former Australian cricket captain, Steve Waugh, received a $1.3 million advance for his 800-page autobiography, Out of My Comfort Zone. The figure, paid by Penguin, is believed to be the highest Australian single-book advance, eclipsing the sum paid by HarperCollins for General Peter Cosgrove's forthcoming autobiography.

Waugh's book, with an initial print run of around 120,000 copies, was launched by the Prime Minister, John Howard, on 23 October 2005.

First Books from New Poetry Publisher Available
Sydney poet David Musgrave has started a new poetry-publishing venture, Puncher & Wattmann. David Malouf launched the venture on 27 November 2005 and J. S. Harry unveiled the company's first two collections – Peter Kirkpatrick's Westering and Nick Riemer's James Stinks (and So Does Chuck). Musgrave told the Sydney Morning Herald that when 'the big publishers withdrew from poetry it became difficult. I felt the need for a publisher that appealed unapologetically to readers of poetry rather than a wider market.' (19-20 November 2005)

Let's Drink to That
In another project designed to promote the availability of poetry, South Australian winery Coriole is bringing 'poetry to the table, via the wine bottle.' Coriole winemaker and CEO Mark Lloyd said, 'We all know the truism that wine and food are an excellent match. We want to test the proposition that wine, food and poetry could be even better. And besides, poetry is an overlooked art form and seems ideal to present in large type on the back label of a wine bottle.' (Coriole News, 27 August 2005)

The first writer to feature in the back label project is South Australian poet Jude Aquilina. Six of Aquilina's poems will appear on Coriole's Cabernet Barbera range including her prize-winning, and gastronomically-oriented, Cheese.

New Patron for Miles Franklin Award
Trust has announced the Nelson Meers Foundation as Patron of the Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Foundation, begun by Nelson Meers, a former Lord Mayor of Sydney, 'is committed to the principle that artistic and cultural endeavours are essential to both individual identity and an enlightened and democratic society. Its key objective is to foster innovative artistic and cultural expression by encouraging and supporting cultural organisations and projects that advance the visual, performing and literary arts.' (Trust media release, October 2005) In the literary arts arena the Foundation is also supporting the current re-development of the Belvoir Street Theatre.

Entries closed for the 2006 Miles Franklin Literary Award on 9 December 2005. The longlist will be announced in March, the shortlist the following month, and the winner will be declared in June 2006.

Top Public Intellectuals
In September 2005 Great Britain's Prospect magazine published a list of 100 leading public intellectuals from across the globe and asked readers to vote for their top five names. Included on the list were several Australians – Germaine Greer, Robert Hughes and Peter Singer – as well as recent Australian arrival, J. M. Coetzee. Some 20,000 people took part in the poll during September and October. Voters nominated outspoken public policy critic Noam Chomsky, author and literary critic Umberto Eco, scientist Richard Dawkins, playwright Vaclav Havel and political critic Christopher Hitchens as their top five intellectuals. Of the Australians, the rankings were: Peter Singer (33), J. M. Coetzee (44), Germaine Greer (49) and Robert Hughes (72).

The full list of the top 100 and the five additional 'write-in' nominations can be viewed on Prospect's website.

Addendum
AustLit's October/November News reported the destruction of Rodney Hall's home on the south coast of New South Wales (see 'Fire Destroys Rodney Hall's Coastal Home') and the loss of his manuscripts. However, the tale is not as grim as it first appeared. Dr Marie-Louise Ayres of the Manuscripts Branch at the National Library of Australia (and Project Manager for AustLit from 2000-2002) drew attention to the fact that the National Library holds Hall's papers from 1954-1999. The collection includes manuscripts for many of his published works, correspondence, scripts and material relating to Hall's musical life and his term as Chairman of the Australia Council. A more detailed description of the holdings and access to them is available via the Register of Australian Archives & Manuscripts (RAAM) website. The relevant collections are 'Papers of Rodney Hall' and 'Literary Manuscripts [1964-1988]'. The RAAM records can be found by searching on 'Rodney Hall' as 'Creator'.

Recent quotes from Australia's writers...

Nicholas Jose on a Bookshelf of One's Own
'Books ... are part of our life's growth. Ingeniously portable, they become a home we carry on our backs, like the snail's shell, an extension of our inner life. Yet books also go missing: lost, lent, victims of fire or flood, left behind if we are forced to flee with only the bare necessities. The books we lug from place to place are reminders of that, too; of dislocation and rupture. The shelves are full of holes. The true survivors are those we have made part of our self-formation, an accreting, shifting line-up of books that we have kept alive by our investment in them. That's what I call the shelf of our own.'
(From 'A Shelf of Our Own: Creative Writing and Australian Literature' by Nicholas Jose, Australian Book Review, November 2005)

Brendan Cowell on the Current Climate for the Arts in Australia
'People say it's a terrible time for the arts, but I think people should stop complaining ... It's a great time for the arts because it's now that we are needed to wake people up.' (Brendan Cowell was quoted in 'Public Disembowelling Inspires Award Winner' by Sunanda Creagh, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 October 2005)

David Marr on the Revenue-Deflating Impact of David Williamson's Retirement
'David Williamson is retiring. For 20 years, he has been the great cross subsidiser of Australian theatre. Each new Williamson has been worth about $400,000 first to the Sydney Theatre Company, then to the Melbourne Theatre Company and so on around Australia. Twelve of the 25 biggest grossing shows since the Sydney Theatre Company began were written by Williamson. And so far, no one has come up with a substitute.' (from 'Theatre Under Howard', The Philip Parsons Memorial Lecture by David Marr, delivered on 9 October 2005. Full text available from the home page link on Belvoir Street Theatre's website.)

Literature Board Grant Winners Announced
The Literature Board of the Australia Council has announced the successful applicants for this year's Fellowships, New Work Grants and Triennial Grants. the $80,000 Fellowships go to Kate Llewellyn (for non-fiction and poetry), Margo Lanagan (for young adult literature) and Philip Salom (for poetry). The Australian Society of Authors, the Australian Writers' Guild and The Eleanor Dark Foundation (which manages Varuna : The Writers House) each attracted funding under the Triennial Grants scheme.

Under the New Work Grants 85 writers received a total of $1,900,000 in three categories – Developing Writers, Emerging Writers and Established Writers. Just over a third of this year's grants are for fiction writing and somewhat less than a quarter are for non-fiction. Poetry and writing for performance make up a fifth of the total with poetry attracting a little over ten percent and performance writing just under ten percent. Four of the five grants for young adult literature were awarded in the Established Writers category. Scot Gardner and Kathryn Lomer were each awarded $25,000; Sonya Hartnett and Anthony Hill received $50,000 each.

In the Developing Writers category, AustLit team member, Dr Stephany Steggall, received a grant to assist in her research and writing of a biography of Bruce Dawe.

Board Chair, Peter Goldsworthy, commented that, '[i]n general, the number of applications for New Work and Fellowships were down by 15%. There appears to be no obvious reason for this decrease.' (Assessment Meeting Report, Chair's Comments)

The Literature Board, in partnership with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board and the Theatre Board, is also funding three Indigenous Australian playwrights to attend the Comédie-Française season of readings by writers from the Oceania region. The readings will be held in the Studio Theatre at the Louvre, Paris from 25-29 January 2006.

A full list of recipients and the text of Goldsworthy's comments are available from the Arts Resources section of the Australia Council website.

Fiction Prize for Hartnett's Surrender
Sonya Hartnett is the winner of the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction in the 2005 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Commenting on Hartnett's psychological thriller, Surrender, the award's judges said '[t]he unreliability of the narration coupled with the terrible revelations of the pact at the heart of the novel leaves the reader with a sense of deep unease. The interplay between the two consciousnesses as Hartnett leads the reader by stealth and allusion provides a disturbing tension that constantly challenges one's expectations.'

In the non-fiction field, Robert Dessaix won the Nettie Palmer Prize for Twilight of Love : Travels with Turgenev. Through his journey into the life of Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, Dessaix reflects on his own understanding of the nature and meaning of life. The judge's appraisal of Dessaix's work stated '[i]t is a rare book, written in an international context that effortlessly incorporates an antipodean perspective. Above all, it explores the notion of love and its permutations over two centuries. Dessaix's fine prose, at turns acid, lyrical and poised, carries a search for Turgenev beyond the personal and into universal yearnings for a life of joy and fulfilment.'

A full list of the winners in all sections of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards is available on the State Library of Victoria's website.

Two More Awards for Garner's True Crime Tale
Helen Garner has collected another two awards for her detailed account of the death of Joe Cinque, a young Canberra engineer who died at the hands of his student girlfriend. Joe Cinque's Consolation had already won the Ned Kelly Award for best crime writing and the BookData Booksellers' Choice Award. It has now been awarded the Westfield Waverley Library Award for Literature and the inaugural Walkley Award for the best non-fiction book. In addition to these wins Garner's book was shortlisted in the New South Wales, Victorian and Queensland Premiers' awards, the Nita Kibble Literary Award and the Colin Roderick Award.

Joe Cinque's Consolation sold nearly 50,000 copies in the four months following its publication in 2004, outstripping sales of another Garner bestseller, The First Stone. Publisher Pan Macmillan Australia plans to release a new paperback edition of the book in May 2006.

Scripts and Screenplays Honoured in AWGIE and AFI Awards
Ceremonies for the annual Australian Writers' Guild (AWGIE) and Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards were held in Melbourne on consecutive nights in late November 2005. The Stage award (and the major prize) at the AWGIEs was claimed by Melissa Reeves. Her play The Spook tells the 1960s story of a young man recruited by to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to spy on the South Bendigo branch of the Communist Party.

In the Children's Theatre category Maryanne Lynch's Gamegirl took out the award. Gamegirl traces a year in the life of ten-year old Lila who is experiencing the reality of a separating family alongside a cyber-life that projects her subconscious world into a computer game. In the film categories Frank Michael's low budget Ra Choi won the Feature award over the more fancied contenders Little Fish, Look Both Ways and Three Dollars, and Tony Krawitz's Jewboy won the Telemovie award.

Krawitz was also successful at the AFI Awards where Jewboy won Best Screenplay in a Short Film. Other screenplay awards at the AFIs went to Sarah Watt for Look Both Ways and Robert Connolly and Elliot Perlman for Three Dollars, the latter an adaptation of Perlman's 1998 novel of the same name.

Kate Challis RAKA Award to Alexander Brown
Aboriginal stockman Alexander Brown has won the 2005 Kate Challis RAKA Award for his poetry collection Ngarla Songs. The award, for Indigenous creative artists, recognises creativity in a number of disciplines in a five-year rotating cycle and is funded by a gift from Bernard Smith. Brown's 2003 collection of songs is published in bi-lingual format. The songs reflect on the natural phenomena of the Pilbara region, the lives of the Ngarla as hunters and stockmen, and the blending of Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures.

Reviewing Ngarla Songs in 2004, Dianne Dempsey highlighted the 'open and free' nature of the songs and the performance space they occupy within Aboriginal culture. 'That Ngarla people took pride and pleasure in songwriting, that the songs were variously funny, political and rhapsodic, helps us to understand the corroboree as a form of firelit cabaret. This insight and the songs themselves makes this a significant and rewarding book.' (Age, 4 January 2004)

Other poets who have won the RAKA Award are John Muk Muk Burke (2001) and Kevin Gilbert (1995).

Cowell Inspired by Macbethian Disembowelling
The winner of this year's Philip Parson's Young Playwright's Award, Brendan Cowell, says he was inspired in part by the media's recent treatment of male politicians. 'I just felt for the John Brogden's and Mark Latham's and these men being disembowelled in public in a sort of Macbeth way.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 10 October 2005) Cowell summed up his prizewinning play, 'Ruben Guthrie', as being 'about a guy who has everything and gradually the dominoes fall.'

Once shortlisted for the Philip Parsons's award, selected playwrights have only one week to develop a new script idea on which they are then judged. The winner needs to demonstrate 'an original and compelling voice' and is rewarded with a $10,000 Company B writer's commission for the B Sharp Downstairs Theatre season. The Sydney-based B Sharp programme showcases independent theatre in a mainstream environment.

Other Recent Award Winners
The following writers have also won awards in recent months:

• Fay Zwicky
  Fay Zwicky is the winner of this year's Patrick White Award. The award honours an Australian writer who, in the opinion of the award committee, has not received adequate recognition. In declaring Zwicky the 2005 winner, the committee described her as 'one of Australia's most original and accomplished poets.' On hearing the news, and recovering from the shock of what she thought was probably a hoax, Zwicky recalled meeting Patrick White during the 1980s at an anti-nuclear symposium. After she read to the gathering, White had approached her and commented favourably on her story. 'He was very elderly and infirm and I was totally in awe of the man. Shrunken and ill as he was, he took he trouble to come over and say something very nice about my story.' (Age, 12 November 2005) Zwicky went on to say, 'I know he had a reputation as a bit of a curmudgeon, but then so have I. He was a remarkable humanitarian. I have enormous respect for him and I'm terribly moved I should be part of the legacy.'
  
  Zwicky's next collection of poems, Picnic, will be published by Giramondo Press in 2006. She suspects it will be her last book.



• Judith Beveridge
  Judith Beveridge is the recipient of the 2005 New South Wales Writer's Fellowship. Beveridge will receive $20,000 to work on a new poetry collection in the form of dramatic monologues. The collection will have a coastal setting and will revolve around the lives of three fishermen. The Arts Bulletin of the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts reported that the Fellowship's selection committee had said it was pleased to 'support the proposal of a poet whose work is notable for pushing the poetry format in new directions and whose body of work has been widely acknowledged both in Australia and internationally.' (Arts Bulletin, no.96, November 2005)



• Inga Clendinnen
  Inga Clendinnen's contribution to Australian writing has been recognised by both the Friends of the National Library and The Australian Society of Authors (ASA). On 30 October 2005 Clendinnen was honoured at the annual Friends celebration as 'someone who has contributed significantly to the creation of books and book culture in Australia.' (NLA News, October 2005) Published to coincide with the Friends' event is Inga Clendinnen : A Celebration, edited by Morag Fraser.
  
  On 17 November, Clendinnen was presented with the 2005 ASA Medal at a ceremony in the Jubilee Room, New South Wales Parliament House. The ASA chose to recognise Clendinnen as she 'continues to write and to challenge readers' expectations, demonstrating extraordinary research skills, empathy for others and a dedication to the craft of writing.' (ASA Newsletter, no.8 2005)



• Gerard Windsor
  The 2005 Geraldine Pascall Prize for Critical Writing has been awarded to Gerard Windsor. Windsor's literary career has extended from poetry, short story and novel writing to reviews and critical articles. (His 2004 novel, I Have Kissed Your Lips, was shortlisted for this year's Miles Franklin Literary Award.) Like Peter Craven, last year's winner of the Pascall Prize, Windsor has been embroiled in his share of controversy over his opinions. However, in his acceptance speech for the prize, he argued in favour of criticism as an autonomous art. 'The primary responsibility of the review is to entertain the reader. The primary responsibility is not to the book or the movie or the play or whatever, which is not to be utterly amoral about it. But nevertheless, it should be a work whole in itself, and give pleasure.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 1 December 2005)



• Sarah Kanowski
  Freelance writer Sarah Kanowski has won the inaugural Margaret Dooley Young Writers' Award offered by the journal Eureka Street. Kanowski's essay, 'The Book or the World?', examines the ethical and moral implications of writing and reading biography. The essay is published in the November/December 2005 issue of Eureka Street and the full text is available via Eureka Street's website.



• Jeannie Baker and Kim Michelle Toft
  Jeannie Baker's Belonging and Kim Michelle Toft's The World That We Want have shared the Picture Book Prize in the 2005 Environment Award for Children's Literature. Now in its twelfth year, the annual award is offered by The Wilderness Society with the intention of promoting 'books which inspire a sense of wonder and a sense of caring for the natural world.' This is Baker's third win in the award. She has won previously with The Hidden Forest in 2001 and The Story of Rosy Dock in 1996.

David Williamson Still Creating Headlines
David Williamson's playwriting days may be over, but his words are still creating headlines. Williamson has delivered three speeches in recent months, the first resulting in a barrage of media comment.

On 8 September 2005 Williamson presented the 16th Sir Rupert Hamer Lecture at Swinburne University. The speech, titled 'Cruise Ship Australia', was subsequently published by the Bulletin magazine on 18 October. In the lecture Williamson recounts his experience on board a south sea cruise to Noumea and his unfolding realisation that the ship and its passengers form a metaphor for the journey being taken by Australia as a nation. The bulk of the lecture deals with Australia's environmental record in areas such as deforestation, water consumption and mining. Williamson's view is that 'Cruise Ship Australia is in fact living off resources that took billions of years to accumulate. We're eating up our past at a prodigious rate.'

Williamson attracted the ire of some columnists, however, because of the shorter sections of the lecture that relate to 'aspirational Australians'. Williamson argues that aspirational Australians (who seem to comprise the bulk of the cruise ship's passengers) are at odds with those whom the conservative columnists label 'the elite'. Williamson finds himself dismayed at what he perceives as the boorish behaviour and lack of intellectual curiosity displayed by his fellow passengers. 'I finished the cruise thinking that the "elites" have an absolute right to avow that the things that mean the most to them are the works of art and intellect that our greatest creative minds and thinkers have produced, that intelligence and intellectual curiosity are not some kind of abhorrent anti-Australian behaviour, and that thinking seriously about the long-term future of our country and our planet is not some kind of cultural betrayal.'

As Williamson had anticipated, newspaper columnists were quick to pounce. In the days surrounding publication of the lecture Piers Akerman, Andrew Bolt, and Gerard Henderson each responded in their respective tabloid and broadsheet columns. Akerman was the first go into print. Syndicated in the Sunday Telegraph (16 October 2005) and the Mercury (17 October 2005) Akerman took aim at a 'supercilious' Williamson and 'his apparent need to sneer at everyday folk while dropping the broadest hints that he has the sole mortgage on an intellectually and morally superior approach to life.' Akerman argued that Williamson's 'sneering, condescending condemnation of his shipmates' was ill-judged given that Williamson appeared to have been equally aspirational over the course of his own life.

Andrew Bolt used his column in the Herald Sun (21 October 2005) and the Sunday Mail (23 October 2005) to construct a literary lineage for Williamson's 'elitist contempt for Australia, its people and its wealth.' Travelling back in time, using quotes from Donald Horne and Patrick White, Bolt developed his thesis that 'many artists now see the public not as their audience, but their enemy – and rich government funding encourages their arrogance.' Bolt then turned his gaze to writers from other continents to support his argument. He quoted Ezra Pound and D. H. Lawrence who thought the masses were 'dolts' and 'vile', and H. G. Wells who wrote that a Utopia would need to eliminate 'lumpish, unteachable and unimaginative people ...' Bolt shot his final arrow with a quote from the quiver of 'another accomplished artist', Adolf Hitler, and the latter's talk of 'exterminable subhumans'. Bolt concluded 'Williamson, of course, would be horrified by talk of killing the stupid, but his artist's contempt for the mass has a squalid lineage, with nasty consequences.'

In the Australian (19 October 2005), Gerard Henderson focused his response on 'the willingness of artists to cut themselves adrift from the life of society and to become sneering, carping critics of ordinary lives and values.' Henderson regarded Williamson's 'deeply anti-democratic impulse' as the strangest feature of the playwright's thinking, noting that such sensibilities 'are well recognised in the modernist writers of the 1920s, where they go hand in hand with an explicit attachment to fascism.' Henderson contended that these impulses 'are a very long way from the stance of the Left ... a couple of generations ago' as witnessed in such 'celebrations of the ordinary' as George Johnston's My Brother Jack. Henderson concluded '[t]he sin Williamson's fellow travellers appear to have committed is to turn away from grand narratives in favour of incremental progress driven by common sense ... We will never get a great culture in Australia until there are more artists prepared to understand, rather than demonise, this pragmatic turn of mind.'

Williamson made headlines again in November with his acceptance speech at the annual AWGIE Awards night where he received the Richard Lane Award for services to the Australian Writers Guild. (The speech was read on Williamson's behalf as he was ill and unable to attend.) On that occasion Williamson delivered a broadside at the Australian government. He attacked impending legislative changes in the areas of industrial relations and national security as well as current policy relating to asylum seekers. Williamson declared that those who oppose the directions of the government are being attacked 'with a venom that is unparallelled in our history.' (Quoted in AAP press release, 25 November 2005)

Ten days after the AWGIE Awards Williamson participated in a second award-giving ceremony. On this occasion he was the guest speaker at a University of Queensland graduation where he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters. In his address Williamson encouraged the graduates to 'look beyond the narrow materialistic agenda' and to live lives of creativity and integrity.

The published version of Williamson's 'Cruise Ship Australia' lecture can be accessed on the Bulletin's website. His address to the Faculty of Arts graduates at can be heard via a digital media platform on The University of Queensland's website.

Between the Journal Covers
Although novels often provide relaxing summer reading, some recent journal issues may also appeal to holiday readers. The latest issue of Westerly offers a creative writing smorgasbord, Correspondances Oceaniennes provides an opportunity to brush up on French skills and a more scholarly experience is available from the new Journal of Publishing.

• Westerly
  Recently indexed in AustLit are the contents of Westerly, vol. 50, November 2005. This edition, celebrating the 50th year of the periodical published by the University of Western Australia's Westerly Centre, contains poems, short stories and critical works reflecting the latest trends in Australian literary culture. Within its nearly 300 pages are new poems from John Kinsella and Fay Zwicky and selections by other leading Australian writers from works-in-progress.



• Correspondances Oceaniennes
  The latest issue of the Noumea-based cultural journal, Correspondances Oceaniennes, features writing about Australia. The October 2005 issue, published largely in French and edited by Dr Jean-Francois Vernay, includes critical articles on representation of Australia through the eyes of Pacific writers and perceptions of women's bodies in Australian fiction. There is also an email interview with Janette Turner Hospital. With the assistance of galleries such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the issue showcases the work of Australian artists including Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington Smith, John Glover and contemporary Aboriginal artists, Ian Waldron and Destiny Deacon.
  
  Dr Vernay is also calling for contributions to a forthcoming issue of Correspondances Oceaniennes. The issue is themed around 'Departures' and will cover topics such as journeys, exile, separation and migration. Articles, no longer than 1,200 words, are being sought and may range across essays, interviews, fiction and non-fiction. For further information contact Dr Vernay via email at vernayj@yahoo.com.



• Journal of Publishing
  Delving into the world of publishing is the new periodical, Journal of Publishing. Its focus is on the business and professional aspects of publishing and the publishing industry, but it also covers cultural and historical subjects of relevance. The first issue, featuring publishing in Australia, ranges across such areas as book covers, internet bookselling and scholarly publishing. It includes an article by AustLit's Content Manager, Carol Hetherington, on AustLit's role as a resource for print culture research.

Playwrights' Competition Seeks Submissions
Monash Student Theatre is sponsoring a nationwide open playwrights' competition. Plays must be full length, previously unproduced and with a minimum cast of six actors. First prize is $2,000 and prizes will also be awarded for second place, honourable mentions and a student category. Guidelines and entry forms for the competition are available for download from the Monash University Student Theatre website or by contacting Artistic Director, Yvonne Virsik on (03) 9905 8173 or via e-mail at Yvonne.Virsik@adm.monash.edu.au. Entries close on 16 December 2005.

Stories on Living with Depression Invited
Black Dog Institute, a clinical, research and educational body dedicated to improving understanding, diagnosis and treatment of depression and bipolar disorder, is inviting submissions in its 'How to Live with the Black Dog' writing competition. Submissions must be between 500-1,500 words. Cash prizes will be awarded to the first three place getters and winning entries will be published on the Black Dog website and in Arts and Health magazine.

The closing date for receipt of entries is 31 January 2006. Further details are included on the application form or by contacting Black Dog at:
Black Dog Writing Competition
Black Dog Institute
Hospital Road
Prince of Wales Hospital
Randwick NSW 2031

See AustLit's Events Directory for further listings of literary competitions as well as news of upcoming festivals, competitions and launches.

The Doll Turns Fifty
It is fifty years since Roo, Barney, Olive and Nancy first entered Australia's consciousness via Ray Lawler's groundbreaking play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. With Lawler in the role of Barney the play premiered at the Union Theatre, University of Melbourne on 28 November 1955. It was then produced in consecutive years in Sydney, London and New York. In 1959 an American-made film, starring Ernest Borgnine and Angela Lansbury, was released. Not until 1996 was there an Australian adaptation; in that year the Victorian State Opera performed to Peter Goldsworthy's libretto and Richard Mills's music at the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts.

The Melbourne Theatre Company toured with the play in 1995 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the first performance, but no major productions have been mounted in 2005. When contacted by Graeme Blundell for a comment on the anniversary, Lawler politely replied 'I'd rather not, thank you ... I wouldn't mind doing it if there was a production on. Then you have got to do it. If it's not on, then I'd run a mile rather than talk about it.' (Weekend Australian, 26-27 November 2005) Lawler did acknowledge to Blundell 'I don't feel anything one way or the other [about the lack of an anniversary performance] ... It's a long time ago. It's nice of you to think about it.'

UWA Press Celebrates 70 Years
The University of Western Australia (UWA) Press began production in 1935 as the University Textbooks Board. It adopted its current name in 1953. In terms of age UWA Press is second only to Melbourne University Press among Australian university presses. (The latter, recently re-badged as Melbourne University Publishing, began in 1922.) Over its 70-year history UWA Press has published 'over 700 titles that have made an important contribution to the discussion of the history, environment, economy and culture of Western Australia and beyond.' (UWA Press website) In the literary criticism field recent UWA Press titles include Tanya Dalziell's 2005 Walter McRae Russell Award-winner, Settler Romances and the Australian Girl, and Sean Monahan's A Long and Winding Road : Xavier Herbert's Literary Journey. New fiction releases include novels by two English-born women writers: Josephine Wilson's mother-daughter tale, Cusp and Annabel Smith's, A New Map of the Universe. Both books traverse the north and south hemispheres via self-discovery motifs.

Currency Press Turning 35
Currency Press, a specialist performing arts publisher, was founded in 1971 by theatre critic, Katharine Brisbane, and her husband, Philip Parsons, an academic in the field of theatre studies. The Press is now embarking on its 35th year of publishing and, to celebrate this milestone, has published Brisbane's Not Wrong - Just Different : Observations on the Rise of Contemporary Australian Theatre : 1967-2000. The book is primarily a collection of Brisbane's reviews from her time as theatre critic for the Australian newspaper from 1967-1974.

Currency Press's earliest publications reveal the names of playwrights at the forefront of Australian theatre's resurgence in the early 1970s. Publications in the Press's first two years include Alex Buzo's Macquarie, Dorothy Hewett's The Chapel Perilous, David Williamson's The Removalists and Peter Kenna's The Slaughter of St. Teresa's Day. In addition to its ongoing activity in publishing playscripts, the Press also embarked on the production of major reference works. Companion to Theatre in Australia was published in 1995 under the general editorship of Philip Parsons. Two years later a revised and abridged version, Concise Companion to Theatre in Australia : Theatre, Film, Radio, Television, was made available.

Although Katharine Brisbane stood down as publisher of Currency Press in 2001, the family connection remains. The current chair of the Press is writer and director, Nick Parsons, son of the Press's co-founders.

South Australian Milestones
Two South Australian organisations are celebrating landmark anniversaries. The South Australian Writers' Centre is twenty-years old. Established in 1985 the Centre was the first of its kind in Australia and now has over 1,200 members. The Centre celebrated its birthday with a pictorial history display covering twenty years of operation. The display was launched by the Hon. Jane Lomax-Smith, South Australian Minister for Education and Children's Services and Minister for Tourism.

Also in South Australia, Friendly Street Poets has turned thirty. Friendly Street is Australia's 'longest running community open-poetry reading venue.' (Friendly Street Poets website) It attributes its longevity to its determination to remain true to its original vision as a place where 'poets of all kinds can come together, and where poetry lives and breathes in its oldest form – the spoken word.' Friendly Street's thirtieth anniversary reading took place at the State Library of South Australia on 11 November 2005. Those attending included one of the founders, Richard Tipping, who spoke about Friendly Street's early days.

In addition to providing a venue for public readings, Friendly Street has promoted the work of poets through its publications. Long-running series include Friendly Street Poetry Reader, Friendly Street Poets and Friendly Street New Poets.

Poets' Pens Stilled
Four notable Australian poets have died over the last three months. Ranging in age from ninety to early fifties, the four writers had published nearly thirty volumes of poetry between them.

• Michael Thwaites (1915-2005)
  Michael Thwaites is best known in Australian public life as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) agent in charge of the April 1954 defection of Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov, but, in literary circles, Thwaites is honoured for his poetry. Following an Oxford education Thwaites was recruited to ASIO in 1950 by director-general Charles Spry. Spry reportedly told Thwaites 'You write poetry, I know. Much of the job will just be hard methodical work but imagination is also needed. I believe you could make a valuable contribution'. (Quoted in 'Dividends of the Affair' by Patrick Walters, Weekend Australian, 26-27 November 2005)
  
  After leaving ASIO in 1971 Thwaites became Deputy Librarian of the Parliamentary Library in Canberra until 1976. He published two of his five collections of poems, The Honey Man and Other Poems and Unfinished Journey, following his retirement.



• Philip Martin (1931-2005)
  Philip Martin's writing stretched from translation and scriptwriting to criticism and reviewing, but he was most prolific as a poet. Martin was educated at Xavier College in Melbourne where he came under the influence of poet Joseph O'Dwyer, but he was nearly forty before his first volume of poetry was published. Martin taught in several Australian and overseas universities, but spent a sizeable proportion of his career at Monash University. It was while he was at this institution that his poetry flourished. Five of Martin's six poetry collections were published during his tenure at Monash as was his Directory of Australian Poets (1980). In addition to his own writing and teaching Martin was active in International PEN, the Fellowship of Australian Writers and The Poets Union.



• Barney Roberts (1920-2005) and Jenny Boult (Magenta Bliss) (1951-2005)
  Tasmanian poet and prose writer Barney Roberts has died in Tasmania after suffering a stroke. Roberts won the NSW Premier's Special Award for the International Year of Peace in 1986 with his World War II memoir, A Kind of Cattle. He also published five volumes of poetry and short stories. During the recent Tasmanian Poetry Festival, Peter Hay lamented the loss of his old friend calling Roberts the 'Robert Frost' of Tasmanian poetry. (Currajah)
  
  Another Tasmanian poet, Jenny Boult, has also died. Boult, who was known more recently as Magenta Bliss, published her last collection of poetry, Ravo, with Tasmania's Cornford Press in 2003. Her poetry appeared regularly in Australia's literary magazines from 1980-2003.
  
  The Tasmanian writing community paid tribute to Boult and Roberts during 'An Afternoon at the Republic' in Hobart on 6 November. Following the death of Margaret Scott earlier in 2005, Peter Hay commented, 'Scott, Roberts, Bliss in the past three months ... we're losing too many fine poets, too fast.' (Currajah) During the afternoon gathering Liz Winfield read work by both Boult and Roberts.

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