Miles Franklin Judges Resign
Changes to the charter governing the Miles Franklin Literary Award have led to the resignation of three of the five judges. Mark Rubbo, David Marr and Kerryn Goldsworthy have all quit the judging panel after award administrator, Trust, adopted the new charter. Changes range from the appointment of Dagmar Schmidmaier, the New South Wales State Librarian, as permanent head of the jury to the reduction of the terms of other judges from six to three years. Trust will also have the power to dismiss judges and to prevent them talking with the media.

Noting that the judging panel had previously worked by consensus and without a chair, David Marr told the Sydney Morning Herald (22 December 2004) that the Miles Franklin 'was always driven by the judges, and that has come to a shuddering halt.' Mark Rubbo concurred with Marr's assessment. He said 'I thought it was a retrograde step ... and the trust refused to really listen to any of my concerns or the concerns of the other judges.' (AM, ABC Radio, 22 December 2004)

Issuing a statement for the administrator, Trust's managing director asserted that the new charter was designed 'to streamline process, and recognises the primary role of judges in recommending winners'. However, Rubbo felt that the judges' contribution was wider than the actual selection process and that expertise in fostering Miles Franklin's legacy would now be lost.

Replacing the three judges are bookseller Eve Abbey, ARC Professorial Fellow at The University of Queensland Robert Dixon and chair of the Sydney Writers' Festival, Ian Hicks. Morag Fraser, Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University is also newly appointed to the judging panel for 2005.

Wyndham Finds Few Australian Writers Depicting Asia
In the aftermath of the 26 December earthquake and the resultant tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) sought a 'big name' Australian author who could write a 'knowledgeable piece for the newspaper'. SMH literary writer Susan Wyndham undertook a search but found South Asian and Indian Ocean nations 'almost absent' from recent Australian literature. Wyndham said 'Our writers, uninterested or uncomprehending, have skipped over the region to more familiar imaginative ground. Readers turning to books for an understanding of the devastated countries will have to look elsewhere.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 11 January 2005)

Eleven days later, Wyndham reported a 'rush of responses' to her statement. Authors and publishers alike had made contact, drawing her attention to books set in the tsunami-affected region. However, there was still general agreement that 'Asia has a small presence in our literature'. (Sydney Morning Herald, 22 January 2005)

A search of AustLit for novels published from 2000-2005 with Indian, Sri Lankan, Thai or Indonesian settings reveals a list of 44 works. These include:

• Sixty Lights by Gail Jones, Neem Dreams by Inez Baranay, Sweet Sentence by Larry Buttrose and The Storyteller by Adib Khan (India)
• The Hamilton Case by Michelle de Krester, and Turtle Nest and If the Moon Smiled by Chandani Lokuge (Sri Lanka)
• Golden Pavilions by Robert Brunton and Levin's God by Roger Wells (Thailand)

and

• Snow, Fire, Sword by Sophie Masson and Snake by Dewi Anggraeni (Indonesia)

Subscribers to AustLit can also access to the resources of the specialist subset Australian Literary Responses to 'Asia'. This subset 'provides information on Australian creative writing about or referring to Asia [...] and is a tool to guide the reader through impressions of Asia through Australian eyes and a resource for subject or region-specific research.' (AustLit subscribers can read the full text of Lyn Jacobs's and Rick Hosking's revised introduction to the subset online.)

Australia's Favourite Book
Popular book surveys have been popular in the last two years. The Australian Society of Authors (2003), Angus & Robertson (2003) and The Age (2004) have all conducted polls and, late in 2004, the ABC invited all Australians to suggest their favourite books. More than 15,000 people voted, nominating some 5,000 titles. The ABC announced the results of the My Favourite Book poll in a 90-minute television programme on Sunday, 5 December 2004. The top three titles were The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkein; Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen; and the Bible.

The highest-ranked Australian title was Tim Winton's Cloudstreet (#5). Winton also appeared in the top 100 for Dirt Music (#11) and The Riders (#69). Other Australians with multiple titles were Bryce Courtenay – The Power of One (#36) and Jessica (#58), and Matthew Reilly – Ice Station (#44) and Scarecrow (#86).

Eighteen books by Australians were ranked in the '100' favourite titles. (Over 100 books were actually named due to several tied votes.) Most of the Australian works were by current writers with only three books by deceased authors – A. B. Facey's A Fortunate Life (#10); Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (#60) and Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding (#99).

Courtenay, Arnold Zable (for Café Scheherazade) and Melina Marchetta (for Looking for Alibrandi) represented migrant writing. Although neither Zable nor Marchetta was born in their parents' country of origin, their respective Jewish and Italian heritage is an important element in their writing. No indigenous writers were included on the list.

Re-Structure Sparks Job Losses at UQ Press
A restructure at University of Queensland Press (UQP) has led to several staff accepting redundancy packages. Departing staff include commissioning editors Rosanne Fitzgibbon, Craig Munro and Sue Abbey. UQP conducted a review during 2004 and identified a $3.5 million debt. As a result of the review staff numbers will be reduced from 17 to 13 and UQP will shift away from employing commissioning editors and move towards desk editing, increased outsourcing, and the development of a Print-on-Demand Centre. UQP's General Manager, Greg Bain refuted claims that the university press would turn from literary publishing to more commercially viable avenues although he was hopeful that the Print-on-Demand Centre would offset the downturn in bookshop profits.

The University of Queensland has announced that it will carry UQP's debt as part of its contribution to the restructure.

GST Leads to Demise of Duffy & Snellgrove
Michael Duffy, co-founder of Duffy & Snellgrove (D&S), has cited the impact of the GST as a reason for the failure of the small, independent publishing house. Speaking to Susan Wyndham, Duffy said 'Sales of serious books dropped 40 per cent in the six months after the GST ... It was terrible for us because we were a small, marginal company poised between success and failure.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 2004)

Beginning in 1996, Duffy & Snellgrove attracted some of Australia's finest writers. It published several volumes of Les Murray's poetry including Fredy Neptune and Learning Human along with his collection of essays The Quality of Sprawl. D&S also published a posthumous volume of Philip Hodgins's work, New Selected Poems. Other poets in the D&S stable were Jamie Grant and Robert Gray. All of Peter Robb's major works have been published by D&S as have the works of Ashley Hay.

High Profile Writers Tour India
Three prize-winning contemporary authors have recently toured India to promote Australian literature. Peter Goldsworthy, Kate Grenville and Tim Winton took part in the Australian Stories: Wide Horizons tour organised by Asialink and sponsored by the Australia-India Council (AIC) and the Australia Council. During the tour Penguin India launched one title by each author - Goldsworthy's Three Dog Night, Grenville's The Idea of Perfection and Winton's Cloudstreet.

Chair of the AIC, Michael Abbott, noted that India is 'the third-largest English language book market in the world.' He expected the release of the three novels to 'tap into the growing number of Indian students who are studying Australian literature.' During the tour, Australia's High Commissioner to India, Penny Wensley, hosted an official reception for the writers. Wensley hoped the authors' visit would both 'raise Australia's cultural profile in India' and further an increasing Indian interest in Australian literature. (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade media release, 17 November 2004)

The AIC has recently auspiced an Australian resources centre at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. As a part of their support for the research and teaching of Australian literature at that university the AIC has provided a subscription to AustLit for the next two years.

Black Swan Becomes WA Flagship
Black Swan Theatre Company has been crowned Western Australia's flagship company. Since the demise of the State Theatre Company in 1991, Western Australia has been without a well-funded lead company. Black Swan, the Perth Theatre Company (PTC) and Deckchair Theatre have competed with smaller local theatre groups for available periodic funding. The announcement of Black Swan's elevation in status was well received by the larger companies. PTC director Alan Becher told the Australian (18 November 2004) 'Everyone has been trying to carve out their territory and every few years we rearrange ourselves. If you have a very healthy major company, it bodes well for the rest of us – providing we all have the financial backing to go with it.'

Black Swan is keen to retain a collaborative approach to theatre in the West. Beginning with a co-production with Deckchair it will present Verity Laughton's award-winning play, The Lightkeeper, in Fremantle in March.

Black Inc. Generating Heat
Ivor Indyk has lashed out at Black Inc. over its policy of reprinting writing from Heat without consulting Indyk. Although Indyk has no contract with his authors he says 'It is conventional to ask magazine editors for their permission before reprinting work that has appeared in their pages.' Indyk argues that 'literary magazines have traditionally been the proving ground for new writers and new kinds of writing in Australia' and that they have established a nurturing and trusting relationship with their authors without the benefit of legal contracts. In light of this, 'It used to be understood that literary magazines were both valuable and vulnerable, and this understanding gave protection: it guaranteed respect from the more commercial players in the literary world, and at least a commitment to the forms of civility...' (Australian Book Review, December 2004 - January 2005)

Sophy Williams, publishing manager at Black Inc., offers a different perspective. She says that Black Inc.'s anthologies 'operate as another avenue of demonstrating the strength of our writing culture. It's another way of promoting the magazines because we acknowledge that we admire their writing...' (Age, 6 November 2004)

The February issue of Australian Book Review carries responses to Indyk from Black Inc. publisher Morry Schwartz and The Australian Society of Authors' executive director Jeremy Fisher. Both correspondents point out that Black Inc. is clearly operating within the legal requirements of the Copyright Act 1968 and its legislated amendments. They also draw attention to the issue of remuneration for writers. Schwartz says 'The writers are happy to be published, paid and acknowledged' ('A Petty Jihad') while Fisher writes 'I suspect literary magazines are financially unable to offer authors the same money they could get for both first publication and later anthologisation. And Indyk cannot expect authors to forgo anthology opportunities when he is offering nothing in return.' ('No Mere Legal Loophole')

Black Inc. has recently released three new anthologies in its annual 'best of' collections: The Best Australian Stories 2004, edited by Frank Moorhouse; The Best Australian Poems 2004, edited by Les Murray; and The Best Australian Essays 2004 edited by Robert Dessaix. The anthologies include writing that previously appeared in journals such as Meanjin, Southerly, Island, Westerly and Heat. Also, a significant number of the poems in Murray's selection were first published in Quadrant where Murray is poetry editor.

The contents of Heat no.8, the latest edition of the book-length journal, have been indexed by AustLit, as have the contents of the Black Inc. anthologies. Further information on each of the publications can be found on the publishers' websites:

• Heat

and

• Black Inc.

Chick-Lit Moving to Higher Ground
The recent success of chick-lit is set for a further marketing surge with the entry of 'inspirational' fiction into the market. Already booming in bookstores across the USA, this socially conservative literature is currently selling in Australia only in dedicated Christian bookstores such as the Koorong book chain. Buyer for the chain, Julianne Giovanelli, told Helen Elliott (Sydney Morning Herald, 15-16 January 2005) that while Australia is generally five years behind the USA in fiction trends, 'inspirational' literature is already Koorong's biggest growth area.

Harlequin, erstwhile publisher of Mills & Boon, has set up a specialised subsidiary, Steeple Hill Cafe, to accommodate this new 'sub-brand'. The writing guidelines for prospective authors state the niche imprint 'will be dedicated to publishing inspirational fiction for the hip, modern woman of faith.'

One Australian writer who has already found entry into the 'inspirational' market in the USA is Mary Hawkins. After initially writing medical romances for Mills & Boon, Hawkins has published her historical series Australian Outback, as well as her contemporary romances, with Heartsong Presents.

Man Booker International Inviting Public Vote
Organisers of the Man Booker International are inviting the public to nominate the writers they believe worthy of the new prize. Since public voting opened in late-2004 three Australians have been added to the popular list – Peter Carey, David Malouf and Tim Winton. Nominations and comments can be added via the Man Booker website.

The official shortlist of fifteen contenders, selected by panel chair, Professor John Carey, along with writer and academic, Azar Nafisi and novelist and editor, Alberto Manguel, will be announced in the near future and the award winner will be declared in mid-2005. The award, to be given 'once every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language', will offer prize money of £60,000.

Australia Day Honours
Playwrights and poets featured in the 26 January awards announced by the Governor-General, Michael Jeffrey. New Members in the Order of Australia are:

• Alan Hopgood for service to the performing arts as an actor, playwright and producer, and to the community through raising awareness of men's health issues

and

• Geoffrey Bingham for service to the community through Christian ministry, encouraging cross-cultural theological education and as an author

Receiving the Medal of the Order of Australia are:

• Anne Godfrey-Smith (Anne Edgeworth) for service to the arts, particularly through a range of theatre, literary and cultural organisations
• J. S. D. Mellick for service to the community, particularly through the restoration of St Paul's Presbyterian Church, and to Australian cultural studies

and

• Wendy Richardson for service to the arts and to the community as a playwright and producer, particularly through chronicling the social, cultural and political history of events affecting the Illawarra region

Italian Honour for Les Murray
Les Murray has won one of Italy's major literary prizes, the Premio Mondello. The thirteen year-old prize, awarded in various local and international categories by the city of Palermo, recognised Murray in the Foreign Author section for a new bi-lingual edition of Fredy Neptune.

Previous winners of the award include Seamus Heaney, J. M. Coetzee and V. S. Naipaul.

Writers' Residencies Awarded by Literature Board
The Literature Board of the Australia Council awarded seven overseas residencies to writers at its December assessment meeting. Robyn Arianrhod and Eden Liddelow will each enjoy a six-month residency at the Keesing Studio in Paris while Barry Hill and Robert Gray will spend six months each at the BR Whiting Library in Rome. Beverley Farmer will travel to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland for six week as will Beth Norling. Dorothy Johnston heads to North America for two months at Ledwig House International Writers' Colony in Omi, New York.

The Literature Board also announced grants to Australian and international writers' festivals and to publishing houses including eleven grants for translations. A range of novels, essays and poems will now be made in available in languages ranging from Bengali to Dutch.

A full listing of recipients is available on the Literature Board's website.

ACT Literary Award Winners Announced
Marion Halligan is the 2004 winner of the ACT Book of the Year Award for her novel The Point. Geoff Page has taken out the Poetry Award with his as-yet-unpublished sonnet, 'The Stalinists, the Taliban'. Announcing the awards ACT Chief Minister, John Stanhope praised Halligan for both the excellence of her writing and for making 'a strong contribution to the ACT's literary profile.' The award is the first prize won by Halligan for her depiction of life orbiting an exclusive Canberra restaurant.

Feisty Reviewers
Australian Book Review's (ABR) annual reviewing competition attracted almost 100 entries with the judges noting the reviewers' general preparedness to write candidly about the reviewed works and to express impatience over sub-standard editing.

Maya Linden won the fiction prize with a review of Sophie Cunningham's Geography, Vivienne Kelly was the non-fiction winner writing about Robert Dessaix's Twilight of Love and first place in the children's/young adult section went to Stephanie Owen Reeder who reviewed Jeannie Baker's Belonging.

No doubt ABR's editor Peter Rose was gratified by the reviewers' forthrightness. Delivering the 2004 Barry Andrews Lecture at the UNSW@ADFA in September last year, Rose quoted from the spirited critique by Clive James of Brezhnev: A Short Biography. James's review, titled 'A State of Boredom', included the following pronouncement: 'Here is a book so dull a whirling dervish could read himself to sleep with it. If you were to recite even a single page in the open air, birds would fall out of the sky and dogs drop dead.' Rose declared he would 'kill to publish stuff like that'. (The edited text of Rose's lecture is published in Australian Book Review, no.267, December 2004 - January 2005)

To determine whether any of the prize-winning entries measure up to James's withering standards see the full text of the reviews on ABR's website.

Critics' Award to Peter Craven
Another critic who doesn't shy away from strong words is Peter Craven who has been awarded the 2004 Pascall Prize for Critic of the Year. The award is named after Geraldine Pascall, a former journalist with the Australian newspaper. Craven's writing appears regularly in the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Australian Financial Review. He was honoured by the judges for being 'passionate in his commitment to literary art and exacting in his judgement and discriminations.' The judges also commented on Craven's willingness to engage in 'heated debate' and to 'challenge orthodoxies of various kinds'. (Sydney Morning Herald, 24 November 2004)

At times Craven has written fiercely critical reviews of authors such as Tim Winton, Richard Flanagan and Robert Dessaix. He has also been generous in his praise for Andrew McGahan, Sonya Hartnett and Julia Leigh (whom he successfully nominated for the 2002 Rolex Mentor and Protege Art Initiative with Toni Morrison). Jason Steger (Age, 24 November 2004) aptly summed Craven up in these terms: 'Some people loathe him for his temerity to write with passion, for his occasional windbaggery and patronising tone, for his tendency to go over the top; others admire him for his breadth of knowledge, his strong views and his idiosyncratic, immediately recognisable style.'

Human Rights Award to PEN Australia
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) recognised the work of Australian PEN Centres at its annual awards ceremony in Sydney on 10 December 2004. PEN won the HREOC Community Service Award for its advocacy on behalf of asylum seekers in Australian detention centres. The judges said that PEN was able to bring 'national and international pressure to bear' in seeking the release of detainees. The judges particularly highlighted the contribution of The Writers in Detention Committee, and the work of Rosie Scott and Thomas Keneally in editing Another Country.

President of the Sydney PEN Centre, Nicholas Jose, accepted the award on behalf of PEN.

Khouri Saga Brings Recognition for Investigative Journalists
Malcolm Knox and Caroline Overington – the journalists who uncovered Norma Khouri's fabricated life (see AustLit's September/October 2004 newsletter) – have won the 2004 Walkley Award for Investigative Journalism. Knox broke the story of Khouri's deception in the Sydney Morning Herald in late July 2004. In the weeks that followed he and Overington exposed factual errors in Khouri's Forbidden Love and uncovered a life story which bore little resemblance to the one promulgated by Khouri. The journalists' investigation ranged from contact with the National Commission for Women in Jordan to the discovery of Khouri's Jordanian-American family plus a range of fraud allegations in Chicago, USA.

Overseas Settings Attract IMPAC Attention
Ten Australian novels have been longlisted for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Seven of the books are set predominantly overseas:

• Due Preparations for the Plague by Janette Turner Hospital (set in the USA and France)
• Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee (USA, Europe and Africa)
• The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard (Asia and UK)
• The Hamilton Case by Michelle de Krester (Sri Lanka)


• My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey (Malaysia and England)
• Shanghai Dancing by Brian Castro (China)

and

• Vernon God Little by D. B. C. Pierre (USA and Mexico)

The remaining three novels are grounded in the Australian landscape:

• Three Dog Night by Peter Goldsworthy (South and Central Australia)
• The Alphabet of Light and Dark by Danielle Wood (Tasmania)

and

• The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks by Brett D'Arcy (Western Australia)

185 libraries representing 51 countries submitted 147 titles for the longlist. Most of the Australian books were nominated by Australian libraries, but a smattering of Australian titles were included among the nominations from Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Norway and the USA. The shortlist for the IMPAC Award will be announced on 8 March and the winner declared on 15 June.

Two Australians on Notable List
In addition to the IMPAC longlisting Michelle de Krester's The Hamilton Case has also been included on the New York Times Book Review's 2004 list of 100 Notable Books. The only other Australian work on this year's list is Thomas Keneally's The Tyrant's Novel. This compares with seven Australian titles on the 2003 list and six in 2002.

From Academy to Marketplace
Australian university presses and mainstream publishers are grappling with the challenges of translating academic theses into marketable books. Freshly graduated academics are keen to be published, but, according to some in the book trade, are not so keen – or not equipped – to re-frame their theses into commercial propositions.

Louise Adler, Melbourne University Press (MUP), is committed to the press's role of 'disseminating the richly diverse scholarship produced by the academy.' She believes that a 'mutually supportive partnership' between the academy and the university press is the way forward. (Australian, 3 November 2004) Adler suggests several strategies for reaching a wider audience with the expanse of academic research. One is to make books available digitally and electronically. MUP is now publishing d-books and e-books on an on-demand basis thereby negating the need for expensive print runs that may or may not re-coup costs.

Adler also suggests that 'supervisors be trained to teach their students to write.' Her opinion is echoed by Ian Templeman in 'Ideas and Imagination' (Readers, Writers, Publishers, 2004). Working from the Australian National University, Templeman has 'heard the complaints about the failure of Australian publishing as both established and younger writers of academic material fail to have their manuscripts accepted by a recognised book publisher.' However, he has rarely heard authors 'question themselves about the quality of writing or originality of a submitted manuscript.'

If the issue of writing style is not addressed prior to the manifestation of a manuscript, Adler and others believe it is not too late. Jane Arms, who has worked for both Australian and British publishers, and has been a literary agent for academic writers, believes that good literary agents and editors can revive a prospective book. However, Arms warns that 'when academics embrace the idea of an agent, they sometimes put themselves in an unexpectedly tendentious and uneasy relationship. With honourable exceptions, it seems to me, academics neither understand the role of the agent nor are prepared to make the necessary adjustments and concessions that allow the agent to work in the author's interest without undue constraint.' ('Uneasy Truces and the Failure of Nerve in Scholarly Publishing', Readers, Writers, Publishers, 2004)

Two recent projects, both involving Drusilla Modjeska, have adopted the strategy of re-working a manuscript after it has been submitted as a thesis. On behalf of MUP, Modjeska worked with Maggie MacKellar to prepare MacKellar's Core of My Heart, My Country for publication. The two women spent six months re-shaping the doctoral thesis into a more accessible narrative form. The book, published in late 2004, examines the experience of Australian and Canadian settler women as they interact with new environments and landscapes. Modjeska is also part of a three-year project that combines the resources of the University of Sydney and Pan Macmillan. With a grant of $660,000 from the Australian Research Council Modjeska will mentor six writers of theses with a view to publication by Pan Macmillan's Picador imprint. Modjeska told the Sydney Morning Herald's literary editor, Malcolm Knox, that the project 'will create a prominent outlet for intelligent, critical voices from Generation X and beyond.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 27-28 November 2004) The first title, to be published in May 2005, will be Cassi Plate's Restless Spirits.

Whether approaching this issue from a publishing or academic background, those in a position to effect change point to previous publishing successes with some confidence. Writers such as Brian Matthews, Henry Reynolds, Tim Flannery, Brenda Niall and Modjeska herself have each communicated their ideas favourably in both the academy and the broader marketplace.

Proposing a Generational Shift in Australian Theatre
Trapped by the Past: Why Our Theatre is Facing Paralysis by Julian Meyrick
Julian Meyrick, theatre director and literary advisor to the Melbourne Theatre Company, argues that those involved with theatre in Australia 'must embark on a heartfelt examination bent on answering one vital question: what on earth do we think we are doing?' Meyrick claims two overriding concerns for his contribution to Currency Press's Platform Papers. 'First, that there is something meaningful called "Australian theatre", and that it is a proper object of contemplation. Second, that a series of disconnections has arisen within Australian theatre whose chief faultline is generational.'

Platform Papers is a new quarterly publication on issues 'affecting the health of the performing arts'. Currency Press, through the auspices of Currency House, hopes Papers will stimulate debate of and within the Australian performing arts industry.

Accolade for Frank Moorhouse
Frank Moorhouse : A Celebration compiled by the Friends of the National Library Inc.
Since 1999, the Friends of the National Library of Australia have organised an annual celebration of the 'work of an eminent figure in the world of Australian literature and publishing'. In 2004 that honour went to short story writer, novelist and essayist Frank Moorhouse.

The slim volume honouring Moorhouse includes essays by Professor Bruce Bennett, chair of AustLit's Executive Board, and Associate Professor Catharine Lumby, as well as samples of Moorhouse's writing and excerpts from his oral history interview with Hazel de Berg. The book was launched at the National Library on 14 November 2004 by Professor Bennett who spoke of Moorhouse's talent for writing 'from within his times ... but with a certain skeptical detachment which enables these times to come alive beyond the decades in which they were spawned.'

Genre Fiction Under Critical Eyes
Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks : An Interrogation of Crime Fiction by Cathy Cole
Cathy Cole has adapted her PhD thesis from the University of Technology, Sydney to create this investigation into the underpinnings of crime fiction. Writing in the first person, through the eyes of a crime writer, Cole teases out the distinctive aspects of Australian crime fiction when compared with the British and American genres.

Pulp : A Collector's Book of Australian Pulp Fiction Covers by Toni Johnson-Woods
Utilising the extensive resources of the Bleeck Collection at the National Library of Australia, Johnson-Woods, lecturer in Media and Communications at The University of Queensland, brings to light some tantalising book covers from mid-twentieth-century Australian pulp fiction. The covers cross a range of genres from crime and war to romance and westerns.

The Poetry of Elder Statesmen
The Sky's a Beach : Poems and Drawings by R. A. Simpson
Published posthumously, R. A. Simpson's final collection of poems is scattered with his black and white line drawings. The book opens with a foreword by Peter Porter who says 'People like me who envisage words better than we do places or pictures looked to [Simpson] to remind us of the way the world is, and alert us to watch carefully what it does. [...] The Sky's a Beach is a moving farewell to the world he loved but always measured severely. He had the right sort of self-awareness, and therefore his readers can trust him all the way.'

Unfinished Journey : Collected Poems by Michael Thwaites
On the threshold of his ninetieth birthday Michael Thwaites has published a poetry collection that spans a seventy-year period. It begins with poems dating from the 1930s and ends with a group of 'Birthday Poems' dedicated to his wife, Honor Thwaites. (The ten 'Birthday Poems' were written annually over the decade following Honor Thwaites's death in 1993.) In between are poems covering the years of World War II and selections featuring the cities of Melbourne and Canberra. In his foreword Thwaites writes, 'It remains my conviction that poetry offers a supreme gift of communication, needed as never before in our distracted and divided world.'

A Literary Divergence
Leavetaking by Joy Hooton
Joy Hooton is highly regarded for her joint editorship of The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature and for the second edition of Annals of Australian Literature, however her recent writing has moved into the creative sphere. In 2004 she published her first novel, Leavetaking. The story is set at the time of the 'Patriotes Rebellion' in French Canada and follows the journey of those who were convicted for their part in the rebellion and subsequently transported to Australia.

Hooton has also published some poetry in the most recent edition of Conversations, the journal sponsored by the Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.

Honouring the Legacy of Judith Wright
Prompted by the question: 'Has our society become less compassionate over the past decade?', Martin Mulligan has organised a festival and conference 'to bring together people inspired by [Judith Wright's] work in the fields of creative writing, nature conservation work, and reconciliation work'. (Overland, no.177, Summer, 2004) The Two Fires Festival and Conference will run from 18-21 March in the rural town of Braidwood in south-eastern New South Wales. The conference will celebrate, explore and nurture the essential relationship between the 'two fires', arts and activism.

Co-convened by RMIT University's Globalism Institute and the Centre for Popular Education, University of Technology, Sydney, the conference will feature a number of prominent keynote speakers including Veronica Brady, Arnold Zable, Tom Griffiths, Anita Heiss, and Rodney Hall and will incorporate panel discussions and workshops.

For further details, see AustLit's Events Directory entry.

Information on other upcoming events such as Tasmania's Ten Days on the Island festival and the University of Western Australia's Landscapes, Exiles, Belonging, Home conference is also available via the Events Directory.

Subversive Satirist Defeated by Cancer
Novelist and playwright, Peter Mathers has died after a twelve-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Described by his one-time literary agent, John Timlin, as 'a unique and neglected voice among Australian writers' (Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 2004), Mathers won the 1967 Miles Franklin Literary Award with his first novel, Trap. His second novel, The Wort Papers (1972) received critical acclaim but was poorly distributed by the publisher and sold few copies. Two of Mathers's obituarists, Timlin and Barry Oakley (Australian, 17 November 2004), make reference to Mathers's habit of using the remaindered copies of this novel as mulch for his vegetable garden.

Mathers collection of short stories, A Change for the Better (1984), did not live up to its hopeful title. Chary of large publishers, Mathers selected a small Adelaide publisher for this venture, but was again disappointed when copies of the book were so poorly bound that they fell apart.

The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature describes Mathers's fictional creation, Jack Trap as embodying 'stubborn singularity', a genius for 'unpredictable independence in a materialistic secular society' and a refusal to validate 'established mores'. Each epithet could equally apply to Mathers.

Note: Although no longer available as a traditional print publication, Trap can be ordered as one of the University of Sydney's Classic Australian Works selections. Orders may be placed through the Sydney University Press website.

It's Not Over Till ...
Doris Leadbetter was known for her sense of humour. She highlighted her physical size in the titles of her two volumes of poetry – The Fat Lady's Song (1995) and The Fat Lady Sings (2004), the latter published a few weeks after her death from bone cancer.

Leadbetter did not start writing seriously until she was in her sixties and had 'retired'. Migrating to Australia in 1963 she had graduated in sociology from London University and had been a member of the Playhouse and Theatre School in Bradford, Yorkshire. In Australia she worked for the CSIRO as a librarian in Perth and Canberra. Her contact with CSIRO staff fostered an interest in science and led to her joining the Australian Skeptics and the Australian Rationalists. Leadbetter's fascination for science also fuelled the ideas for her soon-to-be published novel, Forgotten Dreams. On a recent trip to the UK Leadbetter's manuscript was accepted for publication by Transita and she had 'the great pleasure of signing her first novel contract and seeing her advance cheque' before she died. (Herald Sun, 3 December 2004)

Composer Continues to Give
Miriam Hyde's generosity of spirit continued into death with her decision to donate her body to the University of Sydney for research purposes. Hyde, best known as a composer, pianist and music teacher, also wrote several volumes of poetry (published during the 1940s) and her autobiography, Complete Accord (1991).

The National Library of Australia holds Hyde's papers. The collection includes correspondence with Currency Press relating to the publication of Complete Accord and also contains notebooks of poems in draft form. Many of these poems are in folders dating from the 1970s and 1980s, much later than Hyde's published poetry.

The Bulletin – 125 Years Old
First published on 31 January 1880, the Bulletin is now celebrating its 125th anniversary. To spark the celebrations, the 1 February 2005 issue of the magazine takes readers back to the era of the Bulletin's founding with an article on J. F. Archibald, 'Tales of Mystery and Imagination' by Diana Bagnall. There is also an insight into the Bulletin's early popularity in both bush and city from Warren Fahey. In 'Lore of the Land', Fahey outlines the Bulletin's bold approach to the critical social and political issues of the late 19th and early 20th centuries thereby stamping its authority as the 'Bushman's Bible'.

The entire literary content of the Bulletin is indexed in AustLit. Various grants have allowed intensive retrospective indexing projects and the relevant content of current issues is still indexed week by week. An indication of the shift in literature's place in Australian society, as reflected in the Bulletin, can be seen in the sharp increase in literary items in the early years of the 20th century and then a gradual decline towards the end of the millennium. In 1880, AustLit indexed 226 items from the weekly magazine. By 1903, with a leap in nationalistic fervour, the figure had grown to 1,020. This level of literary coverage holds steady for the next 30 years and then drops to an average of 600 items per year until 1960. From then on, apart from a slight surge at the time of the Bulletin's 100th anniversary, the number of items relating to Australian literature continues to shrink. By the turn of the new century the figures are: 54 items (1999), 58 (2000) and 75 (2001).

In total, AustLit has indexed 64,419 items from the Bulletin.

AustLit Adjustments
Two small but significant changes have occurred at AustLit in recent months. AustLit's name has been slightly altered and the publishing schedule for the newsletter has been adjusted.

1. From Gateway to Resource
   AustLit, previously known by the full title, AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway, will become AustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature. The name change took effect in late November 2004.
   
   As Australia's premier resource in the field of Australian literary research, AustLit will continue its mission to enhance and support research and learning in Australian literature, and will maintain its on-going commitment to develop and deliver enhanced services and research capabilities to all users.



2. Newsletter Distribution Dates
   From 2005 AustLit's regular two-monthly newsletter will be released on the even, rather than the odd, month. Since 2002 the newsletter has been published six times a year with the first issue being the January/February number. We will continue to publish six issues per year, but each annual compilation will now begin with a February/March issue and close with a December/January issue.
   
   Newsletter readers can automatically receive an email alert when a new issue is available. To receive email notification follow the instructions for Newsletter Subscription.
   
   An archive of previous newsletters is held in the News Archive.

New AustLit Records
During November and December 2004 and January 2005, the Content Development Team added:

• 8,066 new works
• 1,424 new agents (individuals and organisations)

In addition to these new records, over 9,800 existing work and agent records have been upgraded and enhanced.

We welcome your feedback on our service, and will work hard to develop content and services to meet your needs. If you have any comments and suggestions, please contact us at:

info-austlit@austlit.edu.au

Or spend two minutes filling out our User Feedback form.