Professor Bruce Bennett Receives Doctor of Letters
On 11 May, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) awarded AustLit Chair, Professor Bruce Bennett a Doctor of Letters. Professor Bennett was recognised for his 'extensive and significant work in the area of Australian Literature', including his 'pioneering role in developing the study of print culture' and his 'ongoing leadership' of AustLit.

Professor Bennett delivered the Occasional Address at the UNSW ceremony, tracing the genesis of his interest in Australian Literature to his years as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. At that time, he 'started reading books by Australians and realising that many of them were interesting, illuminating and well written.' His prior education in Western Australia, coinciding with a period of 'cultural cringe', had not led him to expect this. On his return to Australia he began, in company with others, the 'long campaign to give Australian literary studies a significant place in Australian university studies of English.'

Professor Bennett's success in this endeavour is evidenced in his citation which notes: 'From his earliest days ... to his current leadership of the AustLit project, there is a clear trajectory in Bruce Bennett's career of increasing distinction, scholarly authority and generous service ... In helping to define what we understand by our national literature, Bruce Bennett has few peers in the country today.'

The AustLit team joins with Professor Bennett's family, friends and colleagues in congratulating him on this significant distinction.

New Australian Literature Anthology Planned
The Macquarie PEN Australian Literature Anthology is being developed in a 'scoping study' between the Australian Academy of the Humanities (AAH), Macquarie University, Macmillan/Macquarie Dictionary Publishing and International PEN, the world's largest and only UN-accredited association of writers (through Sydney PEN). The project aims to 'make available to students and general readers a representative selection of the best and most significant Australian writing from early times to the present' and to provide a 'lively, stimulating introduction to Australian creativity.'

Project developers anticipate producing a work comparable to the Norton Anthology of American Literature and hope to publish 1,500 pages of selections encompassing a variety of non-fiction prose styles, translations from non-English languages, poetry, fiction, drama and screenplays, 'with a strong focus on the period from 1950-2000'. Indigenous tradition and writing is also expected to have a strong presence.

Publication is envisaged for 2008 and the project has an estimated budget of $1.5 million. For more information about the project, contact the AAH on (02) 6125 9871 or email aah@anu.edu.au. Further details are also available on the AAH website.

Writers of the Tropical North Highlighted in New AustLit Subset
At James Cook University (JCU), Dr Cheryl Taylor and PhD student Ben Myers, are researching the literature of North Queensland writers from the 1840s to the present. Their work will result in a new AustLit subset, Writers of the Tropical North. The subset is expected to comprise 15,000 descriptive entries derived from handwritten index cards previously prepared by Dr Taylor and her late JCU colleague, Ross Smith.

Dr Taylor expects the new subset to be a rich tool for future multidisciplinary research. '... diaries of explorers and settlers will interest historians; travel writing and accounts of the rainforest and reef will be relevant to geographers and ecologists; Indigenous writing will likely attract the interest of Indigenous people themselves as well as historians and anthropologists; and reminiscences of life in the tropics may be possible sources for sociologists and social historians.' (JCU Outlook, May 2004)

AustLit welcomes proposals from researchers and academics for involvement in projects of foundational scholarship in Australian literature. Contact Kerry Kilner, Executive Manager, k.kilner@uq.edu.au

AustLit Farewells Esteemed Team Member
It was 'with a heavy heart' that AustLit Executive Manager, Kerry Kilner informed the AustLit Content Team of the departure in late June of Dr Elizabeth (Liz) Hardy. Liz has been a highly valued contributor to AustLit, beginning at the University of Western Australia with Dan Midalia and, for the last two years, as part of the University of Queensland (UQ) team. At UQ, Liz has been heavily involved with preparations for the publication of the second volume of The Bibliography of Australian Literature, which is derived from AustLit, and has contributed significantly to author-focused work.

The whole team has valued Liz's dedication and good humour over the past several years. As she re-settles in Dunedin, New Zealand, AustLit wishes Liz good fortune in this new phase of her life.

New AustLit Records
During May and June 2004, the Content Development Team added:

• 6,418 new works
• 1,251 new agents (individuals and organisations)

In addition to these new records, over 6,600 existing work and agent records have been upgraded and enhanced.

Literary Figures Receive Queen's Birthday Honours
Dr Brenda Niall received the second highest honour offered by the Order of Australia in the 2004 Queen's Birthday list. She becomes an Officer of the Order of Australia for her 'service to Australian literature as an academic, biographer and literary critic'. Dr Niall has written meticulously researched biographies of Martin Boyd, Georgiana McCrae, Mary Grant Bruce and Ethel Turner. Her most recent publication, The Boyds : A Family Biography won both the Victorian and Queensland Premier's Awards for Non-Fiction.

Also recognised in the honours list were:

• Nick Enright (posthumously), Morag Fraser and David Myers

each becoming a Member of the Order of Australia
and
• Kenneth Dutton
who receives a Medal of the Order of Australia

Gemmell's Bride Streaks Ahead on Bestseller List
The Australian Publishers Association (APA) has announced the results of its 2003-2004 survey of bestselling books. Nikki Gemmell's The Bride Stripped Bare topped the charts in both the 'Top 10 Australian Books' and the 'Top 10 Adult Fiction' lists. Although not reviewed entirely favourably by the critics, Gemmell's anonymously published novel has sold over 190,000 copies in Australia.

Three other Australian authors appear in the 'Top 10 Adult Fiction' list. They are:

• Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow
• Di Morrissey - Barra Creek

and
• Santo Cilauro, Rob Sitch and Tom Gleisner - Molvania : A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry

Each of these books is also included in the 'Top 10 Australian Books'. According to that list, when most Australians read Australian authors in the survey period, they chose a mix of:

• adult fiction - the four titles listed above, plus Colleen McCullough's The Touch
• biographies and autobiographies - Bravemouth by Pamela Stephenson, An Anzac's Story by Roy Kyle (included in the 2003 Books Alive promotion) and Jason McCartney : After Bali by Jason McCartney

and
• children's and young adult novels - Zombie Bums from Uranus by Andy Griffiths and While I Live by John Marsden

Full results of the survey are available on the APA website.

Age Book Poll
The Age, in conjunction with the Australian Centre for Youth Literature, has launched its 150 Years - 150 Books - 150 Words book poll. (See AustLit's May/June newsletter for background.) The poll lists 'books written by Victorian authors that particularly appeal to 10-18 year olds' and 'encourages readers to explore Victorian books and to reflect on their personal impact' by voting for their favourite selection.

Beginning in 1879 with Ned Kelly's Jerilderie Letter, the list includes such classics as Mary Grant Bruce's A Little Bush Maid, Frank Dalby Davison's Man Shy, Don Charlwood's All the Green Year and Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock. More recent publications are Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life and Flash Jack by Maureen McCarthy and So Much to Tell You and Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden. The list is heavily weighted towards books published in the last twenty years. Only 27 books are included with a publication date prior to 1984; 69 books on the list have been published since 2000.

Results of the poll will be announced at a 150 Years - 150 Books - 150 Words Awards presentation day at RMIT, Melbourne on 1 September.

Text and Canongate Announce Joint Venture
Independent book publishers Text and Canongate are to form a joint venture. The Text Media Group, purchased by John Fairfax earlier this year, is selling Text Publishing to the joint venture partners.

Text's author list includes Tim Flannery, Inga Clendinnen and Murray Bail, while Canongate publishes Booker Prize winner Yann Martel, Australian-raised Michael Faber and London-born Melbourne resident, M. J. Hyland.

New International Prize in 2005
The Man Group, current sponsor of the Booker Prize, has launched a major new literary award for international fiction. The Man Booker International Prize will be presented biennially and will recognise the achievement of 'a living author who has published fiction either originally in English, or generally available in translation in the English language'. Authors will only be able to win the award once and prizemoney is set at 60,000 pounds.

A judging panel will establish its own confidential reading list and, from that selection, will announce a shortlist of fifteen writers. The first award winner will be announced in mid-2005. Full details of the award are available at the Man Booker International Prize website.

Memorial Grove Honours Judith Wright
A memorial grove has been dedicated in Armidale to honour poet Judith Wright. A community-based collective, conscious that there was no monument to Wright in the region of her birth, organised the planning and construction of the grove. One corner of Armidale's Civic Park now boasts a planting of the endangered Eucalyptus nova-angelica (referred to in Wright's poem, 'South of My Days') and other Australian species. The memorial also features an engraved granite seat and some rocks from Wallamumbi, Wright's childhood home. Wright's daughter, Meredith McKinney, dedicated the memorial.

Funder Takes Top British Prize for Non-Fiction
After being shortlisted on seven occasions for major Australian and international awards, Anna Funder has finally taken home the winner's prize. Funder's Stasiland has been awarded Britain's richest award for non-fiction, the Samuel Johnson Prize.

Funder lived in Berlin prior to the demolition of the Berlin Wall and returned again after the fall of Communism. During her time there she interviewed those who had lived under the Stasi regime and her book reveals the stories of these people's lives.

First published in Australia by Text Publishing in 2002, Stasiland was released in Germany this year. On a promotional tour, Funder was greeted with open hostility in areas of the country governed by the former German Democratic Republic. 'The old east Germans were very annoyed at me. The people complaining were often ex-Stasi and [Socialist] party members ... When they read my book, people in the East are not proud of themselves. They'd rather not be reminded that other people were braver than they were. So there is a huge force to pretend that the Stasi regime was not as bad as it was.' (The Sydney Morning Herald, 12-13 June 2004)

Funder's next work, a novel, is growing out of a change in her perception of Australia since completing Stasiland. Funder now regards 'The idea of Australia as a fair place that looks after its people openly and compassionately' as a 'pleasant fiction of [her] childhood'. Her new work will reflect her sense that 'we're getting very blase about how the structures for dictatorship come about.' (The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 June 2004)

Hazzard's Great Fire Ignites Again
Following her success in the US National Book Awards, Shirley Hazzard has won the 2004 Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel The Great Fire.

In making the final selection the judging panel acknowledged that 'In a year when the shortlist for the Award featured novels by writers who have won many of the world's most prestigious literary prizes, as well as highly distinguished works by younger novelists, the choice was a particularly difficult one.' The panel ultimately decided that The Great Fire 'stood out for the way in which all of the novelist's traditional tools - characterisation, scenic description, dialogue - were employed with great skill and subtlety. What was not said became almost as important as what was ...'

Unable to receive the award in person due to commitments in Italy, Hazzard recorded her acceptance speech via video from London prior to the Award night. No doubt sensitive to suggestions that her fictional portrayal of Australia in the 1940s was less than flattering, Hazzard commented that she had been 'thinking about Miles Franklin, who used a man's name, in accord with the exigencies of her time' and noted that 'Some things do change for the better, over the long literary haul, and the changes of cultural Australia in my lifetime are staggering.'

Established in 1954, the Miles Franklin Literary Award was first presented in 1957. The Award is Hazzard's first Australian literary prize and she becomes the eighth female winner.

Encore Delivers Win to De Kretser
Michelle De Kretser did not win the overall Commonwealth Writers Prize in May, but she did have some compensation a few days later when she won the British Society of Authors 2004 Encore Award. The award, with prizemoney valued at $A24,500, is for the best published second novel of the year. De Kretser's first novel, The Rose Grower (1999) was set in eighteenth century France. The Hamilton Case, another historical work, is set in 1930s Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The Hamilton Case has been published in Australia, the UK and the USA.

De Kretser is the first Australian to win the Encore Award. It was first presented in 1990 and previous winners include Colm Toibin, Claire Messud and Ali Smith.

Australia's Richest Theatre Prize for Windmill Baby
This year's $20,000 Patrick White Playwrights' Award has been presented to David Milroy and Ningali Lawford for their collaborative work Windmill Baby. The play tells the story of Maymay, an Aboriginal woman who returns to the Kimberley cattle station that had been her home 50 years earlier. Maymay recalls the tragic love affair between an Aboriginal worker and the white mistress of the station and their 'windmill baby'.

The play also explores the working conditions of Aborigines in the 1950s and 1960s. According to Lawford, 'The pastoral industry was built on the Aboriginal people's back ... It was a time of bloody hardship and racism.' (The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May) Following the announcement of the award, Lawford and Milroy performed a rehearsed reading of the play at the Wharf 2. The reading was directed by Wesley Enoch and formed part of the Sydney Writers' Festival.

Premiers' Awards
Both the New South Wales (NSW) and Western Australian Premiers have announced their state's literary awards. In NSW, Brian Castro won the Book of the Year in addition to the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction for Shanghai Dancing. (Castro had previously won the Victorian Premier's Fiction Award for the same novel.) Describing Shanghai Dancing as 'Beautifully and eloquently written', the judges considered that 'Castro's considerable literary skills turn history into a living, evocative present, a drama in which ancestors become living characters and are so vividly imagined they illuminate for us much of the essence of the Australian story.'

This year's Special Award honoured Ruth Park, 'a major storyteller, a professional writer and a woman much loved by readers throughout the world'. The NSW Premier's citation noted that Park 'has informed, moved and delighted Australian readers and listeners of all ages over several generations'. Recalling her talent for surviving periods of difficulty and hardship, the Premier acknowledged Park's 'versatility, together with her ability as a brilliant and skilful storyteller, a deep and intuitive love of people and history, and a rare talent for imparting powerful emotions and an unforgettable sense of place and time...'

In Western Australia, Reg Cribb's Last Cab to Darwin won the Script Award and the Premier's Prize. (Cribb's play had already won the Queensland Premier's Drama Award and was shortlisted for the same category in the Victorian Premier's Awards.) The judges commented that Cribb had 'crafted an exceptional Australian play for our time'. Although focusing on the main character's quest for euthanasia, the judges noted that the play was 'far from morbid: its caricature, humour and satire are suffused with a characteristically Australian humour forged in defiance of adversity.'

After first being produced in Perth in 2003, Pork Chop Productions will tour nationally with Last Cab to Darwin to Sydney and Broken Hill (August), Launceston and Hobart (September), Geelong and Wollongong (October) and Albury/Wodonga (November).

A full list of winners for both awards is available via the respective government websites:

• NSW Ministry for the Arts

and
• State Library of Western Australia

ALS Gold Medal Winner
Laurie Duggan has won the 2004 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for his poetry collection, Mangroves. Awarded for 'an outstanding literary work published in the preceding calendar year', the Medal is sponsored by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL). The award was announced at the ASAL annual conference along with the winner of Mary Gilmore Award for a first book of poetry. This year that prize went to Michael Brennan for Imageless World.

Sylvia Lawson, winner of the Walter McRae Russell Award for 'the best book of literary scholarship on an Australian subject published in the preceding two calendar years' was also presented with her award on the opening morning of the conference. Lawson won for her collection, How Simone de Beauvoir Died in Australia.

Colin Roderick Award Shortlist
Sponsored by the Foundation for Australian Literary Studies at James Cook University, the Colin Roderick Award recognises 'the best book published in Australia which deals with any aspect of Australian life'. At the Foundation's Annual Dinner in October, the winner will be drawn from the following shortlist:

• My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey
• The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks by Brett D'Arcy
• Three Dog Night by Peter Goldsworthy
• Blood and Old Belief by Paul Hetherington
• The Tyrant's Novel by Thomas Keneally
• Dark Victory by David Marr and Marian Wilkinson

and
• Mango Country by John van Tiggelen

To Be Announced Soon ...
The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) will announce their annual awards on 20 August. The shortlist can be viewed on the CBCA website.

Re-Creating Our Past
In 'Seaborne Tales of How They Got Here from There' (The Sunday Age, Agenda, 4 July) Jane Sullivan investigates recent publications featuring nineteenth-century sea journeys from England to Australia. Sullivan writes that the 'ancestral crossing of 15,000 miles of sea to reach a mysterious new home is a rite of passage that has lately been fascinating our writers, both historians and novelists.' Writers engage with questions such as 'What makes people embark on such a journey? What do the months at sea do to them both physically and psychologically? How changed are they when they set foot on land again?' Sullivan cites five works in her article, from both biographical and fictional points of view. Her list comprises:

• Bright Planet (2004) by Peter Mews
• Slow Water (2003) by Annamarie Jagose
• Life and Death in the Age of Sail : The Passage to Australia (2003) by Robin Haines
• English Passengers (2000) by Matthew Kneale

and
• The Salt Letters (1999) by Christine Balint

A search of AustLit reveals other similarly themed titles that could have been included by Sullivan. These include:

• Dangerous Places (2004) by Ann Charlton
• An Unlettered Girl : Her Life on the Goldfields (2002) by Patricia Stavely Baird

and
• Isabella (2001) by Winifred Weir

Later this year, La Boite Theatre will produce Angela Betzien's Wicked Bodies. The play canvasses comparable territory to that discussed by Sullivan: 'In 1853, five wicked women set sail from Whitby, England, each wishing to exchange the tyranny of their past for a new life in the Great Southern Land.' (La Boite website)

Speaking from the vantage point of Australian children's literature, Allen & Unwin publisher Rosalind Price observes that 'Historical fiction - which offers similar scope [to fantasy fiction] for big adventure, for exploring the unfamiliar and exotic - is on the upsurge.' (The Weekend Australian, 3-4 July) Does the weight of publishing numbers support this thesis? AustLit records 14 historical novels published in the first six months of 2004. During 2003, 36 works of historical fiction are listed. The figure for 1998 was 39 and for 1993, 26.

These figures do not appear to show a marked trend in the last decade. However, sample searches of the years 1983, 1973, 1963 and 1953 show that no more than five historical novels were published in any one of these years. A substantial upswing in the publishing of historical fiction occurred after 1988, coinciding with observances marking the bi-centenary of European settlement in Australia. In the last decade an average of 35 historical novels has been published each year. Given that the corresponding rate for fantasy fiction is just over 40 per year, it may be that the 'real' world of historical fiction will soon overtake the magical realms of fantasy in readers' imaginations.

Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize
Submissions are invited for the 2004 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. Poems of up to 100 lines may be submitted and an entry fee applies. The first prize is $1,500 and three minor prizes may be awarded at the discretion of the judges who, this year, are Tim Thorne and Jennifer Harrison.

An entry form and further details are available from Tasmania's Island magazine website or by contacting Island at P O Box 210, Sandy Bay, Tasmania 7006. Entries must be received by 1 October.

Call for Short Stories
Frank Moorhouse, the newly appointed editor of Black Inc's Best Australian Stories annual anthology, is calling for short fiction of no more than 3,000 words. Moorhouse aims 'to reposition the short story as a primary art form in the print media' as he believes that today's magazines have 'failed to see it as a special asset in contemporary social commentary'.

Submissions may be sent to GPO Box 4430 Sydney NSW 2001. Entries close on 1 September.

Peter Blazey Fellowship
The Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne is calling for applications for the second Peter Blazey Fellowship. The Fellowship was first received in 2004 by playwright Sara Hardy and will be awarded annually to 'writers in the non-fiction fields of biography, autobiography and life writing and is intended to further a work in progress.' Award recipients are 'encouraged to actively participate in the Centre's cultural life, taking full advantage of the facilities made available for the duration of the residency.'

An application form is available on the Australian Centre's website. Applications for the 2005 Fellowship close on 10 September.

Literary Gatherings
AustLit's Events Directory provides advance information on a range of conferences, festivals and other literary events. Forthcoming gatherings include:

• Byron Bay Writers Festival, 29 July -1 August
• Future of the Book Conference, Beijing, 29-31 August
• Australian Poetry Festival, Sydney, 3-5 September
• Brisbane Writers Festival, 27 September-3 October

and
• Australian and International Feminisms, 12-14 December

Further events are shown on the Events Directory. New submissions are welcome.

Premature Death of Children's Illustrator
After a long period of illness, Steven Woolman has died in New Zealand aged 34 years. An award-winning illustrator of children's books, Woolman collaborated most notably with Gary Crew and Isobelle Carmody. With Crew, he illustrated seven books including the CBCA 1995 Picture Book of the Year The Watertower (1994) and its sequel Beneath the Surface (2004); with Carmody, he designed and illustrated Dreamwalker and Wildheart.

Graduating from the University of South Australia in Graphic Design and Illustration, Woolman spent the major part of his working life with Era Publications. From 1992-1998 he illustrated sixteen books for Era. Through the final years of his life Woolman worked as a freelance illustrator. During this period he wrote, as well as illustrated, the children's novel Budgie.

Woolman worked in a variety of media - he used acrylics, collage, pencil, chalk and computer-generated imagery. He acknowledged that that his artwork reflected 'hours spent as a child watching old movies and TV shows'. Woolman's self-confessed favourite genres were science fiction and horror. He had a fascination with the macabre.

The closing words on Woolman's website read: 'He has a very strong feeling that he is immortal, but we'll wait and see about that one...'

Supporter of Hunter Valley Writing Dies
Norman Talbot, committed Quaker, generous teacher, versatile writer and erstwhile supporter of Hunter Valley writing, has died at the age of 67. Talbot came to Australia from his native England in 1963 to take up a lectureship at Newcastle University. He retired from that institution in 1993 to concentrate on his own writing and to develop his work as a literary consultant. In a personal tribute to his former supervisor, Russell Blackford describes Talbot as 'one of the most important intellectual influences on my life'. Blackford records Talbot's 'unfailing generosity' to young scholars, 'the only "payment" for which he ever asked was that something of the same generosity be passed on to others'. (Blackford's website)

Over the course of 25 years, Talbot published twelve collections of his own poetry. Introducing Four Zoas of Australia (1992), Gwen Harwood wrote 'Norman Talbot is nonconformist in temper. No one could mistake his poetic temper for that of anyone else, and in an age when any number of well-acclaimed sensitive poets might very well be each other, this is joy for the reader. He takes language and polishes it from the rust of ages so that it shines in the mind.'

Talbot actively promoted writing from the Hunter Valley region. He was one of the founders of Nimrod Publications and edited numerous anthologies of the region's writing for Nimrod and for Catchfire Press. Talbot was a regular participant in Poetry in the Pub (Newcastle) Inc. events. Involved from its earliest days, Talbot helped write the constitution for the organisation and frequently read his poems at the monthly gatherings. He was awarded Honorary Life Membership of Poetry in the Pub in December 2003.

Talbot's funeral was in the usual style of a Quaker meeting where quietness is honoured and words grow from silence and contemplation.

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