AustLit Papers Presented at North American Conference
In April 2006 AustLit's Executive Manager, Kerry Kilner, attended the annual American Association for Australian Literature Studies (AAALS) conference in Montreal, Canada where she delivered a well-received paper. Titled 'AustLit: A Resource for Australian Literary Research', the paper discussed the history, scope, aims and usefulness of AustLit for contemporary scholars of Australian literature and Australian studies. Free trial access to AustLit was set up for conference participants and this has allowed colleagues in the Americas and Europe to fully and independently explore AustLit.

A paper by Carol Hetherington, AustLit's Content Manager, was also delivered at the AAALS conference. 'Little Australians? Some Questions About National Identity and the National Literature' explored the challenges that regularly face the AustLit Content Team regarding the scope and inclusiveness of a national literature database. Noting that AustLit's selection criteria are almost identical to those employed in the 1930s by E. Morris Miller in Australian Literature from Its Beginnings to 1935, the paper highlighted decision-making complexities in cases such as Australian-born D. B. C. Pierre, Australian-raised Michael Faber and new Australian citizen J. M. Coetzee. The paper also followed the fascinating trail of American mystery writers Constance and Gwenyth Little. Exhaustive research by various AustLit team members revealed 'a story not unlike the plot of a Little sisters mystery'. (The Australian-born sisters are included on AustLit for one jointly written novel, Great Black Kanba.)

Special Projects Update
Based at the University of Queensland, AustLit team member Carol Wical is working on the Australian Magazines project. Carol writes: 'I began work in February 2006 indexing Louisa Lawson's The Dawn. Of particular interest were the changes wrought on the magazine when Gertrude Lawson took over the role of editor due to her mother's declining health.'

Carol is now indexing issues of All About Books for Australian and New Zealand Readers. 'Each issue ... is densely packed with reviews and news so the going is slow but diligence often renders up treasures.' She has also indexed issues of little magazines including Barjai, P. I. O'Leary's Design: An Australian Review of Critical Thought and the innovative Tabloid Story.

New AustLit Records
During April and May 2006, the Content Development Team added:

• 7,677 new works
• 1,291 new agents (individuals and organisations)

In addition to these new records, over 12,900 existing work and agent records have been upgraded and enhanced.

ABC to Launch New Book Programme
ABC Television will soon launch the First Tuesday Book Club hosted by journalist and publisher Jennifer Byrne. A panel of book lovers and book clubbers will join Byrne to 'consider titles from all genres including fiction, non-fiction, biography, thriller, romance and history.' ABC Television's Head of Arts and Entertainment, Courtney Gibson, said, '[t]his will be a book-obsessed beast of a show where viewers can get involved by reading the book beforehand and participating in on-line discussion forums.' Jennifer Byrne, who hosted the ABC's one-off special My Favourite Book in December 2004, says, '[f]or a book addict like myself, this is like rolling in clover ... Our book club will hunt out the best and liveliest of the new [and] the most memorable of the old.' (ABC Television media release, 15 May 2006)

First Tuesday Book Club is currently in production and will be screened for the first time on 1 August 2006. It will continue to air, as its name suggests, on the first Tuesday of each month.

Hilary Bell Play Features in New York Theatre's Anniversary Season
Australian playwright Hilary Bell has been commissioned to write a one-act play to be produced during June and July 2006 in New York. The US city's Atlantic Theater Company, founded by David Mamet and William H. Macy, is celebrating its 20th Anniversary Season and has asked twenty of its previous playwrights to write a short play in honour of the occasion.

Bell's Wolf Lullaby was featured during the Company's 1998-1999 season (in company with Harold Pinter's The Hothouse and Peter Parnell's adaptation of John Irving's novel The Cider House Rules). Other playwrights featuring in the anniversary season include founder David Mamet, John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation) and Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss).

An Award by Any Other Name
Winners of the recently announced New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards (see Recent Awards) may have been surprised to find the word 'Premier's' reinstated in the Awards' name. A decision had been taken in October 2005 to rename the Awards and delete the reference to 'Premier'. The reason provided was that the new Premier of New South Wales (NSW), Morris Iemma, did not hold the Arts portfolio as his predecessor Bob Carr had done. Sydney Morning Herald journalist Peter FitzSimons claimed some of the credit for reversing the decision. FitzSimons was lunching with the current Premier and registered his disappointment at the change. Mr Iemma immediately gave the assurance: 'I'll fix that.' (Reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, 6-7 May 2006)

Commenting on the decision to revert to the earlier name, NSW Arts minister Bob Debus was in a humorous mood. With the Premier in Rome, Mr Debus told journalists that Mr Iemma had advised him that 'Pope Benedict XVI had approved of the revision.' (Australian, 18 April 2006)

Following the reversal, medals were recast and stationery reworded for this year's presentation evening, but according to Susan Wyndham (Sydney Morning Herald, 6-7 May 2006) tickets for the event were issued before the change and will now be 'a collector's item'.

State government affiliated awards in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia are called 'Premier's Literary Awards'. In South Australia the government sponsors the biennial Festival Awards for Literature, while Tasmania inaugurated the Pacific Region Prize in 2001. In the Australian Capital Territory the government's Arts Fund awards prizes for the ACT Book of the Year Award and the ACT Poetry Awards; in the Northern Territory a range of awards are offered under the banner Northern Territory Literary Awards.

New Head for Centre for Youth Literature
Paula Kelly is the new manager of the Centre for Youth Literature (CYL) based at the State Library of Victoria. Kelly's appointment follows the retirement at the end of 2005 of long-time children's literature and reading advocate Agnes Nieuwenhuizen. Kelly has previously been the Chair of the May Gibbs Children's Literature Trust and has been highly commended in the Dromkeen Librarian's Award. The CYL offers a range of events for teachers and students and runs a biennial conference, Reading Matters. The Centre also hosts the Youth Literature blog, Read Alert.

A full list of CYL events for 2006 can be found on the Centre's website.

Honorary Doctorate for Theatre Director
Neil Armfield, one of Australia's foremost theatre directors, has been awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature at The University of Sydney. Armfield, who graduated from the Sydney university in 1977 with Honours in English, has been artistic director of Company B at the Belvoir St Theatre for the past twelve years. He has also 'directed productions for every state theatre company in Australia. His international work includes productions for the Royal Opera Covent Garden, the Lyric Opera Chicago, the Zurich Opera, the Canadian Opera, the Welsh National Opera, the English National Opera, and the Bregenz Festival in Austria.' Armfield was nominated for the honorary degree by Professor Penny Gay and AustLit Board member Professor Elizabeth Webby 'in recognition of his long and distinguished contribution to the Humanities, especially through his work as a director of plays, opera and films both within Australia and overseas.' (The University of Sydney news release, 21 April 2006)

Collaboration Bears Fruit at the Cinema
Neil Armfield has also been in the news with the release of the film Candy – the result of a script writing collaboration with novelist Luke Davies. Davies's semi-autobiographical novel, also titled Candy, was published nearly ten years ago and he and Armfield have been working on the screen adaptation since 1999. Davies told SBS's Movie Show that he enjoyed moving away from his usual experience of 'writing isolation' and learning about 'narrative economy' in the development of a script. Asked whether he used words differently in script writing Davies responded in the affirmative saying: 'everything else I write – a novel, a short story, a poem, a play – the words matter, the language actually matters, but in a sense a screenplay needs to be about as transparent a document as you can write and the words can get in the way if you think you need to be poetic or something in a screenplay. It is only a technical document that is the bridge between the thing that you're adapting and the work that will blossom in its final version on a screen, in a dark cinema, with an audience sitting in front of it.'

Believing the 'emotional heart' of the novel remains, Davies explained that he and Armfield achieved that result not by 'using literary methods', but by initially using a voice over and then understanding the film as being 'a building and the voice over was like the scaffolding that we erected while we put the building up and then we had to take the scaffolding down to reveal the beauty of the building.' (SBS Movie Show, 17 May 2006)

Candy premiered at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival and was released in Australian cinemas in late May 2006.

Griffin Theatre to Lose Artistic Director
David Berthold is to end his term as Griffin Theatre Company's artistic director at the end of 2006. Berthold, who took over the artistic reins in mid-2003, has overseen a period of substantial growth. Company Chair, Stephen Collins, said that Berthold has 'attracted some of the best playwrights in the country while audiences have increased by 75 percent.' Berthold inaugurated the Griffin Playwrights' Residency in 2004. The programme resulted in works such as Tommy Murphy's 'Strangers in Between', winner of the 2006 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award for Best Play. Berthold also commissioned Louis Nowra's 'The Boyce Family Trilogy'. The final part of the trilogy, 'The Emperor of Sydney', will have its world premiere under Berthold's direction at Griffin's SBW Stables Theatre in August 2006.

Preparing for his departure, Berthold said 'I'm a great believer in companies, in the opportunities they can create for artists to be at their best and for returning audiences to share in the joy and insight artists offer.' Berthold will work in Berlin during 2007 and plans to use the year to explore other artistic endeavours. (State of the Arts News, 29 May 2006)

Australians Feature at French Book Festival
Australia was the featured country at the 2006 Comédie du Livre in Montpellier, France. The festival, which ran from 19-21 May, debated Australian Indigenous culture, Australian literature and the influence of Australian culture on the global stage. Guest writers included Robert Dessaix, Nikki Gemmell, Janette Turner Hospital, Michelle de Kretser and the French writer (now resident in Perth), Catherine Rey. The guest of honour was Thomas Keneally.

In the lead up to the festival France's main daily newspaper, La Monde, sponsored a literary contest. Questions included 'Which film of Stephen Spielberg is drawn from a novel written by an Australian author?' and 'Which detective novel of Douglas Kennedy has a framework in Australia?' (The answers are: Schindler's List and The Dead Heart.)

The festival is now in its 21st year and attracts up to 300 writers and audiences of 100,000. Australia's participation was supported by the Australia Council and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Australia will continue to build its international profile when it is the featured country at next year's Kolkata Book Fair.

AustLit's April/May Newsletter reported on a perceived takeover in the writing and transmission of Australian history. ('Move Over History Wars – the Novelists are on Their Way') Led by historian and writer Mark McKenna, the argument ran that, in part because of recent disputes between Australian historians, 'writers of fiction are now more commonly seen as the most trustworthy purveyors of the past.' McKenna's fears will not be allayed, therefore, by Allen & Unwin's announcement that it plans to publish a three-volume 'People's History of Australia' to be written by Thomas Keneally. Keneally says that he 'will aim to cast a new lens over Australia and its people, so that you can see it in unexpected lights.' He hopes his work will surprise his readers and that they will be 'hearing from people they have never heard from before.'

According to Allen & Unwin Chairman, Patrick Gallagher, '[n]o writer can better capture the essence of the Australian people than Tom Keneally ... we're all looking forward to publishing a series that will be of lasting importance to all Australians.' The first volume in the set is due for release in late 2008. (Allen & Unwin media release, April 2006)

Wesley Enoch on the eve of a new production of Louis Nowra's Capricornia:
'The arguments today are cultural arguments, about who owns the cultural capital of this country, who creates the cultural capital, who has it, the white people or the indigenous people. It is no longer about skin colour. It is about identity ... for me the whole question of identity politics is far more interesting than questions of racism ... This play we are doing is a wonderful way to explore this question. (Sydney Morning Herald, 20-21 May 2006)

Neil Armfield, responding to a question he poses to himself – 'Why do we put on shows?':
'I used to think it was for the good of mankind or to give shape and voice to a national culture – to essentially improve our audience. But really I think it's because we're driven to it: there's nothing else we can do ... And it gives us something to do with our rage, our frustration. And of course, our joy.' (Artistic Director's message, Belvoir St Theatre website)

Sonya Hartnett arguing the case for publishing her latest book, Landscape with Animals, under a pseudonym:
'It is the task of the writer to examine life in all its strange and smudged glory: and if a novel speaks a recognisable truth to at least some of its readers, then surely it does not matter whose name is on the cover.' (Sunday Age, 28 May 2006)

Markus Zusak, one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists for 2006 and whose novel The Book Thief has topped Amazon's and the New York Times's bestseller lists:
'Failure is double-sided. Samuel Beckett once said, "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." I failed a thousand times writing the first part of The Book Thief. I thought it wasn't right, [that] nobody would want to read it. If you fail it means you have taken on things that are hard. You have gone above and beyond, and that is what extends you.' (Sun-Herald, 28 May 2006)

Frank Moorhouse on the proliferation of writing courses in Australia:
'All 37 Australian universities offer some sort of course in creative writing. As in the US, the teaching of writing provides a source of income for established writers who teach full time or for a semester, or are writers-in-residence ... or who give occasional lectures. Now the joke goes that when someone says they're a writer, the next question is, "Where do you teach?"' (Weekend Australian, 27-28 May 2006)

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Awarded to American-Australian Citizen
The 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner is Geraldine Brooks for her Civil War novel, March. An Australian has not previously won the prize, for 'distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life', and American newspapers made little of Brooks's dual-citizenship. The Sydney-born and raised writer was variously described as 'a Virginian', 'a New Yorker' and 'the second Pulitzer winner in her household' in US papers whereas Australian headlines emphasised her original nationality. The Australian went with 'Aussie Interloper Joins American Literary Elite' and the Daily Telegraph ran the headline 'Aussie Book Triumph'. In the Age the banner read 'Australian Joins Pulitzer Elite with Homage to Classic Novel' while the Courier-Mail favoured 'Aussie Writer Takes Out Novel Prize'.

The idea for Brooks's novel was triggered by the discovery, in Waterford, Virginia, of 'bullet holes in the bricks of the local church' and 'a Union soldier's belt buckle' in the backyard. 'Thinking about the young man who had worn that buckle was the beginning, in my mind, of March ... I began to imagine an idealist adrift in the Civil War, and that reminded me of Little Women, and the absent father "far away, where the fighting was".' (Brooks's website)

March is Brooks's second novel. Her first, Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague, is set in an English village in the 1660s where the inhabitants quarantine themselves in an attempt to stop the spread of infection. Brooks has also written two non-fiction books – Nine Parts of Desire, which resulted from her journalistic work in the Middle East, and Foreign Correspondence, an autobiographical account of growing up in Sydney and launching her international career.

Distinguished Poet Honoured in Premier's Awards
Rosemary Dobson, one of Australia's foremost poets, received the Special Award in the 2006 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. The Special Award is designed to recognise work 'not readily covered by the existing categories' or for a 'writer's achievements generally'. Dobson, who turns 86 in June, has published more than a dozen collections of poetry. Both her first and most recent selections were in booklet form, beginning with Poems (1937) and finishing – to date – with Folding the Sheets and Other Poems (2004). Books in the intervening years include the prize-winning volumes The Three Fates and Other Poems (1984) and Untold Lives and Other Poems (2000).

The citation for Dobson's award noted the remarkable circle of poets that gathered in the Canberra area in the 1970s. Among Dobson's acquaintances were David Campbell, A. D. Hope, R. F. Brissenden and Judith Wright; an assembly that generated fine writing and deep friendships. The citation concludes: 'The level of originality and strength of Rosemary's poetry cannot be underestimated, nor can the contribution she has made to Australian literature. Her literary achievements, especially her poetry, are a testament to her talent and dedication to her art and we should feel honoured to know her.'

Other winners in the 2006 Awards include:

• Kate Grenville for The Secret River (Fiction)
• Jacob G. Rosenberg for East of Time (Non-Fiction)
• Jaya Savige for Latecomers (Poetry)
• Ursula Dubosarsky for Theodora's Gift (Young People's Literature)
• Kierin Meehan for In the Monkey Forest (Children's Literature)
• Steven Lang for An Accidental Terrorist (New Writing)

and

• Thomas Murphy for 'Strangers In Between' (Drama)

A complete list of winners, with judges' comments, can be viewed on the Arts New South Wales website.

Book Thief Nabs Prize Money
Markus Zusak's much-acclaimed novel, The Book Thief, is the winner of the 2006 Kathleen Mitchell Award. The Award, dedicated to encouraging 'young Australian authors to achieve their dreams', is offered biennially to authors under the age of thirty at the time of their book's publication. The 'book thief' of Zusak's tale is six-year old Liesel Meminger, a survivor in World War II Germany who constructs living worlds through her crafty encounters with books.

The Kathleen Mitchell Award judges described Zusak's work as: 'An ambitious novel that takes on one of the most difficult stories available to a modern writer and succeeds in constructing a narrative that is mysterious, affecting and profoundly humane ... The framing device of using Death as the narrator is audacious, but it is handled deftly and always in the interests of good storytelling and a tight narrative structure.' (Judges Formal Comments)

Also commended in the 2006 Award were:

• Emily Maguire for Taming the Beast
• Stephanie Bishop for The Singing

and

• Penni Russon for Undine

ABR Poetry Prize to Judith Bishop
Judith Bishop is the winner of the 2006 Australian Book Review (ABR) Poetry Prize with her poem, 'Still Life with Cockles and Shells'. The poem, a response to a 17th century Italian painting, is described by the judges as 'unfailingly poised and suggestive', with not an 'otiose or misplaced' word. Bishop, a linguist, portrays herself as 'a "globalist" when it comes to language, and also, therefore, to poetry. I am just in love with the fact that each language brings with it a new horizon of experience; and each good poem does the same in miniature.' (ABR, no. 280, April 2006)

White-Hot Play Wins Playwright's Award
John Romeril describes Wesley Enoch's 'The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table' as marrying 'White-like expressionism to an equally fierce White-hot desire to lay bare the murky workings of the human heart.' Romeril was one of the judges who chose Enoch's play as the recipient of the 2005 Patrick White Playwright's Award.

The Award, named after Nobel Prize winning novelist and playwright Patrick White, gave Enoch $20,000 in prize money and the opportunity to work with director Wayne Blair in a professional workshop. Romeril also commented: 'It was a rare honour, given Patrick White's literary stature, to be able to give the Award to a script that echoed the master's own theatrical imagination.' (Sydney Theatre Company News)

Enoch's inter-generational saga was developed during a 2002 residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. It will be performed in Tokyo in November this year as part of the Dramatic Australia Festival at the Repertory Theatre KAZE.

Kibble and Dobbie Awards for Women Writers Announced
Brenda Walker's The Wing of Night is the winner of the 2006 Nita B. Kibble Award. The annual prize is awarded to a woman writer of 'a published book of fiction or nonfiction classifiable as "life writing".' The Dobbie Award, a similar prize but for a first published book, went to Carrie Tiffany for Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living. Walker was especially delighted with her win 'because it is a prize about women's connections, and my book is all about how rural women connected with each other when the men were away at war, and how the connections forced by the war led to unlikely alliances.' (Australian, 11 May 2006)

Judging panel chair Elizabeth Webby noted that 2006 was the first time in the Kibble's twelve-year history that all finalists were works of fiction. 'There have been several articles recently about the decline of literary fiction so it was a pleasure to see it was a particularly strong year for fiction.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 11 May 2006) The other finalists were Heather Rose's The Butterfly Man and Kate Grenville's The Secret River.

Everyman's Tale Shortlisted for Orange Prize for Fiction
It may be that Carrie Tiffany is not especially eager for the limelight. At the Shortlist Readings for the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, judging panel chair Martha Kearney opened her remarks with: 'We've been trying to stop Carrie from doing a runner. She saw the exit sign and she's heading on out!' (Edited transcript of Readings) Tiffany's Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living was among five shortlisted works for this year's Orange Prize. (The winner, announced on 6 June, was Zadie Smith's On Beauty.) Having won the 2003 Victorian Premier's Award for best unpublished manuscript, Tiffany's first novel struggled to find a publisher. It was picked up initially by Picador in the UK and then published in Australia. The first US publication was released in May 2006.

Tiffany was the only first-time novelist on the Orange shortlist. The prize is awarded 'to the woman who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length novel in English.' Other Australians have attracted the judges' attention in past years. Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire was shortlisted in 2004 and Chloe Hooper's A Child's Book of True Crime was shortlisted in 2002. The only Australian winner to date has been Kate Grenville in 2001 for The Idea of Perfection.

Full details of this year's award are available on the Orange website.

Miles Franklin Race Down to Five
Contenders for the 2006 Miles Franklin Literary Award have been reduced from fifty-four submissions down to a longlist of twelve and now a shortlist of five titles. Those remaining in contention (along with extracts from the judges' comments) are:

• Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany
  'This novel ... is a perfect little book to which Picador has given the production values it deserves ... The characters are portrayed with real affection, neither sentimental nor comical ... It is a quietly funny, but serious, novel you won't forget.'
• The Ballad of Desmond Kale by Roger McDonald
  'Steeped in the lore of wool and bushcraft, The Ballad of Desmond Kale echoes a clutch of Great Australian and American Novels, from Moby Dick and Tom Sawyer to His Natural Life and Such is Life ... McDonald's [historical fiction] is a comic and redemptive vision of colonial history that turns on his free-wheeling use of the pastoral mode, both as a form of national myth-making, and an imagined world where innocence and energy confront evil and corruption; where tyranny yields to the New Jerusalem.'
• The Garden Book by Brian Castro
  'Castro's novels are characteristically layered and seriously playful ... [He] is a master of signs and ironies ... There is a multi-lingual wisdom in this book, a bi-cultural wit that makes the distance between people seem like fertile ground. But Castro is a writer who never baulks at catastrophe or loss, so it is that promise, held out so tantalizingly, that gives his narrative its extraordinary poignancy and power.'
• The Secret River by Kate Grenville
  'Meticulous research and an informed imagination, credible characters and an uncanny sense of time and place are the engines which power Kate Grenville's splendid seventh novel ... In a narrative which is both seductive and shocking, The Secret River delves deeply into the sweat and the grit of the European conquest of Aboriginal Australia.'
  and
  
• The Wing of Night by Brenda Walker
  'Into this clear-eyed, lyrical story of war and Australian life, Brenda Walker has woven snatches of Gallipoli's historical record, remembered dialogue, letters, poetry, graphic incidents, songs, and research on early twentieth-century farming. But it is the novelist's imaginative sympathy, not the authenticity of the historical fragments, which gives this beautifully modulated novel its resonance ... War is a savage crucible; Brenda Walker understands its terror and its transformative power all too well.'

The judges' complete comments are available on the Trust website.

The 2006 Miles Franklin winner will be announced at a gala dinner at the State Library of New South Wales on 22 June. The declaration of the shortlist has led to renewed discussion about the terms of the Award – see This Month's Spotlight for further details.

Children's Book of the Year Shortlist
The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has released the shortlist for its 2006 awards. In the Older Readers category, previously honoured authors such as Brian Caswell (Double Exposure) and James Moloney (Lost Property) mingle with newer writers Barry Jonsberg (It's Not All About You, Calma!) and Cath Crowley (Chasing Charlie Duskin).

On the Younger Readers list, Paul Jennings must already have won the 'award for longest title' – How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare, Robbed a Grave, Made a New Friend Who Might Not Have Really Been There at All, and While He Was At It Committed a Terrible Sin Which Everyone Was Doing Even Though He Didn't Know It while Morris Gleitzman wins the prize for the shortest – Once.

University of Queensland Press (UQP) and Penguin Books (including Puffin) each have six shortlisted books. UQP was especially pleased with its representation. Children's Publisher at the University press Leonie Tyle submitted eleven books for the judges' consideration. 'To get six books out of eleven is amazing, particularly when some of the larger publishers would have entered more than 100,' Tyle said. Publishers are keen to be included on the shortlist as schools, libraries and the public use the list as a buying guide. Tyle commented: 'You are guaranteed of selling at least 5,000 extra copies so they are very significant awards.' (UQ News Online, 24 May 2006)

The winner of the CBCA Nan Chauncy Award for 2006 is Muriel Barwell, 'a leading light and a continuing inspiration for all involved with children's literature, particularly in Western Australia (WA).' Barwell established the specialist children's bookstore, Haddons, in Perth and travelled through remote areas of WA visiting schools, setting up book displays and organising discussion groups. Barwell has been an active member of the WA Branch of the CBCA since 1974.

A complete list of CBCA shortlisted books and the full citation for Muriel Barwell are available on the CBCA website. Award winners will be announced on 18 August 2006.

• The Australian Literature Society Gold Medalist will be announced on 2 July at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature Conference in Perth. The winner will be selected from:
  • Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis
  • The Patron Saint of Eels by Gregory Day
  • March by Geraldine Brooks
  • Dead Europe by Christos Tsiolkas
  
  and
  
  • East of Time by Jacob G. Rosenberg



• The Australian Booksellers Association Conference in June will annouce the winner of the Booksellers Choice Award for 2006. Contenders are:
  • March by Geraldine Brooks
  • The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery
  • The Secret River by Kate Grenville
  • A Man's Got to Have a Hobby by William McInnes
  • The Tyrannicide Brief by Geoffrey Robertson
  
  and
  
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The announcement of the shortlist for the 2006 Miles Franklin Literary Award has again aroused debate over the terms of the Award. Miles Franklin's original rationale was: 'Without an indigenous literature people can remain alien in their own soil. An unsung country does not fully exist or enjoy adequate international exchange of the inner life. Further, a country must be portrayed by those who hate it or love it as their dwelling place, familiarly, or remain dumb among its contemporaries.' The Award, established by Franklin's bequest, goes to the novel with 'the highest literary merit and which must present Australian life in any of its phases.' (Trust website)

Jane Sullivan (Age, 20 April 2006) expressed the view that Miles Franklin 'must be jumping up and down in her grave' at the exclusion of Geraldine Brooks's Pulitzer-winning March from the 2006 shortlist. Sullivan contends: 'This is a ridiculous situation' and says that Franklin would be shouting '[t]his is not what I wanted!' Sullivan also highlights the exclusion of Delia Falconer's The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers from the 2006 list and an alleged inconsistent treatment of Frank Moorhouse in past years. (Moorhouse's 1993 novel, Grand Days, was excluded from prize contention, but he was awarded the Miles Franklin in 2001 for its sequel, Dark Palace).

The writer of the May 2006 'Advances' column in the Australian Book Review (ABR) responded to Sullivan's arguments with some ire. Claiming that '[f]ew Australian prizes are so inclusive', the column asserts: 'The reality for judges and trustees is clear. It was Miles Franklin's money, and she knew what she was doing ... The trustees have a legal responsibility to honour the will, and the judges have a moral one to observe the criteria.'

'Advances' takes issue with Sullivan's perceived attack on judging practices. 'Jane Sullivan, to our mind, revives an unfortunate and inaccurate impression that judging panels are hedged about with all sorts of dubious non-literary considerations ... By and large judges, those maligned creatures, take on the role in a spirit of goodwill and enquiry and commitment, not to settle tired old scores.'

The ABR column highlights the absence of restriction on an author's nationality for Miles Franklin eligibility. 'Africans and Americans and Armenians are all eligible, if they care to write about Australia.' The Miles Franklin has never been won by a 'non-Australian' (however that term might be defined), but it has been won by expatriate Australians. Shirley Hazzard, who has lived outside Australia since her teenage years, won the Award in 2004 for The Great Fire and Peter Carey's Jack Maggs won in 1998. Carey, who took up residence in the USA in the late 1980s, was also shortlisted in 2004 for My Life as a Fake. Little has been made in recent media commentary about an expatriate's ability to reflect Franklin's concern that Australia be portrayed by those who experience it as their 'dwelling place'.

On 29 April, the Age's editorial writer took up Sullivan's theme and reprised the question: 'is it time to change the rules of the Miles Franklin to widen its terms of reference?' The editorial suggests that, instead of tinkering with the terms of Award, '[w]hat is needed is a new award, or set of awards, to reflect the changes in our literary landscape and the broadening of territory that has, over the past half-century, made Australian authors more internationally recognised than even Miles Franklin herself might have imagined; authors who don't just tell the world about Australia, but about the world itself.'

Among the national awards currently offered to Australian writers, the Australian Literature Society (ALS) Gold Medal is presented simply for 'an outstanding literary work'. The ALS does not have the mainstream profile afforded to the Miles Franklin, nor does it offer any financial reward. However, if the current shortlist is typical, it does provide recognition for authors who 'don't just tell the world about Australia, but about the world itself.' This year's shortlist (see Recent Literary Awards & Shortlists) does not include a single work set wholly in Australia. The four novels and one autobiography traverse Asia, North America, Australia and Europe across various eras and social situations. The award the Age is looking for may already exist.

• Ross McMullin has revised his 1984 publication on the life of artist, cartoonist, war correspondent and poet, Will Dyson. The new book, Will Dyson : Australia's Radical Genius, features reproductions of Dyson's drawings and cartoons, many providing an insight into trench conditions during World War I. (Dyson's own book, Australia at War : A Winter Record, covers this theme more fully.)



• John McLaren, editor of Australian Book Review from 1978 to 1986 and of Overland from 1993 to 1996, has written his own story in Not in Tranquility : A Memoir. McLaren 'gives an intimate picture of a voyage through half a century of Australian life, framed by images of his beloved Murray river...' (Australian Scholarly Publishing)



• In Socialist Champion : Portrait of the Gentleman as Crusader, John Barnes follows the story of the remarkable social crusader Henry Hyde Champion. Champion was the editor of Book Lover, among other publications, in the early decades of the 20th century. He was also the founder of the Australasian Authors' Agency and represented such writers as Dorothea Mackellar, Martin Boyd and Marjorie Barnard.



• Reviewer Diana Simmonds (Weekend Australian, 8-9 April 2006) describes Learning to Dance : Elizabeth Jolley : Life and Writing as 'the autobiography you have when the author hasn't written an official autobiography but when the writing, fiction and otherwise, draws so richly and deliberately on a life, the joins are all but invisible.' Edited by Caroline Lurie, this collection of prose, stories and poems includes a range of Elizabeth Jolley's published writings from the early 1970s through to the 1990s as well as some previously unpublished pieces.



• Gillian Bouras says that the writing of No Time for Dances : A Memoir of My Sister was 'undoubtedly the hardest task I have ever undertaken.' Bouras chronicles the relationship between herself and her sister, tracing an arc from their close and competitive childhoods to her sister's suicide in 1996. 'Strangely enough,' writes reviewer Frances Atkinson, 'No Time for Dances is an uplifting memoir and ends on a note of hope and reconciliation.' (Sunday Age, 26 March 2006)

• The Academy Editions of Australian Literature has launched its eighth title with the publication of Australian Plays for the Colonial Stage 1834-1899, edited by Richard Fotheringham. The latest volume comprises nine plays beginning with Henry Melville's 'The Bushrangers' (1834) and concluding with Arnold Denham's 'The Kelly Gang'.

  Justice Margaret McMurdo, President of the Queensland Court of Appeal, launched the new volume in Brisbane and, with tongue firmly in cheek, announced that she looked forward to using a line from Helen Lucy Benbow's 'For £60,000' in a future judgement. The line to which the judge referred reads: 'Take that you rampageous muffin!'

  Professor Fotheringham preceded the launch by delivering a lecture on the successive phases of the colonial stage. (A detailed introduction covering the same theme is included in Australian Plays, pp.xxi-lxxxvi.) Ex-students from the University of Queensland's Drama programme performed readings of extracts from each of the nine plays and brought to life theatrical voices that had been largely unheard for over 100 years.

• Three books by first-time novel writers will soon be appearing on the bookstands:
  • Kate Morton's The Shifting Fog begins with the suicide of a poet at a glittering society party in Edwardian England. Morton's publisher, Allen & Unwin, has already sold the rights to the book in the USA, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain.
  
  
  
  • Just published is Tara June Winch's Swallow the Air. Winch won the 2004 David Unaipon Award for this linked collection of stories that tells a confronting but in the end hopeful story of life as a young urban Indigenous Australian. Winch has been described as an emerging writer to watch by Thuy On in her recent review of Swallow the Air in the June/July issue of Australian Book Review.
  
  
  
  • Another award winner publishing her first novel is Deborah Robertson, winner of the 1998 Steel Rudd Award for Proudflesh. Robertson, a teacher of creative writing at Murdoch University, has written her new novel Careless through the eyes of a child. She told the Sydney Morning Herald's Angela Bennie, 'I asked myself, how would it be if we looked at Australian history or Aboriginal history or the world through the lens or eye of a child's experience? I have often wondered what our history would be if it were written from this point of view. It is not that we are cruel to children. Sometimes we are just careless of them, that's all.' (3-4 June 2006)

Multicultural Anthology
The Multicultural Writers Association of Australia is seeking submissions in prose (up to 5,000 words) and verse (up to 50 lines) for a national anthology. The anthology, with the proposed title 'Culture Is...' aims to share experiences of living in Australia.

Submissions should be sent to:
The Secretary
Multicultural Writers Association of Australia
P O Box 192
Kent Town SA 5071

Verse contributions can also be submitted via email: vbalnaves@hotmail.com

Further information is available from the Association's secretary, Vanessa Balnaves, at the above email or by phone, 0413 127 211.

ASA Mentorships Available
The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) is offering twelve month mentorships to writers and illustrators. ASA Executive Director, Jeremy Fisher, says the mentorships 'are open to novelists, non-fiction writers, poets, YA and children's writers and picture book illustrators. We especially encourage applications from Indigenous writers and illustrators. We're looking for an avalanche of applications.' (Media release, 18 May 2006)

To be eligible, applicants much be aged eighteen or over, have no more than two books published, have a substantial work-in-progress completed to at least first draft stage, be an Australian citizen or permanent resident and be an ASA member.

Applications close on 14 July. Application forms and further information are available from Jill Dimond on 02 9318 0877 or email jill@asauthors.org.

The Australian Centre Invites Applications
The Australian Centre is inviting applications for its two annual awards – the Kate Challis RAKA Award and the Peter Blazey Fellowship. The Kate Challis Award for Indigenous creative artists 'has been instrumental in fostering writers, filmmakers and visual artists for over a decade.' This year's Award is for a specific work of fiction published between January 2001 and January 2006. The Blazey Fellowship is offered 'to writers in the non-fiction fields of biography, autobiography and life writing and is intended to further a work in progress.' The Award includes a residency at The Australian Centre.

Entries for both awards close on 3 July. Application forms are available online by following the appropriate links. Contact Caroline Hamilton for further information on 03 8344 7235 or email awards-austcentre@unimelb.edu.au

Meridian Call for Papers
The La Trobe University English Review, Meridian, is being re-launched under the editorship of Martin French and is calling for papers, and literary fiction and non-fiction. Meridian is an interdisciplinary review for 'writers, scholars and artists of the history and practice of the creative arts.' It acts as 'a forum for scholarship and debate on the cultural, social, psychological and historical dynamics of creativity in all its forms.'

Dr French would welcome items 'that might fit this brief (article or story)'. Contact him on 0407 491 007 or email drmartinfrench@netspace.net.au.

Don't forget to check AustLit's Events Directory for details of upcoming conferences, festivals, book launches, writers' tours and more. Events listed on the Directory for coming months include:

• 'Spectres, Screens, Shadows, Mirrors' – the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 3-5 July at the University of Western Australia
• Byron Bay Writers' Festival, 1-3 August – the Festival will celebrate its tenth birthday with more than one hundred writers taking part in workshops, panel discussions, theatre, poetry readings and more

and

• The fifth biennial Australian Poetry Festival, September 1-10, 2006 – a nation-wide event directed by Martin Langford

AustLit welcomes information of new events for inclusion in the Events Directory. Please complete the form provided on the Events Submission page on our website.

John Ritchie (1941-2006)
Historian Dr John Ritchie's legacy to the Australian nation is undoubtedly his contribution to the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB). Dr Ritchie succeeded Dr Geoffrey Serle as General Editor of the ADB in 1988 and oversaw the production of volumes 12 to 15 and part of volume 16. Dr Ritchie received a Centenary Medal for service to Australian society and the humanities in the study of history and literature, and became an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2002 for his services to the social sciences and the humanities. Among his history publications, Dr Ritchie wrote the biographies Lachlan Macquarie (1986) and The Wentworths : Father and Son (1997).

The Canberra Times interviewed Dr Ritchie when he received his AO. On that occasion, he told the newspaper: 'The study of history and biography is the best, and possibly only, way to make sense of the present and perhaps even to predict the future. The study of history and biography reveals a great deal about human nature and the human condition, which is a good thing for a wise person to know.' (10 June 2002)

Richard Magoffin (1937-2006)
Like Dr Ritchie, Queenslander Richard Magoffin had a passion for history, but while Ritchie's interest took shape in the academy, Magoffin's developed in the world of folklore and bush yarns. Magoffin's primary passion was the origin, provenance and critical reception of A. B. Paterson's 'Waltzing Matilda'. Magoffin developed the theory (disputed by Paterson authority Professor Colin Roderick) that the swagman who sprang into the famed billabong was union organiser Samuel Hoffmeister. (Story has it that Hoffmeister was a shearer in the Winton district. He was reputedly involved in disturbances at Dagworth Station during the 1894 shearers' strike and committed suicide rather than be captured by police.)

Magoffin's enthusiasm for the iconic poem led to the development of the Matilda Expo and Heritage Theatre in Winton where Magoffin entertained patrons with bush songs and yarns, and his version of the poem's history. The Theatre closed in August 2005 when Magoffin was unable to continue his performances due to ill health.

The National Library of Australia holds the original manuscript of 'Waltzing Matilda' and the Music Australia database offers a pathway that explores various themes related to the poem.

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