Subset Update – Australian Multicultural Writers
Recent AustLit newsletters have focused on developments in the Literature of Tasmania subset and enhancements to the Australian Children's Literature subset. This month we turn our attention to the Australian Multicultural Writers subset with the following report from AustLit team member, Dr Michael Jacklin:

The Australian Multicultural Writers subset grew out of the Bibliography of Australian Multicultural Writers project initiated at Deakin University under the guidance of Professor Sneja Gunew and with the financial support of the Federal government's Office of Multicultural Affairs. The subset became a part of the Australia's Literary Heritage collaboration in the mid-1990s, one of the precursors to AustLit, and has now moved its centre of operations to the University of Wollongong. Professor Wenche Ommundsen, previously of Deakin University, continues to direct research aimed towards expanding and enriching this subset. She is joined at Wollongong by Dr Michael Jacklin.

One area of research and upgrading for the Australian Multicultural Writers subset in 2007 is a focus on publications by Australian multicultural writers in languages other than English. Examples include:

• Publications by and about Merlinda Bobis, who writes in English, Filipino and Bikol. AustLit records now encompass her works in these languages as well as critical responses from overseas. See, for example Pag-uli = Pag-uwi = Homecoming: Poetry in Three Tongues.
• Italo-Australian dual language texts, from earlier publications such as Italo-Australian Prose in the 80s and Italians in Australia: The Literary Experience, to the more recent Accademia Letteraria Italo-Australiana Scrittoria series, with A.L.I.A.S antologia 2006: echi e distanze now comprehensively indexed.
• Hispanic-Australian publications in Hontanar, a monthly electronic newsletter which includes poetry and prose by Spanish-speaking Australian writers such as Clara Isabel Maldonado and Humberto Hincapié. Twenty issues have now been selectively indexed.

Another aim is to increase the listings for overseas publications by and about Australian writers, both in English and other languages. Recent updates in this area include:

• From India, the anthology Caring Cultures: Sharing Imaginations Australia and India and Lemuria, a new half-yearly journal of Indo-Australian studies, with the first issue guest edited by Les Murray.
• The Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, which will soon be releasing a special Australian Studies double issue.
• A 2005 issue of Italian Studies in Southern Africa, devoted to Italo-Australian culture and writing.
• From Spain, Eucalypt, the journal of The Australian Studies Centre at the University of Barcelona.
• From Italy, the journal Anglistica.

A third aspect of research is directed towards increasing AustLit coverage of community-based multicultural writing initiatives. Recently added texts in this area include:

• The Book of African Australian Stories (Be sure to see the story 'African Superhero'.)
• Poetry across Rooftops: Contemporary Writings by Afghan Women
• Peace: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose by NESB Women
• 'Sempre Con Te', an internet project of dual language Italian/English life writing from the Northern Beaches area of Sydney, linked now through AustLit records.
• Us in Oz, a publication resulting from an early 1990s multicultural writing project with four South Australian high schools.

Tamara Athique is a recent addition to the Australian Multicultural Writers subset team. She is a former doctoral candidate at the University of Wollongong whose PhD on South Asian-Australian fiction will be awarded in July. Contributions from Tamara's research include:

• Radio plays by Suneeta Peres da Costa, The Art of Straying and
Water
and

• Translations of Michelle de Kretser's award winning novel The Hamilton Case.

The AustLit team at Wollongong is also looking forward to co-operating in the near future with researchers, including Dr Ernie Blackmore from the university's Woolyungah Indigenous Centre, who will be contributing to the innovative work taking place in the Black Words subset.

Black Words Makes Its Mark

Black Words: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers and Story Tellers, an innovative new subset of AustLit, has been in the news lately. Black Words was formally launched on 6 June at the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) as a part of the International Indigenous Librarians Forum. AustLit team members and friends (right) celebrate Black Words launch. (Photo courtesy of Jeremy Patten, The University of Queensland.)

Book-ending the launch, the subset featured in a panel at the Sydney Writers Festival on 1 June and at a presentation/forum at The Dreaming Festival over the Queen's Birthday long weekend, 9-11 June.

At the launch of Black Words at the SLQ, Samuel Watson, a leading Aboriginal social justice activist, novelist, playwright and University of Queensland lecturer in Black Writing at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, said that the subset represented the combining of the oldest, living story telling culture in the world with the newest of technologies. Samuel Watson (left) launches Black Words. (Photo courtesy of Jeremy Patten, The University of Queensland.)

The three events mark the redevelopment of the earlier Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander subset of AustLit that had been developed by all AustLit team members over the six years since AustLit's establishment. The redevelopment has been led by Dr. Anita Heiss and AustLit's Executive Manager Kerry Kilner. A team of Indigenous researchers, currently comprising Yvette Holt (The University of Queensland), Yaritji Green (Flinders University) and Carolyn Moylan (University of Western Australia) have been working for the past eight months on the revision, updating and enhancement of existing AustLit records and the addition of many new agent and work records. AustLit's UQ-based senior researcher, Joan Keating, has also collaborated closely with the Black Words team. A steering committee, made up of academics, researchers and writers, has provided advice and assistance with the redevelopment.

Black Words contains records for over 1,000 authors who have publicly claimed Indigenous Australian heritage and their works. It also includes some full text material and information on the development of an Indigenous literary culture in Australia. A calendar of events, detailing milestones and events since colonisation, provides access to relevant records within the subset. Black Words is the most comprehensive resource available on the rich literary and story telling heritage of Indigenous Australians. The aim underpinning Black Words is to ensure AustLit is representing Indigenous Australian writers and story tellers and their works as appropriately and accurately as possible and to showcase the diversity and range of work being undertaken by Indigenous Australians.

Black Words has taken on its own visual identity with a specially designed logo and colour scheme by Indigenous graphic designer, Michael Gilsenan. The subset will continue to evolve over the coming months and years as further research reveals more information that can be added. A plenary session at the forthcoming Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference to be held in July at The University of Queensland will highlight the work being done on Black Words and discuss issues around the teaching of and research into Indigenous literatures and writers.

Explore Black Words here. Email us at: info-austlit@austlit.edu.au for guest access or if you are able to provide more information. More news on the Black Words launch can be found at UQ News Online.

AustLit's First Five Years
AustLit has published a comprehensive report into its first five years of operation. The report, AustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature: The Five Year Report 2002-2006, provides an overview of AustLit's establishment and the achievements of its early years. It also details the structure and management of this national discovery service. Of particular interest is information on the 13 of the currently-funded research and content development projects, each with specific objectives and research plans in place.

New AustLit Records
During April and May 2007, the Content Development Team added:

• 9,646 new works
• 1,989 new agents (individuals and organisations)

In addition to these new records, almost 13,000 existing work and agent records have been upgraded and enhanced.

Novels in Translation
Over the next two years, ten Australian novels will be translated into Chinese as part of the Australian Literature Translation Project. The project is jointly sponsored by the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade (SIFT), the Australian Consulate General in Shanghai, the ANZ Bank and the Australia-China Council. Australia's Consul General, Susan Dietz-Henderson, sees the project as 'another example of the blossoming cultural relationship between Australia and China'. It means that 'novels Australians grow up reading will soon be able to be appreciated by Chinese readers'. (Consulate media release, April 2007)

The ten selected novels, all prize-winners and including eight Miles Franklin Literary Award winners, are:

• Three Cheers for the Paraclete (1968) by Thomas Keneally
• The Day of the Dog (1984) by Archie Weller
• The Well (1986) by Elizabeth Jolley
• The Great World (1990) by David Malouf
• Highways to a War (1996) by Christopher Koch
• Jack Maggs (1997) by Peter Carey
• Drylands (1999) by Thea Astley
• Dark Palace (2000) by Frank Moorhouse
• Shallows (1984) by Tim Winton

and

• Shanghai Dancing (2003) by Brian Castro

A memorandum of understanding for the project was signed by Dietz-Henderson and the President of SIFT, Professor Wang Xinkui, during the Fourth Australian Writers Forum held in Shanghai during March 2007. Also announced was a contribution from the ANZ towards the Australian Friendship Collection at the Shanghai Library. The collection, launched in 2002 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Australia, already has 2,000 books covering politics, history, culture and literature.

MUP Plans to Spread Umbrella over Meanjin
In December 1940 Clem Christesen wrote the foreword to the first issue of Meanjin (then known as Meanjin Papers): 'In an age governed by the stomach-and-pocket view of life, and at a time of war and transition, we still strive to "talk poetry" ... It is hoped to continue publication of this brochure 'throughout the war period – and perhaps well into the Peace.'

Meanjin did robustly survive the war and continued publication through the ensuing peace. It moved its operations from Brisbane to Melbourne in 1945 at the invitation of the University of Melbourne and has published over 250 issues since 1940. Strife has now arisen, however, over a proposal for Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) to take control of Meanjin's administration and distribution. The Meanjin Board of Management, comprising Professor Kate Darian-Smith, Louise Adler, Professor Janet McCalman, Bruce Sims, Professor Emeritus Chris Wallace-Crabbe and Editor Ian Britain, has agreed to the plan but, according to Age reporter Carmel Egan, a divergence of views exists within the Board.

Louise Adler, both board member and MUP chief executive, is convinced that editorial, production and 'operational synergies' would be 'mutually productive' for Meanjin and MUP if the proposal goes ahead. 'This is not a buy-up or sell-off', she told Egan, 'it is the best way to ensure [Meanjin's] future'. (Age, 27 May 2007) Adler believes that small magazines need to modernise to ensure their survival and this includes online delivery of content.

The journal's fiction editor, Carmel Bird, expressed some 'trepidation' at the board's recommendation. 'I believe there is a deep and incalculable value attached to the history of Meanjin, and that this value is located in the journal as hard copy that can be collected, archived, referred to. There is added value in putting the material online, but it is only an addition. I believe that for Meanjin to be Meanjin it must forever be first of all a book in the hand. (Age, 27 May 2007)

A decision on the next phase of Christesen's 'brochure' is expected within the next two months.

Conundrum in Correspondence
Professor Peter Alexander, Professor of English at the University of New South Wales, has spent the last several years collecting letters written by the poet Les Murray and preparing an annotated volume for publication. An anticipated publication date of 2007 has now been stalled with the scholar and the poet declaring different understandings of their arrangement. Murray told the Australian newspaper that he had given Alexander permission to collect the letters but is distressed that, with publication seemingly imminent, he has not seen the book. Murray says this amounts to 'theft' and describes the breach in his relationship with Alexander as 'very deep'. (Australian, 16 April 2007)

Professor Alexander has a sustained, but not untroubled, record of research into Murray's life. In 2000, Oxford University Press published Alexander's biography, Les Murray: A Life in Progress. The biography's initial print run was pulped following legal action over defamation. In the case of the planned volume of correspondence, Alexander's perspective is at odds with Murray's. Alexander chose not to speak to the Australian or the US-based Chronicle of Higher Education in April, but he did write a brief response to an article that appeared in the Chronicle. The Chronicle had reiterated Murray's views and printed a telephone statement from Murray about the letters: 'I was agreeable to his [Alexander's] collecting them, but I didn't say publishing them'. (27 April 2007) Two weeks later Alexander's letter to the editor appeared in the Chronicle refuting Murray's claim. Alexander says Murray gave him 'written and explicit permission "to collect, edit, and publish" the letters'. Alexander continues: 'Now that the volume is all but done, he has apparently changed his mind'. (Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 May 2007)

In terms of Australian copyright law, consent is required of the author (or literary executor) 'where it is intended to publish the whole or part of a letter in the body of a new work'. (Trevor Gerdsen Copyright: A User's Guide 2003) Copyright in the work belongs to the writer; the physical property is owned by the recipient or subsequent holder.

Robin Derrincourt of UNSW Press is confident the book will be published saying that to call the stand-off a 'dispute' would be 'a simplification'. Derrincourt says that discussions are continuing and publication is 'only a matter of timing'. (Australian, 16 April 2007)

National Library to Digitise Early Australian Newspapers
The National Library of Australia has announced a major newspaper digitisation program to commence later this year. The Library has contracted a US company, Apex Publishing, to undertake the digitisation through the company's Global Newspaper Initiative. Digital images will be created from microfilms of out-of-copyright newspapers held in Australia's various state and territory libraries. Text-searchable files will then be generated using optical character recognition technology. By mid-2008 it is expected that over 500,000 newspaper pages will be freely available through an online service.

The first newspapers to be digitised include three from the early nineteenth century:

• The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser
• The Argus

and

• The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter and its successor the Colonial Times

National Library Director Jan Fullerton says: 'Newspapers are a significant record of the social, political, economic and cultural issues of the day ... The National Library has already digitised more than 125,000 of its most important collection items, and this project provides us with an exciting opportunity to digitise on a much larger scale'. (Canberra Times, 28 May 2007)

ABC and UTS Join Forces in Literature Compendium
ABC Radio National and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) are working together on an innovative multi-media project to encourage the study and appreciation of Australian literature. With $150,000 in funding over two years from the Copyright Agency Limited, the two organisations hope to 'push the boundaries of Australian writing and literary studies', according to UTS project co-ordinator Dr Catherine Cole. Dr Cole hopes the project will steer literary debate 'away from the narrow focus on why people aren't reading anymore' and 'move it into a more contemporary domain, examining writing as cultural and creative practice and offering readers different ways to access contemporary texts through new media and e-based sites'. (Media release, 12 April 2007)

The project, to be packaged as the Australian Literature Compendium, will deliver content through a range of media including the pod-casting of interviews, readings and documentaries, a refereed e-journal and DVD-based teaching guides. ABC Radio National Producer Dr Lyn Gallacher says the radio station is 'leading the world with this kind of multi-modal content delivery' and believes the alliance with UTS 'will allow our listeners to develop a deeper appreciation of Australian literature. More in-depth programs are exactly what listeners want.' (UTS News, 8 May - 3 June 2007)

Lockie Leonard Rides a Wave to the Small Screen
Tim Winton's Lockie Leonard Series, published between 1990 and 1997, reaches Australian television screens in June 2007. The first episodes in the life of the almost thirteen-year-old, surf-mad Lockie and his capers in the coastal town of Angelus have already premiered in the United Kingdom on the children's entertainment channel, Jetix.

Winton is glad to see 'good family TV being made again' and says: 'it does your heart good to remember that authentic regional voices and local stories are universal'. (Inside Film press release, 20 April 2007) The series is proving its universal appeal with international sales. Buyers have already signed up from the USA, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.

The Nine Network will air the 26-part Lockie Leonard series from 19 June in a 4.00pm time slot.

Book Town Momentum Builds in Victoria
Plans for a book town in Australia are gathering momentum after a successful Booktown for a Day event was held in the Victorian town of Clunes. On 20 May over 50 sellers of rare and second-hand books set up stalls in the goldfields town revitalising long-deserted commercial and community buildings. Organisers estimate that over 6,000 people were attracted to the day with a band of 40 volunteers managing the influx.

Convenor of BookTown Australia, Paul McShane, says that most book towns are established in rural areas, often in small villages with an historic interest. A concentration of booksellers in the towns may be 'complemented by artisan enterprises such as paper production, calligraphy, printing, book design, book illustration and traditional bookbinding'. ('What is a Book Town?')

Beginning with Hay-on-Wye in the United Kingdom, there are now over 20 books towns worldwide. In Australia, booktrails have been developed for the Alpine region of north-eastern Victoria (Alpine booktrail) and in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales (Southern Highlands booktrail).

In Clunes, the local working party is already pouring over questionnaires filled out on 20 May and processing the feedback of traders and visitors alike. More events will be held in the future and an assessment made about the potential of Clunes to become a fully-fledged book town.

David Carter to Tokyo
Professor David Carter, Professor of Australian Literature and Cultural History at The University of Queensland, will be the 2007-2008 Visiting Professor in Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo. Professor Carter will teach in the fields of Australian history and culture, immigration and multiculturalism, and Australian-Asian cultural relations while he is in Japan. He will also conduct research into aspects of Japan's publishing industry, particularly the role of foreign film, and young people's reading practices. Professor Carter says: 'I'm delighted to have the opportunity to deepen my knowledge of Japanese society while also understanding how Australia is seen from a Japanese perspective'. (Press release, April 2007)

The Tokyo Professorship is supported by the Australia-Japan Foundation of which Professor Carter was a Board member from 1998 to 2004. Professor Carter is also a current member of the AustLit Advisory Board.

New Partnership for ABR
Australian Book Review (ABR) has announced a new deal with wealth management group Ord Minnett. The financial services organisation will become the exclusive corporate sponsor of ABR in a partnership that the review journal says will allow it to 'expand its operations in search of greater readership throughout the Australian community'.

ABR Editor Peter Rose says that as ABR 'seeks greater revenue, including private philanthropy, so we can attract the best writers in Australia' the new arrangement 'will ensure we continue to improve the magazine and broaden our audience and influence'. Dr Steve Christie, Ord Minnett's Head of Private Wealth Management, sees 'a natural fit' between his company and ABR as both have 'long, proud traditions of working for Australians' and both share a commitment to 'literacy, education and an appreciation of the ideal of excellence'. (Press release, 3 April 2007)

Ord Minnett, as corporate sponsor, joins La Trobe University as ABR's chief sponsor, the National Library of Australia as national sponsor and Flinders University as a 'key sponsor'.

Sam de Brito, winner of the 2006 Best Weblog, Australia and New Zealand, promoting blogs as an avenue to print publication:
'Publishers seem obsessed with the idea that an author has to have an English or literature degree to be a good writer and I think that's why Australian literature is so anaemic. People are increasingly going to the net to be entertained and I think the sooner publishers embrace that the better.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 24 May 2007)

David Malouf on the argument that students no longer relate to poetry:
'Teachers are often themselves intimidated by poetry and they often give as the excuse for not teaching it that boys in particular find it difficult and don't respond to it. The odd thing about that is that the same boys who don't respond to it write it whenever they have feelings they want to deal with, like being in love. It's as if we know that we can find out what we really feel by objectifying it in writing. Often what poetry or music or even pop songs offer us is another non-logical way of arguing about what the body is telling us, or what nature is telling us, or what the heart is telling us.' (Bulletin, 29 May 2007)

International Children's Literature Award to Macquarie University Professor
Professor John Stephens, Professor of English at Macquarie University, has been awarded the 11th International Brothers Grimm Award. The award, offered by the International Institute for Children's Literature, Osaka, is given to a person 'who has performed outstanding work in research into children's literature and picture books, or one who has contributed remarkably to such research and to the promotion of such research'. Stephens's achievements fall into the latter category. Having worked for two decades in the fields of medieval studies and literary discourse analysis, Stephens changed tack in the mid-1980s and turned his attention to children's literature research and teaching. His publications include Language and Ideology in Children's Fiction (1992), and Ways of Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children's Literature and Film (2002).

Stephens, who is current President of the Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research and a former President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature, is 'very satisfied' with the award win. 'I'm very aware that the work I've been doing has been very influential in the field so it's nice to have a formal recognition of that. It's very rewarding to know that an international committee views me as not just the top scholar in Australia in the field but one of the top in the world.' (Macquarie University publicity statement, 2 April 2007)

Stephens will attend a presentation ceremony in Japan later in the year and will receive prize money of $10,000AUD.

Artwork Tells the Story for Tan
Shaun Tan's migrant story, The Arrival, has attracted award nominations in a disparate group of categories. With nominations ranging from picture book to short story and from speculative fiction to community relations, The Arrival is garnering awards across Australia. In the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Tan's graphic novel was shortlisted for the Ethel Turner Prize (for young people's writing) and it won the Community Relations Commission Award and the overall the Book of the Year. The judges said: 'Without words, this graphic novel has all the hallmarks of lasting literature ... As with a poem each reader is left to bring meaning to the many and at times enigmatic images and to explore the visual metaphors internally'.

The day after his success in the New South Wales awards, Tan told the ABC's Gary Kemble about his inspiration for The Arrival: 'it was the alignment of a number of different ideas in such a way as to create a recognisable – yet strange – kind of pattern. One area of interest involved the history of Chinese market gardeners in Perth, another the story of my Dad who came to Perth from Malaysia as a student and ended up staying after he met my Mum, who is a third-generation Australian of English and Irish descent. A third inspiration was that of old photography. I find something very haunting and evocative about very early photographs of people working, eating, playing and just going about their business. The lack of written narrative and the anonymity of a nameless old album often gets my imagination going, wondering who these people are, how they felt and what became of them. All these things and many others accumulate in sketchbooks over a long period, eventually reaching a kind of 'critical mass' that suggests a story.' (Articulate, 30 May 2007)

Tan won the overall Book of the Year Award ahead of the other 2007 category winners. Those winners are:

• Peter Carey for Theft (Christina Stead Prize for Fiction)
• Tara June Winch for Swallow the Air (UTS Award for New Writing)
• Robert Hughes for Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir (Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction)
• John Tranter for Urban Myths: 210 Poems (Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry)
• Ursula Dubosarsky for The Red Shoe (Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature)
• Narelle Oliver for Home (Patricia Wrightson Prize)
• Gideon Haigh for Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries (Gleebooks Prize)
• Tommy Murphy for Holding the Man (Play Award)

and

• Tony Ayres for The Home Song Stories (Script Writing)

Two individual awards – the Special Award to Gerald Murnane (for his overall literary achievements) and the Translation Prize and PEN Medallion to John Nieuwenhuizen – were also presented.

(To read more about the growth of graphic novels in Australia see This Month's Spotlight.)

Kibble and Dobbie Winners Announced
West Australian writer and creative writing teacher Deborah Robertson is the winner of the $20,000 Nita B. Kibble prize for a work of fiction or non-fiction classifiable as 'life writing'. The prize, open only to women writers, honours Nita Kibble – the first female librarian with the State Library of New South Wales. Robertson's win for Careless is the culmination of a particular method of developing her writing. Robertson says: 'It seems to me that any kind of creativity, whether it be writing a novel or inventing something, is a slow accretion of knowledge, working through mistakes, failures, of figuring out what is right for you, what doesn't work'. (Australian, 10 May 2007) Adopting this careful approach, Robertson began with a poem and then moved on to writing short stories as a way of finding her 'natural voice'. She believes that voice is evident in Careless and it seems literary judges concur. Careless has been shortlisted for awards at state, national and international levels.

The Nita Dobbie award, named for Kibble's niece, is based on the same criteria as the Kibble award, but is specifically for a 'first published work'. This year's Dobbie winner is Tara June Winch for Swallow the Air. Like Careless, Swallow the Air has already been much commended by judges in other awards including wins in both the Victorian and the New South Wales Premiers' awards. Swallow the Air is published by University of Queensland Press as part of the Black Australian Writing series.

US Win for Larbalestier
Justine Larbalestier has won the 2007 Andre Norton Award for her young adult novel Magic or Madness. The award is presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in conjunction with the prestigious Nebula Awards. Six books were listed in the final ballot for young adult novels – three from American writers, Larbalestier's winning title, and two works by Larbalastier's husband Scott Westerfeld. Texas-born Westerfeld was nominated for Peeps and for Touching Darkness, the second book in his Midnighters trilogy.

Eloise Flood delivered the acceptance speech on behalf of a justifiably excited Larbalestier. The speech began: 'Wow. Really. Wow. This is such an honour. I'm a huge fan of genre YA and in particular of every book on this year and last year's Norton shortlist. I'm not kidding. These are some of the best books out there: genre or not, YA or not. I can't believe I'm on this list. And I REALLY can't believe I won. You guys did read the other books on the list, didn't you?' (Larbalestier's blog, 13 May 2007)

Larbalestier has a chance to collect another US-based award in June when the winners of the Locus Awards will be announced. The awards are sponsored by the American science fiction magazine Locus and are decided by popular vote. Larbalestier's Magic Lessons, the middle book in her Magic or Madness trilogy, is nominated in the Best Young Adult Book category. Garth Nix's Sir Thursday is nominated in the same category.

Australians Shortlisted for International Short Story Award
Five Australians are included in a longlist of 34 contenders for the 2007 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. The award carries prize money of 35,000 euros and is currently the world's richest prize for short story writing. The five Australians are:

• T. M. Collins for Until a Shrimp Learns to Whistle
• Joy Dettman for Diamonds in the Mud
• Margo Lanagan for Red Spikes
• David Malouf for Every Move You Make

and

• Stephanie Green for Too Much, Too Soon

A shortlist of four titles will be announced in July and the winner declared at a ceremony in Cork, Ireland, in September.

CBCA Shortlist Announced with 'Junior Judges' Invited to Cast Their Votes
The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has announced its shortlist for the 2007 CBCA Awards and has also released its list of notable books drawn from titles published during 2006. The latter list comprises books commended by the award judges as sources 'for individual reading and gift giving, and for inclusion in Australian and international public and school library collections'. Both lists are available on the CBCA website.

An innovation for 2007 is the establishment of the Junior Judges' Project. The Book Council was concerned that, despite widespread interest in the annual CBCA Awards, knowledge about the judging process and the background to the shortlist was not so well known. In an effort to redress this situation the CBCA is introducing the Junior Judges' Project to encourage children to judge the shortlisted books based on the criteria used by the official judges.

To take part, schools must register via the Project's home page on the CBCA site. Information is provided on the selection criteria used to assess the literary merit of entries; children are invited to apply the criteria and make their own choices. Nearly 15,000 individual students had participated by the end of May with voting continuing until 16 August. The official winners of the 2007 awards will be announced on 17 August during Children's Book Week.

Other Recent Award Winners:

• New Zealander Lloyd Jones is the winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book for his novel Mister Pip. Michael Heyward, Jones's publisher at Melbourne's Text Publishing, says Text had set themselves the task of 'finding a major New Zealand writer and breaking him out of there. The stand-off between our two literary cultures makes no sense'. (Age, 28 May 2007) (Text also published the 2006 Best Book winner – Kate Grenville's The Secret River.)
  
  Winner of the overall Best First Book prize is Canada's D. Y. Bechard for Vandal Love. (Australia's contender in this category was Andrew O'Connor. O'Connor's Tuvalu won the regional award for the South East Asia and South Pacific Region.)



• Alex Skovron's poem 'Sanctum' won the Australian Book Review (ABR) Poetry Prize for 2007. Skovron told ABR that 'Sanctum' is 'an oblique, shadowy piece, an offbeat portrait framed within a telling that's imbued with at least some of the delirium of its protagonist'. (ABR, April 2007)



• Patricia Cornelius is the winner of the recently announced 2006 Patrick White Playwright's Award for 'Do Not Go Gentle...'. The play juxtaposes the journeys towards death of members of Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expedition with that of residents in an Australian nursing home.



• The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists of 2007 are Will Elliott for The Pilo Family Circus, Tara June Winch for Swallow the Air and Danielle Wood for Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls.

And Watch Out For...
The winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Literary Award will be announced on 21 June at a dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of the award. The winner will be one of the following:

• Careless by Deborah Robertson
• Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
• Dreams of Speaking by Gail Jones

or

• Theft by Peter Carey

'Is it a bird, is it a plane? ...' – No, It's a Graphic Novel
Graphic novels are catching on. High profile authors are writing them, large bookstores are devoting prime shelf space to them, school and public libraries are using them as draw cards for reluctant readers, and judges of mainstream literary awards are giving them prizes. But what are graphic novels?

In 2004 Eddie Campbell, a Scot who migrated to Australia over 20 years ago, said:
'"Graphic novel" is a disagreeable term, but we will use it anyway on the understanding that graphic does not mean anything to do with graphics and that novel does not mean anything to do with novels.' (Eddie Campbell's (Revised) Graphic Novel Manifesto) Campbell's statement sets the tone for other definitions and postulations. Paul Gravett, a London-based aficionado and publisher of comics and graphic novels says: 'You might think they are easy to define, but the term has become distorted with prejudices and preconceptions, riddled with confusion among the media and public, and a topic of dispute among "graphic novelists" themselves, some of whom reject the label outright ... in several ways "graphic novel" is a misnomer, but, unlike other words invented in the past in an effort to over come [sic] the stigmas of humor and childishness of the word "comics" ... this term has caught on and extended the language and dictionaries, for all its inaccuracies.' (Paul Gravett, 'An Introduction to Graphic Novels' [2005])

Pithy statements sidestep some of the potential hazards. Art Spiegelman is the author of Maus, the graphic novel that won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize in the 'Special Award and Citation' category. Spiegelman says a graphic novel is a 'comic book that needs a bookmark'. Inger Fountain, founder of graphic novel supply company Sealight Books, describes graphic novels as 'narratives told via sequential panels of artwork'. Clare Snowball, a PhD student at Curtin University, is conducting research into graphic novels in Australia. She prefers the definition used by US librarian Steve Raiteri: a graphic novel is 'a stand-alone story in comics [sic] form, published as a book'. ('Recommended Graphic Novels for Public Libraries', revised 2003)

Eddie Campbell likes to think of graphic novels as a movement, rather than a form, a genre or even a format. The stories played out in graphic novels range widely – readers may expect to find superheroes and they might anticipate fantasy, horror and sci fi genres, but they will also find non-fictional recreations of war, biographies and autobiographies, and educational texts. And the idea that graphic novels are only for children is another misconception. In fact, one of the concerns sometimes expressed in children's educational circles is that, due to the graphic novel's use of comic-like drawings, young readers can be inadvertently drawn to material intended for an explicitly adult readership.

Most graphic novels sold in Australia are by overseas authors, but there is some work being created by 'home grown' writers (although they often seek publication through international publishing houses). Matt Coyle was a medical student at The University of Sydney when he started drawing a weekly comic for the university's student newspaper Honi Soit. His drawings soon led to a cult following and eventually the abandonment of his academic studies. Coyle now lives in Hobart and has recently completed his second novel, Worry Doll. Coyle was on the brink of self-publishing the 78-page book when he received an offer from Mam Tor, a UK publisher specialising in 'illustrated weird fiction'. The drawings from Worry Doll were also part of an exhibition of limited edition digital prints held at the Damien Minton Gallery in Redfern, Sydney, during February and March 2007. (Images of some of the prints can be viewed on the Saatchi Gallery's interactive art website.)

Another Australian writer-artist making inroads in the world of graphic novels is Queenie Chan. Chan was born in Hong Kong and migrated to Australia at the age of six. Like Coyle, she started drawing seriously while at university. Chan's novels are drawn in the Japanese manga style and are published by TokyoPop, a US 'youth-oriented entertainment brand' specialising in manga and anime. Chan says that her series, The Dreaming, could have been told in other forms, 'such as a novel or a movie', but that she chose to tell it 'in the form of a graphic novel'. (Chan's website)

The following websites and links to texts provide a jumping off point for further insights into the growing domain of graphic novels. See also the New Publications section of this newsletter.

• Paul Gravett's Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life (2005)
• Eddie Campbell's prolific, illustrated blog
• Clare Snowball's website, including links to her publications
• Matt Coyle's website
• Queenie Chan's website

and

• Sealight Books

Four graphic novels have recently been published by Australian writers. Here is some background to the books' storylines along with author comments on inspiration, writing/drawing style and the work required by readers to interpret the books.

• The Secret Army by Sophie Masson, with drawings by Anthony Davis
  Described in one review as 'part X-Men, part Obernewtyn, part Tintin' (Canberra Times, 13 January 2007), The Secret Army is set in pre-World War II England and Germany. It pits young people with developing psychic powers against the power of the Nazis.
  
  Writing on her website, Masson describes how the book came into being:

  As a child, I adored graphic novels and comics. My top favourites were the adventures of Tintin, which I read and reread over and over. I also used to write and illustrate my own naïve comic strips and stories. Always, in the back of my mind, was the dream that one day, I might see my own graphic novel in print – a story which would convey to young readers the same wonderful mixture of excitement, mystery, danger and humour, the sense of wonder, as the Tintin stories had for me.

  When it came to writing the book, Masson says:

  I wrote the first draft as a kind of play, with dialogues and instructions to the artist. The second and third drafts, however, were worked on in full co-operation with the artist, designer, and editor. Working on this four-way process was an amazing, enlightening, exciting experience, and I'd love to do it again!

  (Masson's website)



• The Arrival by Shaun Tan
  The Arrival has no text, yet the judges of the 2007 New South Wales Premier's Community Relations Commission Award used the following words in their comments on Tan's work: 'literature', 'poem', 'metaphors', 'text', 'lyrically' and 'reading'. Discussing the conception of the book, Tan says:

  In seeking to re-imagine [migration] (of which I have no first-hand experience) my original idea for a fairly conventional picture book developed into a quite different kind of structure. It seemed that a longer, more fragmented visual sequence without any words would best capture a certain feeling of uncertainty and discovery I absorbed from my research. I was also struck with the idea of borrowing the 'language' of old pictorial archives and family photo albums I'd been looking at, which have both a documentary clarity and an enigmatic, sepia-toned silence. It occurred to me that photo albums are really just another kind of picture book that everybody makes and reads, a series of chronological images illustrating the story of someone's life. They work by inspiring memory and urging us to fill in the silent gaps, animating them with the addition of our own storyline.
  
  In The Arrival, the absence of any written description also plants the reader more firmly in the shoes of an immigrant character. There is no guidance as to how the images might be interpreted, and we must ourselves search for meaning and seek familiarity in a world where such things are either scarce or concealed. Words have a remarkable magnetic pull on our attention, and how we interpret attendant images: in their absence, an image can often have more conceptual space around it, and invite a more lingering attention from a reader who might otherwise reach for the nearest convenient caption, and let that rule their imagination.

  ('Strangers in Strange Lands', Viewpoint, Summer 2006)



• Worry Doll by Matt Coyle
  (Warning: plot spoiler here.)
  In Worry Doll three dolls discover the slain bodies of their 'host' family in the living room. Columnist and reviewer Sebastian Smee writes: 'The story's point of view appears to belong to the dolls, but, as things progress, it emerges that it actually belongs to a man. The dolls, his cherished belongings, are carried around in a suitcase, and brought out into the open to bear witness to his crimes.' (Daily Telegraph, UK, 8 January 2007) Smee comments further that at times the book's text (written after the images were completed) 'reads like a dialogue between a patient and a therapist; at other times it might be two accomplices. Sometimes the dialogue refers to the page alongside it, sometimes it does not.'
  
  Coyle admits that the structure sounds confusing but says: 'I wanted it to be a challenging read. Like the pleasure in not-knowing in David Lynch's films, much of the pleasure lies in the confusion of the images, and being in a strange, nightmarish world. But I can assure you that the book has a clear logic, and follows the clue-puzzle format of the detective story.'



• The Dreaming by Queenie Chan
  Queenie Chan describes her series The Dreaming as 'a mystery-horror ghost story, set in a boarding school deep in the Australian bush, and using native Australian myths as inspiration'. In an interview with Sam Costello, published on the Dark, but Shining website (October 2006), Chan acknowledges the influence of Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock on her story. While wanting to avoid a clichéd 'haunted school in the bush' storyline, Chan was persuaded by her publisher to combine two unpublished stories – one with a romance element and the other with a horror tinge.
  
  Chan openly spreads the word about Picnic at Hanging Rock's influence, as she says to Costello:

  I've been telling everyone about my influences, so it's not really an issue. People DO notice the similarities without me telling them ... And while I take influence from that story, there are far more differences between the two than there are similarities. That's because times have changed considerably since the story of Picnic at Hanging Rock came about. The original story had no definite ending or explanation, and that worked fine because that's the type of story it is. But for me, because I have to break a single story into three books, there is no way I can get away with not explaining to the readers why these events at the school happen. Because of that, The Dreaming is actually a very plot heavy book!

  The first two volumes of Chan's The Dreaming series are already available; the final volume will be published in November 2007.

Australian Centre Fellowships and Awards Available
The Australian Centre, based within the School of Historical Studies in the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne, is seeking applicants for the following awards and fellowships:

• The Asher Literary Award – $10,000 award for work that carries an anti-war message or theme, by Australian women writers
• The Kate Challis RAKA Award – $25,000 drama award for Indigenous playwrights
• The Peter Blazey Fellowship – $15,000 award, offered nationally, to further a work in progress in the non-fiction fields of autobiography, biography or life writing

and

• The DJ (Dinny) O'Hearn Memorial Fellowship – $5,000 award for emerging writers in the areas of fiction, poetry or drama

Further information and application forms are available on The Australian Centre's website.

Calibre Prize for Essayists
Entries are now being accepted for Australian Book Review's (ABR's) 2008 Calibre Prize. 'All non-fiction subjects are eligible: from life writing and literary studies, to history and politics and environmental studies, to anthropology and popular science. Essayists must reside in Australia or be Australian citizens living overseas.' ABR and joint sponsor Copyright Agency Limited hope the prize will foster and reward 'new insights into our literature, our culture and our society'.

Entries close on 31 August. Full details and a downloadable entry form are available on ABR's website.

Brennan PhD Scholarship Opportunity
The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, is offering a three-year postgraduate scholarship in one of the following areas relating to Christopher Brennan: Christopher Brennan's annotations to texts in his Greek library and their implications for his poetry
or
Christopher Brennan's creative reception of the poetry and prose of Percy Bysshe Shelley

Applications close mid-June and further details can be obtained from Dr Kathie Barnes (k.barnes@adfa.edu.au) or Professor Paul Eggert (p.eggert@adfa.edu.au) at the School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA).

Novel Artwork Sought
Jean-François Vernay is seeking digitised reproductions of artwork used in Australian novels for a forthcoming special issue of Correspondances Océaniennes. The issue will have a focus on the Australian novel. Artists are also invited to send samples of their work dealing with books or the practice of reading.

For further information, contact Jean-François Vernay via email: vernay@yahoo.com

A Speculative Place Called Home
Russell B. Farr, editor and publisher with Ticonderoga, is calling for contributions to a two-volume anthology to be titled 'Belong/A Place Called Home'. Farr wants stories in speculative genres that 'focus on the migrant experience, both from the experience of the migrant and resident' and 'stories of forced refugees and voluntary migrants'.

Submissions will be accepted until 1 September 2007. More information is available on the Ticonderoga Publications website.

Double Exposures: Christopher Brennan/Stéphane Mallarmé
The first Australian colloquium of the Paris-based Brennan-Mallarmé society, Association Stéphane Mallarmé – Christopher Brennan pour la Recherche sur l'Emergence de la Littérature Australienne (AMABRELA) will explore 'the influence of Stéphane Mallarmé on the poetry of Christopher Brennan, and beyond this a wide range of relationships between French and Australian literature'.

The conference will be held in Sydney on 13-14 July 2007. A registration form is available on the website of the Department of English at the University of Sydney, and enquiries may be directed to the colloquium convenor, Dr David Brooks, via email: david.brooks@arts.usyd.edu.au

Translating Cultures in Denmark
The 9th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Studies of Australia (EASA) will be held in Denmark on 26-30 September 2007 at the University of Roskilde and the University of Copenhagen. The conference will examine complex questions about translation in the context of 'the nature of culture, knowledge and meaning'. There will also be papers from prominent Australian intellectuals, artists and writers who will consider ''what's left' of Aboriginal reconciliation, 'multiculturalism', Asian engagement, Australian history and the Australian environment'.

Further details can be found by clicking on the conference link on the EASA home page. Registration information is available from Lars Jensen via email: hopeless@ruc.dk

Young Writers to Gather in Newcastle
The National Young Writers' Festival (NYWF) describes itself as 'a diverse and schizophrenic beast', but adds that everyone goes 'for the same fundamental reason: a love of writing. And to have a damn good time.' This year's festival will again be held in Newcastle from 27 September to 1 October. Among other opportunities, the festival provides space for independent presses, zines, comics and generally quirky publications to promote their products at the Mega Mega Launch on Sunday, 29 September. For more festival information, including opportunities to volunteer, see the NYWF website.

For more events, submission requests and other literary opportunities see the AustLit Events Directory. If you have new events of interest to the Australian literature, teaching and research communities and the general public please complete the form provided on the Events Submission page on our website.

Joyce Lee (1913-2007)
Joyce Lee was born in the western Victorian wheat district in the town of Murtoa. After completing her secondary education at the Methodist Ladies' College, Kew, she studied pharmacy and practiced in that profession for over thirty years until her retirement in 1970. Only a few years prior to retirement Lee wrote her first poem. By 1979 her work was included in Sisters Poets 1 along with the poetry of Anne Lloyd, Kate Llewellyn and Susan Hampton. Lee published four further collections of her own work and her final book, Bountiful Years, was being prepared for publication at the time of her death.

Lee is described by her friend Anne Carson as someone who 'befriended people from all branches of the arts, and was renowned for her generosity in friendship'. Carson recalls Lee's 'astounding physical and mental vigour', noting that Lee wrote her final poem – and took it to the Carlton Monday Workshop for critique – only days before her death.

Carson quotes Lee as saying that poetry: 'teaches, burns in me, cuts me, loves me'. (Age, 3 May 2007) Lee's lifelong passion for and commitment to words (and to music) resonates through her prose piece 'How Things Are':

Words flowed like mountain streams in the small high-ceilinged country church. Words flowed round the two year old, quiet beside her father. She caught meaning in the flow, never final, always taking her to a new place.
Words grew with the child, the adult, the old person, into more than words...
Words became the symbol for life itself, its ever-changing rhythms, the piling-up of note on note, chord on chord, phrase on phrase into always longer streams of meaning, a flash of future.

It Is Nearly Dark When I Come to the Indian Ocean: The Collected Poems of Joyce Lee (2003): 203.

George Seddon (1927-2007)
George Seddon was born in the Victorian town of Berriwillock. His university career began with studies in English language and literature at the University of Melbourne prior to overseas travel and a lectureship in English at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Seddon was never content to remain within the confines of one academic discipline. While at UWA he undertook studies in geology and earth sciences and, over the course of his academic career, he taught across the humanities, the social sciences and the sciences. In late 2005 Robyn Williams, presenter of ABC Radio National's The Science Show, introduced Seddon in the following way: 'I usually call him the Professor of Everything because he's been a professor of English, of Geology, of Philosophy and of Environment in our various universities. And that doesn't mean he's a dilettante, it means he has a uniting beam of enlightenment that he shines on apparently disparate topics to give them meaning.' (In Conversation, 3 November 2005)

Seddon's obituarist, Trevor Hogan, says of the eclectic scholar: 'He was a superb stylist whose best métiers were perhaps the essay, the review and the lecture podium, where he combined and shared with others his acerbic wit, erudition and critical enthusiasm in equal measure'. (Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 2007) Seddon's published works include Sense of Place: A Response to an Environment, the Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia (1972), Searching for the Snowy: An Environmental History (1994) and Landprints: Reflections on Place and Landscape (1998).

Other Recent Deaths:

• Dennis Wren (1926-2007)
  Publisher with Heinemann Australia; founder of Wren publishing.



• John Powers (1935-2007)
  Publisher; creative writing teacher; scriptwriter for stage and screen; best remembered for the 1973 play, The Last of the Knucklemen.



• Veronica Brodie (1941-2007)
  Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri woman; author of the autobiographical My Side of the Bridge: The Life Story of Veronica Brodie as Told to Mary-Anne Gale (2003).



• Louise Zaetta (1946-2007)
  Novelist; creative writing teacher; founder of the Footnote Creative Writing Centre.


and


• Justine Saunders (1953-2007)
  Kanomie woman; film, television and stage actor; a founder of the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust.

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