Fire Destroys Rodney Hall's Coastal Home
The New South Wales south coast home of poet and novelist Rodney Hall was destroyed by fire on 6 August 2005. The Canberra Times (10 August 2005) reported Marion Halligan saying that Hall's 'entire life's work had been in the house and he had planned to sort it out to give to the National Library of Australia, but kept postponing the task because of the mass of paper.' Halligan, who described the loss as 'absolutely heartbreaking', said Hall was a 'paper man' known to prefer writing by hand. Hall told his publisher Fran Bryson of the Bryson Agency Australia that while the loss was tragic, at least no-one was hurt.

A two-time winner of the Miles Franklin Award, Hall was awarded a Centenary Medal for service to Australian arts in 2001 and in 2003 received an honorary Doctor of Literature from The University of Queensland in recognition of his distinguished career and his contribution to Australian literature. Hall's most recent novel is The Last Love Story : A Fairytale of the Day After Tomorrow.

Carey's Backlist Released by Random House
During September and October 2005 Random House will release all of Peter Carey's backlist as the Sydney- and Melbourne-based publisher takes over the rights to Carey's books from University of Queensland Press. Designer Jenny Grigg has created new jackets for each of the books with Carey's name dominating the design. Random hopes the new covers will entice book collectors' interest, thereby boosting sales.

Writers Compete with Each Other and the Clock
Script writer Robert Mac has announced a fresh idea for writers – a competitive writing marathon called Once Upon a Deadline. The inaugural event will be held in Sydney on 15 October 2005. Eight writers, including Kate Forsyth, Terri Janke and John Larkin, are confirmed for the event that will begin and end at Berkelouw Books. Over the course of the day writers will visit prescribed locations around Sydney. The sites range from the casualty department at St Vincent's Hospital and an east Sydney tattoo parlour to the Wayside Chapel and the Rose Bay ferry. The writers, armed with laptops, will have fifty minutes at each venue to jot down their ideas and one additional hour for writing and editing at the end of the day. The commission for each participant is to 'create a compelling short work of fiction (maximum 1,200 words) about his or her journey and experiences.'

After the final polishing, the authors will read their work at a public forum before a judging panel comprising Anita Heiss, Malcolm Knox and Tom Keneally. The winner will be presented with a $5,000 prize. Mac hopes that a documentary filmed throughout the day will eventually be sold for screening. Further information on writers, venues and ticketing for the live reading is available in the What's On section of the Inside Film website.

University of Sydney to Partner David Tribe in New Cultural Awards
The University of Sydney has agreed to sponsor five new awards at the instigation of Sydney-born, Brisbane-educated David Tribe. A secularist and humanist, Tribe has established the awards to 'encourage Australian-based creators of fiction, poetry, philosophy, sculpture and symphony.' In a media release Tribe says 'While there are many awards for novels, paintings and songs, non-specific fiction, sculpture and symphony have hitherto been relatively neglected. And though poetry prizes abound, almost all are for short poems submitted with entry fees.' (Five Bells, Winter 2005)

Dean of Arts at The University of Sydney, Professor Stephen Garton, said 'This fund will make the David Tribe prizes some of the most significant cultural awards in the country ... Through this donation the Faculty of Arts, Sydney College of the Arts and Sydney Conservatorium of Music will be able to acknowledge truly outstanding contributions to Australian letters, music and the arts.' ('Tribe Awards', University of Sydney Gazette, April 2005)

New Fiction Award from the ABC
ABC Books and ABC Radio have joined forces to establish a new Australian literary award. The ABC Fiction Award will be presented for the first time in 2006 and aims to 'encourage emerging writers, contribute to Australian literary culture, and fulfil the ABC's charter by reflecting the diversity of the Australian community and adding to a sense of national identity.' The inaugural winner will receive a $10,000 advance and have their book published through ABC Books. The winning entry will also be broadcast on ABC Local Radio and will be available as an audio book.

The Award was launched on 26 July 2005 and entries closed eight weeks later on 26 September. Writers Delia Falconer, Richard Glover and Malcolm Knox will be joined on the judging panel by the Commissioning Editor at ABC Books, Jo Mackay. The first winner will be announced in late February 2006.

Borghino Takes Up Position at New Matilda
Jose Borghino, previously Executive Director of The Australian Society of Authors has been appointed editor of the weekly online magazine, New Matilda. Borghino has a long association with the literary field as a reviewer, book editor and journalist. He also teaches Literary Journalism at The University of Sydney.

Recent quotes from Australia's writers...

Katherine Thomson on Theatre
Accepting the 2005 Australian National Playwrights' Centre (ANPC) Award in late July (see 'Playwrights' Award to Katherine Thomson' in AustLit's August/September 2005 newsletter), Katherine Thomson mused 'What's it for, this thing we do called theatre?' Answering her own question Thomson said 'Despite the often political/personal blend of my own work, in terms of changing our society, I think I've come to the conclusion that, to paraphrase the poet, JM Flecker, the theatre might not change people's souls, but at the very least it will make them glad they have one. There are issues eating away at the heart of our society at the moment. If ever there was a need, in my lifetime anyway, for our citizens to be able to expand their imaginations, their empathy to "the other", to embrace mystery and possibility, the time is now. And hopefully that is what our work is for.'

Murray Bail on Literature in Translation
Writing in the Guardian (UK) newspaper on 10 September 2005 Murray Bail reflected: 'When first opening a work in translation there is an extra feeling of anticipation. The reader here is allowed to enter a strange area of the world, where people are similar yet appear to behave differently, and all in a foreign tongue ... Not to read in translation – unimaginable, almost unforgivable. A lopsided view of the world. Nevertheless, some readers – serious readers – look down at their shoes and explain that a translation is a maimed result; it cannot have the intended power of the original. Better to avoid it. Far better. There are plenty of other things in our own language. "To read a work in translation is like kissing a beautiful woman with a handkerchief over her face," observed Vissarion Belinsky. He must be talking about poetry. There is the Bible. And less direct, the continuing deep presence of the Greeks.'

The full text of Bail's article is available on the Guardian's website.

Tale of Dislocation Takes Vogel
The winning manuscript in the 2005 Australian/Vogel Literary Award tells the story of an isolated and alienated young man eking out an existence on Tokyo's outskirts. The novel, Tuvalu, is the work of Victorian author Andrew O'Connor. O'Connor has been living predominantly in Japan for the last four years and working as an English teacher. While acknowledging that the settings of his tale are based on personal experience, O'Connor says that the novel is not autobiographical. Noah, the novel's protagonist, 'does rash things and I wouldn't do anything nearly as silly.' (Courier-Mail, 21 September 2005)

The Award's judges said Tuvalu's prose was 'assured and fluid and the observations genuinely original.' (Australian, 21 September 2005) O'Connor now claims the $20,000 prize attached to the award and looks forward to the publication of his work by Allen and Unwin in mid-2006. He will return to Australia from Japan shortly to settle in Sydney.

Queensland Winners Declared
Winners of the 2005 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards were announced on 28 September during the Brisbane Writers' Festival. Winner of the Best Drama Script (Stage) Award was Vanessa Badham for 'Black Hands/Dead Section'. Badham's script was commissioned by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (where she has been playwright-in-residence). The play premiered in the United Kingdom earlier this year. Also honoured in the Awards was newcomer Simon Cleary for his manuscript 'The Comfort of Figs'. Cleary won the encouragement and development award for Best Manuscript of an Emerging Queensland Author. 'The Comfort of Figs' features connecting narratives relating to Brisbane's Story Bridge. The judges commented that the story 'gives a perspective of Brisbane and the city's Moreton Bay figs that is fresh and lyrical.'

Winners in other categories include:

• Tim Winton for The Turning (Best Fiction Book)
• Prue Mason for Camel Rider (Best Children's Book)
• Joanne Horniman for Secret Scribbled Notebooks (Best Young Adult Book)
• Sarah Day for The Ship (Judith Wright Calanthe Award)

and

• John Clanchy for Vincenzo's Garden (Steele Rudd Award)

The full list of winners is available on the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards website.

Record Number of Entries for 2004 Colin Roderick Award
A record 145 entries were submitted for the 2004 Colin Roderick Award for 'the best original book of the year dealing with any aspect of Australian life'. From the entries received a shortlist of seven works was announced by the Award's administrator, the Foundation for Australian Literary Studies within James Cook University. For the first time in the award's forty year history joint winners were declared in Townsville on 6 October 2005. The winners are:

• The Lovemakers by Alan Wearne

and

• The Turning by Tim Winton

Wearne and Winton receive a cash prize and the H. T. Priestley Medal.

Deadly Award for Literature Goes to Stephen Hagan
Queenslander Stephen Hagan has won the 2005 Deadly Sounds Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature for his autobiography, The N Word : One Man's Stand. Presented this year at the Sydney Opera House on 22 September, the Deadly Awards 'recognise excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music, sport, entertainment, the arts and community achievement.' The awards are called 'deadly' after an indigenous slang term for 'great'. Nominees and award winners are chosen by public vote.

The 'N' word in Hagan's book title refers to the use of the word 'Nigger' in the E. S. 'Nigger' Brown Stand at the Toowoomba Athletic Oval, Queensland. Hagan, an associate lecturer in the Kumbari/Ngurpai Lag Higher Education Centre at the University of Southern Queensland, has campaigned fiercely to have the word removed for the Stand's name. The N Word recounts his, to date, unsuccessful battle.

In reviewing Hagan's story former class-mate Andrew See says 'Hagan does a good job of exposing the ugly face of Australian racism throughout his book. On occasions it appears that the constancy of the theme is too much. That it makes for a good story, but may not always be the exact truth. But that is what The N Word is all about. It is about Hagan and his perception of racism in Australia. He says that the word "nigger" is "an insidious slur and is without doubt the most disparaging epithet used for black people". From what Hagan says, the word is still in good use.' (API Review of Books, August 2005, via PANDORA Archive)

Crime Awards Announced
The winners of the 2005 Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing are:

• Michael Robotham for Lost (Best Novel)
• Helen Garner for Joe Cinque's Consolation and Tony Reeves for Mr Big: The True Story of Lennie McPherson and His Life of Crime (joint winners, Best True Crime)

and

• Malcolm Knox for A Private Man (Best First Novel)

Also honoured was Stuart Coupe who received a lifetime achievement award. Coupe was instrumental in establishing the Ned Kelly Awards and was also the founder and editor of the now-defunct crime magazine, Mean Streets.

Libby Gleeson Honoured with Meritorious Service Award
Libby Gleeson's commitment to children in schools has been honoured with the awarding of this year's Meritorious Service to Public Education and Training Award (New South Wales). The Award 'recognises an individual in the community whose service and contributions have had the effect of making a significant difference to public education and training in NSW'. Commending her frequent visits to schools, Gleeson's citation commented on her belief 'in the power and significance of the written word' and the encouragement she has offered to other writers to 'take children's literature and its readership very seriously.'

Gleeson is a trained teacher and worked in schools in the 1970s and 1980s as teacher of English, History and English as a Second Language. She was also a consultant in teacher-training for the University of New South Wales in the early 1980s. Gleeson has often featured in the Children's Book Council of Australia Awards and she has won several Australian and international awards for her books. Her latest book, Cuddle Time, was published in Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA in 2004.

Van Straten's Lifetime in the Theatre Recognised by Green Room
Frank Van Straten has received the 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association in recognition of his dedication to Australian theatre and its history. Van Straten was the first archivist of the Performing Arts Museum, Victorian Arts Centre and its director from 1984 until 1993. Over several decades he has recorded interviews with members of the performing arts community and has contributed articles for theatre programmes and journals. In 2004 Van Straten published Huge Deal : The Fortunes and Follies! of Hugh D. McIntosh, a biography of the chocolate manufacturer and entertainment industry entrepreneur, Hugh McIntosh.

The Green Room Awards Association also awarded Louis Milutinovic in the Fringe/Independent category for his play 7 Days 10 Years. The play follows the lives of two Serbian families during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. Reviewing the play at the time of its staging in Melbourne in late 2004, Helen Thomson wrote 'Milutinovic develops a complex web of events that is unremittingly grim ... We see civil life disintegrating and taking with it individuals and their families. Corruption and state terror turn decent people into cowards or foolhardy law-breakers. The grimness of the play rests largely on its clear demonstration that there are no other ways of surviving.' (Age, 9 November 2004)

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

• Helen Garner won the 2004 BookData Booksellers' Choice Award for Joe Cinque's Consolation. The award was announced at the Book Industry Awards Dinner at the High Court of Australia, Canberra on 12 September 2005.

and

• Maxine Mellor was awarded the George Landen Dann Award for 'Magda's Fascination with Wax Cats'. This is Mellor's fourth playwriting award from Queensland Theatre Company's Youth and Education program since 2001. The George Landen Dann Award for 19-25 year olds was first presented in 1992, giving Queensland Theatre Company the opportunity to 'locate, support and develop the work of significant young Queensland playwrights.'

Sixty Lights Attracts Victorian Premier's Award Nomination
Gail Jones's 2004 novel, Sixty Lights, is still gathering nominations for major Australian literary prizes. Latest in a growing list of nominations is a shortlisting for the 2005 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Also nominated for the Fiction Prize is Surrender by Sonya Hartnett and Affection by Ian Townsend.

In the category for non-fiction, one of the nominees is Greg Dening for his unusual mix of memoir, history and anthropology, Beach Crossings : Voyaging Across Times, Cultures and Self. Dening's book examines the historical record of European contact with the people of Fenua'enata (the Marquesas Islands). But it has a larger canvas too. As publisher Melbourne University Press puts it: 'The story encompasses Dening's own voyaging ... his life search, his beaches of memory. Here are his struggles with faith, with the Catholic Church and his spiritual advisers, with history as discipline and performance, with teaching as storytelling and as footprints on the sand.' (Publisher's catalogue) Judges for the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction described Dening's work as 'a demanding, richly rewarding book, as daring in its structure as in its explorations.' Other non-fiction nominees include Robert Dessaix for Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev and Michael McGirr for Bypass : The Story of a Road.

Award winners will be announced on 17 October 2005 at a presentation dinner in Melbourne. The evening will be hosted by actor and author, William McInnes, and the keynote address will be delivered by Inga Clendinnen. The full shortlist, with judges' comments, is available via the State Library of Victoria's website.

To Teach or Not to Teach - Literature Versus Literacy
Recent comments by Roman Catholic Cardinal George Pell have added fuel to the debate over the content of English curricula in Australian schools. Addressing the National Press Club in Canberra on 21 September 2005 on the subject, 'The Dictatorship of Relativism', Pell stated that 'While parents wonder why their children have never heard of the Romantic poets, Yeats or the Great War poets and never ploughed through a Bronte, Orwell or Dickens novel, their children are engaged in analysing a variety of "texts" including films, magazines, advertisements and even road signs as part of critical literacy.' According to Pell the outcome of this practice is that 'students are not forced to confront and learn from the great English language classics but are allowed to sink towards the sordid and the dismal rather than strive towards the good and the beautiful.' (Archdiocese of Sydney, Addresses, Statements and Media Releases, 21 September 2005)

Agreeing in part with Pell is artistic director of Bell Shakespeare Company, John Bell. Bell told the Australian (23 September 2005) that 'everyone is entitled to our heritage and should not be denied it.' Bell suggested that 'we should show [students] how literature has evolved with society to the present ... We know what the canon is, and people can argue whether you should study F. Scott Fitzgerald or D. H. Lawrence ... I probably would put Shakespeare right in the middle – on that, George Pell and I agree.'

Pell's sentiments did not resonate with Dr Wendy Michaels, lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle where she specialises in Creative Writing, Children's Literature, Australian Drama and Shakespeare. Also speaking to the Australian, Michaels said she knew students who hadn't heard of the Romantics and were none the worse for it. 'There is a set of values there to do with empire and gender that do not apply very well to the 21st-century world young people are growing up with ... And while Emily and Charlotte [Bronte] got out and wrote their own works and really achieved as women, essentially they are saying the patriarchal view of society is right.' (23 September 2005)

The day after these comments were made the Australian published a response from Christopher Koch. Koch invoked his acceptance speech for the 1996 Miles Franklin Literary Award. On that occasion he had 'warned of the way in which postmodern ideology was destroying a love of literature.' Claiming that the situation has deteriorated even further in the last decade, and taking particular aim Michaels's comments, Koch declared 'What is happening here is a betrayal by educators of future generations of Australian children, who will be deprived of any understanding of the best in our culture. Something needs to be done – and quickly.' (24-25 September 2005)

Is 'the best in our culture' being ignored in English curricula in Australian schools? Examples from Australia's least and most populous states, respectively, reveal the following:

• The curriculum for Tasmania lists poetry texts for core study on the themes of love and nature. Texts included are by William Shakespeare, John Donne, Elizabeth Browning, William Blake and Geoffrey Chaucer alongside more recent contributions by Australians Margaret Scott, Bruce Dawe and Judith Wright. Prescribed novels for independent study range from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness to David Malouf's Remembering Babylon, Tim Winton's Cloudstreet and Peter Carey's The True History of the Kelly Gang.
• In New South Wales, Year 11 and 12 students taking Standard and Advanced English study the theme of Journeys via a list that includes works on Physical Journeys by Mark Twain, Michael Gow, Peter Skrzynecki, Jesse Martin and Phillip Noyce. Study on Imaginative and Inner Journeys is undertaken through the writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Melvyn Bragg, J. G. Ballard and Sally Morgan. Students study one of the three types of journey and may explore it through only one text. Students at Extension level will be exposed to writers such as Euripides, Michael Ondaatje, Tom Stoppard, Margaret Atwood, Henry James and A. S. Byatt. Included in the mix can be David Williamson's play Dead White Males, Rob Sitch's film The Castle and John Tranter's selection of poems The Floor of Heaven.

The curriculum for each Australian state and territory is available on the respective departmental websites. These sites are accessible via the Australian Government's Department of Education, Science and Training website.

While each state and territory develops its own lists for reading and study, all Education Ministers have agreed to the 2005 Statements of Learning for English developed by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.

Academy Editions of Australian Literature Releases New Volume
Volume 1 of The Collected Verse of Mary Gilmore is the latest addition to the ongoing Academy Editions of Australian Literature series. Edited by Jennifer Strauss under the General Editorship of AustLit Executive Board Member, Professor Paul Eggert, this fully annotated variorum edition aims to make Dame Mary Gilmore's remarkable achievement as Australia's foremost woman poet of the first half of the twentieth century visible once more. Gilmore's poetry spanned over seventy years during which time she published 1,300 poems. Of those, over 500 have never appeared in collections. This new volume gathers poems from varied and difficult to access sources such the Broken Hill newspaper, The Barrier Miner, and the National Library of Uruguay. Volume 1 of Gilmore's Collected Verse covers the period 1887-1929; a second volume, planned for publication in 2007, will cover the years from 1930-1962.

Academy Editions, the major project of the Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, is a series of full-scale critical editions of major works of Australian Literature. The editions seek to embrace 'the needs of modern readers outside the academy by providing the historical introductions and annotations needed in order to engage richly with the literature of a previous age and different culture.'

Two launches are to be held of Gilmore's Collected Verse. One will take place in Wagga Wagga on 27 October 2005 and another will be at Monash University on 10 November 2005. Interested people are welcome to attend either event. Contact David Gilbey (DGilbey@csu.edu.au) for the Wagga launch or Richard Overell (Richard.overell@lib.monash.edu.au) for the Melbourne launch.

Biography of Australia's First Native-Born Novelist Published
Mulini Press has just released Victor Crittenden's John Lang : Australia's Larrikin Writer. Launched at the National Library of Australia in mid-September 2005, Crittenden's biography of Lang is part of a resurgence of interest in Australia's first native-born novelist. Crittenden has been a keen promoter of Lang for some time and is now incorporating a regular 'John Lang Page' into his journal Margin. Crittenden has also established the John Lang Project to promote the life and works of the novelist and lawyer. The Project aims to publish or republish all of Lang's works in the next ten years so that they are all in print for the bicentenary of Lang's birth in 2016.

AustLit team member Anne Chittleborough and Flinders University academic Rick Hosking have both been assisting Indian journalist Raja Gusain, a correspondent for the Hindustan Times. Gusain has taken up Lang's cause in the city of Mussoorie, India where Lang lived for extended periods and where he established the newspaper the Mofussilite. The only known memorial to Lang is soon to be unveiled in Mussoorie.

Copies of Lang's works published by Mulini Press include Mazarine (2004) and Songs of the Sea (2000). In preparation is Ellen Wareham written in 1862 and not previously published as a book, and Violet the Danseuse written in 1836 and never before published in Australia.

Lawson Poems Inspire Another Musician
Australian singer and songwriter, John Schumann, has recently joined the list of those who have been inspired to translate the poems of Henry Lawson into song. Schumann, well-known for his performances with the band Redgum and his 1980s Vietnam War song 'I Was Only Nineteen', studied Lawson under the tutelage of Brian Matthews at Flinders University in 1972. He has long-cherished a dream to record an album of songs drawn from Lawson's poetry. In September 2005 his dream was realized with the release of the CD simply titled Lawson. The album features thirteen songs that Schumann believes 'resonate with Australia – and Australians – in 2005.' Schumann's hope, in the context of rising globalism and the 'swamping of national identity ... is that Lawson's work might once again find a place in the hearts and minds of those Australians who are prepared to accept there is more to our culture than footy and reality TV.' (Bulletin, 27 September 2005)

Lawson's AustLit record is currently undergoing a full revision by our Content Manager, Carol Hetherington. The myriad editions and reprints of his works are proving to be an enormous challenge to untangle. With 1,313 individual works and 81 selected works already listed, AustLit's Lawson record, when completed, will be the richest source of up-to-date information available on this iconic Australian writer.

Further information on the creation of Schumann's album, including the text of Brian Matthews's introduction, is available on Schumann's Lawson website. Other musical recordings of Lawson's poems include the 1977 album The Water Lily by American folk singer, Priscilla Herdman, and the 1982 compilation The Roaring Days by Australian entertainers Mike Jackson and Michelle Jackson.

Australia's Other Populist Bard Not Forgotten
Under the editorship of Graham Seal and Warren Fahey, ABC Books has released a centenary edition of 'Banjo' Paterson's Old Bush Songs. First published by Angus and Robertson in 1905, the anthology comprises Paterson's selections of favourite Australian bush songs from the turn of the twentieth century. It includes 'The Wild Colonial Boy', 'The Old Bark Hut' and 'On the Road to Gundagai'. Paterson's intention in compiling the anthology was to rescue 'these rough bush ballads from oblivion' by placing them before the public. A century later Seal notes that such was the popularity of Old Bush Songs it was reprinted and revised over a dozen times including the eighth edition in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression. (Bulletin, 2 August 2005)

Seal and Fahey's centenary edition incorporates 'new material, illustrations and photographs, as well as background information that helps bring these old songs to life for a modern readership.' (ABC Books website) AustLit subscribers can also access the original 1905 text via the SETIS website.

Keeping Up to Date via Weblogs
A weblog or 'blog' is a personal or non-profit website that uses a dated log format to provide new information on a particular subject. A weblog is updated frequently, often on a daily basis, and sometimes has a facility for visitors to leave further comments on the issues aired. Two Australian sites that keep readers up to date with literary news are:

• Matilda Weblog
  Perry Middlemiss has been maintaining 'an ever-expanding Australian literature website since 1996'. His Matilda weblog is usually updated daily and includes a weekend round-up of Australian literature news from newspaper and periodical sources. The blog often incorporates full text poems and provides timely information on Australian literary prize winners.

and

• Read Alert
  The Australian Centre for Youth Literature's Read Alert blog aims to keep readers 'up to date with the latest information, current thinking and issues in youth literature.' Its scope is international, but it frequently features items on Australian children's and young adult writers. The blog was launched in May 2005 and is updated several times a week.

National Biography Award
Nominations for next year's National Biography Award need to be submitted by 28 October 2005. The Award, for a published work of biographical or autobiographical writing, is approaching its tenth anniversary and aims to 'encourage the highest standards of writing biography and autobiography and to promote public interest in those genres.' For further details see the State Library of New South Wales's National Biography Award webpage.

One Book Many Brisbanes
Entries are now being received for the 2006 One Book Many Brisbanes. The new competition replaces the former event, One Book One Brisbane, in which all Brisbane residents were encouraged to read a single book during the same period of time. Queensland writers are invited to submit a previously unpublished story with a Brisbane theme. The winning entries will be published in an anthology and each of the ten winners will receive $6,000.

Entries close on 12 December 2005. For further information on the competition and entry details, see the One Book Many Brisbanes website.

Call for Unpublished Performance Scripts
The Australian Script Centre is seeking unpublished contemporary performance scripts for promotion via its forthcoming publication, 'Collection #6'. Submitted scripts will be read by members of a national reading group and 25-30 scripts will be selected for profiling in 'Collection #6'. The published collection will include 'a synopsis, writer's biography, reviews, production details and production photos' and a read-only CD containing the scripts themselves.

Further information on the project can be found in the 'About Us' section of the Script Centre's website. The deadline for submissions is 11 November 2005.

American Association of Australian Literary Studies Annual Meeting
The annual meeting of the American Association of Australian Literary Studies (AAALS) will be held from 6-8 April 2006 at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The conference theme is 'Australia and the Common-Wealth'. Organisers hope the meeting's Canadian location might prompt papers exploring Australian literature in the context of the Commonwealth. They also hope that papers will consider the contributions Australian literature has made to the common wealth of global English language literature.

Proposals for papers should be submitted by 31 January 2006 to:
Theodore F. Sheckels, Professor of English & Communication
Randolph-Macon College
Ashland, VA 23005
E-mail submissions can be sent to:
tsheckel@rmc.edu

AAALS will meet concurrently with the Australian-New Zealand Studies Association of North America (ANZSANA). Further details can be viewed on the AAALS and ANZSANA websites.

During August and September 2004, the Content Development Team added:

• 4,627 new works
• 845 new agents (individuals and organisations)

In addition to these new records, nearly 7,000 existing work and agent records were upgraded and enhanced.

Margaret Scott 1934-2005
News of the death of Margaret Scott drew fond recollections and generous accolades from members of Australia's literary community as well as from entertainers, community workers and politicians of all persuasions. An immigrant-Tasmanian, Scott was praised by Peter Hay for convincing 'a whole generation of aspirant Tasmanian writers that Tasmania was worth writing about and you didn't have to go to the other side of the world to be a writer.' (Quoted in 'Story Ends but Literary Legend Lives', Mercury, 30 August 2005) Scott's former students at the University of Tasmania include Richard Flanagan and Danielle Wood. Wood concurred with Hay telling the Mercury that Scott 'had the great gift of setting off sparks in her students' minds and was most generous with it ... In more recent times I have thought of Margaret as a kind of Brown Owl to the Tasmanian writing community, both wise and hilariously funny' (30 August 2005).

Scott's humour became familiar to Australian television viewers in the 1990s through her participation in Good News Week. She was known for her razor wit and punishing commentary on current events and public personalities. Scott's commitment to her adopted country was manifested in her involvement in environmental issues. She was one of those who dissociated themselves from the 2002 10 Days on the Island Festival due to its sponsorship by the timber industry. However, the following year she joined with the Tasmanian state government in supporting the festival in the hope that it would pressure the policy-makers. Liberal politician, Michael Hodgman, told the Mercury that Scott was 'without doubt one of Tasmania's greatest ever adopted daughters.' Greens senator, Bob Brown, said 'Her legacy includes a great body of poetry through which her love of Tasmania, the Tasman Peninsula in particular, and its people radiates between the lines' (30 August 2005). Former national president of the Australian Labor Party, Barry Jones, described Scott in the following way: 'I've rarely met anyone, certainly in the literary world, who had such a range of skills, a range of capacity ... she wasn't just a novelist ... she was a poet, she was an essayist, she had terrific stories. But she also had wonderful literary judgment – she was a great critic, she was a wonderful debater' (Australian Broadcasting Commission, 30 August 2005).

In the final months of her life Scott received two fitting honours. She received the Writers' Emeritus Award from the Australia Council and was chosen for the inaugural Tasmanian Honour Roll of Women. Scott's citation on the Honour Roll can be read on the Tasmanian government's website.

Denis Kevans 1939-2005
Fondly dubbed the 'poet lorikeet', Denis Kevans is being mourned by folk musicians and poets and those in the labour and conservation movements. Kevans's poetry, frequently recorded by Australian singers and bands, dealt with issues such as nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War, the preservation of the environment, republicanism, independence for East Timor and the rights of the working classes. Kevans would sometimes base his poems on the rhyme and metre of earlier Australian poets such as Henry Lawson and A. B. Paterson.

According to Jefferson Lee, Kevans was able to retain his sense of humour even when seriously ill towards the end of his life. '... he was visited by a priest who asked if he'd made his peace with God. "I didn't know I'd had a blue with him," Kevans replied' (Sydney Morning Herald, 17 September 2005).

A Denis Kevans website is currently under construction. Kevans's family is inviting anyone with stories, photographs or memories of Kevans to contact them via:
Email: wayne@humph.org
or
Mail: Wayne Richmond
38 Alleyne Avenue
North Narrabeen 2101

The website currently comprises photographs taken at Kevans's funeral and wake. Donations are also being accepted towards the establishment of a Denis Kevans Poetry Award.

Niall Brennan 1918-2005
Teacher, historian and writer Niall Brennan lived in the Yarra Valley township of Gladysdale for over fifty years. From this small, semi-rural base he fostered the lifestyle of simplicity recounted in his book, A Hoax Called Jones. Brennan wrote several biographies including works on Roman Catholic archbishop Daniel Mannix and war cameraman Damien Parer. Brennan's Catholic faith was a central tenet of his life. Although he had a strong relationship with B. A. Santamaria, he fell out with Santamaria over the 1950s split in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) that led to the formation of the Democratic Labor Party. (Brennan was the son of former ALP attorney-general, Frank Brennan.) Active in Catholic and community affairs, Brennan also taught for many years at the Upper Yarra High School and with the Victorian Council for Adult Education. He worked in television, radio and publishing and as a freelance journalist.

In keeping with his values of simplicity, Brennan's funeral resisted all elements of commercialism. No funeral director was in attendance. 'The casket was made of pine, with six carved handles, one from each of the main tree varieties on their property. It was made by his sons Christopher, Peter and Patrick, and taken to the Upper Yarra Valley Cemetery in daughter Sally's four-wheel-drive' ('A Simple Life of Not Keeping Up with the Joneses', Age, 20 July 2005).

Donald Horne 1921-2005
Donald Horne made an incomparable contribution to the intellectual and artistic life of Australia. His highly influential book, The Lucky Country, was first published in 1964 and went into its fifth edition in 1998. In 2006 Melbourne University Press will present the posthumous publication, 'Donald Horne on How I Came to Write The Lucky Country'. At various times Horne was editor of the Observer, the Bulletin and Quadrant. In addition to his journalism and non-fiction, he published three novels and a trilogy of autobiographical works from 1967-1988. These three books were consolidated in the omnibus An Interrupted Life in 1998. In 2000 Horne took his life story further with the publication of Into the Open.

In 2004 Griffith Review featured Horne's reflective essay on his illness and physical deterioration, 'Mind, Body and Age', an account re-produced by Robert Dessaix in The Best Australian Essays 2004. Frank Moorhouse, a long-time friend of Horne's, says the essay was characteristic of a man who had 'always had an observer's interest in his illnesses – and even during the weeks before his death he was pondering the nature of "breathing" and "terminal illness", dictating essays on these subjects while hooked to an oxygen tank (Bulletin, 20 September 2005). Commenting on Horne's decision to attempt the writing of an Australian constitution, Moorhouse concludes his column for the Bulletin this way: 'If I were to choose anyone to write a constitution for a decent, civilised society I could think of no one better.'

Robert Ross 1934-2005
Robert Ross, founding editor of Antipodes, has died in the USA. Ross was a tireless advocate for Australian Studies in North America. He worked with the Edward A. Clark Center for Australian Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, initially as a research associate and later as its director. Ross regularly published criticisms and reviews of Australian literature and was active in the American Association of Australian Literary Studies (AAALS). Recognising his invaluable contribution, AAALS notes that Ross 'started this organization and gave it his energy, dedication, and insight. We are profoundly grateful for the gift of his talents and share with his friends worldwide the sorrow of his loss' (AAALS website).

Patrick Alexander 1940-2005
Poet and performance artist Patrick Alexander has died near his Fitzroy home in Melbourne. Born in Dublin, Alexander trained for a time at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts before moving to Australia in 1960. Alexander published four volumes of poetry, but was perhaps best known as a spoken-word artist. According to his obituarist, Peter Davis, Alexander was 'the only artist to have produced an event for every Melbourne Fringe Festival since the festival began in 1983, and he was made a life honorary member of the fringe for his contributions – the only person to be accorded the honour' ('Life at the Fringe Offered Rich Rewards', Age, 1 October 2005). Alexander died just prior to his scheduled appearance at the 2005 festival. In lieu of his performance, his friends gathered at the appointed venue – the British Crown in Fitzroy – and paid tribute to the poet by sharing memories and listening to earlier recordings of Alexander's work.

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

info-austlit@austlit.edu.au

Or spend two minutes filling out our User Survey form.