Spotlight on Research – Tasmanian Subset Burrowing Deep
AustLit has recently added the Literature of Tasmania subset to its growing list of specialist research datasets. The Tasmanian subset has been functional since the end of August 2006 and was established from a core list of authors, works and organisations with Tasmanian connections. Dr Philip Mead, Senior Lecturer in the School of English, Journalism and European Languages, University of Tasmania, and member of the AustLit Advisory Board, explains that from this list 766 agents have been attributed to the subset so far. 'This work has involved surveying Ferguson's, Morris Miller's and Elizabeth Webby's bibliographies, as well as holdings in the Tasmaniana Library (State Library of Tasmania) and the Morris Miller Library, and refining the scope and focus of the Tasmanian subset'.

The subset will significantly increase the depth of description of 19th-century Tasmanian publications on AustLit. Special and on-going projects include the indexing of the Hobart Town Gazette; compiling bibliographies of works by James Knox and Clive Sansom; identifying surviving Aboriginal 'literary' culture; attributing pre-1850 publications; developing and enhancing author biographical entries, including Bessie Marchant's; and developing a database of Tasmanian archival holdings relevant to the subset.

Dr Mead reports that the research team – Jo Richardson, Ralph Spaulding and Tony Stagg – is also investigating 'mysterious items like the connection between authors Mary Morton Allport and her sister-in-law Mary Ann Allport who lived in Staffordshire, and whether Jack the Englishman (1923) by Louisa H. Bedford has any Tasmanian connection. Other entries being prepared include one about the songs of Francis Henslowe written in the mid-19th century, a biographical note about Bassett Dickson, author of the 50-page poem 'Warbeck, or, The Tasmanian Settler' (1847), set in New Norfolk, and full of details of social and political life in Van Diemen's Land. Dickson shot himself in 1869, changing his will the day before. We have also identified and indexed what we consider the first book of poetry published by a woman poet in Tasmania, Sacred Poetry (1850), by Miriam Mary Thomson'.

New AustLit Records
During August and September 2006, the Content Development Team added:

• 8,440 new works
• 1,786 new agents (individuals and organisations)

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

Text Publishing Celebrates Booker Shortlistings
Independent Melbourne publishing house Text Publishing is justifiably pleased that two of its books were included in the 2006 Booker Prize shortlist. M. J. Hyland and Kate Grenville both survived the cull from longlist to the final six shortlisted works. (Peter Carey was not so lucky.) Text publisher, Michael Heyward told Frances Atkinson (Age, 16 September 2006) he had a feeling 'the impossible might happen, but it's difficult to separate publisher's intuition from wishing thinking'.

Kate Grenville was nominated for her already multi-award winning The Secret River. Hyland's nomination was for her second novel Carry Me Down. Commenting on the shortlist, the Irish Times noted wryly: 'Just when it looked there would be no Irish involvement in this year's prize due to the absence of an Irish writer on the long list, along came a London-born Australian, M. J. Hyland, whose parents are Irish'. Hyland has been living in London since 2005, but is currently on a six-month residency at the B. R. Whiting Library in Rome courtesy of the Australia Council. (The Council's website notes that both shortlisted works were written with support from the Australia Council's Literature Board'.) Hyland makes no claims about a particular national allegiance. In 2003 she told journalist Brigid Delaney: 'I might live in Manhattan or Edinburgh or Cardiff, I think of myself as without nationality'. (Sydney Morning Herald, 19-20 July 2003)

Kiran Desai, an Indian-born writer currently studying at Columbia University's Creative Writing Course, was named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize on 10 October for her novel The Inheritance of Loss.

Nobel Prize to White a 'Mistake'
The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has pronounced the awarding of a Nobel Prize in Literature to Patrick White as one of Australia's thirteen biggest mistakes. The IPA is 'an independent, non-profit public policy think tank, dedicated to preserving and strengthening the foundations of economic and political freedom'. Founded in 1943, it produces occasional papers and 'backgrounders', and hosts conferences, lectures and seminars, in fields such as the environment, governance and economics. The Institute says that when the Nobel prize (an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden) took its place on Australia's 'national mantelpiece, our emerging cultural elites announced that no longer should we judge our creative products as inferior to those of our parent nations; from now on they were better'. This resulted in the formation of the 'AusLit racket' and the establishment of the 'self-reinforcing pattern of grants, favourable reviews and appointments which ensures political correctness is more important than ability'. Authors subsequently became the 'self-appointed conscience of the nation'.

While allowing that 'Australia has had a lot going for it', the IPA believes that the nation must take the blame for 'some of the disastrous policies enacted by governments either propelled by ideological folly, economic ignorance or naked lust for power'. Other 'mistakes' on the list include the Immigration Restriction Act (1901), the 'invention' of Canberra (1908), the release of cane toads in northern Queensland (1935) and the performance of Australia's athletes at the Montreal Olympics (1976).

A complete list of all thirteen 'mistakes' is available in PDF format on the IPA's website.

Caro Llewellyn to Head New York Festival
Caro Llewellyn, the recently retired CEO and artistic director of the Sydney Writer's Festival, has been appointed Director of PEN World Voices – The New York Festival of International Literature. Executive Director of the PEN American Center, Michael Roberts, described Llewellyn as 'one of the world's most accomplished literary Festival Directors. PEN is delighted that she will bring to New York's fledgling venture the talents that vaulted Sydney into the front rank of international writers' gatherings'.

Llewellyn commented, 'I am extremely honored to take up this role with one of the world's premier literary organizations in one of the world's greatest cities. PEN's remarkable success in bringing World Voices so far in only two years is an indication that the moment was ripe for America's first truly international Festival. I have been lucky to head one of the world's leading literary events in another great city, Sydney, and I'm truly thrilled by this new opportunity'.

Llewellyn took up her new position on 2 October. Her replacement at the Sydney Festival is Dr Wendy Were, previously the Deputy Director at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Western Australia.

To Speak or Not to Speak
A National Poetry Week event in the New South Wales city of Wollongong stirred heated discussion on issues of free speech, sedition and public offence. The South Coast Writers' Centre (SCWC) applied for a permit to hold a poetry reading in Wollongong's Crown Street Mall. The Mall's management issued the standard response that the group was welcome to use the Mall's facilities provided it abided by the Mall code. The code, which has been in effect for many years but was apparently amended in late 2005, states that 'a permit will not be issued if, in the opinion of the Manager City Centre, the promotion is or may be intended to be conducted for political or religious purposes or is or may be objectionable in nature'.

Director of the SCWC, Annie McNamara, said the rules were draconian and suggested that many nursery rhymes and Shakespeare sonnets would not comply with the code. The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) took up the cause. ASA President Dr Jeremy Fisher said: 'These sorts of decisions highlight the problems caused by the sedition provisions of the Government's anti-terrorist laws. Administrators of public property feel it is safer to totally prohibit public performance rather than risk anti-government comments being made'. (ASA news statement, 1 September 2006) The ASA encouraged members to attend a protest gathering at the Wollongong Mall on 6 September.

Described by the Illawarra Mercury as a 'peaceful but passionate gathering', the protest went ahead as planned. The Wollongong City Council issued a permit, and performing poets included Venie Holmgren from Pambula, Lizz Murphy from Binalong and Elizabeth Hodgson from Wollongong. Ms McNamara told the Mercury: 'This is a huge issue for writers, especially since the introduction of the national sedition laws'. Acknowledging the need for boundaries, Ms McNamara argued that the current regulations were too restrictive. 'Of course mall management have to remain careful about what goes on in here, but there is still a right to free speech'. (7 September 2006)

Book Removal Causes Consternation
In a related occurrence, two books have recently been removed from the shelves of The University of Melbourne Library. In a joint statement the ASA, the Council of Australian University Librarians, the Australian Library and Information Association, and the International Federation of Library Associations expressed their concern at the action. They said, in part, 'Australia's liberal and tolerant way of life is based on respect for each others' views and the freedom to state our opinions without fear of retribution or arrest. We have so many wonderful authors because they have the freedom to explore ideas and to stimulate us with their creativity.

'The freedom to read, see or hear what we want is a central element of the Australian way of life. We expect and make hearty comment when we disagree with others but we respect their right to express their views. Banning books takes away not only our right to read the opinions of others but also our right to disagree with what they say. We can't refute what we can't read'. (Media statement, 25 September 2006)

Literary Review Launched in Newspaper's Pages
The Australian newspaper is once again publishing a monthly literary review as a supplement to its regular pages. From 1996-2001, with the support of the Australia Council, the Australian published the Australian's Review of Books. After a five-year hiatus, and with the backing of The University of Melbourne, Melbourne University Press and the Australia Council, the newspaper has launched the Australian Literary Review (ALR).

An editorial in the Australian described the launch as a 'national publishing moment to be celebrated' and drew comparisons between its new publication and the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement. The new magazine aims to 'encourage lively, controversial and provocative debate not only on books and writing but also on culture, politics, philosophy, international conflict, public policy, education and economics'. It seeks a community of readers who 'value the life of the mind'. (6 September 2006)

The Australian has dedicated a section of its website to ALR. The Review is published on the first Wednesday of the month.

'Virtual' Book Clubs Promoting Reading
While book clubs have long had a place in the towns and suburbs of Australia, the occurrence of 'virtual' clubs is a more recent phenomenon. Here are some clubs that are promoting reading in dispersed communities:

• Patrick White Readers' Group
  Faced with a decline in familiarity with Patrick White's novels (see This Month's Spotlight in the August-September AustLit newsletter), a web-based reading group has been established to promote White and his work. The Patrick White Readers' Group is an initiative of Sarsaparilla.net, a group blog devoted to discussing 'books, writing, film and television, theatre and the performing arts, music, publishing, the humanities, reading, cultural studies, and ... other things, from a distinctively Australian perspective'. The Readers' Group read The Vivisector during September and extensive comments from group members are available on the website.



• Big Book Club
  Another dispersed club, but one with a regional affiliation, is South Australia's Big Book Club. A not-for-profit arts organisation, the Club seeks to 'promote reading, the discussion of books and the promotion of South Australian and Australian authors'. The Big Book Club's selection for October is Adrian Mitchell's Drawing the Crow, a prose collection on growing up in Adelaide during the 1950s and 1960s.



• First Tuesday Book Club
  ABC Television's First Tuesday Book Club will discuss Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus as one of its two selections for November. The programme airs on 7 November and will also discuss John le Carre's The Mission Song. Hazzard's novel was first published in 1980 and was a finalist in the USA's National Book Awards the following year. It was recently nominated by playwright Joanna Murray-Smith as the book that changed her life. (Good Weekend, 23 September 2006) The Book Club website is tempting prospective readers with the following précis of Hazzard's novel: 'Adventurous Caro is one of two Australian sisters who have come to post-war England to seek their fortunes. She is to find that love brings passion, sorrow, betrayal and finally hope. The milder Grace seeks fulfilment in an apparently happy marriage. But as the decades pass love, death and two slow-burning secrets wait in ambush for them'.

The Bloom Report
Thorpe-Bowker and Bloom Partners have entered into a joint venture with The University of Melbourne's Publishing and Communications Program to produce a qualitative annual survey of Australian publishing. The report 'covers a broad spectrum of issues and surveys a range of Australian publishing, from small independent publishers through to Australian subsidiaries of multinationals'. (Bloom Report announcement)

An issue that sparked a strong response from publishers for the first survey is the level of government support for Australian publishing. Thorpe-Bowker's Bookseller + Publisher Magazine (September 2006) quotes from a preview of the report: 'small publishers in a small country face big problems ... although they don't produce vast dollars for themselves or, in tax, for the government ... so much innovation and creativity comes from this area – perhaps because decision-making is so much more straightforward a process when you don't have a boss to report to on the other side of the world; perhaps because hunger makes you work that little bit harder; and perhaps too because you're only ever one week's worth of cashflow away from going under. Whatever the reasons, small publishing could benefit from more government support ...'

The first report is due for release in November.

Mike Ladd on arriving in Venezuela as one of the 29 invited poets at the Third World Poetry Festival and having stated his profession as 'poet' on the immigration form:
'At the immigration desk in Caracas airport, the border guard, an attractive young woman, looks at my form and says: "You have a noble profession. Say something beautiful and I'll let you into the country." I can tell I am going to like this place'. (Weekend Australian, 16-17 September 2006)

David Malouf on the relationship between writer and reader:
'Nothing in the whole heady business of writing is more mysterious than the relationship between writer and reader. That is, the spell that is cast on the willing reader by the writer's voice; the way we internalise that voice and make it, for the time of the reading, our own, so that the experience it brings us seems no less personal and real than what we experience in the world'. (Opening remarks of the 2006 Kenneth Binns Lecture presented during the National Library's 'Love & Desire' conference, 23-24 September 2006. Audio transcripts of conference papers will be available on the National Library's website by mid-October.)

Wendy Were, newly appointed artistic director of the Sydney Writers' Festival (SWF), on the role of literature in society:
'Literature embodies the consciousness and conscience of a culture. It's an artform which is democratic and accessible'. (SWF website)

Carmen Lawrence presenting the Dorothy Green Lecture at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature conference, July 2006:
'I'm not suggesting that writers or critics should crank out polemic, but that they should not underestimate the power of literature to chip away at orthodox ways of thinking; that they celebrate the power they have to insinuate new images into our repertoire ... For me, as a reader, what remains intoxicating is that through literature I am provoked into seditious perceptions that erode my certainties and settled doctrines'. (JASAL 6 2006)

CBCA Honours the Benighted and Benign
Characters in this year's Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) award-winning books struggle with the outcomes of tragic death and mental illness; they turn anger and frustration into reconciliation; and they just plain love the simple life.

J. C. Burke won the Older Readers award for The Story of Tom Brennan. Tom's brother has caused a car accident and is subsequently gaoled. Tom and his family deal with their grief and anguish, and make a gradual journey towards healing. In the Younger Readers category, Elizabeth Fensham's Helicopter Man was the winner. Fensham's story tackles twelve-year-old Pete's confusion in the face of his father's schizophrenia, and the boy's evolving understanding of the disease.

Deborah Niland wrote and illustrated Annie's Chair, the winner of the Early Childhood award. Annie is enraged when Benny the dog transgresses the story's opening declaration: 'This is Annie, and this is her chair'. Annie, Benny and the chair eventually find a way to accommodate each other.

Perhaps the most humorous moment in this year's awards was offered by Colin Thompson, winner of the Picture Book of the Year for The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley. Not only is Riley abandoned to la joie de vivre, Thompson adds to the fun by constructing an aging, female 'imagination consultant' as his pseudonymous illustrator. 'Amy Lissiat' (a play on 'it's my alias') is said to have been born in France in 1920 and to have worked as an artist's model and a poet's muse. The judges were not taken in by the ruse, but enjoyed the anagram.

The full list of winners, honour books and shortlisted books is available on the CBCA's website, along with detailed comments from the judges.

Castro Adds Queensland Award to His Premiers' Prize List
Brian Castro has previously won awards in the Victorian and New South Wales Premiers' Awards, but his Fiction Award win for The Garden Book is his first from the state of Queensland. Judges of this year's Queensland Premier's Literary Awards described The Garden Book as 'stunningly original in concept, composition and style. Of imaginative strength, profound insight and complex vision, its prose invokes a wide range of intellectual and emotional responses'. Castro was particularly gratified by the win saying: 'It means a lot to me because I've never got a Queensland award ... And this one speaks volumes because The Garden Book had been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin and other awards, but never won anything'. (Australian, 13 September 2006) Castro won the award ahead of other highly regarded works including Roger McDonald 's Miles Franklin winning The Ballad of Desmond Kale and Kate Grenville's Booker shortlisted The Secret River.

The award for a poetry collection went to John Kinsella for The New Arcadia. The judges said Kinsella's poetry 'displays both technical virtuosity and a sensual embracing of the landscape and people it dissects so unflinchingly'. In the short story category the winner was Craig Cormick for A Funny Thing Happened at 27,000 Feet. Cormick impressed the judges with his ability to 'twist the knife' in his fictional response to 'the contemporary age of terror'.

In writing for younger people, the Children's Book award winner was Martine Murray's The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley (Who Can't Help Flying High and Falling in Deep) and the Young Adult Book prize went to Ursula Dubosarsky for The Red Shoe. Continuing the footwear motif, Noelle Janaczewska's 'Mrs Petrov's Shoe' won the Drama Script award.

A complete list of winners, together with judges' comments, is available on the Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet's website.

Carey Wins Second Vance Palmer Prize
Judges of the 2006 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards honoured a different group of writers from their Queensland counterparts. Premier Steve Bracks announced Peter Carey's Theft as the winner of his state's Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction. It is the second time Carey has won the award – the first occasion was in 1986 when Illywhacker was the winning entry. The judges described Carey's language in Theft as 'bold and visceral: by turns coarse and poetic'.

The judges were less inclined to be complimentary in their overall observations about the entries for the Louis Esson Prize for Drama. They felt that bulk of entries displayed 'the need for good editing and dramaturgy' and noted the unacceptability of '[s]lovenly grammar, syntax and spelling ... in the scripts of plays that have reached performance'. The judges, Hugh Colman (Convenor), Bruce Myles, Thuy On and Ailsa Piper, commented further that: 'Much of the subject matter chosen felt esoteric, and many of the writers seemed unable to grapple with the nature of theatre, writing from an imaginative position more attuned to film or television'. They awarded the drama prize to Stephen Sewell's 'ambitious and confronting' 'Three Furies'.

Details of winners in the Victorian awards are listed on the State Library of Victoria's website.

AWGIES Offer a Feast for Katherine Thomson
Katherine Thomson was a multi-award winner at this year's Australian Writers Guild awards night. The playwright, and film and television scriptwriter, took home three AWGIES including the major prize. Thomson, with co-writer Barbara Samuels, won both the award for Television Mini Series and the Major Award for Answered by Fire, a story based on the events of the 1999 UN-supervised election in East Timor. Thomson also won the Documentary (Public Broadcast) Award for Unfolding Florence : The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst. Thomson has previously won AWGIES in Community Theatre, Stage and Television Serial categories.

The AWGIES are unique among Australian writing awards in that they are the only awards judged solely by writers. Judging panels work purely from the written script without reference to stage and screen productions. Other winners in this year's awards include:

• Patricia Cornelius for 'Boy Overboard' (Theatre for Young People) and for 'Love' (Stage)
• Luke Davies and Neil Armfield for Candy (Feature Film – Adaptation)
• Richard Tulloch for 'Stella and the Moon Man' (Children's Theatre)

and

• Noelle Janaczewska for 'Let's Go Brazil' (Radio)

Also announced during the 2006 awards nights was the establishment of a new $25,000 scholarship named in honour of Kit Denton, a writer of fiction, non-fiction, and scripts for film and television. Announcing the award, Denton's son, television presenter Andrew Denton, described his father as 'a writer's writer, always drinking in the work of others ... He was unfailingly professional, a man of commitment and integrity and never afraid to speak the truth as he saw it'.

With the latter characteristic in mind, Andrew Denton said that the criterion for the award would be a demonstration of courage. 'A writer can display courage in many ways: by independence of thought; by expressing a deeply unpopular view; by persevering in the face of limited resources; or by refusing to baulk at seemingly insurmountable obstacles ... Hopefully the Kit Denton Scholarship will be rattling cages for many years to come'.

River Tale Wins Vogel
In winning this year's Australian/Vogel National Literary Award (for an unpublished manuscript), Belinda Castles joins a list of noted women writers including Kate Grenville, Gillian Mears, Alison Croggon and Danielle Wood. Castles' 'The River Baptists' receives the $20,000 award for 2006 and the book will be published by Allen and Unwin next year. Castles describes her novel as 'a drama of family secrets in an atmospheric setting'. The location is based on the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales where Castles lived for a time. One of the Vogel judges, Marele Day, said the judging panel could see 'the river's dark violence, as well as the placid surface and the pools of light'. (Australian, 20 September 2006)

Castles has already published one novel – Falling Woman – in 2000. This year was Castles' final opportunity for eligibility in the Vogel as it is a prize for an unpublished novel by a writer under 35 years of age. Castles, currently aged 34, admitted that she was 'driven by the Vogel deadline'. (Courier-Mail, 20 September 2006)

Deadly Winners
The winners of the 12th annual Deadly Awards, Australia's national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander celebration of cultural achievement, have been announced at a ceremony in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. The winner of the 2006 award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature is John Harding for 'The Dirty Mile : A History of Indigenous Fitzroy'. Harding's play guides its audience through Fitzroy's Indigenous history and provides an experience of Indigenous people's 'strong and continuing historical, cultural and emotional connection' to an area that is now part of Melbourne's inner suburban landscape. The play was performed in Melbourne during the Commonwealth Games as an alternative form of entertainment.

Another Deadly winner is David Milroy for the play 'Windmill Baby'. The play tells the story of Maymay, an elderly woman who returns to a deserted Kimberley cattle station that had been her home decades earlier. Milroy's one-woman play won the Deadly for Excellence in Film and Theatrical Score. It is described as 'the new calling card of Indigenous theatre, told with the poetry of a campfire storyteller and the comedy of a great yarn'. (Deadlys website)

Australian Centre Awards Announced
The Australian Centre at The University of Melbourne has announced the winners of the 2006 Kate Challis Award and the 2007 Peter Blazey Fellowship. The Kate Challis RAKA Award for an Indigenous writer of creative prose has been jointly awarded to Vivienne Cleven's Bitin' Back and Her Sister's Eye. The judges were impressed by Cleven's narrative range and her ability in writing across genres. The judges said the novels 'give a previously unexpressed voice to Indigenous experience in rural Queensland'.

Judith Pugh will take up the 2007 Peter Blazey Fellowship for a work-in-progress in the fields of autobiography, biography or life writing. Pugh is working on an account of her life with painter Clifton Pugh titled 'In My Seventies'. The judges noted Pugh's 'remarkable psychological depth and control of tone' and her 'eloquent yet sparse prose' in a work that provides both 'an arresting portrait of a public figure and a compelling private story'. (Australian Centre website)

Nyst and Temple Share Crime Spoils
Chris Nyst and Peter Temple are joint winners of this year's Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel; Nyst's Crook as Rookwood shares the spotlight with Temple's The Broken Shore. Nyst is a first-time winner of the award, but it's Temple's fourth win in seven years. The Broken Shore has already won the Australian General Fiction Book of the Year in the Australian Book Industry Awards and, on 16 October, Temple will be presented with the 2005 Colin Roderick Award in Townsville.

Temple has a growing reputation in the USA in addition to his solid Australian sales. For the first time, however, he is also being recognised in the UK. A review in the Observer newspaper described him as 'Australia's finest crime writer' while the Independent on Sunday described The Broken Shore as 'a stone classic'. A reviewer in the Times conceded that Temple 'deserves wider praise ... All the necessary ingredients are present, a plot that works, perceptive characterisation, believable dialogue, and a terrific sense of place. The setting reeks of an authentic Australia not often visited by more mainstream novelists'. (Times, 8 July 2006)

Other Recent Award Winners

• Jennifer Maiden has been awarded both the Dinny O'Hearn Poetry Prize and the overall Book of the Year in the Age Book of the Year awards. Maiden's winning collection is Friendly Fire. Mandy Sayer's Velocity won the Non-Fiction Prize and Christos Tsiolkas's Dead Europe won the Fiction Prize.
• Nick Cave is the winner of the inaugural Gucci Award for his scriptwriting for the film, The Proposition. The Award was presented at the 63rd Venice Film Festival in September; it recognises an artist from another sector of the arts who has made a remarkable contribution to film.
• Dan Disney has won the 2006 Broadway Poetry Prize for his suite of poems '"these things I've seen" said the silhouette'. The judges Associate Professor Peter Kirkpatrick and Professor Elizabeth Webby said the writing was 'distinctive for its wide and inventive lexicon, which mixes high and popular levels of language to great effect'.

Obituaries – Celebrating Life after Death
Tucked inside the pages of major Australian daily newspapers is a regular 'obits column', tracing lives that have impacted their times through fame and infamy, ordinariness and eccentricity. It is only in the last decade or so that obituaries have truly flourished in Australian papers, but what is their wider history?

According to Dr Nigel Starck, who wrote his PhD thesis on the subject, the obituary's first incarnation 'can be traced to the newsbooks of England which appeared in the 1660s, during the Restoration. It flowered in the 18th century, in the first daily newspapers and magazines; it grew luxuriant, and sometimes ornate, in the 19th century; it became unfashionable and fell into some general neglect in the 20th. Then, with the appointment of reformist editors and, particularly in Britain, the publication of bigger newspapers by an industry no longer subjected to labour restraint, the obituary itself experienced restoration'. ('Writes of Passage')

The 'restoration' of obituaries began in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s. An oft-sighted example of the 'new dawn' is the London Times's obituary of Australian ballet dancer, Sir Robert Helpmann, who was described as 'a homosexual of the proselytising kind'. From that point on, editors have shown a willingness to publish 'the full truth, safe in the knowledge that the dead can't sue'. (Graeme Leech, 'Deadly Accurate', Sydney Morning Herald, 26 August 2006)

What makes for a fine obituary and a good obituarist? Dr Starck identifies several elements: 'At its best [the obituary] demands elegance of expression and discipline of purpose, a gift for relating anecdote and a rigorous checking of fact, a sense of history and poetry, and a style of writing which should be at once engaging and authoritative'. To achieve this end, the obituary writer must 'research with diligence', 'interview with persistence', 'report with accuracy' and 'deliver the product with felicity'. ('Capturing Life – Not Death', TEXT, vol.5 no.2, October 2001) To these qualities, Suzy Baldwin, obituaries editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, adds 'a sense of humour' and 'an ear for a great quote' together with an ability to 'illuminate the person and the times ... by telling stories, the odder and funnier the better'. (Sydney Morning Herald, 3 January 2005)

Starck argues that Australian obituaries are typified by two factors: sentimentality and egalitarianism. The former leads to words that are 'better suited to a classified death notice than an obituary column', but 'a more congenial outcome' is derived from the egalitarian tendency. 'Subject selection' in Australian newspapers 'is entirely free of rank or class considerations'. ('Tales of Life, not Death', Eureka Street, vol.15 no.1, January-February 2005)

In recent years, Australia's pre-eminent obituarist has been Melburnian Philip Jones. Jones came to obituary writing in unusual circumstances – his first contribution was in remembrance of his former partner, Barrett Reid. Its composition was 'a test of character and skill and he rose to the occasion, displaying the insight and compassion that became his signature'. So said Bruce Grant in his recent obituary of Jones. (Australian, 1 September 2006)

Jones died in his Melbourne home on 24 August. He had gained international standing as an obituarist over the last ten years and had participated in the conferences of the International Association of Obituarists. The association's founder is Carolyn Gilbert, described by Jones as 'a redoubtable Texan'. (Weekend Australian, 5-6 July 2003) At AustLit's invitation, Gilbert penned her recollections of the master obituarist under the heading 'The Philip Jones I Knew'; an abridged version follows:

'As a person who works with an international cadre of obituarists, I usually know an obituary writer when I see one. And I saw one with inimitable obit style a few years ago at our annual conference in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Of course, everyone there had a connection to obituary writing but this one – this one really personified the standard image of "the obituary writer"...

'Even in the relative heat of the New Mexico sun, Philip was nattily dressed as one would expect of a professional obituarist of his age and position ... suit, tie, briefcase ... no spats. However, one felt in talking with him that, perhaps, he might have been more comfortable with spats. His tie was loosened a bit and, to be honest, his once pristine suit was a little the worse for wear. He was a bit standoffish among this group of writers, most of whom were far younger than he – in spirit if not in years. He maintained this distance for a while until a couple of glasses of wine (the great equalizer) allowed him to become one of us.

'On the official program Philip Jones presented a paper for the audience and often wandered into personal anecdotes that made the presentation more interesting and more revealing about him. To tell you the truth, my memory of his presentation is a bit hazy due to the fact that I was so taken with his bearing and personality. There was at once a realization of excellent training, an enviable grasp of the arts and yet a kind of sadness about him...

'The last visit I had with Philip was at the 7th Great Obituary Writers' Conference held in Bath, England in the summer of 2005 ... He laughed at the fact that while changing planes in Dubai, he discovered his new laptop had been lifted somewhere along the way. I thought to myself that it was almost like a badge of honor to him to have lost his new-fangled laptop computer in one of the oldest parts of the world. It was an episode of contradictions in a way ... in fact, Philip was himself an episode of contradictions at this stage in his life...

'I heard from him a few times over the course of the next year. He graciously sent me his book [Art and Life] with a personal inscription. Up until a couple of weeks before the conference, he had hoped to attend the 8th Great in Las Vegas, New Mexico in 2006. But life interrupted and he could not join us.

'Then his quiet death interrupted life.

"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper." 'The Hollow Men', T. S. Eliot (1925)

'Goodbye, dear friend'.

The following resources are starting points for those wishing to delve further into the celebratory world of obituary writing:

• Nigel Starck's Life after Death : The Art of the Obituary
• Two websites dedicated to obituaries and their writing – Obituary Forum and Obit Page
• The Sydney Morning Herald – Obituaries, and Tribute and Death Notices

and

• International newspapers that display current obituaries include:
  • Independent (UK)
  • Telegraph (UK)
  • New York Times
  • Washington Post

Several new scholarly works on Australian literature, writers and publishers have appeared in recent months. They include the following:

Quintessential Bushranging Tale Rides Again in Academy Edition
Robbery Under Arms has been an Australian classic virtually since it first appeared in book form in 1888. Narrated by prison inmate Dick Marston, the novel is the first full-length Australian work in the voice of an uneducated bushman. Rolf Boldrewood's tale was praised by its earliest readers for its excitement, romance and authentic picture of 1850s life in Australia, and its continuing appeal and popularity has seen the story frequently adapted for stage, radio, film and television.

Across the years, however, the novel's text has not been well served by publishers or reprints. It lost some material accidentally in early typesettings; it was abridged by its author at the publisher's request, but Boldrewood's instructions were not accurately carried out; and, as with any much reprinted work, thousands of small changes gradually crept into the text.

These changes, omissions and accidents of history have now been repaired in the first full-scale critical edition of the novel. The Academy Edition of Robbery Under Arms, edited by Professors Paul Eggert and Elizabeth Webby, presents the text as it originally appeared in 59 instalments in the Sydney Mail from 1882 to 1883, including some 29,000 words cut from later book editions. This new version, through its painstaking re-assembly of the text and its extensive notes and appendices, allows contemporary readers and scholars to appreciate how the special qualities of voice were partially flattened over time and to know exactly what material was omitted.

The Higher Self in Christopher Brennan's Poetry
A major new study of Christopher Brennan's poetry has recently been launched in Canberra and Sydney. The Sydney launch of Katherine Barnes's The Higher Self in Christopher Brennan's Poems: Esotericism, Romanticism, Symbolism was held at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview, the school Brennan attended in the 1880s. Professor Elizabeth Webby launched the book, and the college mounted a display of Brennan material from the Riverview archive. A new setting by Judith Clingan of one of Brennan's poems, 'A Gray and Dusty Daylight Flows', was performed at both launches.

The Higher Self, published in the ARIES Book Series, Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism, argues that the focus of Brennan's Poems is the notion of a higher self. It is the first major study of Brennan's work in this broad religious, philosophical and literary context. Its argument is supported by evidence from Brennan's own library and from the holdings of the State Library of New South Wales at which Brennan worked (under its former name, the Public Library of New South Wales).

Outsider Looks in on Tim Winton
While teaching in Australian high schools from 1989 to 1990, French academic Salhia Ben-Messahel studied literature at the University of Western Australia. Her studies of Tim Winton's fiction connected with her interest in the literature of place and working class characters. After much research and a series of interviews with Winton, Ben-Messahel has written Mind the Country : Tim Winton's Fiction. Introducing the critical study, Professor Bruce Bennett says: 'Although Mind the Country is the work of an "outsider", Salhia Ben-Messahel's study ... adds a further dimension to understanding the writing of a major Australian author'.

Mind the Country examines the dominant themes in Winton's fiction, his depiction of place and his representation of the individuals who constitute his 'fictional community'.

Fictional Worlds Critiqued
Thea Astley's Fictional Worlds is a collection of critical responses to Thea Astley's writing, including two pieces by Astley herself. The book's contents have largely been published previously, but are now brought together by Cambridge Scholars Press. There are two new articles by the editors, Paul Genoni (on the Eden motif in Astley's work) and Susan Sheridan (on Astley's use of irony). Fictional Worlds also includes the inaugural Thea Astley Lecture, presented by Kate Grenville at the 2005 Byron Bay Writers' Festival.

Voyaging Within
Professor Bruce Bennett, the 2005-2006 Group of Eight Professor of Australian Studies at the Centre for Australian and New Zealand Studies, Georgetown University, USA, and member of the AustLit Advisory Board, has gathered 22 previously published essays for his new volume, Homing In : Essays on Australian Literature and Selfhood. Professor Bennett explores themes of place and self through the writings of such authors as Peter Porter, Louis Becke, Jack Davis and Judith Wright. The essays also travel across cultures into Asia and the Pacific.

Introducing the book, Professor Bennett notes how many of the essays '"home in" on recurrent anxieties, interests and pleasures associated with notions of place, region, nation and a sense of belonging or displacement'. As author of the work, he confesses to still feeling 'anxious, curious and uncertain about aspects of the Australia I inhabit and its place in the world...' Professor Bennett's hope is that readers will recognise much of substance in Australian literature and will be 'stimulated to embark on their own voyages within it'.

History of the Book Continues to Unfold
Paper Empires : A History of the Book in Australia 1946-2005 is the newly published companion volume to A History of the Book in Australia, 1891-1945 : A National Culture in a Colonised Market (2001). The new publication covers the final era in the projected three-volume 'History of the Book in Australia'; the remaining period, to be covered in volume one, will deal with the first century of Australian printing and publishing.

According to the publisher, University of Queensland Press (UQP), Paper Empires 'tells the inside story of Australian publishing over the past half-century. It begins with the larrikin pioneers of the 1950s and 60s and follows the fortunes of the independents and multinationals that followed in their wake'. UQP draws particular attention to local successes Allen and Unwin and Lonely Planet, and to the global contributions of Australian-based companies such as Penguin Australia and Scholastic.

For a comprehensive view of new publications in Australian literature, plus reviews and critical articles, see AustLit's Hot Off the Presses listing.

Call for Papers for ASAL Conference
The Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) is holding a special two-day conference from 2 to 3 February 2007 in honour of Professor Elizabeth Webby on her retirement from the Chair of Australian Literature at The University of Sydney. The conference, under the title 'New reckonings: Australian literature – Past, Present and Future' will be held at the Women's College, The University of Sydney. Contributions (both scholarly and creative) are invited on a very broad range of themes in Australian literary studies (including film and interdisciplinary Australian studies). Papers, poems, short stories or other contributions that connect with or respond to any aspect of Professor Webby's work are also most welcome.

Abstracts (of approximately 300 words) should be sent via email to conference convenor, Dr Brigid Rooney by 1 November 2006. Email: brigid.rooney@arts.usyd.edu.au

Poetry for the Indian Market
The editors of an upcoming anthology of Australian poetry translated into Bangla (Bengali) seek suggestions for inclusion. The editors hope to include work beyond the 'well-known and the popular'. Ideas can be sent to Ankur Saha (USA) at ankur.saha@gmail.com; Subrata Augustine Gomes (NSW) at AG210022@ncr.com or Shoumyo Dasgupta (USA) at shoumyo@yahoo.com.

The anthology will be published by Patralekha to coincide with the 2007 Kolkata International Book Fair where Australia will be the featured country.

Youth Journal Seeks Contributions
Harbinger, a new journal for writers and artists under 30 years of age, is seeking contributions for its inaugural un-themed issue. Quality submissions of short and medium length fiction, non-fiction and essays will be accepted until 19 November 2006. Full details of submission procedures and further information on the journal can be found on Harbinger's website.

2006 Watermark Literary Dinner
The Watermark Literary Society is holding its 2006 Literary Dinner at Kendall on the mid-north coast of New South Wales on 18 November 2006. The dinner speaker will be Roger McDonald, winner of this year's Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, The Ballad of Desmond Kale.

Full details for the dinner are available on Watermark's website.

46th Australian National Science Fiction Convention
NatCon, the Australian Sci Fi Convention, will be held in Melbourne, 8-11 June 2007. The conference celebrates and explores 'all things in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres in all its forms: books, film, television, comics, computer games, animation, performance and more'. The theme for 2007 is 'The Person Books Built', a title inspired by Francis Spufford's memoir The Child that Books Built (2003). The memoir delves into how, what and why we read as children. Featured guests for the conference are New Zealand author Margaret Mahy and prolific Australian writer of speculative fiction for children and adults, Isobelle Carmody.

For more events, submission requests and other literary opportunities see AustLit's 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.

Reviving Gordon's Memory
One hundred years ago, in September 1906, the Bulletin's Red Page published four lines from Adam Lindsay Gordon's 'Finis Exoptatus : A Metaphysical Song':
Life is mostly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone
Kindness in another's trouble
Courage in your own.
Those lines have since been regularly inscribed on the pages of autograph books in school yards across Australia, but memories of its author have dimmed. One man determined to revive Gordon's fortunes is retired banker John Adams from Torquay in Victoria. In June this year, Adams organised the first annual Froth and Bubble Day. The day started with the laying of a wreath at Gordon's statue in Spring Street, Melbourne, and continued at the Australian Racing Museum in Federation Square. At this venue, poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe presented a talk and actor Geoff Denning recited some of Gordon's poetry.

Adam Lindsay Gordon took his own life in 1870, a day after the publication of Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes. He was buried at Brighton Cemetery not far from the beach where he shot himself. Over sixty years later a publicly subscribed fund raised money for the Spring Street statue; the Victorian Parliament rose for its unveiling. Two years later, in 1934, Gordon was again remembered with a bust being mounted in his honour at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, London.

AustLit research for The Bibliography of Australian Literature project and the Australian Magazines of the Twentieth Century subset has recently uncovered further details of activities that memorialised Gordon. Following Gordon's burial, an acacia was planted at the site of his grave. In 1905 William Moore, a Melbourne art and drama critic, gave an account of the planting and commented on Gordon's use of the acacia in his poetry. ('The Gordon Wattle') The wattle must have survived for several more decades at least. In 1935 the journal All About Books carried the following advertisement: 'Our readers may not be aware that Mr. Ernest Blake, who for years has tended the grave of Adam Lindsay Gordon, gathers seeds from the Acacia Saligna which grows on it. These seeds will be sent, free of charge, to anyone sending a stamped addressed envelope to Mr J. K. Moir, Box 1663, GPO, Elizabeth St, Melbourne, C.1. His idea is that the growing of trees from this seed, known to be from Gordon's grave, will spread the love of Gordon and encourage the growing of acacias'. (vol.7 no.4, 12 April 1935)

Gwen Meredith (1907-2006)
AustLit notes the very recent death of Gwen Meredith, writer of the long-running ABC radio serial, 'Blue Hills'. The December 2006 – January 2007 AustLit newsletter will carry further acknowledgement of Meredith's life and literary career.

Vera Newsom (1912-2006)
In 2003 Vera Newsom received the Medal of the Order of Australia for her 'service to literature as a poet and through support for the emerging talent of other writers'. One writer who testifies to Newsom's generous spirit and guiding hand is multi-award winning poet Judith Beveridge. Writing in the Winter 2006 issue of Five Bells, Beveridge recalls Newsom as the 'driving force' and 'cohesive spirit' behind the Round Table Group of poets to which both women belonged. 'Vera always brought to the group her remarkable critical faculties. She had the gift of wisdom, and an ability to make you feel good about your poem no matter how much work it still required'.

Newsom, who came to Australia via England and New Zealand, was raised in a family that was fiercely supportive of the women's suffrage movement. Encouraged by her father to pursue academic goals, Newsom sustained a 40-year career in teaching, retiring as principal of a secondary school. (Early in her career she was retrenched from the public school system when she married.) Not until she was in her sixties did Newsom begin to pay serious attention to her writing. Newson's poetry started appearing in Australian journals in the early 1980s and her first collection, Midnight Snow, was published in 1988 when she was 76 years old. Newsom published three further collections of poetry, including the award-winning Emily Bronte Recollects, as well as the chap book, A Psalm of Rejoicing and Other Poems. At the time of her death, Newsom was working with Beveridge and other friends to produce a volume of new and selected poems. That volume will be published shortly by Five Islands Press under the title 'Gratia : New and Selected Poems'.

Colin Thiele (1920-2006)
On 28 September, the Hon. R. B. Such put the following motion to the House of Assembly in the South Australian Parliament: 'That this house acknowledge with pride the great contribution of Colin Thiele as an author, educator and gentleman'. Seven members spoke to the motion, each relating personal stories of Colin Thiele's special place in their own lives and those of family members. Many referred with particular fondness to two of Thiele's early works, The Sun on the Stubble and Storm Boy. One of the speakers was member for Morphett, Chloe Fox. Ms Fox, whose mother is children's writer Mem Fox, recalled a favourite story she heard from Thiele about his school days at Julia Creek: 'He loved it when it rained because the school would then have about half its complement of students and the teacher would decide not to teach but, instead, would read all day long to Colin and his classmates. He absolutely loved that, and he said that it encouraged in him a love of the written word'.

Thiele's 'love of the written word' was a defining motif in his life. He trained as a teacher at Adelaide Teachers' College and taught English at high school and tertiary level, becoming an educator of the highest order. He was honoured with Australian and international literary prizes and, in 1977, became a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC). (The AC recognises 'eminent achievement and merit of the highest degree in service to Australia or humanity at large'.) Thiele received awards for writing in six of the last seven decades, and his books were widely translated and published overseas.

Thiele's death in Queensland coincided with that of conservationist and television presenter, Steve Irwin. Political commentator Alan Ramsey, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, was dismayed that the latter's death overshadowed the former's in the Federal Parliament. 'To make your mark by the power and eloquence of the written word, unless you are a Nobel Laureate, is nowhere near enough in this country'. (9 September) Ramsey's views were shared by Brian Matthews who seethed about a 'philistine nation' being unable to render 'proper, courteous and deserved recognition' to an 'immensely gifted yet modest' man. (Eureka Street, vol.16 no.13, 19 September) Although accolades for Irwin dominated the broadcast media, praise for Thiele and his writing was not entirely absent. Obituaries by Thiele's biographer (and AustLit team member), Dr Stephany Steggall, appeared in the Courier-Mail and the Sydney Morning Herald. Most of the other major dailies also carried obituaries and several printed accounts of Thiele's funeral (which he had arranged in great detail). Dr Steggall was also interviewed on eight occasions by radio stations from South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

Another of the speakers in the South Australian Parliament was Leon Bignell, the member for Mawson. Bignell told the House that the previous day he had purchased a secondhand copy of Labourers in the Vineyard, Thiele's first novel for adults. 'When I came across that book yesterday I thought we could probably honour this great man's legacy by actually reading some of his adult literature' – a worthy recommendation that could be extended to reading or re-reading Thiele's vast opus of writing for children and his works of poetry.

Bob Such's motion before the House of Assembly was carried and condolences were extended to Thiele's family. A full transcript of the speeches is available in the South Australian Parliament's Hansard.

Alex Buzo (1944-2006)
Alex Buzo's keen ear and sharp wit found a home in dramatic satire. Buzo's best-known play, Norm and Ahmed, proved the truth in the epithet 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'. When the play was produced in Melbourne in 1969 (following its Sydney debut the previous year) director Graeme Blundell and actor Lindsay Smith were arrested by the vice squad and charged with obscenity. The Brisbane season was no less dramatic. Police raided the theatre and actor Norman Staines faced the same charges as his Victorian counterparts. Norm and Ahmed gained headline attention with Staines's case eventually reaching the High Court. Now nearly forty years old, the play still rings with topical issues for Australian society. On the footpath one summer's night, Norm, the 'typical' Aussie male, meets Ahmed, a Pakistani student studying in Sydney. Their conversation ranges over the ability of migrants to speak English, Norm's glorification of his former sporting prowess, and his aspirational dreams for his son.

Although Buzo wrote more than 20 plays his fascination with language extended beyond the theatre. He took particular delight in tautologies and was the driving force behind the Australian Indoor Tautology Championships. He penned Tautology : I Don't Want to Sound Incredulous but I Can't Believe It, a book that was published in a revised edition titled Tautology Too. He is the author of such works as A Dictionary of the Almost Obvious (1998), Kiwese : A Guide, A Ductionary, A Shearing of Unsights (1994) and Glancing Blows : Life and Language in Australia (1987).

Buzo was a dedicated sports fan and wrote books and articles on cricket and rugby league. An example of his classic sports prose was printed the day before the 2005 National Rugby League grand final. Describing the running style of Wests Tigers player, Benji Marshall, Buzo wrote: 'From a haka start, it evolves into a kind of agile stagger with some borrowing from the Muhammad Ali Shuffle. Then comes the Campese-style goosestep, and the pace, which Marshall can keep up for the length of the field. No wonder the defenders are, in Laurie Daley's words, "memorized"'. (Given that Buzo is the author of Sydney : The Heart of Rugby League, it is perhaps as well that he wasn't subjected to the 2006 NRL final featuring teams from Queensland and Victoria.)

Buzo died only five weeks after his 94-year-old father, Zihni Buzo. The funerals of both men were conducted at the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium, Sydney. At Alex Buzo's funeral Sandy Gore read from Coralie Lansdowne Says No and Makassar Reef; Elaine Hudson read from Macquarie : A Play. The chapel was crowded for the occasion. As Buzo's daughter Emma commented: 'Dad loved a full house'.

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