AustLit

'When the waves get rough and sea levels rise, there's only one thing to do: keep your head above water.

'Welcome to SOAK. Joining the proud legacy of the 'UTS Writers' Anthology, this edition seeks to make sense of a rapidly changing world facing its latest deluge.

'From underwater waterslides to dogs in space, internal struggles to climbing mountains, this collection of short stories, creative non-fiction and poetry brings ecocentrism, humour, creativity and resilience to the shore.

'Rich with diverse voices, this year's anthology shines a watery mirror to our current world and offers hope that despite the threats we face, we can still change the tide.

'Introduced by acclaimed literary critic Beejay Silcox, we invite you to immerse yourself in the emerging talent from one of Australia's most celebrated creative writing programs.' (Publication summary)

'When seventy year-old knitter Joyce Campbell steps onto an alien spaceship for the first time, her lifelong dream is fulfilled. But when the ship launches and she zooms away from her husband and all she knows, Joyce is cast off into an adventure she could never have imagined.

'Before long Joyce is tangled up in intragalactic intrigue as she finds herself with surprising new allies and abilities which put her at the centre of a conflict that could determine the future of the galaxy — not to mention Earth.

'If Joyce and her new-found crew are to save the day, one thing’s for sure: she can’t just stick to her knitting anymore.

'Hilarious and heartwarming, this is a coming-of-age story unlike any you’ve ever read … it’s time for an old new hero.' (Publication summary)

'In Leave to Remain: A Memoir, Abbas El-Zein tells his story of growing up in a middleclass family in civil-war Beirut, a city in the throes of self-destruction, yet obstinately clinging to its cosmopolitan past. El-Zein traces the genesis of a contemporary Middle-Eastern identity - his own - under the influence of culture, religion, history and places far removed from where he grew up: Najaf and Baghdad, Paris, Palestine, London, Sydney and the American far west. With him we travel through a Middle-Eastern life, with an eye on the mundane and the everyday, as well as the cataclysmic events overshadowing them.

Threaded throughout this evocative memoir is an awareness of the impact of war and history on individuals, families and countries, with dislocation running across generations. Leave to Remain is a story of a troubled homeland, of many departures and less-than-happy returns - an autobiographical reflection on today's Middle-East and its relationship with the West.' -- Publisher's blurb

'Dorothy Porter's fourth poetry collection is an exhilarating ride through passions found, imagined and richly lived.

'From a modern, petrol-headed Carmen and Don José to pairs of polar explorers and silent twins, an intersection of birds and asylums, reflections on vanished love and new desire, Driving Too Fast bursts with vitality, a horsepower rhythm and language that turns on a dime.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A young Greek fisherman, Ilias's first experience as a migrant in Australia in the 1920s is working on the docks as a 'skeb' labourer. He attempts to make his way, learning English from his workmates as he goes. With help from his Chinese friend Harry he buys a greengrocer's shop, but this venture later fails when his regular customers prefer to buy from an 'Aussie' further up the road. Pushed by prejudice and the Depression to a Victorian country town, he finds work in a timber mill. His young wife and three children settle down to a regular life. They are 'at home'.

'But Ilias longs for the sound and movement of the sea, and dreams of returning to his father's home as a success.

'Ilias is a powerfully written first novel of a young man's rites of passage in a land and time where assimilation is valued and multiculturalism unknown.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The valley of the Dreaming Phoenix is a goal for any man of spirit who seeks happiness. The Chinese youth Salom, without family or friends, takes up the challenge.'

Source: Blurb.

'A reassessment of the case of Sydney Sparkes Orr, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania, who was dismissed in 1956 for allegedly seducing a female student. His dismissal provoked extensive debate on intellectual freedom.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'More and more people are moving to Queensland - as they flocked to America's sunshine state California - but what's so special or so strange about Queensland? Is it the redneck state its critics claim?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Biography of Darby McCarthy, an Aboriginal man from Cunnamulla, described by Johnny Tapp as one of the top five Australian jockeys to have ever ridden.

'One clear evening in 1992 all the inhabitants enter the church hall, where they are locked in and burned alive. They have been persuaded to do this by a young man called Caleb Mean - also known as El Nino, the Christ Child. The only survivors of the fire are Caleb, his lover Virginia, and their baby daughter Golden. How could such a thing happen? And why? Do the answers lie in the tragedy of the Aborigines herded over the cliffs at Cape Grimm by white settlers? Are they in the history of Skye itself, founded by the unlikely survivors of a 19th-century shipwreck? Or do they lie within the mysteries of the human soul?' 

Source: ABE Books https://bit.ly/3gtVDeN

'Mary Cameron was self-confident, an aspirant writer and feminist - but she also took with her white muslin for a wedding dress; and she married a near illiterate shearer William Gilmore. Their socialist dream foundered before very long and they had to earn their passage home with their baby son - through the impossibly remote country communities of Paraguay and the vast estancias of Argentina to Patagonia, the 'end of the earth' made famous by Darwin and Bruce Chatwin. Anne Whitehead brilliantly counterpoints her own wanderings with Mary's. After seven years in South America the Gilmores sailed home. Poet and national icon, Mary Gilmore's portrait now graces the Australian USD 10 note.' (Publication summary)

'...always remember where you're from... To the Aboriginal Families of Mundra this saying brings either comfort or pain. To Nana Vida it is what binds the generations. To the unwilling savant Archie Corella it portends a fate too cruel to name. For Sophie Salte, whose woman's body and child's mind make her easy prey, nothing matters while her sister Murilla is there to watch over her.

For Murilla, fierce protector and unlikely friend to Caroline Drysdale, wife of the town patriarch, what matters is survival. In a town with a history of vigilante raids, missing persons and unsolved murders, survival can be all that matters'. (Source: back cover, 2002 edition)

'This is the first publication of Michael Dransfield selected poems, gathered from every book in his relatively considerable output. They were chosen by poet and critic John Kinsella, whose lively Introduction positions this indelible Australian poet at an international level.

'Always controversial, poet Michael Dransfield's life story has tended to obscure his talent and achievement. Tales of drugs, sexual ambiguity and mythical and ancestral kingdoms have become iconic in the story of Michael Dransfield. However, he was much more. Visionary, poet-ecologist, minstrel, a writer of remarkable dexterity and versatility, he published four collections in three years and another three appeared after his death at 24. While never simply a young poet of his age - the late 60s and early 70s - he was connected to the popular culture of his time and place. He intended to change the world, and believed in the power of his own voice. Linguistically innovative and ahead of his time in so many ways, he also looked back. He was undoubtedly one of the great poets writing in English in his era, whose resonances are increasingly pertinent. Dransfield links the innovations of late twentieth-century Australian poetry with that revolutionary implosion of Ern Malley.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A quirky, delicious novel about a 14-year-old boy and his appetites ...

'Gus's life is getting out of hand. Muscle-bound Steve has started picking on him at school, his friends desert him, no one appreciates his gourmet lunches (except Brother Nicholas), and his older brother, Luke, insists on using Gus as a go-between for his romantic liaisons.

'When Luke sets his sights on the object of Gus's affection, the elegant, bulimic Trinity, things go completely out of control. And then there's the school camp to contend with ... What is a boy with a healthy appetite to do?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This breathtaking first novel explores Leon Trotsky and his wife's years of Mexican exile in the home of Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera. Mingled with the voices of Stalin's desolate young wife and that of Trotsky himself are the tales of the lesser known who have also created history–the Mexican artist who foretells Trotsky's death; a Bolshevik engineer surviving the chill of the Stalinist regime; the bodyguard who is unable to prevent the assassination. Together, the stories reveal the panorama of Russian history, revolution, and upheaval in the twentieth century.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Throughout Australia’s history the lives of those thousands of women who have been domestic servants has always been described by someone outside or above this station. We know much about what ‘upstairs’ thought about ‘downstairs’, but not what ‘downstairs’ thought. The voice of the domestic servant is heard through the hundreds of letters written by the girls who were made state wards in South Australia from 1887-1940. These children were committed to state institutions because they had been abandoned or orphaned or had a parent in hospital, gaol or other institution.'

Source: Abstract.

'These stories by seven writers capture the contradictions of life in the nation's capital. They penetrate the glittering surface of a city that is much more than a stamping ground for bureaucrats, diplomats and fat cats. Beneath the sparkle are the shadows of dislocated, sometimes broken, lives.'

Source: Front cover.