Melbourne Writers' Festival supports independents?

"MELBOURNE is, without a doubt, Australia's literary capital," says former state premier Steve Bracks in the program for the 2007 Age Melbourne Writers' Festival.

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Melbourne is "the home of independent small publishers in Australia", Cameron says, and to that end she has broadened the festival's focus on publishing. The attendance of American husband-and-wife writers Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida is a coup, not just for their writing but their publishing company, McSweeney, which produces quarterly and monthly journals. "If you're a young writer, you want to get published by McSweeney's," she says.

SOURCE; THE AGE

But not to be published by one of Melbourne's independent publishers? Who, presumably, don't need the support of the local writing community?

Interestingly none of our authors were on the program (not the schools not the kids part). And I wasn't seeing much of Scribe or Hardie Grant or Hardie Grant Egmont or Black Inc on the program. I thought it was these sort of publishers who might be making Melbourne a literary capital. The industry thought so in its awards.

A new sort of cultural cringe?

Queensland

I was in Queensland a week ago, attending the CBCA awards dinner, and I took the opportunity to get out and about, and I was really impressed by the strength of school booksellers in Queensland, and the enthusiasm for Australian books on Australian topics by Australian authors, which reflects the enthusiasm schools, kids and especially the strong network of teachers librarians have for Australian literature (fiction and non-fiction). In Victoria and New South Wales, the teacher-librarians are being stripped out of schools - and we're much the worse for it.

territorial

40% of British publishers turnover comes from export but only 5% of American publishers. An interesting fact to toy with. The British market is a harder market to sell in to than the American.

Dave Eggers opened the Melbourne Writers Festival

Fascinating. Amazing guy. And for a commercial, privately owned, limited-liability-company-publishing-house -challenging. Then to challenge authors - who else donates their royalties to subject/inspiration for their book.

The foot thing was interesting too.

Just in case a few quick links:

Wikipedia entry

McSweeney's Internet Tendency

changing times

There's a halal pizzeria around the corner (perhaps explained in part by the mosque a couple of streets back).

Digger J Jones

I finished Digger J Jones (by Richard Frankland, Scholastic) on the weekend - and I reckon everybody should read this,, adult or child, and it should be in every school and public library. For the originality of the voice among other things. The book's set in 1967 and it's about the referendum. Here's the Wikpedia entry, which is worth quoting in full:

The referendum of 27 May 1967 approved two amendments to the Australian constitution relating to Indigenous Australians. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) 1967, which after being approved in the referendum became law on the 10th August of the same year.
The amendment was overwhelmingly endorsed, winning 90.77 per cent of voters and carrying all six states. It was put to the electorate on the same day as a referendum on the composition of parliament, which was rejected.
The referendum removed two sections from the Constitution.
The first was a phrase in Section 51 (xxvi) which stated that the Federal Government had the power to make laws with respect to "the people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws." (This is known as the "race power.") The referendum removed the phrase "other than the Aboriginal race in any State," giving the Commonwealth the power to make laws specifically to benefit Aboriginal people.
The second was Section 127, which said: "In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, Aboriginal natives shall not be counted." The referendum deleted this section from the Constitution. This section should be read in conjunction with Section 24 and Section 51(xi). The section related to calculating the population of the states and territories for the purpose of allocating seats in Parliament and per capita Commonwealth grants. The context of its introduction was prevent Queensland and Western Australia using their large Aboriginal populations to gain extra seats or extra funds. The 'statistics' power in Section 51(xi) allowed the Commonwealth to collect information on Aboriginal people.
It is frequently stated that the 1967 referendum gave Aboriginal people Australian citizenship and that it gave them the right to vote in federal elections. Neither of these statements is correct. Aboriginal people became Australian citizens in 1948, when a separate Australian citizenship was created for the first time (before that time all Australians were "British subjects"). Aboriginal people from Queensland and Western Australia gained the vote in Commonwealth territories in 1962. However, the Commonwealth voting right of Aborigines from other states was confirmed by a Commonwealth Act in 1949 (the constitution already gave them that right but it was often interpreted differently prior to 1949). They got the vote in WA state election in 1962 and Queensland state election in 1965.

And here's the link to Richard's website: http://www.goldenseahorse.com.au/ http://www.goldenseahorse.com.au/

droll! - this is worth a look

chark blog

microphone

We just purchased a posh new microphone. So look forward to a lot more audio on our website: readings, audio from our pd nights, interviews with authors and others.

Bryson's Shakespeare

I've started reading Bill Bryson's Shakespeare. The sumptuous dump bin display in Readings Hawthorn caught my eye - and I thought, I must have that.

I was at Readings for the Danny Katz and Mitch Vane's "The Little Election". A black dog August release. (A sumptuous jacketed hardback with a NY flavor). Danny and Mitch put on a great show. They ran their own election, with booths and ballot boxes, courtesy of the Electoral Commission, (& boy do they fold up into a neat box.) Millie stood up from the audience for the "No School" party and Tom was all for the "Creativity Party" and brave Rachel stood up and started the "Free Lunch" party. Millie is now PM, by the way.


Little Lunch(es) have always been favorites - and The Little Election takes it to new highs (and lows - but not too much booger humor, thought the crowd loved the sprinkling of it).

If any bookshop wants a fabulous weekend bookshop event: this is it. The crowd was in stitches.

Anyhow, back to Bill. It cames as a bit of shock to be reading the light Bryson tone about such a meaty topic. I'm only a few pages in and I'll blog again to say whether I think the weight of writer, tone and topic worked for me.

Any other readers out there care to comment?

The villages of Melbourne

Melbourne is said to be a series of villages. (The same is said by pundits in most big cities I imagine.) And I'm trying to work out what those villages are. The question arose coming back from Oakliegh. Which is so definitely one village of Melbourne (centred on a Greek influence?). Then I'd nominate mud-brick Eltham; with its satellites - The Patch/Warrandyte/Kangaroo Ground etc. Then Springvale, maybe also Box Hill. Public-servant Northcote. The white-bread Hills - KT says some people grow up, work, marry and die and never come down to the lowlands. The eastern private school village. (Toorak is a village of its own - one which would like to a walled enclave.) Then northern Melbourne: McLeod etc. Is Lilydale a village?

It would make a fascinating map.

Any other suggestions? And I'm hopeful people will want to disagree with my divisions.

And I'm wondering what the villages of Sydney are?

paying your own heating bills

A line in a restaurant review struck a resonance:

"When a chef opens their first restaurant, it can go badly very quickly … Some chefs see it as an opportunity to strut the staff their bosses always kept in check."

Though it's not an exact parallel, it made me think of how few successful independent publishers have come out of the biggies, from corporate refugees running up the flag of independence. Most of the new publishers that spring up from people leaving the multinationals seem to disappear. Of course most new publishers fail, regardless of origin; but I think there is a contributing element of corporatized overconfidence.

It's cold and chilly out here, and it takes quite a different mindset to survive when you have to pay your own heating bills.

disambiguation

I just came across this fabulous new word from Wikpedia
"Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that occur when articles about two or more different topics have the same "natural" title. Most of the pages in this category are disambiguation pages containing no other content, only links to other Wikipedia pages."

bdb non-fiction

I realised in a small moment of epiphany on the week end is that what we don't want to do in our non-fiction for children is to condescend, And it is why I think our non-fiction reads well for adults as well as children.

ownership of story ideas - excavating the past

Steely Dan are peeved with Owen Wilson for playing Dupree in in You, Me and Dupree saying the plot of the film was ripped off from the song. It's ancient history now but I came across it and thought it raised fascinating issues - can you base a movie on a song?

Steely Dan to me are drawing a long bow. The Dupree in the song and film is an archeytpe. The Dupree mention in the title? Homage/pop culture reference.

In the interest of fair dealing here's the plot from IMDb
For newlyweds Carl and Molly Peterson, life can't get any sweeter as they begin anew to settle down into married life. With a nice house and established careers in tow, nothing seems to get in their way. However, Carl is about find out just how much friendship means when Dupree, his best friend has been displaced from his home and fired from his job because of attending their wedding. Taking his friend in, what Carl and Molly are about to experience is that the fine line between a few days and whatever else is after, can be a lot more than they bargained for. Especially when their friend overstays his welcome in far too many ways than he should. Written by mystic80

Carl Peterson, an architect, has just get married with Molly, and it seems that they're about to begin their happy life together. Everything is going fine, until Dupree, the best man and Carl's best friend, shows up to invade the couple's intimacy. Carl's disposed to help his old friend, giving him a shelter in the couch, thinking that the whole thing will be for 2 or 3 days. Despite Dupree has promised Carl that he'll look for a job the very next day, the immature and lazy bloke spend the time playing with the children from the neighborhood, or dating with a mysterious librarian girl. Molly begins to get tired of Dupree, but Carl must deal with another problem, his malevolent and overprotecting father-in-law, who has warned him that he wants his daughter keeps her maiden name and that he doesn't even think about having children with her. Apparently, Dupree has came to stay with Molly and the stressed Carl, who doesn't know how to get rid of him, becoming paranoiac because the charismatic Dupree is starting to take his place in the household.

And here's the lyrics from http://www.steelydan.com/lyr2vn.html#track7

COUSIN DUPREE

Well I've kicked around a lot since high school
I've worked a lot of nowhere gigs
From keyboard man in a rock'n ska band
To haulin' boss crude in the big rigs
Now I've come back home to plan my next move
From the comfort of my Aunt Faye's couch
When I see my little cousin Janine walk in
All I could say was ow-ow-ouch

CHORUS:
Honey how you've grown
Like a rose
Well we used to play
When we were three
How about a kiss for your cousin Dupree

She turned my life into a living hell
In those little tops and tight capris
I pretended to be readin' the National Probe
As I was watchin' her wax her skis
On Saturday night she walked in with her date
And backs him up against the wall
I tumbled off the couch and heard myself sing
In a voice I never knew I had before

CHORUS

I'll teach you everything I know
If you teach me how to do that dance
Life is short and quid pro quo
And what's so strange about a down-home family romance?

One night we're playin' gin by a cracklin' fire
And I decided to make my play
I said babe with my boyish charm and good looks
How can you stand it for one more day
She said maybe its the skeevy look in your eyes
Or that your mind has turned to applesauce
The dreary architecture of your soul
I said - but what is it exactly turns you off?

CHORUS

[End of song]

Now you can judge for yourself (and let me know what you think). Nice lyrics though.

FSC

FSC is a standard for environmental paper accreditation and FSC Australia was launched last night - conveniently just down Gertrude Street at Dante's - to a packed room. (There were two Peruvians among the official presenters - and I wasn't even aware that Peru had extensive forests - so it was quite interanational.) Harry Potter was printed on FSC paper in the UK but there wasn't enough certified paper here to print the Deathly Hallows on it. It was an exciting development that will help us to do something about the paper we use.

The language of certification is heavily beauracratic and laden with anacronyms - which I think we will all become very familiar with over the next few years. And I'm hoping Matthia's coming article in the B&P will help sort our way through the maze. An alternative certification scheme is PEFC and here is a link to a comparison of different schemes.

And we could end "sale or return" - that would help too. Waterstones is looking at doing so, when it's new distribution centre is up and running in the UK.

smoking banned at Frankfurt!

silos

I'm reading the Bloom Report and I came across the comment that people didn't participate in the survey because the different publishing sectors have so little in common, which is something I disagree with - strongly. And its a view that has always irritated me. And it was a topic that Maree raised at the APA roadshow - that industry was bunkered down in its silos. (aside - I'm guessing that 'silos' might be the new business word of the next few months, replacing road/mud map). In children's publishing we're very close to the educational sector and any good children's publisher knows that half the sales of many of our titles comes from schools. I've bounced around between the two sectors in my career and found enlightenment and ignorance on both sides. And I don't see tertiary, academic or professional as fundamentally different to what I'm doing as a children's publisher.

The industry has in common that it iis about gathering and packaging and selling information both in the forms of fiction and non-fiction and for now and into the forseeable future it will be done mainly in the beautiful and efficient form of the book.

… now I can hop down off my electronic soapbox.

promoting books and reading

Juliet Rogers and Maree McCaskill have been running a roadshow around Australia promoting the APA and its doings to stakeholders. It's a terrific undertaking and thanks to Julilet and everybody for being prepared to put so much time and effort into it. My comments that follow are in parts of the fruits of that progressive and democratic initiative.

Last Wednesday was the Melbourne meeting and, as the press was there, I'm sure its discussions are not confidential. In fact it was the press in the form of Andrew Wilkins who raised the point I want to blog about. Why in the list of objectives in the strategic plan is there nothing about promoting the book and reading? And that's a point that resonated with me in my children's publishing silo - I can here it echo.

Promoting books and reading is one of the core tasks for me of the APA and the Children's Committee of the APA, and a major reason I joined. It's what we're all about as publishers - more books, more readers, another generation. Its like the Age promoting newspapers to schools - it's guaranteeing a future, that we will be around for another generation. And I thought the promotion of the book and reading would resonate with the education publishing (especially primary education publishing) silo next to me.

Maybe it is something that comes first to the minds of children's publishers, since we're not relying on an existing generation of readers.

Books Alive is a great beginning to build on.

Promoting reading and books was always a hot topic for Agnes Niewenhuizen. Let me quote: "There isn't a reading culture. We don't have any kind of concerted national program. Our promotion of books is very poor. [Im interpreting book in a generic sense.] Reading is not valued in schools. We are losing librarians, And with very notable exceptions, I think things are slipping."

"Brought to Book"

Frank, our accountant, recommended Julian Gough's article to me "Bought to Book". He'd found it in the AFR, originally published in Prospect magazine and available online.

Gough asks provocatively why the modern literary novel is so worthy and dull and answers that its because tragedy has squeezed out comedy. Otherwise it is too rich to summarize here. Highly recommended. Gough coins the marvellous term "wangster".

Gough won the UK's National Short Story Prize, the richest in the world in April for "The Orphan and the Mob" - "15000 pounds worth of story".

shrinking mainstream

I love reading about the census figures. Such rich food for thought (especially a publisher in hopeful search of the zeitgeist.)

According to the Age based on the latest census figures the mainstream is shrinking. James Jupp is quoted as saying mainstream is British-Australian Christian, and we're down to two-thirds of the population - though I wouldn't claim to be a Christain and I prefer the term Anglo-Celt to British (there's enough rebellious Irish blood still flowing). And the average Australian is a 37 year old, mother of two, still paying off a mortgage.

&, if I read this right, Judaism disapproves of the census. Which surprised me, as it would have seemed to me a statistical rather than religious execise, but I am sure there is rich and logical Talmudic reasoning at work.

The data showed "a particular growth" in non-Christian religions. And the number of Muslims has been overtaken by the number of Buddhists.

There are nearly 400 languages spoken in Australian homes with Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) the most common language other than English, replacing Italian and Greeks. Cantonese, alone ties with Arabic (after Greek and Italian) as the most common language other than English spoken at home. But Mandarin and Hindi are the fastest growing languages.