Overland literary journal

take that, George Orwell

Nice story about how TS Eliot, working for a publisher at Faber and Faber, rejected Orwell's Animal Farm:

When Orwell submitted his novel, an allegory on Stalin’s dictatorship, Eliot praised its “good writing” and “fundamental integrity”.

However, the book’s politics, at a time when Britain was allied with the Soviet Union against Hitler, were another matter.

“We have no conviction that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the current time,” wrote Eliot, adding that he thought its “view, which I take to be generally Trotskyite, is not convincing”. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 31-03-2009, No comments

Master Class for Progressive Writers

I've recently had the following interchange with a writer about the Overland Master Class for Progressive Writers. I sent the writer an invitation to apply, and she responded:

Hmm..not sure that I'm ready for something like this...

Also not sure that I (should) write for a purpose...I have been thinking that it undermines the story and the characters to use them as mouthpieces for 'change' or 'morality' or whatever other goal may seem 'worthwhile'. At the moment I write stories to write stories. I think I would write essays otherwise. Not fully sure about this but it does resonate at the moment.

To which I responded:

I think you misunderstand the idea. The idea is to write stories - not to write polemics (otherwise, as you say, just write essays). The idea isn't to be didactic. It's really just for writers to come together who have a social conscience, learn more about story writing, and investigate in what ways those stories might be socially conscious - or not as the case may be. For some it may just be subject matter: picking different sorts of characters, for some it may be reversals of traditional stories that are sexist, for some it may be something else entirely. And really it's also just a networking opportunity in the sense that writing is a solitary profession and wouldn't it be great to have a group of left-wing writers who support each other etc ... Up to you of course.

... read more

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 30-03-2009, 11 user comments

Radical Melbourne and the ‘Summer Read’

Radical Melbourne, a book my sister Jill and I wrote in 2001, was part of the State Library of Victoria's Summer Read program, which has now concluded:

No 1
I am Melba by Ann Blainey (Black Inc) 
A gripping account of Dame Nellie Melba's life, from defying her father and escaping to Paris, to becoming Australia's first international singing star.
No 2
Blood Sunset by Jarad Henry (Allen & Unwin)
In this enthralling novel, a middle-aged detective uncovers a shady world of drug dealing and paedophilia linked to a teenager's death in St Kilda.
No 3
Radical Melbourne by Jeff Sparrow & Jill Sparrow (Vulgar)
This exploration of Melbourne's hidden alternative political history reveals the struggles gone by in familiar inner-city streets and buildings.
No 4
Addition by Toni Jordan (Text)
The engaging story of Grace Vandenburg, who obsessively counts everything in her daily life, until she meets Seamus and numbers can no longer hold her world together.
No 5
Beaten by a Blow (Penguin) by Dennis McIntosh
The gritty memoir of a young sheep-shearer learning life's hard lessons in the tough environment of the shearing sheds. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 28-03-2009, 2 user comments

Overland at the Sydney Writers’ Festival

The program for the Sydney Writers' Festival is now available. Overland's doing three events, as below:

An Evening with Germaine Greer
Thursday 21 May, 6-7pm
City Recital Hall

Since storming into public consciousness in 1970 with The Female Eunuch, her acerbic attack on sexist culture, Germaine Greer has been kicking up dust of one type or another. She presents a lecture on ‘The Australian Way: The Influence of Australia and Australians on British Politics and Politicians’ in which she traces the influence of the Australian example on British politics, first as the inspiration for Thatcherism and then as the rationale of New Labour. The most recent example is the adoption by the British government of the points system for incoming migrants. Supported by Overland. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 28-03-2009, No comments

the end of the neoliberal self

We're gradually getting the feature articles from Overland 194 online. I've just put up Mark Furlong's piece 'Crying to be Heard', a really interesting article about what the GFC means for notions of selfhood. Mark argues:

An old Arabic saying suggests that ‘men resemble their times more than their fathers’. An event of the magnitude we are experiencing will produce psycho-social effects. So what options for selfhood and identity might the financial crisis create?

Unlike boosters who breathlessly predict a future which qualitatively breaks with the present (see, for example, Damien Broderick’s The Spike), the novelist William Gibson once said, ‘the future is already here - it’s just unevenly distributed’. If we look around we will find that the templates for the post-crisis subject are already present. Four possible images, four more or less intermingling options, are put forward below. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 27-03-2009, No comments

new issue of Wai

There's a new issue of Wai out now. You can read it here.

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 27-03-2009, No comments

Jack Dann Interview

Expatriate American Jack Dann is a major figure in Australian speculative fiction. He is, among other things the editor of the recent massive SF anthology Dreaming Again, which has been getting a whole lot of good reviews (Andrew Macrae is reviewing it in the next issue of Overland. (As an aside, I have a story, 'Twilight in Caeli-Amur' in it). There's an interview with him here where he says some nice things about me and a bunch of other writers. Jack is providing us with a story for our Melbourne Futures supplement in Overland 196, which is going to be a special supplement looking at future and alternative Melbournes.

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 26-03-2009, 7 user comments

the sound of Thatcherism

Michael Hann has an interesting piece in the Guardian about the reformation of Spandau Ballet:

[T]he Tony Hadley homepage on his agent's website describes the band's demise thus: "As the Thatcher years drew to a close, Spandau disbanded." You don't hit on that formulation by accident. Hadley himself is a committed Conservative who attends party conferences and was rumoured to be interested in running for Parliament. And he's definitely not at the Cameronian "hug a hoodie" end of the party: he liked the way Thatcher did things.

But the link between Spandau Ballet and Thatcherism is about more than the personal politics of Tony Hadley. It's about the emptiness of Spandau, the aspiration to do nothing more than look good in a nightclub, the happy embrace of style over substance. Billy Bragg has even attributed his decision to become a performer to them: "One day [I] saw Written by Jeff Sparrow on 26-03-2009, 7 user comments

all singing, all dancing Bob Ellis ad

With Bob Ellis coming to the State Library of Victoria on Thursday 2 April to speak about his fabulous Overland article, I thought I'd make use of our high-tech AV facilities to showcase our new 3RRR ad. Clickhere to listen to it.

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 25-03-2009, No comments

more on Gaza

That story about the IDF's vile t-shirts is in the Age today. Here's something I wrote for Crikey about it a couple of days ago.

How much more do we need to learn about Israel's war against Gaza? A full-scale assault upon a densely packed urban environment, the strikes against schools, hospitals and universities, the use of white phosphorus, the massive civilian toll -- is that not sufficient to impel the inquiry demanded by the UN high commissioner of human rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch? ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 25-03-2009, No comments

Response to Kris Hemensley

In the latest Overland, Kris Hemensley criticises the Overland editors' decision to allow a response by poet John Kinsella to a review of two of his works by Elizabeth Campbell. Hemensley wonders why we have accorded special favours for John, when it is not our usual practice to publish responses to a review. We did not, he points out, invite Elizabeth to participate in a debate. She has, in Hemensley's eyes, been ambushed. All in all, in Hemensley's view, we've used both writers to create a little sensation on behalf of the magazine. We offer the following explanation: 1) In our opinion, the review was not

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 23-03-2009, 22 user comments

Overland 194

Overland 194 is currently winging its way to subscribers and bookshops. Most of the edition is now available online; the rest will be posted when we get the chance. Overland 194 includes new fiction by Cate Kennedy, Jennifer Mills and David Wolstencroft, reviews by Mungo MacCallum, Carmen Lawrence and Lyndall Ryan, Tim Wright's winning poem from the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, plus a swag of other new poetry. Of course, Overland depends on the support of subscribers -- if you like what you read, you should consider taking out a sub to keep the journal afloat. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 23-03-2009, 2 user comments

Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets

Last night, Overland poetry editor Keri Glastonbury presented the results of the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets, at a function jointly hosted with the Australian Poetry Centre at the historic 'Glenfern' property.

Thanks to everyone who attended, all the poets who entered the competition, and to the Malcolm Robertson Foundation for making the whole prize possible.

The major prize was awarded to Tim Wright. His poem is available in the newly released Overland 194, which can be purchased here. You can read Keri's judge's report here. The other winning poems will be published in forthcoming editions of Overland. The Overland Judith Wright Prize is intended as annual event. If you think it's an initiative worth backing, the best way to show your support is by becoming a subscriber. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 23-03-2009, 7 user comments

library chai

Several weeks ago I was doing some research in the State Library on a rather chilly afternoon and when I stepped outside for a coffee, I discovered a young Japanese woman sitting out on the asphalt steps in front of the library with a portable hotplate, brewing up chai tea. Five tiny paper cups were lined up on the wall behind her and her sign offered chai for a dollar fifty.

In broken English, while she stirred the herbs in the pot, she asked me where I was from, and informed me she’d been in Australia two weeks, that I was her “first brown person ever speaking to”, but that she “hoped I am speaking to more brown peoples”. She couldn’t understand why I chuckled at this, and looked slightly offended.

The tea was a godsend: sweet, hot, milky and spicy, and while I sipped I asked her how she’d been faring. She said the library staff gave her no trouble and bought from her, but that she was terrified of the police, and then our conversation was cut short by another customer. ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 22-03-2009, 2 user comments