Overland literary journal

our cup overfloweth

Thanks to everyone who braved the elements for the Overland-Meanjin end of year function and bowling contest. We are pleased to report that the emu egg cup has now been reclaimed by its rightful owners.

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 30-11-2009, 4 user comments

talk on killing

Courtesy Anthony Snowden and the good folk at Engage media, here's a little vid of me talking with Seb Prowse at New International Books about my book Killing.

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 30-11-2009, 4 user comments

Steve Fielding is confused

no news there, but this is hilarious:Fielding likens same sex marriage to incest

Written by Jennifer Mills on 27-11-2009, 5 user comments

a joint communique from somewhere in Meanland

On Sunday Meanjin and Overland will share a launch of their December issues, and a Christmas party (though only one of us will get to keep the emu egg cup). ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 27-11-2009, 2 user comments

happenings aplenty

How many ways can you absorb Overland goodness? Why, let's count them!

1. If you are a subscriber, you would have received (or be just about to receive) Overland 197, with Guy Rundle on Kevin Rudd, Fiona Capp on Judith Wright, Anwyn Crawford on Nick Cave, Sophie Cunningham on the world beneath Melbourne and much, much more.

2. If you are in Melbourne this Sunday, you can attend the Overland/Meanjin

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 26-11-2009, 2 user comments

The President & I Are Email Buddies

Barack and I are tight. My forthcoming poetry collection even contains a tribute: Open Letter To the President. It's not one-sided though: it's really sweet, the way my Barack randomly emails me (and seventy million other special people on his email list) asking for donations. He relies on me. He tells me all the time that I am the reason he was elected and he couldn't have done it without me, and that if I only donated another $5US, we could really make a difference: him and I, together, against the world. You and me Maxine, he says.

Here's his thanksgiving love letter to me (and seventy million other special people on his email list). My heart flutters just thinking about him thinking about me while he sat down in that oval office and penned this note: ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 26-11-2009, 3 user comments

Port Phillip Rising

A few Friends of the Earth activists are currently in the middle of walking from Sorrento to Port Melbourne, as part of an awareness campaign about climate change and rising sea levels. You can read about their trek here.

Here's a video from their third day:

Safety Beach to Mornington - Day 3 from Port Phillip Rising on Vimeo.

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 25-11-2009, No comments

why whites have a material stake in Aboriginal rights, part two

Last week, I wrote a piece for New Matilda comparing the Right-wing outrage over the apology to the (black) Stolen Generation with the almost universal acclaim for the apology to the (white) Forgotten Australians. The article concluded like this:

But there's another point to be made about the apology to the Forgotten Australians, and it's a much more uplifting one. The ceremony conducted by way of reparation for their suffering received bipartisan political support and the universal backing of the Australian media. That's at least in part a consequence of the apology to the Stolen Generation. Because that gesture was made — and was broadly backed by Australians — it was far easier for a similar response to Ray Carlile and his peers. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 25-11-2009, 1 user comment

how to bowl

Via the Meanjin gang, a handy instructional vid for anyone attending Sunday's celebrations (that means all of you).

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 24-11-2009, 1 user comment

the legacy of communism

In Tom O'Lincoln's (recently republished) Into the Mainstream: The Decline of Australian Communism, he quotes, at one point, from an interview with party stalwart Vic Williams, discussing the CPA's work in the fifties:

It didn't matter what happened, if some school committee hit the headlines, you could bet your life, there'd be some Communist Party member at the school, and he'd [sic[ be organising. I used to pick up the paper when I was a Communist Party member organiser and I'd be amazed; I'd see all these issues and I knew someone who'd be running them. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 23-11-2009, 2 user comments

Writers and Readers

A good writing group can be crucial to a writer. We might prefer the more heroic image of the writer building an empire with his/her own hands. But the act of writing is one of the most fundamentally communal processes a person can involve themselves in.

If you’ve ever read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gogol or Chekhov, you’ll know there’s a constant reference to what it means to be Russian, and that there’s a dialogue between all of these writers regarding that idea.

Written by Alec Patric on 23-11-2009, 15 user comments