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Food labelling, please

I recently went out for lunch and ran into this sign:Vegan menu

Which I think is about the best thing in the history of time. It is a breakdown of the ingredients in each of the restaurant's dishes, indicating which contain dairy, fish, nuts, and so on.

Unfortunately I’d already eaten lunch, or I would have eaten there out of sheer appreciation. As I’ve mentioned before, I have food allergies and am dating a vegan, both of which can make eating out difficult. Everywhere I go, I need to check if meals contain hidden dairy, which is the case more often than you’d think. I always have to request its removal, sometimes in very explicit terms. I have on more than one occasion requested a salad not be served with feta cheese, only to have it arrive covered in parmesan or the like. I appreciate the attempt at providing me with an alternative, but in my case, it’s not actually helpful. ... read more

Written by Georgia Claire on 2-12-2010, 3 user comments

Focus on young writers: Sam Twyford-Moore

Today, we're featuring the second author in Overland 201’s ‘Young Writers’ section: Sam Twyford-Moore. Sam's story is ‘Library of Violence’. He is one of the founding editors of Cutwater. His non-fiction has appeared in Meanjin and the Reader. He is currently finishing his first novel.

He was interviewed by Kalinda Ashton and Samuel Cooney.

Why write?

There were two other writers on my street growing up. One was Frank Walker, a retired journalist for both the Sun and Sydney Morning Heralds, who wrote self-published maritime novels, which didn’t look very appealing on the shelf and even less so in hand. And then there was a wunderkid up the road who had staged a successful version of Romeo and Juliet by the time he was fifteen. Sort of a Max from Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Like Max, though, pretty much everyone hated him. He had scolded one of the mothers on the school’s P&C for calling him Shakespearean, when he much preferred the term Elizabethan. In writing, I am consciously trying not to be like the other two writers on my first street. They led the way, though. ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 2-12-2010, 2 user comments

Post from Rwanda: On freedom of the press

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have just released their 2010 report ranking countries on press freedom. Rwanda ranked 169 out of 178. In this election year, they dropped 12 places from last year, making them the third lowest African country on the list.

Unsurprisingly, the government isn’t happy. The Information Minister has labeled the report as ‘biased and irresponsible’, declaring that it ‘distorts the reality in Rwanda’ and that the results are ’based on unverified and grossly distorted perceptions of the political situation’.

But it is the case that two leading independent publications were shut down this year. The six-month suspension happened to coincide with the election campaign. One of these publications, Umuvugizi, saw the murder of its deputy editor in Kigali. It is known that he was compiling a report on the shooting of a Rwandan General in South Africa at the time; the government claims his death was reprisal for crimes he committed. Journalists have claimed a climate of terror surrounding the election campaign this year: a number have reported violent threats, three have been jailed and many are leaving the country. The former editor of the second suspended journal, Didas Gasana, is currently living in self imposed exile in Uganda for fear of his safety. ... read more

Written by Louise Pine on 1-12-2010, No comments

And that’s a wrap

Dear Overland community, Subscriberthon 2010 was a smashing success. For your subscriptions, donations, writings, and tremendous support, we thank you. Now, on to the prizes.

Dear people whose names appear on the following list, consider yourself an Overland Subscriberthon winner:

Major prize (books, T-shirts, wine & stuff): Susan McCreery

Monday 29 November

The Monday Meanjin prize: Marcel Hoog Antink

The Monday 50+ issues of Overland in sequential order prize (1967–1982): Frances Whyte

Monday non-fiction prize: Lance Wright

Monday fiction prize: Yvonne Sanders

Monday alcohol: Rachel Liebhaber

... read more

Written by Editorial team on 1-12-2010, 2 user comments

Focus on young writers: Rebecca Giggs

For her final edition as fiction editor, Kalinda Ashton wanted to showcase young writers. In Overland 201, she worked with Samuel Cooney to curate a special expanded fiction section, featuring four writers under thirty. Over the next days, we will be introducing  each of the writers in that section through interviews put together by Kalinda and Sam.

Today, we are featuring Rebecca Giggs. Rebecca is a Western Australia writer of fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry. Her story in Overland 201 is 'Blow In'.

Why write?

Bertolt Brecht once wrote that ‘the word is the thing’s dead body’. I cannot agree. My ideas are never pre-formed, sub-surface things to be trawled up and given expression. In writing, I am always trying to solve something for myself, to push air into a feeling. Perhaps I have a sense of significance or an aesthetic interest first, and then I record one line or two in my journal, but it is often not until I sit down to work that I hit upon what I’m writing towards. I might do a whole piece in fiction before a line snags, and then I see that what I’m actually working on is an essay or a poem. That will be frustrating, of course, but usually I can bring myself to extract the line and start again – perhaps after two months, or six, of concentrating on something else. I work on a lot of different things at once, which means that I don’t work fast (much to the distress of the few editors who have been kind enough to read my writing). Here is one of the reasons that I write: to take something from inside and see what it becomes out there on the page, and how in turn the writing might function to further clarify my motivations. Often there is a grey and un-writerly explanation for whatever it is I’m worrying at but I don’t see that as a lost opportunity. And then occasionally the thing kicks a little on the page. One of the skills to develop as a ‘young writer,’ I think, is to be able to recognise when that kick is the writing taking its first breath, and when it is the shudder of an idea rattling to its demise. Either way, you have to be careful with what you’ve made then, and give it time and space enough to be able to discern the living parts from the withering ones. It is my hope that if I get that step right, what it is that I’ve been wondering about or fixated on will become something that resonates with readers. And that’s a sense that I try to develop, every day. ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 1-12-2010, 4 user comments