Overland literary journal

Giving writers a voice
– a Barry Scott investigation

In 2009, Barry Scott, Transit Lounge publisher, received a CAL grant to investigate the American independent publishing scene. In his Overland essay, Barry shares his research – from Chin Music Press to McSweeney’s – and reflects on what that independent spirit could mean for Australian publishing:

During 2009 I was the fortunate recipient of a Copyright Agency Limited grant to meet with small independent publishers in the US to discuss the state of the industry. As a small press publisher from Melbourne, I was looking for something to indicate that people were tired of the mall-like sameness of the publishing industry, the stranglehold of large retails chains and the domination of media conglomerates. What I saw didn’t dispel my fears regarding the economic viability of independent presses: consumers are ultimately going to want what they have heard about repeatedly, something that comes more easily with a large marketing budget. Yet I was reassured by the initiatives of small publishers to nurture a vibrant culture of writing and reading.

... read more

Written by admin on 11-06-2010, No comments

Twitter discussion with Tad Tietze about the Greens and social democracy

Because you support independent media and are thus a subscriber to Overland, you've no doubt already read Tad Tietze's provocative article from the latest edition on the past, present and future of the Australian Greens. In case you haven't, the essay is now online.

Tad's thesis has already occasioned much debate over at Larvatus Prodeo. We'll be building on this by talking to him live on Twitter from noon today. If you're on Twitter, you can ask questions yourself (using #OL199); if you're not, you can still follow the discussion via the web. ... read more

Written by admin on 10-06-2010, No comments

Maxine Beneba Clarke on Australia’s unexamined racism

In her essay, ‘White Australia has a blackface history’, Maxine Clarke looks at the past, present and personal of blackface in Australia:

8 October 2009

The woman across the aisle from me on the train was reading a newspaper. She squinted at the picture on the cover, chuckling to herself. I leaned over to see what she was smiling about. Her eyes met mine and she quickly folded the paper in quarters, turned it over on her lap and stared out the window. Curious, I looked around at the other passengers. A patchwork of open newspapers stared back at me. On all the covers was a photograph of four men dressed in white suits, faces smeared in black face paint, heads covered with shiny polyester afro wigs. ‘Hey Hey Left Redfaced’ announced the front-page slogan.

... read more

Written by admin on 9-06-2010, 6 user comments

cover images wanted

Overland is one of Australia’s oldest and most prestigious national literary journals. In over fifty years of continuous publication, it has published many of Australia’s major writers and thinkers, from Peter Carey, Patrick White and Christina Stead, to Christos Tsiolkas, Amanda Lohrey and Nam Le.

As it approaches its historic two hundredth edition, Overland is now looking for a cover image by a new or established artist, designer or photographer.

Edition 200 will be loosely themed around reflections on the past of the Left and anticipations of its future, and the cover needs to be compatible with this. The image should be striking enough to stand out in a magazine display rack, while allowing sufficient room to include the masthead and associated text in a portrait orientation. Examples of previous covers are available at www.overland.org.au. ... read more

Written by admin on 8-06-2010, 1 user comment

Overland extract – Cate Kennedy is ‘Driven to distraction’

In Overland 199, Cate Kennedy examines how the constant stimulus of the internet is affecting our writing lives:

I seem to have reached an impasse with the great majority of my friends, relatives, colleagues and associates – a point that sees us veering steadily in two diametrically opposed directions. The source of our dissension is the internet. They feel I’m forfeiting my opportunity for vastly improved connectedness by avoiding Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere; I feel I’m preserving it. They tell me I’m left behind and out of the loop by my choice to shun online social networking; I’m flat out struggling to maintain offline social networking. They believe I’m passing up chances for establishing an online profile; I want nothing to do with an identity curated primarily for self-promotion and stoked with compulsive self-reportage.

They tell me I sound like a cranky old Luddite. The blogosphere, they explain eagerly, is like a vast salon, full of voices and ideas keen for your attention, full of musings on books, films and public events, full of passionately held opinions and lively discussion – exactly what a writer needs. They make it sound like Paris in the 1920s – a creative ferment, testing my capacity to keep up. But the closer I look, the harder I find this to swallow. It’s gradually come to seem, instead, that the last thing a writer needs is the clamouring, 24/7, caffeinated babble-fest that now beckons so seductively from the glowing screen. ... read more

Written by admin on 1-06-2010, 3 user comments

So what’s really happening in Greece?

Guest post by Guy Rundle

Down Stadiou Street the march turned, from Syntagma (Constitution) Square, in the centre of Athens. There were about five to ten thousand, young and old, workers and students, and a thousand banners and flags, most bearing the phrase Γ Γ .ΓŒΓ… (militant worker army). Headed to Omonia, near Exarchia and the old Athens Polytechnic, emotional heart of the Greek Left. It was militant, it was unified, it was uncompromising. 'They are at war with us, so we are at with them', said one Communist leader of George Papandreou's PASOK government. For anyone from the tepid politics of the anglo world, it was pretty damn impressive.

And it was widely judged to be a fizzer.

'They didn't fill Syntagma' one political-watcher remarked afterwards, in an Exarchia cafe. 'They should have filled it several times over!' He was a PASOK supporter, so not unbiased, but the sentiment was widely aired. So what's really happening in Greece? ... read more

Written by admin on 15-02-2010, No comments

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Written by admin on 30-11-2009, No comments

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Written by admin on 30-11-2009, No comments

Overland at the Perth Writers Festival: Reading in an Age of Change

Written by admin on 30-11-2009, Comments Off

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Written by admin on 29-09-2009, Comments Off

4000

One year (Concession/Student/Pensioner) AU$40

Written by admin on 18-04-2009, Comments Off

Little Hoodlum: Keri Glastonbury on Dorothy Porter

 Jean-Luc Nancy, in his book The Inoperative Community, argues that ‘community is revealed in the death of others'. This is community in a more ineffable sense, the way I like to think of myself in terms of feeling part of a poetic community: perhaps the kind of poetic community that, as Dorothy Porter wrote, ‘is actually marvellously good at honouring its dead'. There's no doubt that contemporary community is also intrinsically linked to communication, often literally these days using communications technologies. I heard that Dorothy Porter had died in an email from Overland's editor Jeff Sparrow, and then put ‘Vale Dorothy Porter' as my Facebook status. This triggered a rash of comments: of shock (‘Dorothy Porter is DEAD?!'), of disbelief (‘she seemed so strong, unassailable'), garnering responses both globally and locally (‘there I was in the middle of Kalgoorlie and I realised that there was nowhere where her words didn't work - I wanted to be the night parrot and wreak havoc with that news'). ... read more

Written by admin on 15-01-2009, No comments

lists for 2008

For some reason, the production of 'best of' lists seems to start earlier in the USA than Australia. Both the New York Times and Salon have given their top tens for 2008, which are duly listed below.

The NYT list goes like this:

FICTION

DANGEROUS LAUGHTER: Thirteen Stories By Steven Millhauser.
MERCY By Toni Morrison.
NETHERLAND By Joseph O’Neill.
2666 By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer.
UNACCUSTOMED EARTH By Jhumpa Lahiri. ... read more

Written by admin on 9-12-2008, No comments

paradise anthology launch

There's more information -- including guidelines and the list of seven new libraries where events will be held next year – at www.paradiseanthology.com.

Written by admin on 8-12-2008, Comments Off