Overland literary journal

Attack of the 50ft heroine

Ah, women. Give them the vote and the next thing you know they’ll be writing books and jumping up and down about equality. In pants!

Recently, on a particularly cold Sydney night, four such women braved the elements, gathering in Shearer’s Bookshop, Leichardt, to discuss heroines and all the messy stuff that goes with them, including yeast infections. (It’s okay, chaps, stay with me. Last time Ill mention it. Promise.) This, the second of a series of author events titled ʻWhen Genres Attackʼ, featured PM Newton, Kirsten Tranter, Mardi McConnochie and Georgia Blain. The discussion traversed Bear-Grylls style across many a rocky terrain, including: the apparent gender bias in The Miles Franklin Awards, the expectations and baggage loaded on female characters, and the ways in which books by female writers are marketed. It is on this last point that I will pause and feast, before building a small waterproof shelter for myself from the carcass. (No, stay! It’ll be fun.) ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 25-07-2011, 11 user comments

(Overdue) Notes from the Sydney Writersʼ Festival

I have, in the last couple of years, had the opportunity to meet several of my heroes. No-one you might call a megastar, but then, who would want to meet a megastar? They are terrifyingly hot and often 20 million times the size of the sun. (Oh dear.) Unfortunately for me, I have never quite managed to remain cool during these encounters. (Stop. It. Now.)

There was the time I accused Shaun Micallef of plagiarising (myself. Oh dear me.) and the time I inadvertently gave Reif Larsen the impression I was about to ask him out. (ʻI was just wondering if ...ʼ) Never before have I seen such terror in a manʼs eyes. Oh and when I had the opportunity to go hobnob with Ben Naparstek and Steve Toltz, I literally ran away. (Got in car and went to maccas instead, if youʼre interested.) ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 16-06-2011, No comments

Tobogganing, childrenʼs writing, lateral thinking and (unfortunately) Martin Amis

I have often wondered whether a blog on childrenʼs literature was appropriate for the Overland blog. Then issue 202 appeared with cover feature on Shaun Tan and a column by Alison Croggon about the experience of childhood and the often-inaccurate interpretation of it ...

Many years ago I found myself hurtling down a snow-covered hill aboard a toboggan. As the toboggan, captained by my elder brother, hurtled toward the large mound of snow that bordered the carpark – with no sign of slowing down – two things were at the forefront of my mind. The first was the knowledge that the toboggan had no braking system; I knew this because I had inspected it thoroughly before reluctantly climbing on. The second was the feeling that most of the people in the world were clearly idiots, particularly those who seemed to enjoy and willingly participate in snow sports. I was three years old. ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 3-05-2011, 7 user comments

The next breath

I am not a sporting person. Some people are born with the ability to catch balls with their hands as if they have an in-built homing device. I, it would seem, was born with such a homing device in my head. If I enter a park and there is someone, somewhere within a two-kilometre radius throwing a football – or whatever it is you’re supposed to do with them – I can guarantee that said football, sooner or later, will hit me in the head. Thus whenever I have attempted to ‘play’ a sport I usually spend the whole time shielding my face with my hands, something which impedes ones ability to ‘play’ somewhat.

Some years ago, however, I discovered a sport of sorts which suits me perfectly. Swimming. The beauty of swimming is you don’t have to interact with anybody or anything except the water. You literally immerse yourself in it. No talking to anyone. No-one shouting ‘butter fingers!’ at you. You even get to wear a disguise: goggles and a latex cap, which transform one into a sort-of insect cross Peter Garrett. (Don’t worry, Overlanders, I’ll get to the bit about writing soon. Threw in that semi-political reference to keep you going.) ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 6-04-2011, 12 user comments

You Twit?

Recently, someone of substantial literary clout asked me a question I have been dreading for some time: ‘Can we expect to hear more from you on Twitter? It can be very useful for writers.’

Oh dear. I’d been sprung. I had to admit that I don’t really get what Twitter is for if one is not overthrowing a dictatorship or having a steamy affair with Liz Hurley. I’m just not into it. And before anyone starts banging on about a generation gap, wait for it ‘peeps’, I’m a member of Gen Y. (Just. Hand me my knitting needles and show me to a Smokey

Written by Claire Zorn on 1-03-2011, 13 user comments

173 lives

As I begin to write this blog I am sitting in the stairwell of my building because it is two degrees cooler than in my apartment. The touch-pad thingy on my laptop isn’t really working because of the sweat on my hands and I swear the walls are beginning to bend in the heat. Or maybe I just need another drink of water. The heat is uncomfortable, but it doesn’t make me nervous anymore – I no longer live near the bush. Even so, when I go outside, the hot westerly wind automatically sets of a checklist in my mind: ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 9-02-2011, 1 user comment

Fiction review: The Best Australian Stories 2010

The Best Australian Stories 2010
Cate Kennedy (ed)
Black Inc.

There has been a lot of discussion over the last year about the future of Australian writing and reading: Will Twitter reduce our collective attention span to that of a demented Fox Terrier? Will the novel be murdered (again) by the blogosphere? Will the next generation of writers all drown in their own navels as predicted by Ted Genoways? ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 6-01-2011, 3 user comments

The L word

This blog will be in two parts. Part One: a rant about how bloody important literature (and thus Overland) is to life, the universe and everything. Part Two (at the request of Rjurik Davidson): a short Choose Your Own Adventure tale in which you, the protagonist, take the future of Australian literature in your own hands.

Part One

I don’t come from a literary family. I wasn’t reading Proust at fourteen and my parents did not indulge in long conversations about Kafka at the dinner table. This isn’t to say that I came from a bookless house, though. My brother and I were read to everyday since we were babies and by the age of twelve I owned just about everything Ann The Babysitters Club M Martin ever wrote. (My childhood dream was to change my name to Claudia and move to Connecticut.) My dad read books about the history of pure mathematics and biographies of sixteenth-century astronomers. My mum read crime fiction. ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 22-11-2010, 14 user comments

Shaun Micallef and the Booker Prize

A warning first up: if this blog dissolves into nonsensical rambling, please be so kind as to quietly move on to something more substantial. (Pretty much anything on the Overland site without my name attached to it.) Because, quite frankly, this could get quite silly.

Last Wednesday night, the lovely Shearer’s bookshop in Leichhardt hosted an evening with Shaun Micallef.

‘Why on earth would they do that?’ You may ask. ‘Isn’t that the chappie off the television? What was he doing in a bookshop?’ ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 5-11-2010, 4 user comments

The literary scene sexist? Well, call me Betty Draper.

Back in May I attended a panel discussion at the Sydney Writers’ Festival entitled, ‘No Country for Young Women’ which sought to answer the question: ‘Can a young women thrive in our newly retro Mad Men world?’ The panel consisted of Kirstin Tranter, Emily Maguire and Karen Hitchcock and was chaired by Susan (Lionheart) Maushart. The answer they reached, rather swiftly was, ‘Of course!’ Followed by, ‘Since when is our world “newly retro”? I mean, I like mid-century modernist furniture as much as the next person, but seriously, what the?’ (Okay, I embellished that a little, but you get the drift.) ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 13-10-2010, 24 user comments

The power of self-delusion

Young Emerging Writers Night at the Sydney Jewish Writers’ Festival

Much is being made at the moment about the number of students enrolling in creative writing courses across our fair land. In fact, it is fair to say that in the next decade Australia’s biggest challenge won’t be overpopulation; it will be a severe skills shortage due to the fact everyone is chucking in their jobs and going off to ‘learn’ how to be a writer. If you want to read about the way this may or may not be impacting on Australia’s literary culture, I strongly recommend reading Rjurik Davidson’s article ‘Liberated zone or pure commodification?’ in the current issue of Overland. (I would happily cut and paste it right here, but appropriation hasn’t really taken off in the literary community the way it has in visual arts.) Suffice to say, there are a lot of folk out there tapping away on their keyboards in the hope that one day they will make it into print. Or to use an animal metaphor (which regular readers will know I am rather fond of) there are a lot of hungry caterpillars out there wondering how they can help themselves emerge from their cocoons as beautiful butterflies rather than dusty brown moths – squashed under a pile of rejection slips. ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 10-09-2010, 4 user comments

Unfinished Sympathy*

Several years ago, when I was studying writing at university, a lecturer of mine expressed utter disdain when a student confessed to abandoning James Joyce’s Ulysses mid-way through. The lecturer, who was an author herself (well you’d want to hope so, wouldn’t you?), said that to give up on a book before the end was lazy and disrespectful to the author and Literature itself. This exchange took place in the first week of semester and, like the chap who asked how much a published author can expect to earn in a year, the student concerned did not return the following week. The rest of us sat nodding in agreement with our lecturer in an attempt to demonstrate that we had not only finished Ulysses, but read it several times, along with many fat books by Russian writers. I myself had to put extra effort into appearing smug to cover the fact that, not only had I never finished Ulysses, I had never started it either. (Unlike my grandfather, who started reading it under the false belief it was about motorcycle gangs.) What’s worse, I was guilty of abandoning several books – some of them ‘Classics’ – not two chapters in, but two chapters short of the end. (I tell you what: if you keep reading this post till the end, I’ll reveal what they were.) ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 25-08-2010, 51 user comments

Colour me beige, it’s an election

It’s time to decide Australia. It’s time to stand up and grasp the rope of democracy – woven from the fabric of thousands of Anzac souls – and swing between apathy and outrage, determination and despair, boldness and boredom. It’s possible to swing between Julia and Tony as well, although the association of ‘Tony Abbott’ and ‘swinging’ is enough to put one off one’s Iced Vovos – and let’s face it, if you are reading anything associated with Overland, it’s unlikely you would consider voting for the Tonester. Then again, this is a strange and often disturbing age we live in and there are only so many times you can say you are voting for Jed Bartlett and still get a laugh. Eventually we are all going to find ourselves in a cardboard booth at the local primary school, with the only person to turn to for advice being the woman who is handing out the pencils, the one in the turquoise muumuu who makes sticky buns for the tuckshop. And even then, I’m pretty sure she’s not allowed to share her opinion. We will all be left on our own to decide between beige and beige, between two candidates with little to distinguish them from one another besides their genders. (Or just vote for the Socialist Party for the heck of it.) We will have to put numbers in boxes. Or will we? ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 9-08-2010, 15 user comments

Invented histories

When I was about ten years old there was a television ad that featured a woman in a fur coat and beret rushing through the streets of Paris to meet her lover for an instant coffee. She wore fabulous red lipstick and the soundtrack was Piaf. After one viewing Punky Brewster was knocked off her perch as my role model and replaced by an anonymous woman with a taste for Parisian men and scant regard for animal rights. I decided I would learn French and began by writing a list in my diary of all the French words I knew – bonjour, merci, croissant, ballet, Yoplait. It never occurred to me that the ad wasn’t shot in Paris, but more likely on a soundstage in Reno or someplace. ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 23-07-2010, 2 user comments