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Meanland extract – Amazon and that old fudging figures manoeuvre

Unless you slept through yesterday (or for some incomprehensible reason went offline), you probably heard how Amazon won the book wars, summed up so succinctly in this New York Times headline: E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon:

Monday was a day for the history books — if those will even exist in the future.

Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, announced Monday that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books.

In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.

... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 22-07-2010, No comments

Vale Laurie Clancy

Laurie ClancyLaurie Clancy’s death this July is a great loss to Australia’s literary community, and a particular cause of sorrow to Overland. Although Laurie was b inclination attached to Overland, a chance combination of circumstances led to his inclusion in the Meanjin team for one of the annual cricket matches that enacted the rivalry between the two magazines. In later years he became not only captain of Meanjin, but one of the main organisers of the match. He celebrated this event in one of the stories he published in Overland. This also appeared, slightly modified, in his novel The Wildlife Reserve. The description of the comic progress and violent end of a cricket match between supporters of rival literary magazines demonstrates the deep knowledge and love of sport that was so much a part of Laurie’s life. In the book it also introduces the hero to the divisions he will find in an English Department tormented by cultural, pedagogical and sexual politics. ... read more

Written by John McLaren on 21-07-2010, 2 user comments

On atrocities and equivocal jokes

So anyway, as I was passing through Brisbane last week at the end of a long journey, I caught up with a friend of mine who reads my blogs. Brisbane always seems to me to be a city where a great catastrophe has at some time taken place, a catastrophe that no one wants to speak of. And there is still a sense in the air that something terrible happened there once, if we could just remember what it was. We were sitting in a hideous cafe in a hideous building at a university – hideous in a way that only universities can accomplish – when my friend said to me, vis-à-vis the blogs, ‘I really like your blog writing. But why don’t you write more about what you think about the solutions to the problems you write about? It’s like you’re complaining – and there’s lots to complain about – but I never know what you really think.’ ... read more

Written by Stephen Wright on 21-07-2010, 12 user comments

On Manning, Lamo, WikiLeaks, Greenwald, new media and old journalism

I have an article up at Drum about all of the above:

How has the online temperament of news changed journalism? In Katrina Fox’s article on objectivity, transparency and advocacy in journalism, “What’s your bias?”, Marcus O’Donnell, lecturer in journalism, explains:

[O]bjectivity was a trust mechanism we relied on in media that didn’t do links. But now we can make it perfectly clear where we are coming from, what our sources are and what our values are, and it is this transparency that is the new trust mechanism that both readers and writers have to rely on.

... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 21-07-2010, 1 user comment

The Muslim voice pushing through

The politically conscious hip-hop group The Brothahood ask ‘Why?’

Five Muslim spoken-word/rap artists born in Australia with Lebanese backgrounds, The Brothahood are smashing stereotypes with their album Lyrics of mass construction, and tracks like ‘Why?’ When I accidentally stumbled across them a few months ago I was asking myself why haven’t I heard of these guys? All of Australia needs to turn off their televisions and listen:

Now if a wake up one morning and grow myself a beard /
people start talkin and getting themselves scared /
but – Mr Goldberg he lives down the block /
when he grows a beard no-one ever gets a shock /
why when my sister walks properly dressed /
she wears a headscarf they think she’s oppressed? /
then you got the nuns dressed in black and white head to toe /
but no-one questions them – why – i dont know

Hesh, Ahmed, Moustafa, Jehad and Timur work full-time jobs, live on opposite sides of the city in suburbia and struggle to find time to come together, but when they do, they produce raw and confronting material that challenges the propagandist mainstream newsfeeds the Australian public sees every day. They may not have flashy video clips but the content is honest and allows the Muslim voice in Australia, commonly silenced by fear, to be heard.

Only recently introduced to their work, by the Nothing rhymes with RRR podcast, my initial reaction was: why aren’t these guys funded by an arts council? Why do these guys have to struggle to create? Governments complain of the racism in Australia but do nothing about it. Why not start by funding people like The Brothahood and other diverse voices from different backgrounds? Only through art can we appreciate the many cultures we have in Australia.

The Brothahood began their career years ago as spoken-word artists performing with a beat boxer and have since incorporated music in their performances. Their track ‘The Silent Truth’, a response to the Cronulla riots, was featured on Triple J’s Unearthed in 2007:

I can feel ya eyes on me but i aint in the wrong /
keepin to yourself scared that my beard hides a bomb /
tensions climbin higher than that ape king kong /
label me a thug coz i'm from Lebanon /
butcha WRONG, im like any other aussie /
try to ride a train but u always gotta stop me /
coz of 9/11 now you all wanna wanna drop me /
little do you know that your thinkins kinda sloppy

But The Brothahood don’t only write about issues faced by Muslims in Australia. My favourite track is ‘Act on It’, which voices anger over the state of Israel and the suffering of Palestinians:

It was born on injustice, theft and murder /
Driving Palestinians out further and further /
Now don't get me wrong Judaism ain't to blame /
But we must understand that Zionism ain't the same /
Now I know you're mad at me, blunt brutality /
The Z ain't got no links to Jewish spirituality /
Huh, now you wanna twist, call me terrorist /
Yes, I'm anti Zionist, Expect me to resist

This Thursday morning, 15 July from 9–9:30, I’ll be interviewing Jehad from The Brothahood on 3CR’s Spoken Word program (855 AM). We’ll be discussing spoken word, lyrics and politics. You can also listen online at www.3cr.org.au

... read more

Written by Koraly Dimitriadis on 12-07-2010, 8 user comments

Meanland extract – At the mercy of our instruments

A writer needs their tools.

Chisel
Quill
Ink
Parchment
Chalk
Pencil
Paper
Crayon
Biro
Fountain pen
Notepad
Typewriter
Word Processor
ThinkPad
Personal Computer
Macbook
iPhone
iPad
Tablet

What do all these tools have in common? They help us make permanent that thing that makes us human: language. Language marshalled into journals, books, literary fiction, non-fiction, blog posts, lists – but how do all these tools change the way we write and think?

‘Our writing tools are also working on our thoughts.’

In Nicolas Carr’s now [in]famous Atlantic essay, ‘Is Google making us stupid?

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 8-07-2010, No comments

On Carey’s version of literacy and democracy

I recently watched Peter Carey’s closing address to the Sydney Writers’ Festival. In the video, he lectures earnestly about people once reading in the ‘shearing sheds, lending libraries, mechanics institutes’ and ‘the trenches’ (he even uses Gallipoli, and Burke and Wills to stress his point), imploring everyone to teach children Shakespeare because it will even work in the ‘ghetto’. It doesn’t matter what colour the child is, nor their life experience, because reading is about exploring people other than you. After all, he argues, who would want to be Madame Bovary or Nabokov's Humbert Humbert?

This howl against illiteracy (and the definition of literacy) left me feeling stuck in a time warp. I initially watched the Carey video because the age-old debate of literary versus popular fiction had resurfaced (like art house vs Hollywood blockbusters, cats vs dogs, Python vs Perl) and was being publicly fought by Bryce Courtney and Peter Carey. ... read more

Written by Benjamin Laird on 7-07-2010, 13 user comments

On banana-cream pies

Kurt Vonnegut famously said that fiction is so much hot air, and that fiction writers’ opposition to the Vietnam War proved this. ‘We dropped on our complacent society’, he said at a PEN meeting in the early 70s, ‘the literary equivalent of a hydrogen bomb. I will now report to you the power of such a bomb. It has the explosive force of a very large banana-cream pie – a pie two meters in diameter, twenty centimetres thick, and dropped from a height of ten meters or more’. ... read more

Written by Stephen Wright on 18-06-2010, 18 user comments

Writing and helplessness and being comfortably numb

I’m thinking about writing and helplessness and being comfortably numb. I was chatting with my nephew, 27, as we set off to see Exit through the Gift Shop:

(sold out so I suggest you book ahead!) Now, dear reader, 27 is the young man’s age – my sisters and I are not

Written by Clare Strahan on 15-06-2010, 22 user comments

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

Meanland extract – New publishing models: a shifting of power

Guest post – Sam Cooney

This article appeared in the May issue of WQ, the Queensland Writers Centre’s monthly publication. Past issues are online, as is a wealth of other info for Queensland and Australian writers.

WQPublishing isn’t dying. Don’t believe anyone who says it is, because they are reckless and hunting for headlines. Yes, publishing is changing, and fast. Author Philip Pullman, having just launched an enhanced iPhone app along with his latest book, says that all the changes make him feel ‘as if I’m tied to the front of a runaway train with a driver who has just had a heart attack’. An industry that not long ago was stalwart and reasonably predictable is now hurriedly embracing (or being forced to embrace) ebooks, free content, and similar new-fangled developments. But dying? Not a chance. ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 10-06-2010, 1 user comment

A celebration of words and writers

The Emerging Writer’s Festival, held in Melbourne in the last two weeks of May, was just what emerging writers needed to kick off the winter months: inspiration, motivation and the coming together of a writerly community.

Still I have to admit I’m a bit bemused by the concept of ‘emerging writer’, perhaps because I’ve been emerging for quite some time. Call me Sean Condon, but sometimes it seems that when it comes to residencies and grants, the emerged not the emerging get the gig.

So, who better to approach about a definition of ‘emerging writer’ than festival director Lisa Dempster (who must have had her thinking cap on to come up with festival hits like ‘Zine Bus’, ‘You Can’t Stop The Musing: Disco Lecture’ and ‘In the pub’ – writers in the pub: who would’ve thought – and lots of other clever ideas that made the Emerging Writers’ Festival such a success)? Lisa says that if you’re writing but haven’t made a million dollars in sales, you’re probably an emerging writer. I recalled the zillionaire-book-selling authors who recently made an appearance on Bestellers & Blockbusters, and after a moment or two contemplating fame and riches, decided I wouldn’t want to join their ranks. Okay, whom am I kidding? ... read more

Written by Trish Bolton on 7-06-2010, 10 user comments

A beginner’s guide to the EWF

This was my first experience of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, and it was interesting to compare it to larger writers’ festivals I am more familiar with. Over nine days, events were spread out over the city at venues such as the Wheeler Centre and BMW Edge, but the weekend program was housed at the Melbourne Town Hall. This created a sense of intimacy and camaraderie, which I think is something writers often crave, and also one of the main reasons for why so many writers’ festivals exist. The act of writing is isolating, and those who practice it need companionship and reassurance from fellow travelers. What is also different about the Emerging Writers’ Festival is that it welcomes and attracts new writers and promotes those who are ‘emerging’. Therefore, the crowd was a mixture of writing students, freelance writers, literary wunderkinds and those who are about to take off. ... read more

Written by Lina Vale on 2-06-2010, 8 user comments

Mother Muse at Sospeso
– a literary event

From the doubts of conception through to the power of labour, and onto the magic and miseries of babies and children and mature awareness as daughters – 5 women wordsmiths share their perspectives to create a multi-voiced portrait of mothering in modern Australia.

Performing on the night: Koraly Dimitriadis, Vicki Thornton, Amy Bodossian, Tiggy Johnson and Sunyata Di Cousens (with links by midwife Geoff Fox).

When: This Friday, 4 June
Time: 7–10pm
Place: Caffe Sospeso, 428 Burwood Road, Hawthorn

The night also includes an open mic section if you would like to read.

... read more

Written by Koraly Dimitriadis on 2-06-2010, 1 user comment

All you need to know
– the Emerging Writers’ Festival

If you didn’t make it to the Emerging Writers’ Festival last weekend, I’m afraid to say you missed out. The festival, which is aimed exclusively at writers, attracts a different audience to the major festivals which also court readers.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the ‘Never Surrender’ session when author Sean Condon asked, ‘How many people here want to be published?’ The room transformed into a sea of hands. Then the question, ‘And how many people have already been published?’ This time only three of us raised our hands before someone from the back of the room called out, ‘What do you mean by published?’ A ripple of nervous, doubt-filled laughter spread through the room. (Does a blog count? What about the occasional short story in journals? Or articles published online? Or do you mean a full-length book? And what about self-publishing?) Condon’s disparaging response was, ‘Nothing online.’ ... read more

Written by Irma Gold on 2-06-2010, 12 user comments