2.30 at Fed Square and there’s a queue fifty people strong cluttering up the paving-stones, waiting to go in to ACMI for the Melbourne Writers Festival. The doors are shut. Chaos reigns. ‘Is this the museum?’ asks a lost tourist. The MWF volunteers are doing a sterling job, blithely ignoring any queue-disgruntlement and pointing the […]

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 […]

For anyone who is interested, PS Publishing in the UK has recently released my collection, The Library of Forgotten Books. There’s a plain hardcover and a cool jacketed and signed hardcover. The reviews so far have been pretty positive. One of the reviewers writes: Once in a while a book comes out of nowhere and […]

So last month the girlfriend and I went to see Christopher Hitchens talk about his new book of memoirs. I’m not really into memoir so probably missed out on some of what he said, however, did get one real gem out of the evening. Among other things, he and school friends – and later, other […]

Here are ten reasons why you shouldn’t despair if you have an unpublished manuscript. These famous rejections are sure to cheer you up: 1. Can you imagine a world without Possum Magic? Apparently many publishers could. Mem Fox’s classic was rejected nine times over five years. Little Hush would have remained invisible were it not […]

We at Overland don’t only take pleasure in deleting commas and rearranging words; we are also ardent readers. Things we have been reading lately include: Rjurik Davidson Last week I finished Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety, which brilliantly documents the French Revolution from the point of view (mainly) of Desmoulins, Robespierre and Danton. […]

Symbols of Australia Melissa Harper and Richard White (eds.) UNSW Press Symbols of Australia is a fascinating read, with a total of thirty writers dissecting and analysing the symbols of Australia, from the Opera House to the Coat of Arms, to the Pavlova Cooee and all in-between, everything’s up for grabs. Symbols of Australia is […]

Journeys to the Interior Nicholas Rothwell Black Inc. I’d read a few articles by Nicholas Rothwell and was somewhat ambivalent about what I’d read. I was unsure of his political perspective on life in the NT. He’d made some good points, but often his conclusions disturbed me; this was especially true of some of his […]

Come Inside GL Osborne Freemantle Press Come Inside is a beautifully written, evocative novel told from many perspectives and over a long expanse of time. Despite the possibility of the rather slim volume becoming heavied by such a vast and varying platform, it remains light and unburdened in tone. The reader, or at least this […]

‘The End of the Party’ Complete Short Stories Graham Greene Penguin Graham Greene described his short stories as ‘scraps’, and ‘escapes from the novelist’s world’. ‘The End of the Party’, however, delves into the serious subjects of death, fear, faith and human relationships – common to many of his novels – woven into a dark, […]

I have something to confess. I am a second-hand bookshop addict. On a recent trip to Melbourne I stumbled across Artisan Books on Gertrude Street. It was bitingly cold and Artisan glowed with rich yellow light. How could I possibly refuse? Inside art and architecture hardbacks with gorgeous slipcovers competed for attention, and I whiled […]

POMO OZ: Fear and Loathing Downunder Niall Lucy Freemantle Press Ah, postmodernism. The word makes us shudder, or cheer or jeer or laugh or roll our eyes. The multiplicity of reactions it engenders surely reflects the multiplicity of meanings it has accumulated. Reading Niall Lucy’s POMO OZ: Fear and Loathing Downunder, one is by turns […]

Neon Pilgrim Lisa Dempster Aduki Independent Press I have never met Lisa Dempster, nor spoken to her. I’ve never written her an email and only recently subscribed to her blog. But I know Lisa Dempster very well because I just traveled 1200 kilometres with her through the mountains of Japan. Such is the intimacy of […]

Someone once said that an artist’s job is to hold the attention of an audience for as long as they require it. It may have been Oscar Wilde, but this reviewer suspects it was actually a character in The West Wing. Perhaps it was a character in The West Wing quoting Oscar Wilde – either […]

Lately when reading a newspaper I have to momentarily put it down, pick up a music magazine and flip through for something that will spark my interest such as a story on the forthcoming reissue of The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street album which I’m sure will be a good one. At these moments […]

I have this thing. Possibly it’s an issue, possibly it just demonstrates I’m fairly sane. It’s this: I feel strongly that all stories should have conclusions. That shouldn’t be up for debate, right? But seriously folks, I’ve read way too many books lately in which this really basic element of storytelling does not occur. Picture […]