February 22nd, 2012
Freedom to Write … Right to Freedom
6pm Thursday 23 February in the Atrium, SA Writers’ Centre, 2nd Floor, 187 Rundle Street. Free event.
‘We honour the human rights defenders all over the world past and present, and the many millions of people whose lives have been saved, improved and have been touched by their work.’
— Claire Mallinson, National Director Amnesty International Australia (25 May 2011)
‘even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.’
— Vaclav Havel, 1936 – 2011
In celebration of Amnesty International’s 50th anniversary, Amnesty SA and Adelaide PEN invite you to an evening of fine writing and spirited conversation featuring writers Dylan Coleman, Erica Jolly and Nicholas Jose. Highly-regarded Adelaide actor Kate Englefield will perform readings as chosen by the featured writers.
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February 6th, 2012
The February The Melbourne Review is now on the streets and online, including my latest ‘Sort of but not exactly’ column. This month, my open letter is to Geoffrey Rush, our brand new Australian of the Year. You can read it online here.
Tags: Geoffrey Rush, Melbourne Review, Sort of but not exactly
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January 30th, 2012
My review of Peter Carey’s terrific new novel is in the February Australian Book Review. You can read it in full here. Slightly alarmingly for the reviewer, you can also leave a comment.
Tags: Australian Book Review, Peter Carey
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January 18th, 2012
I’m really quite excited about the vacuum cleaner we bought on the weekend. Sad days indeed.
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January 8th, 2012
Graeme Greene once said: ‘Novelists, unlike poets and historians, are often asked the absurd and rather discourteous question, “What is your last book about?” or “What is your next book about?” … The rude questioner, of course, is expecting you to give a brief outline of the novel’s plot … thus saving the trouble of reading it. For a plot is not what a book is about, and the answer I would advise a novelist to give is this: “Save your obviously valuable time and read only the epigraph … for the epigraph is what the novel is about.”’
Greene was perhaps a little over-excited (in about half a dozen different ways) here. But while you can’t generally get away with reading the epigraph and skipping the book, even in the age of Twitter, epigraphs do fascinate me. I’m always a little disappointed when a book I pick up – fiction or non-fiction – doesn’t have one. I’m mentioning all this because I’ve just read Mourid Barghouti’s fine memoir, I Was Born There, I Was Born Here (Bloomsbury). I won’t say too much about the book because I’m reviewing it (see The Advertiser, 14 January) but I liked his epigraph very much, as follows:
Forgive me if what has seemed little to you, to me is all.
- José Saramago
Tags: epigraphs, Graeme Greene, José Saramago, Mourid Barghouti
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January 7th, 2012
I just spent a ‘pleasurable’ couple of minutes deleting spam, the highlight of which was ‘MY GOD, get a proofreade-r’. Indeed.
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December 29th, 2011
The official Wilco webpage has a brand new concert streaming, from 12 December at the Civic Opera House in Chicago (their home town). It is Wilco in glorious form, plus it has legends: they do ‘Cruel to be kind’ with Nick Lowe and ‘You are not alone’ with Mavis Staples. Finally, everybody does a version of The Band’s majestic masterpiece, ‘The Weight’. All of the Wilco concerts on their website are worth a listen – terrific songs, great live band (most of the songs here are better than their studio versions) and Jeff Tweedy’s banter with the audience is often hilarious – but this concert is particularly good. Listen here.
Tags: Wilco
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December 23rd, 2011
I heard this week that I’ve been shortlisted for the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, established in 2011 to encourage Australian authors to attain a high standard of biography writing and to commemorate the life, ideas and writing of Hazel Rowley (1951–2011). Hazel Rowley was one of our finest writers (in any genre), and I especially admire that her books were scholarly but that she was a genuine storyteller. She showed, page after page, that fine thinking and fine writing can – and should – sit well together. Too few scholarly writers bother to follow – or even try to follow – her lead. Her first and last books, Christina Stead: A Biography and Franklin & Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage, are my favourites.
There is more about Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship at the Writers Victoria website here, and on the Hazel Rowley website here.
Tags: Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship
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November 2nd, 2011
I am very pleased to now be the the SA Writers’ Centre Seniors Writer-in-Residence. The position, developed in collaboration with Helping Hand Aged Care in my home town of Adelaide, involves working two days a week for nine months with seniors in the City of Salisbury area. I will be located at Helping Hand Aged Care, Parafield Gardens,with a brief to encourage interested seniors, whether they are Helping Hand residents or members of the wider City of Salisbury community, to express themselves through writing. If you are a senior in the City of Salisbury area with a story to tell (and we’ve all got a story or two to tell) or if you think you might be interested in joining a writing group, then get in contact with me either via the South Australian Writers’ Centre on 8223 7662 or email me direct at seniorsproject@sawriters.org.au.
The Writer-in-Residence position is funded by Perpetual Trustee with grant money from the Estate of the Late James Simpson Love and the Enid Irwin Charitable Trust.
Tags: SAWC, Seniors Writer-in-Residence
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October 25th, 2011
Recently I interviewed Frank Moorhouse, a thrill for me given how much pleasure and inspiration his writing has given me over the years. The interview is now available in the November Readings Monthly, which you can find here via the Readings webpage.
Tags: Frank Moorhouse
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