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How dumb luck got me published

Morris Gleitzman once said that every successful writer he knew could look back to one incident of good fortune that lifted them above the crowd. I think I’ve just had mine.

I’ve always loved those stories about the serendipity of some unlikely twist of fate that has led to a publisher discovering a manuscript. Let’s face it, luck and publishing go hand in hand. Having recently acquired a good luck story of my very own (more on that in a moment) it seemed like a good excuse to interview a bunch of talented local authors about how luck has played a part in their own fortunes. ... read more

Written by Irma Gold on 21-12-2011, No comments

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

Amis as Max – Patricia StormsI 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

So you think you can write poetry: noetry and constructive criticism

So you want to be a poet. When you desperately want something, it’s difficult to get past the wanting, and look into the mechanics of achieving that thing. It’s not enough to want to be a poet, just like it’s not enough to want to be a dancer. Dancing requires grace, agility, athleticism, rhythm and unwavering dedication. The tall, gawky kid with two left feet hiding out at the back of gym class might have early fantasies of being discovered on So You Think You Can Dance, but those fantasies probably disappear in their late teens when reality kicks in.

Unfortunately, in the case of poetry, the requisite talents are not so clear-cut. If only there were an equivalent So You Think You Can Write; we could all just turn up at the cattle call audition and have our hopeful hearts broken by a Simon Cowell-esque judge wielding a quill and a dictionary. Even then though, there’d be those few tragics left staring forlornly but defiantly into the camera whining: ‘What would he know? He wouldn’t know a decent poet if they smacked him in the face with their next manuscript. My MUM and all my mates LOVE my writing, and they should know, they’ve read it ALL.’ ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 4-03-2011, 7 user comments

Still waters

It’s 22 January, and the first gathering of the Still Waters Black Womens Storytelling Network. The group founder, Zimbabwean writer Fadzai Jaravaza, pauses, takes a breath, looks around at the group of beautiful brown women gathered for tea in a small room at the Institute for Postcolonial Studies in North Melbourne and asks ‘Any questions?’ There’s a short silence. Tinashe Pwiti, a young Zimbabwean woman of 22, clears her throat. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘why are we called Still Waters?’

I smile, wondering the exact same thing, and shuffle my three-month-old daughter into the red sling strung across one shoulder, eager to hear Fadzai’s response. One of the baby’s eyes opens suspiciously but she ultimately succumbs to sleep. Still Waters doesn’t seem, to me, to be an obvious christening for this newly formed storytelling sister-circle. Water is such a life force – so all-powerful in its movement and strength. Water floods, drowns, devastates, replenishes and revives. Water slides land, washes away foundations and even erodes stone. Still Waters seems somehow helpless, ominous, melancholy. It makes me think of stagnant ponds and lifeless children, of time standing still. ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 23-02-2011, 7 user comments

The violence of everyday

new-detention-centre-for-south-australia-363086In a world in which we’ve been desensitised to the shock of war and conflict, in which those two very things are normalised, you sometimes need to slow things down, step outside and put things into perspective. This year at TiNA, I saw an event that did just that. It was the publication of Westside Jnr’s 2010 book: Violence.

Launched fittingly on the International Day of Non-Violence, the book is a collection of writing that arose out of workshops at seven schools in Western Sydney. The workshops were run, in conjunction with the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, as part of the Refugee Action Support Project. Alongside the writing workshops there were forum theatre workshops on bullying, where students learned ways of defusing situations before they escalate. ... read more

Written by Scott Foyster on 20-12-2010, 2 user comments

Focus on young writers: Cassie Wood

The final author feature in Overland 201’s ‘Young Writers’ section is Cassie Wood. Her story is ‘Eddy’. Cassie is a second-year writing student living in Melbourne. She talks here with Kalinda Ashton and Samuel Cooney.

Why write?

Why not? I think if you ask yourself this question, that’s when things get messy and you start considering business degrees and nuclear families. That isn’t to say those with business degrees and/or nuclear families couldn’t write. But that’s just it, isn’t it! You write because you can. I do.

Writing is a catalyst for discussion. The author

Written by Editorial team on 6-12-2010, 1 user comment

Focus on young writers: Rebecca Giggs

For her final edition as fiction editor, Kalinda Ashton wanted to showcase young writers. In Overland 201, she worked with Samuel Cooney to curate a special expanded fiction section, featuring four writers under thirty. Over the next days, we will be introducing  each of the writers in that section through interviews put together by Kalinda and Sam.

Today, we are featuring Rebecca Giggs. Rebecca is a Western Australia writer of fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry. Her story in Overland 201 is 'Blow In'.

Why write?

Bertolt Brecht once wrote that ‘the word is the thing’s dead body’. I cannot agree. My ideas are never pre-formed, sub-surface things to be trawled up and given expression. In writing, I am always trying to solve something for myself, to push air into a feeling. Perhaps I have a sense of significance or an aesthetic interest first, and then I record one line or two in my journal, but it is often not until I sit down to work that I hit upon what I’m writing towards. I might do a whole piece in fiction before a line snags, and then I see that what I’m actually working on is an essay or a poem. That will be frustrating, of course, but usually I can bring myself to extract the line and start again – perhaps after two months, or six, of concentrating on something else. I work on a lot of different things at once, which means that I don’t work fast (much to the distress of the few editors who have been kind enough to read my writing). Here is one of the reasons that I write: to take something from inside and see what it becomes out there on the page, and how in turn the writing might function to further clarify my motivations. Often there is a grey and un-writerly explanation for whatever it is I’m worrying at but I don’t see that as a lost opportunity. And then occasionally the thing kicks a little on the page. One of the skills to develop as a ‘young writer,’ I think, is to be able to recognise when that kick is the writing taking its first breath, and when it is the shudder of an idea rattling to its demise. Either way, you have to be careful with what you’ve made then, and give it time and space enough to be able to discern the living parts from the withering ones. It is my hope that if I get that step right, what it is that I’ve been wondering about or fixated on will become something that resonates with readers. And that’s a sense that I try to develop, every day. ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 1-12-2010, 4 user comments

Poets, listen up!

Malolm Robertson PrizePoets, listen up: the 2010 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets, sponsored by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, closes Monday. In case you haven’t heard, the major prize is a magnificent $5000 – plus there are two runner-up prizes of $1000 a piece.

Peter MinterThis year’s judge is Overland’s distinguished new poetry editor, Peter Minter (pictured). ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 11-11-2010, 1 user comment

The Library of Forgotten Books

The library of forgotten booksFor 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: ... read more

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 19-08-2010, 4 user comments

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

The 2009 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize – judging the winners

The 2009 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets saw a staggering 925 entries. Keri Glastonbury, Overland’s poetry editor and judge, discusses in her report what she admired in the winning entries and touches upon notions of the academicisation of poetry and the state of the emerging poetry scene:

Networked communities

The winner of the 2009 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets is Derek Motion for his poem ‘forest hill’. It is somewhat similar in style and theme to last year’s winning poem, ‘emoticon’ by Tim Wright, in that it deals with fractured personal archaeologies. In ‘forest hill’ the poet goes back to his primary school:

& it’s obvious. i’m unearthing the school’s time-capsule, secretly, after nightfall. the balaclava didn’t even involve a choice. i edit scathingly. i mock the other raaf kids’ dreams. i make a claggy pulp out of their failed foundation cursive. at the bubblers i consider sobbing for their facebook realities, but instead do this. i prance through the half-formed stimulus buildings like non-threatening catacombs. biggles-like. ... read more

Written by admin on 15-06-2010, 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

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

Review – Known Unknowns

Known Unknowns
Emmett Stinson
Affirm Press

'Known Unknowns'Known Unknowns is Emmett Stinson’s debut collection of short fiction. His work first came to my attention when I reviewed Issue One of Kill Your Darlings, in which Stinson’s stand-out story ‘Clinching’ was published. That story is included here along with 13 others of varying length.

As any writer will tell you, beginnings are everything. The opening line is the story’s bait. It must entice you, get you caught on that hook. And Stinson is a master at this. After putting this collection down I found that many of the opening lines had made such an impact that they were still dancing through my thoughts. Here’s an example: ‘I never wanted to be a murderer. You see, my mother drove me to it.’ The clever beauty of these lines is loaded with more meaning than we initially understand. ... read more

Written by Irma Gold on 27-05-2010, 3 user comments