Editorial

It took me a couple of decades to manage it, but at last it seems that I’m a ‘controversial’ author. It wasn’t on purpose, but it seems that controversy sometimes finds you when you least expect it.

The occasion was the release of my second children’s book, Real Guns. True, it deals with guns. Jon, a young boy, finds a real gun hidden under his parents’ bed. While he aims it about, pretending he’s a soldier for the right side, his mother startles him from behind and the gun goes off. The only damage is to a mirror that shatters. The incident forces Jon’s father to rethink his perceived need to keep a gun in the house for protection (he’s a returned war vet) and his explanation to his son as to why he keeps a gun in the first place brings them closer together.

It’s an important story, prompting parents to talk to their children about issues that some might think are taboo. You’d think that, with war, terrorism, crime and domestic violence constantly in the news, and monopolising the attention of our youth on television and in video ‘games’, books that speak to issues of safety and respect for firearms would be a valuable addition to our libraries.

Most librarians we’ve contacted agree. But a worrying minority think that having a book like Real Guns in their collection is dangerous. It’s OK for libraries in the United States to have it because the climate in America is different from Australia. After all, we’ve have gun control laws in place ever since Martin Bryant went on a rampage at Port Arthur. And hardly anyone's been shot in Australia since then. Why do our children need to learn respect for guns when they’re unlikely to ever encounter them?

It’s the same kind of logic that attempts to exclude books that deal with domestic violence, drugs and sex from public view. The more we talk about issues like this, they claim, the more likely it is that our children will want to experiment with things that could harm them. The best way to keep guns off the public agenda is not to talk about them. This group prefers to “exclude” rather than “ban”. One librarian said that Real Guns might be all right in primary school libraries but not in her collection. Perhaps she feels that public libraries are not a place for children to be educated about real life issues?

It’s just as well that the Australian Publishers’ Association managed to get Helen Coonan’s conservative forces to back off the legislation that could have seen controversial books being reviewed and rated by the Office of Film and Literary Classification. Or maybe I’m being a bit too hasty: a classification of MA15+ might be just the thing to increase the sales of Real Guns. Imagine a mob of kids huddled around a copy at lunchtime behind their school’s toilet block. It might distract them from their video games for an afternoon…

— DR

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Focus

[Chris Dowding's A Few Drops Short of a Pint won the 2007 IP Picks Best Creative Non-Fiction Award. The book's set in Ireland, and Chris recently returned to make sure his recollection of the taste of real Guinness was spot on. Craig Tuck interviews him.]

CT: Reading the book now, do you identify with the person who left Brisbane with his new wife? Have you changed? How did this journey affect you?

CD: So much has happened since I went to Ireland.  It was like a catalyst for getting my life into gear.  First and foremost, I have learnt to stand up for myself - if I hadn't met my boss in Ireland, I probably wouldn't have needed to!  (Necessity is the mother of all invention.)  Before Ireland, I was constantly worried about money and had little as a result.  Kerryn and I have bought three properties since we got back from Dublin.  I also think our time there was very good for our relationship—we managed it on our own, without our family and we both discovered a lot of strengths.

CT: What motivated you to write this book?

CD: I started writing when I was in primary school.  I enjoyed Famous Five books a lot and wrote a (poor) sequel to one of them.  But I never took writing seriously until I went to Ireland.  Something flicked a switch in my mind there and suddenly I was fascinated by my surroundings.  I've never felt like that before.  I decided to write down our experiences and email them back to my friends in Australia.  I was clear that I didn't want them to be the usual sort of overseas email. I was hoping to inspire more people to travel.  I meaning travel in the sense that someone spends a significant time in one place that is not like home. 

CT: Are there any writers who have influenced you?

CD: I really enjoy the humorous, informative style of travel writers like Bill Bryson, Chris Stewart (Driving over Lemons) and the late Pete McCarthy (McCarthy's bar).  I read a lot of fiction when I grew up, as escapism.  Travel writing tends to sit on the border between fact and not fiction, but let's say stretched facts.  I think it is the escapism, the journey that the reader can have with a travel book that makes an effective one so special.    
  
CT: What do you feel are the most important themes of this book?

CD: After I arrived in Ireland, I realised that all the reading in the world wouldn't have prepared me for it.  I was completely out of my depth—I grew up on a small farm in a small town, studied Engineering in a small classroom and worked in a small environment.  I realised that some of the "truths" I'd grown up with in Australia were different to those I found in Ireland.  For example, whle many people here worry a lot about the future, it's not such a big factor in Ireland—a lot of people live for the moment.  In fact, some of them spend everything they have to live in the moment.  I guess the book's most important theme is: listen to other people's ideas; these are as valid as our own, even if it doesn't seem like it.  If everyone in the world could do this, I doubt there'd be a war in Iraq. 

CT: What did you go through to write this book?

CD: The first step was gathering all the emails together that I'd sent back to Australia — luckily, Mum and Dad, along with some of Kerryn’s relatives had kept copies. I did a few adult education courses about writing and learnt about the process of planning a chapter list, planning the content of each chapter and listing the characters for each chapter.  This sort of planning was similar to the things I needed to do as an engineer, so it made sense.  I also discovered that it would be necessary to edit the book nine or ten times to have a good chance of being looked at by a publisher.  That threw me a bit.  Fortunately, I'd been learning about delegation at work; at about the third edit, I sent out the manuscript to some of my friends and family.  I think that counted for about five edits in one go!  I think it took another 18 months to do two further edits myself, and then I sent it to Lauren Daniels for a professional manuscript assessment.   

It took four years to write.  There were many times when I felt like giving up —when I got busy at work or at home, the book got in the way.  Sometimes Kerryn felt the book got more of my time than she did.  In 2005 and 2006, I got life coaching from Landmark Education, which helped me to focus on the things I wanted to achieve, including the book.  I think this got me through it, in the end.

CT: At the end of the book, it seemed you were unhappy in your profession (engineering). Has writing the book changed your outlook toward your profession?

CD: The reflection that writing and life coaching have given me allowed me to see a worthwhile use for my engineering skills.  I used my contacts at work to help form the Tools2Rebuild charity group for the 2004 tsunami victims.  After that, I heard that the company I worked for had secured the design contract for a major public transport project in Brisbane.  I felt that this project would be a big contribution to the community, and I asked to be posted to it. I guess I've learnt to get involved in things I believe in, instead of just 'blowing with the wind' and doing whatever work I'm given. 

[Sylvia Petter's Back Burning won this year's IP Picks Fiction Award. A bit of a globe-trotter herself, she now lives in Vienna, Austria, but has commented on her book being published by IP as "coming home". Casey Hutton asks her to elaborate.]

CH: What appeals to you about the short story form?

SP: Good short stories resonate; something lingers when you’ve finished reading. Sometimes what lingers makes you ask questions, makes you think, or just affects you in some way. I like stories by William Trevor, Alice Munro, Janette Turner Hospital, Timothy Findley, Edna O’Brien, Nathan Englander, Alex Mindt, Alex Keegan, — I could go on and on.

I was drawn to writing short stories because I thought it would be easy, since they are “short”. I thought I’d be able to manage that sort of writing in the small blocks of time I was able to snatch from my day job and my home life. I found that the small blocks of time were good for getting ideas down and reworking, revising parts of a story. But I also found that I needed many such blocks and that it wasn’t easy. First very basic drafts seem to come out quickly, but then the work starts with endless revisions and eventually letting go. When things go well, stories can become compact and intense, and I like the idea of what’s in the spaces, what isn’t said. I think, in a way, the reader has to work along with the writer to make the story; and in open-ended stories not everyone sees exactly the same thing, so the adventure is endless.

CH: Back Burning begins and ends with motifs of fire. What significance does fire hold for you?

SP: Well, I’m an Aries and that’s a fire sign. Seriously, though, I think that growing up in a bushland area where bushfires are part of the summer holidays, has something to do with it. I remember driving up from Bobbin Head with my parents, how at every turn there’d be a smouldering log, and how, much later, green leaves would be growing from the blackened tree trunks. And then, when you’re in a European winter and you see on TV that there are bushfires near your home town, everything is intensified: the fear of loss, of losing someone, the frustration of being so far away, incapable of doing anything, not knowing what’s really happening. This was particularly acute in the pre-web days of expensive phone calls. Fires wipe things out, but new things can grow. I think fire is hope, in a way. For me, fire is Australia.

CH: Many of the stories in Back Burning focus on relationships between men and women, exploring things like loss and geographical separation. What do you think pulls you towards these themes?

SP: Loss and geographical separation are big issues, I’ve discovered, for an expat like me, specially as I get older. You make a choice to live somewhere else and then wonder if you belong anywhere, even need to. “Home” is the dilemma. Where is it? What is it? Is it it a place or a state of being? I live in Vienna with my husband, and our daughter and my mother live in Sydney. When I’m in Vienna, I miss Sydney, and when I’m in Sydney, I miss Vienna; and it’s not just the people, it’s the places. There’s a sort of recurring super-positioning going on between them, and in that process things sometimes get lost. But they can be found again, can be seen with new eyes.

CH: Travel features strongly. What are your aims in writing about different socio-political contexts and how did living abroad, and your work with the U.N., inform your writing?

SP: I worked for many years for a UN specialized agency in telecommunications and travelled all over the world with my job, speaking three languages. Through writing, I “reclaimed” my mother tongue (which was not my mother’s tongue, btw), but I still see images in other languages. I’ve always been interested in how ordinary folk are affected by the big policy decisions and am fascinated by lives that seem to slip through the cracks in the matrices imposed by the policy makers. Working in a telecommunications policy area got me interested in communication and mis-communication, fields of tension between languages, the sexes and generations, and I often thought, dammit, when decision makers go home and take off their clothes they become part of the ordinary folk in whose name they made the decisions, and why for the most part don’t they seem aware of this? And I had the same feeling, to a larger or smaller extent, no matter what country I was in. “We are the peoples”, as the UN slogan says.

CH: Can you isolate a favourite story in this collection and discuss why?

SP: I’m fond of the title story, “Back Burning”, mainly because it reads well aloud and there are a number of sensual images, as well as the trope of back burning, of course. But from the point of view of how a story can come about, the process involved, I have a soft spot for “The Tschusch”. (“Tschusch” is a derogatory Viennese slang expression for those originally coming from “old” Yugoslavia, foreigners.) I was living in France at the time of writing the story and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s right-wing party was making impact in the polls. It was meant to be a story about France, but I was too close. So I moved it to Austria, running a parallel with right-wing Jörg Haider, and it started doing its own thing as I remembered an election poster in Klagenfurt. I’d lived in Vienna from 1969 to 1972 and a lot of other stuff started coming back. I did a fair bit of research on the 1991 Dubrovnik bombing and tried to use a sort of “ticking-clock” device. I feel that in some way the story is still relevant today.

[Winner of IP Picks Best Poetry this year, As Casey discovered, Mark O'Flynn will also find himself abroad for the next few months, with his residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland.]

CH: One of my favourite poems in this anthology is 'Hunters', about you and your brother hunting rabbits as children. It follows 'The Rabbit' which I assume is about your own children and a pet rabbit. Can you talk about how animals inform your poetry and how they relate, in particular, to the realm of childhood?

MO'F: I don't particularly go out of my way to write about animals as such, however I do find animals as a force of nature to be a potent source of imagery. I write about the environment I inhabit, and for a short while there we had a rabbit. It was interesting at the time and formed its own narrative. Now I have some rather sad horses living at the bottom of the hill which are perversely interesting. When I think about it, animals have always figured somewhere in my poetry, particularly their place in memory, and this I suppose is where childhood comes into it. I have often written about childhood, either from the point of view of my own memory, or else observations of my own children. One of my own family myths has it that my first pet was a guinea pig called Mr Nobody. He died of loneliness. A pity I was too young to remember, but a poignant legend.

The poem about my brother carrying the dead rabbit is simply a vivid image I carry of him, of his sensitivity toward the world which I did not recognise at the time. When someone dies small things assume a greater significance. There is nothing profound about that observation, but I guess I was trying to clutch at a shrinking entrepot of memories before they disappeared.

Both poems have rabbits in them, but I think that any one image can have a range of different moods associated with it. I keep coming back to a number of recurring images for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. I guess I haven't stopped examining their personal significance.

CH: Some of your poems contain religious references. How does this thread in your writing relate to the title poem 'What Can Be Proven'?

MO'F: I don't really think in terms of religion. I'm not a religious person, however I am interested in asking philosophical questions, and sometimes those questions find expression in a theological context. (I left the pagan, atheistic ones out). The title of the collection is ironic. I'm more interested in doubt, in what cannot be proven, in questions rather than answers, in mystery and confusion.

CH: How has having children informed your writing?

MO'F: Children are greatly inspiring, especially when they're younger. My first two collections had several more poems about my kids—things they said or did. I suppose in a lazy way I was saving myself from having to write them down in a diary by putting them in a poem. It has backfired really because what I have said comes back to bite you. However I do think the cliche is true that children keep you young, seeing the world through their eyes. And when parenting is all fresh and new it's like no one has ever thought these things before. You learn that of course this is not so. It's a common experience, but that does not invalidate what you feel at the time. Again children's behaviour is ephemeral and I am trying to capture some of that to contribute to my future humiliation and embarrassment.

CH: What prompted you to write the series of poems after paintings by the likes of Picasso, Klee, and Ernst?

MO'F: Most of those paintings I saw while travelling and fell in love with them. Much later I wished I had responded more immediately to them. There was so much in them I did not understand. I was exploring what narratives I might be able to attach to their images. They are very personal responses to what I saw in the paintings. It also became a stylistic exercise to find what flexibility I could within a fairly rigorous formal restraint.

CH: How do you think poetry allows you to confront difficult things: 'what can or cannot be proven', change, memory, loss...?

MO'F: As I have said above. Poetry is a great vehicle for capturing memory, sensation, mood, narrative. Often the more difficult the subject the deeper the rewards if you nail it. If you don't you put it away and try again. Who was it said nothing bad happens to writers, it's all good material? I forget. I'd certainly give back all the poems if I could expunge all the difficult things, but that's not life. Distorted and embellished, yes, but faced and confronted. I don't necessarily want things to be proven, I just don't want them to be forgotten.

In Review

[These are snippets from reviews recently to hand. For the full review, click on the links.]

Nigel Turvey’s Terania Creek: Rainforest Wars has received two wonderful reviews recently. The first comes from The Australian Forestry History Society where John Dargavel says: “It is a well researched and written book that makes a useful addition to Australian forest history”. The second review comes from the Australian Forestry Book Review and Brian Turner notes that: “In the main, Turvey’s account is balanced and factual, without negating the importance of emotions and feelings in the ‘war’. Importantly for readers of this journal he pays particular attention to the role of foresters and the Forestry Commission and the impact the conflict had on both.”

Andrew Leggett’s Dark Husk of Beauty was reviewed by M/C. Stefanie Petrik says “Leggett has proved with this collection that there is much to learn from the gaps between the pieces of what has been shattered. And in a society that is obsessed with smashing things, it is a necessity to be able to learn to appreciate the things that have been broken.”

Joel Deane’s Another was reviewed by Magdelena Bell of Compulsive Reader. She says: “Joel Deane’s Another is a book that pulls hard and instantly on its reader” and that: “Deane’s exquisite writing contains beauty that transcends its setting, and hope which goes beyond the unhappy ending.”

Basil Eliade’s 3rd i was reviewed by Maggie Ball at Blogcritics Magazine. Maggie says “By spelling the title with the singular pronoun, Eliades begins the book with word play that alerts that reader to the intimate nature of the poetry.” She also pointed out that “at its best, and it is often at its best, this book provides the reader with exactly what the title suggests: a true third eye/i experience – a whole new way of seeing both the world, and ourselves.”

Thylazine has reviewed three of IP’s books recently. Of Michelle Cahill’s Accidental Cage, Liz Hall-Downs says “This is a deft and subtle display of craft, making larger themes and issues emerge from the small and particular.”

Joel Deane’s Subterranean Radio Songs was also reviewed, and Hall-Downs says that “his goal is to communicate the things that matter to him, and this he does well.”.

Finally, Libby Hart’s Fresh News From the Arctic was the other IP book cited by Thylazine and Hall-Downs writes “It is an epic, multi-layered piece full of tone and nuance that left this reviewer a little breathless at the end.”

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Hot Off the Wire

One of Kathy Kituai’s tankas won the Fiju award – the first created by Wisteria Magazine in the USA. Congratulations, Kathy!

Not sure what a tanka is? An answer is at hand: Kathy's book of tanka, Straggling into Winter, is in press with IP at the moment and will be released in Spring Season. For an interview with Kathy check out eNews 34.

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Joel Deane and his wife Kirsten announced the birth of their third child Zoe on June 7th at around 11.30 a.m. The entire family, including brother Noah and sister Sophie are doing well and are rapt with the new arrival.

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Support the Indigenous Literacy Project!

IP is proud to join with other Australian publishers to support the Indigenous Literary Project. Proceeds from the Project will go to the purchase of books for Indigenous children across Australia.

When you buy IP titles from either the August circular we will be sending out, or on the 5th September (the national day designated by the Project) we will donate 5% of the price to the Project on your behalf. If you ever needed an excuse to buy books, this is certainly a worthy one!

IP Kidz Update

We've been thrilled by the strong show of interest in our newest imprint. Following the release of our first title Real Guns, we've already lined up several others for release in 2008. We'll report on these next issue.

While IP Kidz is open to pitches for all kinds of titles, we are particularly keen to view work that has strong social and environmental themes as well as titles with potential for digital publication.

We also want to spread the word to children's illustrators that IP Kidz is open for business. Qualified illustrators should send us an artistic resume, portfolios or samples of their work and an indication of their areas of interest.

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Our 10th Anniversary!

Six IP authors will read at a special IP celebration during the Brisbane Writers Festival. Michelle Cahill, Kristin Hannaford, Bill Collopy, Basil Eliades, Tilly Brasch and Rosemary Huisman are on the bill, to be introduced by David Reiter. The event will showcase the range of talent we've published during the past 10 years in poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Sunday, 16 September, from 4:40 p.m. Not to be missed!

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Mark your calendar for IP's 10th Anniversary weekend in November! On Friday the 16th, we'll hold a cocktail soirée where you have the chance to mingle with IP authors from our past and upcoming list at a local restaurant TBA. Short readings, IP title giveaways, signings, gourmet nibblies, premium wine. Bookings essential.

On Saturday afternoon the 17th, from 2 p.m. at the Performance Studio. 4 MBS Classic-FM, 384 Old Cleveland Road, Coorparoo, will be our Gala to End All Galas, with authors from our Spring Season list, as well as other IP authors, performing their work and autographing your selections. More nibblies, premium wine. Bookings essential. Here's your chance to hear the best of our best and be part of an historic podcast!

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IP Picks '08

Will there be an IP Picks 2008 competition? Yes, of course!

We'll soon be updating the Picks Page to include this year's winners and a new entry and conditions form. For those of you who can't wait, everything will be as it was last year: same categories, same opening date (1 October), same closing date (1 December), even the same entry fee ($60). In effect this works out to a reduction in the fee—if you select one of our new releases as your free copy, since our cover prices have had to keep up with the cost of production.

While there's no special category for children's fiction, we do accept fiction for Young Adults. And we're still open to quality science fiction and fantasy entries.

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OzCo Grant for IP

For the sixth straight year, the Australia Council has awarded IP a Presentations and Promotions Grant, amidst stiff competition.

The grant of $5,000 will help with production costs of two of our poetry titles: What Can Be Proven by Mark O'Flynn and With One Brush by Jan Dean. They were winners in the IP Picks Best Poetry and Best First Book awards this year. Both titles are scheduled for release in November.

It's interesting to note that all seven titles we put to OzCo were commended in the grant letter as being worthy of support, but the funding offered was only enough to enable these two titles to wear the coveted kangaroo logo.

Here's hoping that OzCo will have more money next year to fully support those titles it singles out for commendation.