Monday musings

Monday musings on Australian literature: Prime Minister’s Summer Reading List, 2023

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December is when I start my round of regular end-of-year posts, and a new one I’m adding to the fold is the The Grattan Institute’s annual Prime Minister’s Summer Reading List. The institute is an Australian non-aligned, public policy think tank, which produces readable, reasoned reports on significant issues, like, most recently, the role of hyrdrogen in Australia’s green energy goals and an analysis of the keenly awaited review of the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme).

My focus here, though, is another activity of theirs, their Prime Minister’s Summer Reading List, which they have published annually since 2009. This list, as they wrote on the inaugural 2009 list, comprises “books and articles that the Prime Minister, or any Australian interested in public debate, will find both stimulating and cracking good reads”.

As I wrote in last year’s post, the Institute’s then chief executive, Danielle Wood, said they aimed

to pick books that have something interesting, original, or thought-provoking to say on issues that are relevant to the Australian policy landscape. The books don’t have to be by local writers or about Australia … but they do have to address issues that have relevance in an Australian policy context.

I managed to read, after the event, two of last year’s list, Debra Dank’s We come with this place (my review) and Jessica Au’s Cold enough for snow (my review). Dank’s is an obvious choice, but I love they they also chose something quietly, and perhaps even enigmatically, reflective about life and change in Au’s book.

Here is the 2023 list in their order, with a small excerpt from their reasoning:

  • Anna Funder, Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s invisible life (on my reading group’s 2024 schedule, Brona’s review): “People don’t become invisible by accident … a powerful case study of the hidden lives of wives whose contributions are downplayed or entirely disregarded”
  • Ellen van Neerven, Personal score: “highlights the disproportionate impact of a changing climate on Indigenous people, the importance to Aboriginal health of story and being heard, and the complexity of gender and belonging, on and off the field. A new and transformative piece of sports writing … an essential read for anyone wanting to better understand sport, community, and power on sovereign land”.
  • Mark Considine, The careless state: Reforming Australia’s social services: “Australia’s social services are doing a bad job of looking after people … impressively summarises the problems, explains how we got here, and shows that what may seem like separate problems have many shared roots”. 
  • Micheline Lee, Lifeboat: Disability, humanity, and the NDIS (Quarterly Essay 91, September 23): “describes how the NDIS’s disempowering, confusing, and bureaucratic processes have worn out the trust of people with disability and their families … [yet] there is a warming tone of optimism running through Lee’s analysis”.
  • Jennifer Pahlka, Recoding America: Why government is failing in the digital age and how we can do better: “Technology is the front door to many government services … But too often, the design of online services is an afterthought, and users are left to grapple with lengthy, confusing, and duplicative processes … [and] bad design can entrench inequalities … “a compelling call to arms for better design and delivery of government services”.
  • Henry Dimbleby and Jemima Lewis, Ravenous: How to get ourselves and our planet into shape: “explores the complex machinations of modern food systems … details how our food choices are influenced by the industries that make our food, and the environment that surrounds us … shows how our decisions about what foods to put in our shopping baskets are subtly but constantly influenced by a vast food system. The consequences are rarely good for us, our health, or our planet”.

So, one biography, one part memoir-history-poetry, an essay, and three specific-issue-focused non-fiction works, with four by Australians, one by an American, and one from the UK. It’s good to see a First Nations author here again, and to see important issues – like disability, the challenges of the digital age, and modern food systems – front and centre in the Institute’s thinking.

I would, of course, love to see a greater recognition of the value of fiction to addressing “issues that have relevance in the Australian policy context”. Fiction has been included in the past, but not often. I wrote a little about some of their choices last year. We don’t know whether the relevant prime minister reads the suggestions, but some thoughtful or provocative fiction might be better summer reading for our poor top politician needing some break?

I could suggest Chris Flynn’s short story collection, Here be Leviathans (my review), and Carmel Bird’s Love letter to Lola (my review), to fill that bill. Short stories are perfect for busy people, and these two collections are entertaining but also offer some real meat in terms of thinking about various issues confronting humanity, including the environment and environmental destruction. Also Tony Burke made a good point about Paddy O’Reilly’s Other houses (Lisa’s review) which was shortlisted for this year’s Prime Minister’s literary awards and which is about a group of people we rarely read about, cleaners. Surely a book about the working life, that is, the battlers, the people whom journalists and politicians this year have constantly pointed out are “doing it tough”. Fiction about such lives would be perfect for our PM.

You can see all the lists, by year, to date at these links: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

If you had the opportunity to make one book recommendation to the leader of your country, what would it be?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Henry Mayer Book Prize

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This last week I have become aware, via two different paths, of the Henry Mayer Book Prize. I feel I’ve seen it referenced before, but it hasn’t fully registered. I certainly haven’t written about it before, so, now’s the time.

I’ll start by introducing the person for whom the prize is named, Henry Mayer (1919-1991). He has a well-detailed entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, but in a nutshell, he was – surprise, surprise – a professor of politics. German-born, he moved with his father to Nice, France, in 1934 after Hitler had become Chancellor in 1933. From there he went to Switzerland, and thence England, where, after the war started, he was identified as an “enemy alien”. He was among the group of over 2,500 enemy aliens transported on the infamous Dunera from Liverpool to Australia, became an academic, and was a foundation member of the Australasian Political Studies Association (APSA). ADB characterises him as having “wide reading, love of argument, and disdain for sacred cows”.

Now, to the award. Offered by APSA, the Henry Mayer Book Prize is a biennial prize is for “the best book on Australian politics (including political history) published during the previous two years”. It is funded by income generated by the APSA endowment established, in 2009, by the Henry Mayer Trust. The prize is $1000.

To add a little more detail to the criteria, the current website for the prize (linked above) says that book can be “published by a university or commercial publisher (in Australia or overseas)” and that preference is “given to a monograph that focuses on one or more of Mayer’s special interests: the media, political parties or Indigenous affairs”.

The prize, says the same website, judges by a panel which is chaired by a member of the APSA Executive, and will “consist of at least three judges (including the chair), of which at least one will be a woman”. (Interestingly, there’s no similar qualification that “at least one will be a man”. That rather presumes that male judges are a given?)

The reason this prize came to my attention this week was because:

  • On Tuesday, I attended the second Rod Wallace Memorial Lecture, held by the Friends of the National Film and Sound Archive. Our lecturer was Jenny Hocking, whose book, The Palace letters: The Queen, the Governor-General and the plot to dismiss Whitlam, was highly commended for the 2021 award.
  • On Friday, I attended the announcement of the 2023 ACT Book of the Year Award (my post), and the winning book, Frank Bongiorno’s Dreamers and schemers: A political history of Australia, also won the 2023 Henry Mayer Book Prize.

I love it when serendipity strikes like this.

Henry Mayer Book Prize winners to date

  • 2023: Frank Bongiorno, Dreamers and schemers: A political history of Australia, Black Inc, 2022.
  • 2021: Sally Young, Paper emperors: The rise of Australia’s newspaper empires, UNSW Press, 2019.
  • 2019: Paul Strangio, Paul ‘T Hart & James Walter, The pivot of power: Australian Prime Ministers and political leadership, 1949–2016, Melbourne University Press, 2017.
  • 2017: Sarah Ferguson and Patricia Drum, The killing season uncut, Melbourne University Press, 2016.
  • 2015: Stephen Mills, The professionals: Strategy, money and the rise of the political campaigner in Australia, Black Inc, 2014.
  • 2013: Paul Strangio, Neither power nor glory: 100 years of political Labor in Victoria, 1856 – 1956, Melbourne University Press, 2012.
  • 2011: James Walter, What were they thinking? The politics of ideas in Australia, UNSW Press, 2010.
  • 2009: Sarah Maddison, Black politics: Inside the complexity of Aboriginal political culture, Allen & Unwin, 2008 AND David McKnight, Beyond Right and Left: New politics and the Culture Wars, Allen & Unwin, 2007.

Since 2016, the prize has been alternated with the Crisp Prize, which is offered for a similar topic but with a different qualification -“the best scholarly book on political science by an early or mid-career researcher“, which they define as someone who has graduated with a PhD within the previous 10 years.

How many more specialist book awards are there out there?

Monday musings on Australian literature: on 1923: 7, Humour

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With 1923 nearly over, I’m running out of time to share more of the thoughts and ideas I found regarding Australian literature in 1923 from Trove. This post, I thought to share some of the ideas expressed about humour in Australian literature.

Humour wasn’t always specifically mentioned in 1923 as being a feature of Australian literature, but was mentioned enough to suggest that some, at least, appreciated its use.

The most frequent mention I found concerned, Steele Rudd, famous for the Dad and Dave stories. He is praised for using humour to make interesting and enjoyable the truths he has to tell about Australian lives. The Queensland Times (2 May) introduced Rudd’s new book, On Emu Creek, and describes it as giving “full play to his whimsical humour, his knowledge of the rural dwellers, and his sympathy with their struggles”. Melbourne’s The Age (5 May) is more measured, but seems also to like the humour, describing it as “an agreeable story, without any affectation of style, and containing points of humor”.

Others, though, are a little less enamoured, with various reviewers qualifying their approval. One of these is J.Penn, writing in Adelaide’s The Register (19 May). There is some satire, he says,

But the main idea of nearly every chapter is someone being knocked over. It is difficult to think of any other humourist who would not seek to find humorous terms in which to describe intendedly humorous incidents. But Steele Rudd is firmly convinced that his readers will find sufficient fun in the mere fact of some one being humiliated or hurt, without the author’s having to worry to hunt for words.

Presumed Public Domain, from the NLA

Ouch … This is not to say that J.Penn doesn’t like humour. He clearly likes satire. And, he critiques another 1923 literary endeavour for lacking “gaiety”. It was a literary magazine titled Vision: A Literary Quarterly, that was edited by Frank C Johnson (comic book and pulp magazine publisher), Jack Lindsay (writer and son of Norman Lindsay), and Kenneth Slessor (poet). The quarterly, which only lasted 4 issues, aimed, says AustLit, “to usher in an Australian renaissance to bolster the literary and artistic traditions rejected by European modernists”, but they also wanted to “invigorate an Australian culture they claimed was stifled by the regressive provincialism of publications such as the Bulletin“. 

Anti-modernist in ethos, Vision, continues AustLit, was influenced by “Norman Lindsay’s principles of beauty, passion, youth, vitality, sexuality and courage” and “consistently provided readers with potentially offensive content”. Penn was thoughtful about the first issue:

It is a welcome guest, as giving outlet for a lot of good work which might not find a fair chance elsewhere. But it has three faults, one of outlook, two of detail. Contemplation of sex matters is not the only way to brighten life; yet they constitute quite four-fifths of this opening number.

Not only that, but, he says, ‘while it would seem difficult to be heavy, even “stodgy,” on matters of sex, that feat has been accomplished here’. Indeed, it has “no spark of gaiety”, which is exactly what Norman Lindsay, in the same issue, accuses James Joyce of. (Excuse the prepositional ending!) However, not all of Vision is like this:

The poetry in this volume, by Kenneth Slessor and others, has much of the desired element of gaiety; and a page of brief quotations from modern writers in other countries, with satirical footnotes, is delightful. There remain the pictures. These are as bright and gay as could be wished—a riot of triumphant nudity, in which Norman Lindsay in particular finds full opportunity.

Overall, he feels that “with some judicious editing, this endeavour to brighten Australia should have at any rate an artistic success”. (Also, he does like Jack Lindsay’s “valuable essay … on Australian poetry and nationalism, with a theory that we must get away from shearers and horses”.) 

A very different magazine is one praised for its cheerfulness, Aussie. It ran from 1918 to 1931, and had various subtitles, The Cheerful Monthly, The National Monthly, and The Australian Soldiers’ Magazine. I had not heard of it before, but AustLit once again came to my rescue. Created for soldiers in Europe, most of its early contents came from them, and comprised, says AustLit, “jokes, anecdotes, poems and drawings” which reflected “the character (most likely censored) of the Australian soldier in World War One”. In 1920, it was revived as a civilian magazine, but “the humour … was maintained”. Now, though, its contributors were established writers and artists, like AG Stephens, Myra Morris, and Roderic Quinn. I found a review of a 1923 issue in The Armidale Chronicle (19 September). It is unfailingly positive, telling its readers that “every page of Aussie breathes cheerfulness, and there is not a joke, a picture, or a story that fails to portray some phase of Australasian humor”. I wish it described what it meant by “Australasian humor” but the word it uses most is “cheerfulness”. This perhaps makes sense, given AustLit’s assessment that “it maintained its position between political extremes, addressing the views of a predominantly middle-class audience”. 

Humour is also mentioned reviews of books for children, such as The sunshine family, by Ethel Turner and her daughter Jean Curlewis. It is described in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (14 December) as having “rare good humour”, but is that unusual for a book for children?

The descriptions of the 100 books chosen by AG Stevens for Canada, that I wrote about earlier this year, include several references to humour – in fiction, such as EG Dyson’s 1906 Factory ‘ands, with its “brilliant satirical humour”; in children’s books, like C Lloyd’s 1921 The house of just fancy, whose pictures “have quaint loving humour”; and in much of the poetry, including JP Bourke’s 1915 Off the bluebush, which contains “verses of sardonic humour”.

Humour is such a tricky thing – from the sort of situational humour in Rudd’s On Emu Creek, through the apparent “cheerfulness” of Aussie, to the more satirical humour liked by J.Penn – but unfortunately, most of the references I found don’t analyse it in much detail. I will keep an eye out as we go through the years.

Meanwhile, do you like humour in your reading? And if so, what do you like most?

Other posts in the series: 1. Bookstall Co (update); 2. Platypus Series; 3 & 4. Austra-Zealand’s best books and Canada (1) and (2); 5. Novels and their subjects; 6. A postal controversy

Monday musings on Australian literature: Your 7-year-old self

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Emma Ayres, Cadence

Ok, I admit it. This post’s link to Australian literature is tenuous, but there is a link, even though it’s not the subject of this post. The link is that the person who inspired this post, Ed Le Brocq, previously known as Emma Ayres, has written several books – memoirs, mostly – of which I’ve read and posted on one, Cadence. Since then, as Eddie/Ed Ayres and Ed Le Brocq (married name), he has published Danger music, Whole notes and Sound bites. None of these, however, have much to do with this post, though they all interest me.

Ed Le Brocq became known to many of us – starting back when he was Emma – as a radio announcer on our ABC Classic FM. She was hugely popular. Since then, she left radio, travelled some more, transitioned to Ed, and in 2019 returned to ABC Classic FM, doing the Weekend Breakfast show. I often listen in. This last weekend, he told a little story and asked us a question – and I thought, for a change of pace, that I would ask it of you too.

The story goes this way – but needs a little explanation first. As well as radio announcing, Ed Le Brocq performs music, and teaches it – the viola and cello. The story concerns a lesson he was conducting recently from his garage because his usual venue in a school wasn’t available. A mother walked by with her 7-year-old son and apparently the son was attracted to the music. He came into the garage, and asked, “What’s that you’re playing?” and, on being given the answer, said, “I want to play that too”. He will start lessons next year – on one of those two stringed instruments.

Ed was fascinated by the child’s recognition of something that he really wanted to do, and asked the radio audience whether they knew around that age what they wanted to do – and whether they’d done it. So:

Did you realise when you were around 7 years old (give or take a couple of years) what your interest or passion was, and is that what you ended up doing in some way or another?

It seems I did. When I was around 5, my father was President of the local Apex group (a service organisation roughly like Lions and Rotary). I was fascinated by his papers, and am reported as saying, “When you die, can I have your Apex stuff?” Jump a few years to when I was around 11, and I remember myself creating a little neighbourhood library, complete with Date Due notations in the back of my books. Around the age of 14, I encouraged my sister to help me write an encyclopaedia, starting with one article per letter (though we didn’t get far because adolescence hit!)

Is it any wonder that I ended up being a librarian-archivist – and that it was a career I loved?

Now, over to you …

Monday musings on Australian literature: Uninnocent Landscapes opened and launched

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Those of you who know me on other social media will already have seen some of this, but I am keen to spread the message wherever I can about my brother’s wonderful, and significant, project. I introduced it back in September – and later in Nonfiction November I will review the book. That, however, will be after the exhibition has closed, and I want to encourage anyone who is in Tasmania to see it.

Uninnocent Landscapes – the exhibition and book – is the culmination of an idea Ian started thinking about a decade ago, but that he actively worked on over the last two to three years. It involved his following the journey taken by George Augustus Robinson on his 1831/32 Big River Mission, which was a poorly conceived attempt to conciliate between settler and Aboriginal Tasmanians. Needless to say it was a disaster, that effectively ended First People’s resistance in lutruwita/Tasmania (at the time anyhow!) For Ian, who has come to call lutruwita home, there is discomfort in reconciling his privileged life as a middle-class white man with the devastating impact of colonialism on Tasmania’s First Peoples. This is his truthtelling project, and he found a unique way to do it by combining the three big passions of his life (besides family) – history, photography and the bush.

I will write more about this when I review the book because what Ian has done feels original and exciting. Essentially, though, the book and the exhibition comprise photographs accompanied by excerpts from Robinson’s journal, resulting in an experience that is enlightening, engrossing, and sobering. The exhibition contains a selection of 11 from the book’s over 50 photographs.

The venue, Sidespace Gallery, is in a heritage building that dates back to the mid-1800s. This means two things – there are some restrictions on how items can be affixed, and the walls and floors are not what you would call square. However, Ian and his “crack instal team” did the research and, by the time I got there, were ready to go. The photographs – large-scale archival prints – were “hung” through a clever system of special Japanese tape (that doesn’t mark walls), double-sided tape, and magnets. I enjoyed being a little part of it all on the first day of installation, and loved meeting Ian’s delightful, hardworking team, Erica and Nikki, who made me feel so very welcome.

The opening (and book launch) went very well, with 50 or 60 in attendance. The MC was writer and researcher Steph Cahalan, and the exhibition was formally opened by Tony Brown, a First Nations man and museum colleague of my now-retired brother. Ian of course then spoke to his project, explaining, among other things, that he had discussed his project with many in the local Aboriginal community, and had made clear that he was not trying to tell their story, but his own. His good relationships with the community suggest that they accept this.

It was a warm-hearted event attended by historians, artists, museum professionals, bushies, activists, not to mention family and friends. I met and talked with so many interesting, thoughtful people who support Ian’s project and believe in what he is doing. I can’t name them all, but before it all started I had a great chat with the two women who designed and published the book. Our conversation ranged from technical issues like fonts to more personal ones like downsizing and philanthropy. It was truly a privilege to be there.

Ian calls Uninnocent Landscapes a photographic conversation. By this he means, I think – though I didn’t ask him while we were together – that he is using photography to reflect on (to interrogate, in fact) his relationship with the Tasmanian landscape he loves so much but which has been indelibly affected by over two centuries of colonialism. The idea of conversation, however, also encompasses something ongoing and inclusive, something inviting us all to join in as we engage with his photos and, for those of us living in colonised places, as we engage with “our” places. I will discuss this more, and talk about the title, in my review!

Uninnocent landscapes, the book, is published and distributed by OUTSIDE THE BOX / Earth Arts Rights under their imprint An Artist’s Own Book. It costs $65, and all proceeds are going to the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania’s Giving Land Back fund. You can order it here.

Ian Terry
Uninnocent Landscapes
Sidespace Galley, Salamanca Arts Centre
3 – 13 November, 2023
Admission is free

 

Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian Political Book of the Year

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It’s fascinating just how many book awards there are in specialised areas. Last week I posted on the Dame Mary Gilmore Award, which started as a trade union supported award, but is now a more general poetry award. Yesterday I posted about the winners of the 20/40 short form prose award. Another specialised award is the Australian Political Book of the Year Award.

This is a new award that was first made in 2022. It is not a huge award in prize money, but it’s not minuscule either. The winning author (or authors) receives $15,000 and each shortlisted author receives $1,000. It’s great to see, in fact, more and more awards offering a monetary prize to the shortlisted books.

The award’s website says that the award

recognises the vital part political books play in better understanding Australian politics and public policy. Well researched, balanced and compelling political books that engage Australians are vital to the strength or our democracy.

Further, it says, the longlisted, shortlisted and winning books will be those the judges determine to have

provided the most compelling contribution to the understanding of Australian political events and debates.

The award is sponsored by a Melbourne independent bookshop, Hill of Content Bookshop, and the York Park Group.

Last year’s lists (that is winner, short and long for 2022) are available on the site. The shortlist for 2023 is on the site too, but I’ll also share them here:

  • James Curran, Australia’s China odyssey: From euphoria to fear (NewSouth Publishing): looks at the relationship between China and Australia through Australia’s prime minister from Gough Whitlam in 1972.
  • Russell Marks, Black lives, white law: Locked up and locked out in Australia (La Trobe University Press): interrogates the fact that First Nations Australians are the most incarcerated people on the planet. This book has also just been shortlisted for the Australian History section of the 2023 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
  • Nick Mackenzie, Crossing the line (Hachette Australia): exposes the story behind the fall of SAS hero Ben Roberts-Smith.
  • Nikki Sava, Bulldozed: Scott Morrison’s fall and Anthony Albanese’s rise (Scribe Publications): self-explanatory, I’d say!

You can see the 2023 longlist on the same page. It includes books by the historian Frank Bongiorno, First Nations author Stan Grant, and author, ex-political advisor and speechwriter, Don Watson. This year’s judges are well-known political journalists Laura Tingle and Barrie Cassidy, and the academic John Warhurst.

Australia’s current treasurer, Jim Chalmers, announced the 2022 winner at a National Press Club event, the winner being Dean Ashenden’s Telling Tennant’s Story: the strange career of the great Australian silence. It’s about Tennant Creek’s, and by extension, Australia’s silence about the past, about the truth of what happened between settler and First Nations Australians.

Anyhow, back to Chalmers … he spoke, of course, about the prize, the judges and the books. I particularly liked this point he made about political books:

A good book is never just a collection of speeches or an extra-long feature piece – it’s a true study of an issue or idea, full of complications and confirmation, and with the pleasure of illustration, story-telling, portraiture.

He says more, but I’ll just share one more excerpt from his speech, in which he talked about “narratives that don’t just help us recognise patterns but also help us question our assumptions about the patterns we think we see”. That’s the important thing, isn’t it – to keep questioning the assumptions we make, because it is too easy to get locked into them, even when the world and/or our own lives and experiences change.

POSTSCRIPT: Nancy Elin noted in the comments that she has read all the shortlist, and has predicted the winner. Rather than link to each post, I’m giving you this link to her blog as she is an assiduous reader of Aussie books.

Had you heard of the Australian Political Book of the Year Award, and, regardless, does such an award interest you?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Dame Mary Gilmore Award

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In last week’s 1962-themed Monday Musings post, I mentioned that I would post separately on the Dame Mary Gilmore Award. This was because it has an interesting history.

Mary Gilmore, 1927 (Public Domain, State Library of QLD, via Wikipedia)

First though, a bit on Mary Gilmore, for those who don’t know here. She was an Australian writer and journalist, best known as a poet. One day, I will write separately on her, but for now, I will just say that she was highly political, and was part of the utopian socialist New Australia colony set up by William Lane in Paraguay. I wrote about this in another Monday Musings back in 2015.

Gilmore lived a long life, dying in 1962 (in fact!), at the age of 97. She was involved in socialist and trade union movements, and wrote for Tribune, the Communist Party of Australia’s newspaper, though she was apparently never a party member. Her political interests are relevant to the award.

The Award has been known by different names since its creation in 1956 by the ACTU, the Australian Council of Trade Unions. According to AustLit, it was called the ACTU Dame Mary Gilmore Award, and its goal was, ‘to encourage literature “significant to the life and aspirations of the Australian People”‘. Over the years, says Wikipedia, it has been “awarded for a range of categories, including novels, poetry, a three-act (full-length) play, and a short story”. Reading between the lines, I assume this means it was more about content than form.

Since 1985, it has been confined to poetry – to a first book of poetry, in fact – and since around 2019 has been managed by ASAL, the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Its specific history, I must say, is not particularly clear, but at some time its name was simplified to the Mary Gilmore Award. It was awarded annually until 1998, was then biennial until 2016, but now seems to be annual again. It’s a good example of the challenge to survive that many awards face. The Wikipedia article linked above lists the winners from 1985 to the present.

Pre-1985

It’s the early years of the award that I’m most interested in, mainly because they are less well documented. I’ve tried various search permutations in Trove and have found scattered bits of information, some of which I’ll share here. My first comment is, Wot’s in a name?

I have not found a formal announcement of the award, unless this advertisement in the Tribune of 21 March 1956, the year the award was apparently established, is it. It calls the award the Mary Gilmore Prize, and says submissions should be made to the Victorian May Day Committee. The May Day Committee isn’t the ACTU, but they are closely related, and both support workers’ rights. Indeed, the Victorian May Day Committee page notes that “The labour movement and the trade union movement should continue to build this day as it is the working people’s day”.

Anyhow, the ad invites submissions to the “May Day competitions” and then says that “the best three stories and the best three verses will be eligible for consideration for the Mary Gilmore Prize of £50”. It sounds like May Day literary competitions were already established – the prizes were small, just £5 and £3  – but now a bigger prize was to be offered in the name of Mary Gilmore. And, this year at least, short stories and poetry were the chosen forms. The ad also says that:

The short story and verse most favored by the judges will be those best expressing the aspirations and democratic traditions of the Australian people.

Then, on 12 December 1956, the Tribune announced that “two Mary Gilmore Literary Competitions have been announced by the May Day Committees of Melbourne; Sydney, Brisbane and Newcastle”. For May Day 1957, the “Mary Gilmore Literary Competition” would award prizes for the “first and second short stories and poems, in each of two classes”, meaning four prizes in each class. Class A was for “established” (or )published writers, and B for “new” writers. For May Day 1958, they offered the “Mary Gilmore Novel Competition”, with “a substantial prize, to be announced later” for the “best novel submitted”. The overall announcement added that:

The judges will prefer stories and poems which deal with the life and aspirations of the Australian people.

You can see how tricky the history of awards can be. I have to assume this is the “ACTU Dame Mary Gilmore Award”.

The next mention I found – and I could have missed some – was from the Tribune of 6 January 1960, which, announcing some new publications from the Australasian Book Society, included

Available now, The last blue sea – David Forrest (Winner, Dame Mary Gilmore Award). 

Interestingly, it’s a World War II set story.

Then, again in the Tribune, but this one, almost two years later on 13 December 1961, there is a report on a reception for Ron Tullipan who had won “the 1961 Dame Mary Gilmore Award for his novel, Rear vision“. It’s quite an extensive report which includes references to Jack Beasley, who was “one of the judges of the competition, which is sponsored each year in association with May Day celebrations”. He was concerned about the suggested takeover of the publisher, Angus and Robertson, by Consolidated Press. Read the article if you are interested. The report also noted that:

The Dame Mary Gilmore Award was probably unique in the capitalist world, and a real contribution to Australian literature.

On 22 August 1962, the Tribune announced the presentation of the Dame Mary Gilmore Awards for “poetry, novels and stories”. The winners were Jack Penberthy’s story, “The Bridge”, and Dennis Kevans’ poem, “For Rebecca”. Mysteriously, no novel is named. This report also helpfully names past winners of the award, but without more detail – Joan Hendry, Vera Deacon, Ron Tullipan, Dorothy Hewett, Hugh Mason, and David Forrest. Dorothy Hewett is probably the only one of these still known today.

This article also shared that the Award’s National Chairman, George Seelaf, believed that “in a few years they would be the major literary competitions in our country” but “still more financial support from more unions” was “urgently required”:

“Trade Unionism has always been strongest and literature has always been strongest when writers and unions were closest together. We will encourage writers who tell of the life and aspirations of the  Australian people”.

Don’t you love this conviction about the value of literature?

Also in 1962, another Tribune article (5 September), quotes the Dame herself. She didn’t attend the presentation, but the paper reports

that she was particularly glad to learn of the high standard and the large number of entries. “The more writers, the better expressed will be the thoughts and wishes of Australians,” she says. 

The Canberra Times – for a change – reported on 29 September 1962 that Ron Tullipan had won the “Mary Gilmore Award” with his “hard novel”, March into morning (which I described in my last Monday Musings). Is this the novel not mentioned in Tribune’s August report?

I found more award-winners from the 1960s, and they are interesting in terms of form. In 1963, for example, Hesba Brinsmead’s manuscript of the children’s (young adult) book, Pastures of the blue crane, won. That year, the “Mary Gilmore Award” was for a children’s book, with a second award for a book by a teenager. (Tribune 16 January 1963). In 1967, Pat Flower won the “Dame Mary Gilmore Award” for her hour-long television drama, Tilley landed on our shores. By then, the award was worth $500.

More work needs to be done on this, but it looks like the Dame Mary Gilmore Award Committee would decide each year what the award was for, rather than make it always open to multiple forms. The 1964 award, for example, seems to have been for a novel, while the 1966 one was for poetry. Whatever, the point is that all through this era of the award, the trade unions were behind it, until – well, I haven’t discovered yet how that aspect of it ended. But, what an interesting award.

Thoughts?

Monday musings on Australian literature: 1962 in fiction

/ Whispering Gums / 49 Comments

Once again it’s Karen’s (Kaggsy’s Bookish Rambling) and Simon’s (Stuck in a Book) “Year Club” week. This time the year is 1962, and it runs from today, 16th to 22nd October. As has become my practice, I am devoting my Monday Musings to the week.

The 1960s was an exciting decade for those of us who lived it. Change was in the air, and we truly thought we were making a fairer society. (Little did we know.) Wikipedia describes it thus:

Known as the “countercultural decade” in the United States and other Western countries, the Sixties is noted for its counterculture. There was a revolution in social norms, including clothing, music (such as the Altamont Free Concert), drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, civil rights, precepts of military duty, and schooling.

I was in primary school in 1962, and my life was simple and stable. It wasn’t until the mid to late 60s that I became caught up in the excitement in the air. This is not only because I was a bit older, I think, but because the momentum was still building in the early part of the decade. However, there were hints of change in my 1962 research. But, let’s start with the books …

I found books published across all forms, but given my focus is fiction and I want to keep things a bit tight here, I’m just sharing a selection of 1962-published novels:

  • James Aldridge, A captive in the land
  • Thea Astley, The well dressed explorer (Lisa’s review)
  • Elizabeth Backhouse, Death of a clown
  • Martin Boyd, When blackbirds sing (Lisa’s review)
  • Patricia Carlon, Danger in the dark
  • Gavin Casey, Amid the plenty
  • Nancy Cato, But still the stream
  • Jon Cleary, The country of marriage
  • Robert S. Close, She’s my lovely
  • Frank Clune and P.R. Stephenson, The pirates of the brig Cyprus
  • Kenneth Cook, Chain of darkness
  • Dymphna Cusack, Picnic races
  • David Forrest (pseud. for David Denholm), The hollow woodheap
  • Catherine Gaskin, I know my love (Brona’s review)
  • Stuart Gore, Down the golden mile
  • Helen Heney, The leaping blaze
  • George Johnston, The far road
  • Elizabeth Kata, Someone will conquer them
  • Eric Lambert, Ballarat
  • Joan Lindsay, Time without clocks (Brona’s review)
  • David Martin, The young wife
  • John Naish, The cruel field
  • John O’Grady, Gone fishin’
  • Nancy Phelan, The river and the brook
  • Criena Rohan (pseud. for Deirdre Cash), The delinquent
  • Donald Stuart, Yaralie
  • Geoff Taylor, Dreamboat
  • Ron Tullipan, March into morning
  • George Turner, The cupboard under the stairs (Lisa’s review)
  • Arthur Upfield, The will of the tribe

Children’s literature was going strongly at the time, with books published by authors still remembered as writers of our children’s classics, such as Nan Chauncy, Ruth Park, Ivan Southall, P.L. Travers, and Patricia Wrightson.

There were very few literary awards at the time. The ALS Gold Medal went to Vincent Buckley’s Masters in Israel, and for the first time since I started taking part in the Year Club, the Miles Franklin Award was in existence. It was shared by the Thea Astley and George Turner novels listed above. There was also, though Wikipedia doesn’t list it, the ACTU Dame Mary Gilmore Award, but I plan a special post on it, so watch this space.

Writers born this year are mostly still around though I haven’t reviewed many: Matthew Condon, Alison Croggon (my post on her memoir), Luke Davies, and Craig Sherborne. Deaths included the novelist Jean Devanny and poet Mary Gilmore. The librarian Nita Kibble (for whom the Nita B Kibble Awards – now seemingly in abeyance – were named) died this year, as did the critic HM Green.

The state of the art

Of course, I checked Trove to see what newspapers were saying about Australian literature, and fiction in particular, and will just share two threads I found.

First Nations Australians

With the devastating loss of The Voice referendum here last weekend, I would like to start with some First Nations (or Aboriginal) Australians that came up in my Trove travels, which mainly involved references to writers including Aboriginal characters in their books. One was Helen Heney (1907-1990) whose father was the first Australian-born editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. Heney wrote several novels – plus social commentary, translation and a biography – but the one published in 1962 was The leaping blaze. It is set in a station in western New South Wales, which is now in the hands of the latest generation, the “spinster” Evangeline Wade. The Canberra Times’ reviewer (January 5, 1963) explains that Evangeline has been frustrated through her life, and now wants power over others. Part of her plan is to create an “aboriginal station on her property as. an experiment”, but this plan, says our reviewer, is “motivated more by a desire to gain further power than it is to further native welfare”. Unfortunately, our reviewer continues, the novel lacks a clear focus, which 

is a pity because Miss Heney is essentially a writer of ideas. She is not just telling a story. / She is obviously out to give her views on a number of sociological problems but the canvas is too large for anything more than a casual sketching of them.

The other novel I want to share is Yaralie by Donald Stuart (1913- 1982) which tells “the story of the daughter of a white father and a half-caste mother, and the people among whom they live”. The Nepean Times’ reviewer (October 11) writes:

Told with a good deal of warmth, the story is set in a native settlement in north-west Australia during the depression and deals with the ever-present problem concerning the treatment of the aborigines in a white Australia.

Donald Stuart is new to me, but seems worth following up. His work is sure to be dated now we have First Nations people telling their own stories, but he’s part of a tradition. Wikipedia says

Stuart attempts to view the world from the Aboriginal point of view, making him one of the few Australian writers, along with anthropologists such as T.G.H. Strehlow, Charles Pearcy Mountford, Ronald Berndt and Catherine Berndt, to even attempt to come close to a personal knowledge of Aboriginal people.

Realist literature and The Australasian Book Society

The main thread I found through Trove, however, concerned communist writers and realist literature. This emphasis might be partly due to the fact that Trove’s content in this period is somewhat skewed as the Australian Communist Party’s newspaper, Tribune, has been digitised, because, like The Canberra Times, they have given permission despite still being under copyright. 

However, before I searched Trove, I had already noticed the significant number of authors in the list who were Communists – often members of the Communist  Party of Australia (CPA) – or Communist-sympathisers, so the slant may be real to some degree! Anyhow, what these writers tended to write were realist (or social realist) novels, the preferred genre for Communist writers. 

It was clear from several articles that these social realist writers felt under-appreciated at home. The Tribune regularly reported on the success of Australian social realist writers overseas. On January 17, the Tribune wrote that CPA-member Dorothy Hewett’s realist 1959 novel, Bobbin Up, about women in a spinning factory, was “becoming a novel of world repute” with translations being published, or to be published, in the German Democratic Republic, Rumania, Hungary and, very likely, the Netherlands. 

And on February 7, under the heading “Success despite critics”, the Tribune advised that another book by an Australian Communist author was garnering interest overseas ‘despite class-prejudiced criticisms by Australian daily press “experts”.’ Progressive authors like Katharine Prichard, Frank Hardy, Dorothy Hewett, and Mona Brand were being published overseas, it said, and now they’d heard Judah Waten’s Shares in murder, “a murder story that is different because of its social exposure content” was to be serialised in New Berlin Illustrated, and published in book form in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and, they expected, the Soviet Union.  

It is this very Judah Waten who, in another article, is scathing about Australia’s literary darlings of the time. On March 28, again in the Tribune, he wrote:

In Australia today the writers who are acclaimed in the daily press, win awards and prizes are those distinguished for the obscurity of their prose, their irrational characters, their dream symbolism, parallels to ancient myths, feudal attitudes and pornography.

Who are these writers? Patrick White? Hal Porter? Thea Astley too perhaps?

I also noticed that many of the books praised in the Tribune were published by the Australasian Book Society, so I went hunting, and found a seminar was held about it in 2021.  The seminar promo described the Society as

a mid-twentieth-century, book-club style, cooperative publisher with a subscription model that promised four books a year to members and distribution through unions, industry associations, education organisations and the communities of the organised left in Australia, including the communist party. It sought to find readers who did not read literature and to develop writers who did not yet write it.

Fascinating. In 1962, this Society celebrated its 10th anniversary … but, like the Dame Mary Gilmore Prize, I think it deserves its own post.

Meanwhile, just to show that not all my research ended up at the Tribune, I’ll close with a review from The Canberra Times of Ron Tullipan’s novel March into morning, which was published by the Australasian Book Society in 1962, and won the Dame Mary Gilmore prize. It tells the story of a man “who started life as a ward of the State and was hired out to a slave-driving cocky, whose only interest in him was how to exploit him”. Writing on September 29, reviewer G.C.P. says it

may sound like one of those hopeless novels whose authors are only concerned to spit into Authority’s eye and point out wickedness in high places. / Fortunately, it is not, and reads more like an honest piece of reporting.

G.C.P. assesses its strengths and weaknesses, and concludes that “it is not great literature, [but] it is a very readable book”. Judah Waten would probably see this as damning it with faint praise! 

Sources

  • 1962 in Australian Literature (Wikipedia
  • Joy Hooton and Harry Heseltine, Annals of Australian literature, 2nd ed. OUP, 1992 (with Bill’s help)

Previous Monday Musings for the “years”: 1929, 1936, 1954 and 1940.

Do you plan to take part in the 1962 Club – and if so how?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Shortlist for the inaugural 20/40 Prize

/ Whispering Gums / 19 Comments

Last November, I announced the creation of the new 20/40 Publishing Prize by the wonderful (and local-ish to me), independent, non-profit publisher, Finlay Lloyd. Now, eleven months later, the awarding of the inaugural prize is imminent, with the shortlist being announced last Friday and the winners to be announced on 28 October.

But, just to recap, 20/40 is a manuscript award, with the prize being publication. It is not limited to debut or young or women or any other subgroup of writers, as some manuscript awards are. However, it does have some criteria, in addition to looking for “writing of the highest quality”. The submissions can be fiction or non-fiction, must be prose (but “all genres … including hybrid forms” are welcome), and must be between 20,000 and 40,000 words (hence the award’s name, the 20/40 Prize). They aim to choose two winners, each year. In the communication I received last week about the shortlist, Finlay Lloyd publisher and commissioning editor, Julian Davies, says:

Our passion for creating this opportunity for writers and bringing their work to the reading public will continue next year and, we hope, for many more.

That’s great to hear … and we can do our bit to help by buying and reading the winning published novels.

And now, the Shortlist

You can read a brief description of the six works at the announcement link above, so here I will provide some brief author information that I have found online.

  • Roger Averill, Slippage: freelance researcher, editor and writer, with four books published by Transit Lounge – Exile: The lives and hope of Werner Pelz (Lisa’s review), the memoir Boy he cry: An island odyssey, and two novels, Keeping faith and Relatively famous (Lisa’s review).
  • Rebecca Burton, Ravenous girls: editor, and author of two young adult novels, Leaving Jetty Road and Beyond Evie, both published by HarperCollins Australia.
  • Rachel Flynn, New moon rising: author of children’s picture books and novels, including the I hate Friday series, published by Penguin.
  • Kim Kelly, Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room: author of 12 , mostly historical fiction, novels, most if not all published by Brio Books.
  • Jane Skelton, Breathing water: writer of poetry, short fiction and novels, published by Flying River Press, Rochford Press, Spineless Wonders and others.
  • Olivia De Zilva, Hold on tight: writer and poet.

Julian Davies explains on the shortlist page that the works were judged blind.

The judging panel for the inaugural prize comprised Katia Ariel (author and editor), Christina Balint (whose novella, Water music, I’ve reviewed), John Clanchy (novelist and short story writer whom I’ve reviewed a few times), Julian Davies (the publisher and also an author whom I’ve also reviewed a few times), and Stefanie Markidis (writer and researcher).

When I first announced this prize last November, I noted its relevance to Novellas in November. So, I am thrilled about the timing of this announcement, because you can pre-order the two winning novellas at the Finlay Lloyd site, for a special discounted price of $43.20 (instead of $24 each). A bargain. And, if you’ve never read a Finlay Lloyd book before, you won’t be disappointed I’m sure in the artefacts themselves, as publishing good writing in beautiful packaging is what they do. Pre-ordered books will be shipped on announcement day, October 28, giving you time to read one or both by the end of November! I plan to.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Spineless Wonders

/ Whispering Gums / 18 Comments

For a small, specialist, independent publisher, Spineless Wonders has appeared on my blog more times than you might expect, sometimes in passing, sometimes as the publisher of an author I’ve reviewed, and a few times in posts on publishing and publishers. All that, I’ve decided, has earned them their own post.

The first – and main – time I mentioned Spineless Wonders specifically was back in 2013 in a Monday Musings on Specialist Presses, in which they were one of five presses I chose to introduce. I said then that I thought they’d been established around 2011 – and I added an aside that I wished all organisations would include at least some history on their websites. Well, they have now confirmed on their About page that they were indeed founded in 2011 by Bronwyn Mehan.

Who is Bronwyn Mehan?

Like other keen Aussie litbloggers, I know the names of several publishing company CEOs (or directors or managers, or whatever they are called), particularly at the small presses, but Bronwyn Mehan is not one of them. So, I went searching, and didn’t find much, but there was something on SPN, the website for the Small Press Network. Her entry there is not extensive, but it tells us a few things. It says, not surprisingly, that she “looks for innovative ways to connect Australian authors with new audiences, collaborating with artists and organisations engaged in multi-media and performing arts”. “New” audiences is so important to those of us who believe in the value of the arts, isn’t it?

Anyhow, it also said that in 2018, she spent a month in New York as part of a Publishing Fellowship researching trends in multi-platform publishing. She has also been a peer assessor for the Australia Council Literature Board and in 2021 she took part in the Australia Council’s (now Creative Australia) Future Form program. As far as I can tell it’s a “leadership program” intended to help small to medium arts organisations “transform and innovate their core business model”. And that’s about it, except that I did read elsewhere that she also writes – short and long fiction, and poetry.

What is Spineless Wonders doing?

At the time of my 2013 post, they described themselves as being “devoted to short, quality fiction produced by Australian writers … [to] brief fiction in all its forms – short story, novella, sudden fiction and prose poetry”. And, as I explained, their name referred to the fact that they delivered their publications “to readers via  smart phones and laptops”, but they did (and do) also in print and audio forms. Since, then, however they have expanded further, to, in their words, “a short story production company working collaboratively with authors and artists across many disciplines to get short fiction out into the world – everywhere”.

What does this mean? These initiatives, from their About page, give you an idea:

  • Performed Fiction: Since 2014, they have produced something they call Little Fictions (originally known as Spineless Wonders Presents… a short evening of tall stories). They describe this as a “unique literary event” involving short stories being read by actors to a live audience. Inspired perhaps by poetry readings? In 2017, the City of Sydney invited them to produce a series of these for their Late Night Library program. Ongoing funding from this has apparently enabled them to create something they call Off the Page, which is a multi-media platform for performed short fiction. Sounds wonderful to me.
  • Storybombing: In 2016, they formed an interdisciplinary artists’ collective called #Storybombing, which aims “to find innovative ways to activate public spaces with short Australian fiction curated and produced” by themselves. Examples of the initiatives include stories spraypainted onto pavements, installed in retro pushbutton phones, or projected onto buildings. They say you can find examples on their #storybombing tab, but I see there’s nothing there since 2020 so maybe this is a victim of COVID.
  • Microflix: In 2018, they established the Microflix Awards and Festival, which aimed “to encourage more Australian filmmakers to use work by Australian authors, to reward excellence and creativity in film adaptations and to champion the importance of the writer, and the original text, in the filmmaking process”. Sounds great as short stories make perfect starting points for film. Just look, for example, at how many short stories by Somerset Maugham have been adapted to film. However, around 2021, this initiative ended, but they note on their website that they had partnered with SF3 to continue to encourage collaboration between writers and filmmakers.

What these initiatives tell me is that Spineless Wonders is an innovative company with a clear goal to support short (including micro and flash) fiction. It’s also clear that this is not easy, but that the company is active, flexible, and willing to pivot where they can to achieve their goal. The goal is clearly the thing.

If you look on their home page, you will see in their side-bar other activities and initiatives, like their Es-Press imprint, their work In Translation, and their Audio Lounge. It’s inspired and ambitious, though looking at the dates when things have happened, I suspect these things happen somewhat in fits and starts, but they are clearly exploring every angle they can to get creators works to readers, listeners, and viewers.

You will also see a link to Opportunities and Awards. These include a current call for “startling stories set in Sydney’s past” for Imaginative Recreation – Sydney. There are talks and masterclasses to help creators “invent stories drawn from the archives”, and submissions are due by midnight 17 December 2023. This is where you will also find the Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award, but it seems to be in abeyance at the moment. It was funded by the Copyright Agency. They did run again this year, though, their Slinkies Competition for writers under 30. This results in an anthology, and Slinkies 2023 can be pre-ordered now.

Meanwhile, though, Spineless Wonders continues to publish short stories, of which I’ve reviewed a few – two collections by Carmel Bird (The dead aviatrix and, most recently, Love letter to Lola) and the anthology The great unknown edited by Angela Meyer.

And, their YouTube channel has some current content, which provides another opportunity to get to know them.

My point overall, though, is that here is a publishing company working in a challenging form – short fiction – in a way that is inventive and always looking for new ways of reaching people. And, twelve years after being founded, they are still here.