Monday musings

Monday musings on Australian literature: Prizes for Humour Writing

/ Whispering Gums / 31 Comments

There are not, apparently, many prizes for humour writing around the world, but we have two here in Australia, the Russell Prize and the John Clarke Prize. Those from other countries include the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize (UK), the Thurber Prize for American Humour, and the Leacock Memorial Medal for Canadian Humour. Do you know them? I’d be interested to know of your experience with them, but meanwhile, I’ll move on to the two Australian ones I’m featuring today.

Russel Prize for Humour Writing

According to the Prize website, this prize was established through a bequest from farmer and businessman Peter Wentworth Russell. Its aim is to “to celebrate, recognise and encourage humorous writing, and to promote public interest in this genre”. Established in 2014, it was the first award to recognise the art of humour writing in Australia and, argues the website, makes “a long overdue acknowledgment of the genre” here. They believe it will “promote public interest in humour writing just as its prestigious international counterparts have done”.

The prize is awarded biennially by the State Library of New South Wales, and the winner receives $10,000.

Associated with this award is a second prize, a Humour Writing for Young People Award for “a work promoting humour and championing laughter”. It is aimed at primary school level readers (5-12 years) and “recognises the role of humour in encouraging children to read”. The winner of this award receives $5,000. I love the spirit behind this.

Past winners

A full list of the winners and shortlists can be found at Wikipedia, but here are the winners to date:

  • 2015: Bernard Cohen, The antibiography of Robert F. Menzies (Fourth Estate)
  • 2017: Steve Toltz, Quicksand (Simon and Schuster) (my review)
  • 2019: David Cohen, The hunter and other stories of men (Transit Lounge)
  • 2021: Nakkiah Lui, Black is the new white (Allen and Unwin)
  • 2023: Martin McKenzie-Murray, The speechwriter (Scribe)
  • 2025: Madeleine Gray, The green dot (Henry Holt) (Theresa’s review) : “brings a new complexity to the genre sometimes called ‘rom-com’. It’s sweet but also sour. It’s terrifically funny as well as Anna Karenina sad … hilarious about the tedious realities of the modern workplace” (excerpted from the judges’ comments)

Writers shortlisted for this award over the years include some I have read and posted on, such as Trent Dalton for Boy swallows universe (my review), Chris Flynn’s Mammoth (my review) and Sun Jung, My name is Gucci (my review). They also include other writers I know or have reviewed or mentioned, just not their shortlisted books, like Annabel Crabb, Tracey Sorenson, Ryan O’Neill and Siang Lu. And, of course, there are new writers that I’m really pleased to hear about.

John Clarke Prize for Humour Writing

The second award is very new one. Titled the John Clarke Prize for Humour Writing, it is named for Australia’s much loved satirist and writer, John Clarke (1948–2017). It has been added to the suite of Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, so will presumably be made annually. The award, which was established by the Victorian Government and the Clarke family, was open in its first year to books of comedic fiction, nonfiction and poetry published in 2023 and 2024. It offers a cash prize of $25,000.

The first award was made this year, 2025, and it went to Robert Skinner’s I’d rather not say. I gave this to Son Gums for his birthday this year, but I’m not sure he’s read it. I certainly haven’t, though I’d like to. However, kimbofo has (her review). She comments that Skinner “knows how to craft a compelling narrative using jeopardy, self-deprecating humour and a deft turn of phrase”. This just makes me more keen. She also says that it was shortlisted for the Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year (in the 2024 ABIAs) and that The Guardian named it one of the Best Australian Books of 2023.

This award, as both the Clarke family and the Wheeler Centre’s CEO have been quoted as saying, is “a fitting tribute” to one of our greatest satirists. They hope it will help the careers of future humour writers. It will certainly help Skinner, whom the ABC reports as saying:

“When you’re writing in Australia, in the back of your mind, the question is always, How long can I keep affording to do this?” he says.

“And now the answer is: slightly longer.”

Echoing, in other words, what many authors say about awards with a decent cash prize. It buys them time.

I enjoy humorous writing, particularly at the satirical end of the spectrum, so I love that there are some awards aimed at supporting this sort of writing. I fear there’s almost a natural tendency in readers to equate better with serious, but that is not necessarily the case.

So now, my question to you is: Do you know of any other awards for Humour Writing, and, regardless, do you like Humour Writing? I’d love to hear anything you’d like to share about this.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Collaborative story-telling between First Nations Australian and white writers

/ Whispering Gums / 9 Comments
National NAIDOC Logo (2025)

NAIDOC Week 2025 started yesterday, and as I have done for many years now, I am devoting my NAIDOC Week Monday Musings to celebrating First Nations writers in some way.

This year is a particularly special year because it marks NAIDOC Week’s 50th anniversary, 50 years it says, “of honoring and elevating Indigenous voices, culture, and resilience”. The 2025 theme is “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy,” and is intended to celebrate not only past achievements achievements, “but the bright future ahead, empowered by the strength of our young leaders, the vision of our communities, and the legacy of our ancestors”. 

.Now, over the years, I have written posts on a wide range of First Nations writing and storytelling, was wondering what to write about this year, when a couple of weeks ago this idea of collaborative writing projects popped into my head because I’ve come across a few in the last few years. Then, at the ACT Literary Awards last Thursday night, another such collaboration was not only shortlisted but won the Nonfiction award. The book is Warra Warra Wai: How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook & what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People, and is by Darren Rix and Craig Cormick. That sealed the deal!

In the introduction to this book, Darren and Craig, the names they use to sign off the Introduction, say that:

This book has been a blackfella-whitefella collaboration, because too much of our history has been written by one voice only, and we need to find more collaborative ways to tell our past, present and future.

I would love to discuss all the collaborations I’m going to share in this post – including researching how the collaborations worked, who did what, and how differences (if any) were resolved – but that would be a big project. I have, however, met some of the writers involved, and have followed some of the projects on social media, so I am aware of some of the processes the writers followed. For now, though, I will share what Darren and Craig say in their Introduction:

In this collaboration, we each worked to our strengths. Craig did most of the work in the archives, and Darren did most of the oral interviews – and the people we talked to got the final say on the text. The stories we gathered belong to the individuals and communities we visited. This is their book.

Selected list of collaborative books

This list is presented in alphabetical order by the name of the first author listed on the title. I did think about dividing it into two lists – one fiction, one nonfiction – but decided that all these books aim to share truths about our society and culture, whether told within a factual or imaginative framework, so one list it is. (Links on authors’ names are to my posts on that author.)

There has been a lot collaborative publishing in the children’s literature sphere, over a significant period of time, but I’ve been less aware, until relatively recently, of similar activity in the adult sphere.

Wayne Bergmann and Madelaine Dickie, Some people want to shoot me (memoir, Fremantle Press, 2024, on my TBR): shortlisted for Nonfiction Book of the Year in the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards.

Craig Cormick and Harold Ludwick, On a barbarous coast (historical fiction, Allen & Unwin, 2020, my review): a re-imagining of what happened when Captain Cook’s Endeavour was wrecked off the coast of Far North Queensland.

Aaron Fa’Aoso with Michelle Scott Tucker, So far, so good: On connection, loss, laughter and the Torres Strait (memoir, Pantera Press, 2022, Bill’s review): apparently the first memoir by a Torres Strait Islander to be commercially published, which means it addresses “the under-representation of Torres Strait Islander perspectives in Australian life”. You can read more about it on Tucker’s website.

Aaron Fa’Aoso and Michelle Scott Tucker with Lyn White, Spirit of the crocodile (YA fiction, Allen & Unwin, 2025, on my TBR, Bill’s review): a coming-of-age novel set against the challenges to the Saibai island community of climate change.

Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler, with Dub Leffler (illus.), Black cockatoo (YA fiction, Magabala Books, 2018, my review): pleasingly, this book was in my Top 10 visited posts last year, and is in the Top 20 this year to date.

Boori Monty Pryor and Meme McDonald, Maybe tomorrow (memoir, 1998, my review): one of the first books I reviewed on this blog. Pryor has focused much of his life’s work on helping young people feel strong in their culture.

Boori Monty Pryor and Jan Ormerod, Shake a leg (Children’s picture book, Allen & Unwin, 2010): one of several children’s book collaborations involving Boori Monty Pryor.

Darren Rix and Craig Cormick, Warra Warra Wai: How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook & what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People (history, Scribner, 2024, on my TBR): follows Cook’s journey up “Australia’s” east coast, visiting the places he renamed and gathering the local people’s stories.

Nicolas Rothwell and Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson, Yilkari: A desert suite (“unclassifiable” but fiction, Text Publishing, July 2025, on my TBR)

As the word “selected” conveys, this is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but an introduction to the range of collaborative writing that’s been happening. However, I (and readers of this blog I’m sure) would love to hear of other First Nations-settler collaborations, including from other parts of the world.

Click here for my previous NAIDOC Week-related Monday Musings.

Have you read any First Nations-white writer collaborations? And if so, care to recommend any?

Monday musings on Australian literature: on 1925: 1, Literary societies

/ Whispering Gums / 19 Comments

As I’ve done in recent years, I decided to start a little Monday Musings sub-series drawing on researching Trove to get a picture of Australian literature a century ago, that is, in 1925. One of the things that popped up as I started this year’s Trove trawl was the existence of an active community of people enjoying literary activities in the company of others, including through various literary and arts societies. I’m going to focus on two such societies.

Australian Literature Society

The most serious was probably the Australian Literature Society. I wrote a little about this society in one of my 1922 posts, so won’t spend a lot of time on it here. Essentially, it was formed in Melbourne in 1899, aimed at encouraging the study of both Australian literature and Australian authors. It still exists today, as a result of its merging in 1982 into the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. It is a scholarly organisation.

In the 1920s, it held meetings that were open to the public and were reported publicly in the newspapers. They presented lectures, held “review” nights, dramatic nights, a “woman’s night” (which I have researched for the Australian Women Writers blog), and more. So, for example, in 1925, they held a review night in May at which papers were presented reviewing Australian works. One work reviewed was Myra Morris’ Us five, a children’s book published in 1922. The Age (May 12) reports that J. McKellar’s paper (read by someone else) “said Miss Morris had woven a garland perfumed with the delicate flowers of fancy and imagination” but her book had been neglected. The question was how “to galvanise the Australian reading public into a realisation of the good work Australians were doing”. Other writers reviewed included Dowell O’Reilly, Bancroft Boake, and Conrad Sayce, mostly little known now.

At their dramatic meeting in September, they presented four “playlets” by Australian writers, three of them women, including Mary Simpson (whom we have featured on the Australian Women Writers blog). In other words their events focused very much, as per their aims, on Australian writing.

Australian Institute of Arts and Literature

This society is referred to by variations of its names in the papers, including the Australian Institute of the Arts and Literature and the Australian Institution of Arts and Literature. Minor differences perhaps, but why is there such sloppiness about getting the names of organisations right? It still happens!

Anyhow, this Institute was quite different from the ALS – and a big distinction is there in its name. It’s not about “Australian” literature, but is an Australian organisation interested in “arts and literature”. Like the ALS, it has a Wikipedia article, but unlike the ALS, it was short-lived. It seems to have been founded in Melbourne in 1921 and it folded around 1930. According to Wikipedia, the club gained significantly in status and membership numbers when lawyer and respected public servant, Sir Robert Garran, became president. However, 1927, he was transferred to Canberra and, again according to Wikipedia, “the Institute felt his loss keenly, and never recovered”.

Louis Lavater, c 1917, Public Domain from the State Library of Victoria

However, during its heyday, it was highly active, meeting weekly during some of this time, and providing much entertainment and cultural nourishment for its members/attendees. Many of the meetings were reported in the papers. As Melbourne’s Table Talk (4 June) wrote, “music played an important part” in the pleasure of the meetings. And, while there was some music composed by Australians – specifically Louis Lavater whom Wikipedia describes as “a gifted leader of music in rural Victoria” – most of the music performed were the standards (Handel, Beethoven, and Mozart for example). However, there was one event devoted to Russian music, with songs by Gretchaninoff, Kveneman, Tchaikowsky; violin pieces by Wieniawski and Rimsky-Korsakov; and piano works by Rachmaninoff, Rebikoff and Liadow*. The report in Melbourne’s The Age (27 June) describes it “as altogether a programme out of the beaten track”. The music was followed by the clearly all-round Lavatar giving a lecture on “The Sonnet” which, the report said, dealt “sympathetically and appreciatively” with the work of “many of our sonnet writers during the past century”. I don’t know how long these meetings were, but it seems like they packed a lot in.

I’ll give one more example, this one reported by The Argus (31 August), which called it a varied program, “covering literature, music, and the drama”. So, ‘Louis Lavater, poet and composer, read a short paper supplementary to one previously given on “The Sonnet,” and dealing this time specially with some of the more important written in Australasia’. In addition, Vera Buck gave “an enjoyable piano and song recital” including two songs she’d composed (sung by Mary Killey); and Marie Tuck played piano pieces by Schumann (six delightful “Scenes from Childhood”), Beethoven, Chopin, and Schubert. Also, Frank Goddard, from the Melbourne Repertory Society, “gave two capital recitations”, and Don Mather and Pauline Abrahams acted the “Helen and Modus” scene from Sheridan Knowles’ drama, The Hunchback. Phew!

I think you get the gist. While it lasted, this was an active organisation and must have brought so much pleasure to Melbourne’s “culture vultures” (can I say that?).

Are you aware of any literary organisations from the past, where you abide?

* These are the spellings used in the report.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Forgotten writers 12, Catherine Gaskin

/ Whispering Gums / 18 Comments

Of all my Forgotten Writers posts, this one is the most questionable because I’m not sure she is completely forgotten. For baby-boomer and I think some Gen X readers, Catherine Gaskin was a household name. Just ask Brona who reviewed her 1962 novel I know my love, and said in her post that she’d read her mother’s whole bookshelf of Gaskins. But, Gaskin has, I believe, now slipped from view and is worth a little post. Her big, breakout novel was her sixth, Sara Dane (see Wikipedia), which was published in 1954. It remained popular through the 1960s to 1980s, when it was adapted to a miniseries in 1982. So, who was this writer …

Catherine Gaskin

Catherine Gaskin (1929-2009) was, says Wikipedia, a romance novelist – but I seem to remember her books as being historical fiction so I’d say her genre was mostly historical romance. She also included mystery and crime in her stories, at times. The youngest of six children, she was born the same year as my mother, but in County Louth, Ireland. She was not there long, however, as when she was only three months old, her parents moved to Australia, settling in the Sydney beach suburb of Coogee. She wrote her first novel, This other Eden, when she was 15 and it was published by Collins two years later, while she was still a schoolgirl. It sold 50,000 copies, and she never returned to school.

After her second novel, With every year, was published, she moved to London with her mother and a sick sister, Moira (who also published two novels). Three best-sellers followed, Dust in sunlight (1950), All else is Folly (1951), and Daughter of the house (1952). Wikipedia lists 21 novels to her name. In his obituary, Stephens tells that as a child she had loved reading, and read such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene and Scott Fitzgerald. 

According to Wikipedia, she completed her best-known work, Sara Dane, on her 25th birthday in 1954, and it was published in 1955. It sold more than 2 million copies, was translated into a number of other languages, and was made, as I’ve said above, into a television mini-series in 1982. It is loosely based on the life of the Australian convict businesswoman Mary Reibey. Stephens writes that ‘a Herald critic described the novel as “most readable”‘ although the critic also suggested “that Gaskin’s understanding of history was not deep”. He says that “after Sara Dane, many of her books were overlooked by critics, although welcomed by readers”.

At least three of her novels – Sara Dane, I know my love, and The Tilsit inheritance – were adapted for radio, by Australia’s Grace Gibson Radio Productions, and many others besides Sara Dane, were translated into other languages.

Gaskin met the man who became her husband in London, and they married in 1955. He was a TV executive and 19 years her senior. They lived in various places together, including the USA, the Virgin Islands, and Ireland. However, she returned to Sydney at the end of her life, and died there in September 2009.

I was inspired to write this post by some research I did for the #1970 Year Club last year. Journalist Rita Grosvenor visited her in Ireland around the time of the publication of her novel, Fiona. Grosvenor writes that:

She is among the elite of the world’s women novelists, with such a faithful following of readers she can be sure that every time she produces a new book it will sell 50,000 copies in hard-cover – and that’s more than most authors sell with a handful of books. With paperback sales she often passes a million.

Grosvenor’s article was for the Australian Women’s Weekly, so there’s much about her living arrangements and house, but towards the end, she shares Gaskin’s thoughts about her writing. Despite her success, Gaskin is depressed every time she starts a book, fearing that “this time it is not going to work out, but somehow it does”. However, she says:

“I know I can never be a Graham Greene, but I always want to improve within my limitations. I’m a perfectionist.”

As Stephens writes, “she knew her limitations but didn’t like being regarded as a romantic writer”. She saw herself as “an entertainer and good craftswoman who married romance with history and studies of such subjects as trades and places”. 

According to Stephens, Gaskin retired after her last novel, The charmed circle, was published in 1988. She wanted to travel with her husband, without publishers’ deadlines. So, they did travel, apparently, until his death in 1999. She then moved to Mosman, in Sydney, and spent the rest of her life there. Stephens quoted her as saying, ”I am not an Australian by birth but I think like one”.

Have any of you heard of or read Catherine Gaskin?

Sources

Monday musings on Australian literature: Names and naming

/ Whispering Gums / 34 Comments

In yesterday’s post on Percival Everett’s James, I didn’t discuss the issue of naming. I should have, however, as it is a significant aspect of the novel, so much so that the novel ends on exactly that point. Throughout the novel, James, who is called “Jim” by the “massas” (aka masters) if they bother to call him anything, clarifies that he is James:

“I am James.”
“James what?”
“Just James.”
[end of novel]

Names, as we know, can be tools used for power and control, to dehumanise people. It happens in the most subtle ways, as well as in sanctioned ways. Throughout the colonial project, for example, naming has been used a tool of ownership and submission, but it has also been used to dehumanise and control in all sorts of other legitimated ways, such as in the practice of giving prisoners numbers and calling them by that number.

I was horrified to witness a misuse of a name during our recent trip to Far North Queensland with a company called Outback Spirit. This company makes a practice of using local guides wherever possible, and in remote regions those guides are often First Nations People. It is such a privilege to spend time with those who know the country so well and are prepared to share their knowledge with us. And so it was on our little expedition to stand on the top of mainland Australia.

Our guide was Tom, who identified himself as a Gudang man (with several other familial connections in the region). On our return from Pajinka (their preferred name for the top or point), he lead us across the rocks to the beach and thence our bus. I was in the group right behind him, when we met three middle-aged guys on the way up. The one in front saw Tom and gestured for him to stop. Then, without asking permission, he took a photo (as if Tom was some exotic!) Tom was impressively gracious and, when the guy finished, introduced himself as Tom and welcomed them to country. They seemed to appreciate this – but twice in the very brief conversation that followed, the photographer addressed Tom as “Tommy”. Really? I could be generous and assume that he was one of those people who automatically uses a diminutive form of a name when they are introduced to another person, and I will never know, but it felt so wrong. Whatever the man’s intentions were in using “Tommy” – and whether they were conscious or not – it was a shocking reminder to me of how far we have to go.

This issue of names and naming – of people and places – of course comes up in First Nations politics. I was interested that in Cape York there was far less use of local names for places (towns, rivers, and so on) than I expected. I asked Tom about it, and he simply said that it was coming. Interestingly, the week we were up there, Qantas had announced that it had renamed one of its Dash-8 aeroplanes, “Horn Island Ngurupai”. According to the National Indigenous Times this was done at the request of the Torres Shire Council. It seems rather little to me, but the Torres Shire Council chief executive Dalassia Yorkston is quoted in the article as saying that

“Even though our request was a simple one, it was a powerful one,” she continued. “Because it showed that beyond Horn Island we not only recognise that English name but we recognise the Kaurareg people, the Kaurareg nation, the traditional name.”

Back in 2012, I wrote a Monday Musings on the importance of place and researching local names in Noongar/Nyungar culture

Of course, naming frequently appears in First Nations writing. One example I’ve shared in this blog was in the opening paragraph of Ambelin Kwaymullina’s short story, “Fifteen days on Mars”, when our first person narrator says, pointedly,

It had been almost a year since we came to Mars. That was what I called this place although it had another name. It was Kensington Park or Windsor Estate or something like that but I couldn’t have said what because I could never remember it.

I love the way she turns this white-person excuse of “not remembering” unfamiliar names on its head.

Alexis Wright, Carpentaria

Many First Nations novelists have used names to make political points. The names for people and places in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria is another good example of using satire to make a point, with the town of Desperance and characters like “Normal Phantom” and “Mozzie Fishman”.

One of the issues that confronts non-Indigenous people is how (and whether) to write about Indigenous Peoples. I found a useful guide by Macquarie University, published in 2021, on “writing and speaking about Indigenous People in Australia”. It’s written primarily for those writing academic papers, and it recognises that language changes, but looks to be still relevant now and is worth checking out for anyone who is interested in their own writing practice.

I know I’ve just touched several surfaces in this post, but I wanted to capture some ideas while I could. I can always build on them later.

Thoughts or examples, anyone?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Forgotten writers 11, Nancy Francis

/ Whispering Gums / 8 Comments

Like my last forgotten writer, Ruby Mary Doyle, today’s writer, though also a prolific contributor to newspapers in her day, has slipped into the shadows. Neither Wikipedia nor the Australian dictionary of biography (ADB) contain articles for her, but the AustLit database does and Zora Cross, writing as Bernice May in The Australian Woman’s Mirror, also did a piece on her. As with many of my Forgotten Writers articles, I researched and posted a version of this on the Australian Women Writers’ site in April, but have saved posting here until June because I am in Far North Queensland where she lived most of her life. Seemed fitting.

Nancy Francis

Nancy Francis (1873-1954) was a poet, and writer of short stories, essays and serialised novels. She was born in Bakewell, Derbyshire, England, in 1873. According to the Obituary in The Cairns Post, her mother was the surviving descendant of the Beaton family, which was connected, through service, with Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland. Her Yorkshire-born father was a well-known musician who had played a cornet solo in front of Queen Victoria. Nancy developed her musical talent, and apparently had “a beautiful and unusual soprano voice”. She also wrote verse as a hobby and contributed to various periodicals.

According to the Obituary, Nancy married Frederick James Francis in 1900. They lived in London and other country centres, before coming to Australia, just before the 1914-18 war. With three young daughters, they travelled to the remote Bloomfield River, in Far North Queensland, where her husband joined his brother in various mining ventures. During this period Francis “acquired her exhaustive knowledge of the North Australian bush and its aboriginal inhabitants, of whose character and folklore she made a sympathetic study”. She increased her output over this time, with her verses, articles and short stories appearing regularly in the Bulletin and other southern periodicals. Much of this writing appeared under the nom-de-plume of “Black Bonnet”, which Bernice May (Zora Cross) ascribes to her love of Henry Lawson (who wrote a poem titled Black bonnet”).

After some time – not specified in the Obituary – the family moved to the small mining township of Rossville outside Cooktown, where Frederick and two brothers continued working in mining and other development. The Obituary says that “among these jungle clad hills she produced some of her best literary work, including many of the poems later collected and published in book form”. In 1927, Bernice May wrote about Francis and her daughters – who all became published writers in their teens – and praised the quality of their verse. May clearly had some correspondence with Nancy and her daughters, and was impressed by what the girls had achieved under their mother’s home schooling. Francis wrote to her, “How I long at times for a creepy novel, a box of chocolates and no bright ideas that nag to be put on paper”, which May says reminded her of Mary Gilmore who “in her first passionate days of great poetry declared she could not take her hands out of the cooking-basin and washing-up dish fast enough to run away to her pen and write some fiery line that had flashed to her across her domestic work”. Bernice May understood the challenge faced by women artists.

In 1928, Nancy and her husband moved to Cairns, but not long after, in 1929-30, she travelled back to England. On her return she “joined her husband at Herberton where she lived until her death”, on 28 June 1954. Her husband, who had also worked as a freelance journalist, predeceased her in 1942.

According to the Obituary, she was actively involved in community activities, including being a member of the C.W.A. from its inception, and President of the local branch for eight years. She also worked for the Red Cross and Patriotic Associations during both world wars. She remained a journalist throughout her life and was keenly interested in politics and world affairs. She also left behind four children, the three daughters (Patricia, Kathleen, and Christobel) and a son. The Obituary describes her as follows: “Generous and warmhearted, and with a vast fund of kindness for the underprivileged, she retained the standards of her English upbringing in a new country and a changing world”.

AustLit focuses on her writing. She wrote under many variations of her name and initials – N. Francis, Nancy Christobel Francis, N. C. Francis, N. C. F, N. F., Nancy C. Francis – as well as her Black Bonnet pen-name. They list 426 works by her under her Nancy Francis name variants, and another 62 under Black Bonnet, so she was prolific. And yet, she does not appear in the plethora of reference books, histories and guides I have on Australian literature. Why? Perhaps it’s because she spent her life in such a remote part of Australia, away from the literary world, though she did have writing published down south. Or, maybe it’s simply that for all her writing, she had only one published book, her poetry collection, Feet in the night and other poems, which was published by The Cairns Post in 1947. All her other writing appeared in newspapers and magazines/periodicals.

Indeed, this book’s reviewer in Mackay’s Daily Mercury (28 August 1948) implies that the ephemeral nature of newspapers is behind obscurity when they write that “beautifully hewn lines of poetry, melodious verses which have stirred the infrequent verse-readers for a morning half-hour, lie … forever entombed in rows of bound newspapers in libraries”. Fortunately, however, Francis had managed to compile a volume from her output, and the reviewer liked the result:

“FEET IN THE NIGHT” is … taken from the first poem of the first section, which deals sympathetically with the vanishing natives of this continent, who move like shadows on the hill, or ghosts in the scrub, along dark green valleys and dim waterways out to where the jungle ends. The other sections celebrate the Galllpoli era, romance, soft and melancholy, the scenic glories of the North, and memories of England and the out-bound voyage

We do not hesitate to express the opinion that almost every poem in the collection was well worth rescuing from its dusty obscurity. These verses have been polished and polished again. All are graceful, delicate and restrained.

According to AustLit, her writing for Queensland newspapers included essays in series, such as her studies of North Queensland Aboriginal culture, titled ‘By Forest, Scrub and Shore’ (1939-1940), which include detailed discussions of customs and practices in the region; a series of historical essays on ‘The Anglican Church in North Queensland’ (1936-1938); and many essays on Captain Cook. AustLit also says that her travels Western Europe and Northern Africa around 1930 inspired several poems which expressed her identification with the North Queensland landscape and a longing for her North Queensland home. It seems she travelled overseas more than once, with The Courier-Mail (26 April 1938) reporting on a planned trip to “the Continent” in 1938.

Nancy Francis may not (yet) have come to the serious attention of those documenting Australia’s literary history, but back in 1927, Bernice May was impressed, writing that,

“One does not know whether her crisp articles on nature study, her accounts of the blacks and their ways, or her verses are the most remarkable”.

She also compared Nancy and her daughters to the Brontë sisters, no less, saying

It was not until the Bronte girls left Yorkshire for Belgium that their hearts turned back to the scenes of their youth and they began to write of them with the wonderful feeling which has never since been surpassed in fiction written by women. I sometimes wonder if when this little outpost moves, when perhaps the mother and daughters become separated from the scenes of their early days, something missing in our fiction will be supplied—the great story of the lonely, mighty North.

This is not all she said, but you can read the rest at the link below.

The piece I shared on the AWW site is “The black snake”, which, as the title suggests, references the “snake” motif frequently found in Australian bush stories (including Henry Lawson’s). It draws on familiar short story tropes to tell a good story, and shows a writer who knows her craft and how to entertain her audience.

Sources

  • Bernice May (aka Zora Cross), “Black Bonnet and her daughters“, The Australian Woman’s Mirror, 3 (26),  24 May 1927 [Accessed: 8 April 2025]
  • “Black Bonnet“, Daily Mercury, 28 August 1948 [2 April 2025]
  • Black Bonnet, AustLit [5 April 2025]
  • Nancy Francis, AustLit [5 April 2025]
  • Nancy Francis, “The black snake“, The Cairns Post, 28 December 1935 [Accessed: 8 April 2025]
  • Obituary, The Cairns Post, 10 July 1954 [Accessed: 2 April 2025]

Monday musings on Australian literature: Trove treasures (13), American scholar on Australian culture (1952)

/ Whispering Gums / 8 Comments
Help Books Clker.com
(Courtesy OCAL, via clker.com)

While researching Trove for April’s 1952 Year Club, I came across some articles about an American Fulbright scholar’s critique of Australian culture, and thought it a worthy topic for my occasional Trove Treasures series. The scholar was John Hough, who was Professor of Classics at Colorado State University, and he was finishing his year’s scholarship at University of Sydney.

Grafton’s Daily Examiner (22 November 1952) titled its article “Criticised aspects of Australian life“, while the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (also 22 November 1952) titled theirs “Australian ways slated by American“. It was also reported, along similar lines, in Sydney’s Sun and The Daily Mirror, and Melbourne’s The Argus. According to the Daily Examiner, Hough was speaking at an Australian-American luncheon at the Trocadero, and had said “he was appalled at the prejudice that had grown up against migrants”. He said that migrants to America “came of their own accord, and had to take their chance of making a living” but there was “no need for Australia to make the same mistakes”. And then he identified a number of other aspects of Australian culture that he felt were going wrong:

  • Mistakes in the treatment of aborigines.
  • The almost exclusive use of American and other imported songs, and records of oversea artists on the radio. 
  • He did not know why Australia did not make more use of its own songs and singers, instead of listening to people who “occasionally croon, sing, and cry.” 
  • The attitude of Australian “upper-level society” to Australian culture, which it belittled, and the denial that there was any such thing as Australian literature.

None of the articles expanded much on these, and when they did it was brief and focused on Hough’s critique about migrants. For example, the Daily Mirror (21 November) explained that

He said America had made terrible mistakes in migration, but that there was no reason why Australia, should make them. He said he regretted the tendency to stress that a man was a New Australian when he got into trouble.

The Sun (21 November) reported it a little differently:

“In America our migrants came of their own accord, and had to take their chances of making a living,” he said. 
“We also did not have the benefit of the study of sociology available today”. 

A couple reported that he’d been to the Greta migrant camp, and hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Most of the other issues were either ignored in the reports, or were listed as “other” aspects.

However, a few days later, on 8 December, the Daily Examiner, took on Hough’s comments – the only one to do so as far as I’ve found – and discussed them in an article simply titled, “Australian culture“. They argued, for example, that Hough had criticised Australia for not being “very hospitable towards migrants or new ideas” but had also said, contradictorily, that “we make exclusive use of American and imported songs and records of overseas artists on the radio”.

The article continues that Hough “emphasises” that while “we have our own rich array of local talent”, we “prefer to ignore Australian artists … and listen to those who croon sing and cry!” It doesn’t disagree with this preference. Its point, rather, is that this is “easy enterment [sic] but it isn’t culture”. This narrow idea of culture is not uncommon I think.

Anyhow, the article then takes on Hough’s statement that Australia’s upper-level society “belittled Australian culture and denied that there is any such thing as Australian literature”. It argues that this “belittles our land as much as it belittles our people”. Then, in its parochial way, says:

We in Grafton are rightfully proud of our Jacaranda Festival. Not only because it provides gay and whole-some entertainment, but because it sets a standard of culture that is lovely and fundamentally Australian.

But there’s more … it argues that Australian has “many scientists, inventors, physicians, writers, artists and musicians whose names and works shine like gems in any hall of culture” and calls these people “true Australians from the land they love”. Ignoring them, the paper says, “does them and their nation grave disservice”. Then, in another statement that comes straight from its times, it points out that:

Australia Day for example might have a more popular appeal if we used it to praise our famous men, the glory of their times. 

There’s more, including a them-versus-us statement which promotes the value of the “country Press”, and has a dig at the metropolitan Press which, it claims, “frequently says that writings about Australia have no publicity value”. The result is that

… our mighty land mainly goes unhonoured and unsung, and Australian literature and art is said not to exist. The great deeds of the pioneers, the fortitude, skill and’ patience of the modern countryman are overlooked. The essential loveliness of our land is side-tracked. Yet these things form the basis of our culture, and until they are recognised and publicised our mighty land will remain a Lilliput among the nations of the world.

It’s a beautiful bit of self-defence that turns Hough’s criticism into, at least in part, a pat on their own regional backs for writing about – for recognising, in other words – the true value of Australian culture.

I do enjoy Trove.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Grandparent-lit

/ Whispering Gums / 47 Comments

Last week’s Monday Musings about the Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition reminded me of the assumptions we make when engrossed in our own little world. When I first heard of this award being made to the slam poet Huda the Goddess, I assumed it was in the name of the Australian poet, Les Murray, only to find it was named for Les Murray the sports commentator. Various commenters weighed in with which Les Murray they first thought of when they heard the name.

Well, this ambiguity raised its head again this week’s post. It was inspired by Western Port Writes first literary event for 2025, held back in February. It was a panel discussion themed “The Family Lode” and featured Australian writers Tony Birch, Melanie Cheng, and Kylie Ladd in conversation with literary/arts editor Jason Steger. I heard about it through Steger’s weekly emailed newsletter:

‘Grandparents underpin each family and story,’ says Steger. ‘They are a hugely important anchor to family. We should have a category called Grandparent-Lit.’

Grandparent-Lit? My ears perked up, and I thought that would make a fun Monday Musings in the future, one of those posts where I could introduce the idea and then let you all fly with your suggestions from your neck of the reading world.

However, first I did a quick internet search to see if there’s anything out there on the topic. And, faster than you can say grandparent-lit, up popped an article from The Guardian published in late 2020. It was by Imogen Dewey and was titled “Jolly, artificial and extremely satisfying: the simple joy of ‘Grandma lit'”. Great, I thought, but my pleasure was short-lived, because her idea of “grandma [not grandparent] lit” was something very different. It was in a series framed “How I fell in love with …” which, in Dewey’s case, was – wait for it – crime fiction! For Dewey “grandma-lit” is not books about grandmas (or grandparents) but about ‘the sort of books grandmothers love … The sort some people refer to as “comforting” or “cosy”, in that Certain Tone reserved also for “comfort eating”, “comfy clothes”, “comfortable relationships” – the insinuation being that it is slovenly to crave to be comfortable’. Oh well, back to the drawing board I went.

AI – that little summary at the top of most internet searches these days – knew what I was talking about. It said this:

“Grandparent lit” is a literary genre that often explores the relationships between grandparents and their grandchildren, focusing on themes of intergenerational connections, family history, and the unique perspectives of different generations. It can include various forms of literature, from picture books for children to novels for adults, with some works specifically targeting grandparents or exploring the grandparenting experience.

AI suggests common themes in these books: Intergenerational connections which explore the relationships between grandparents and grandchildren; family history and cultural heritage meaning stories, traditions and values are shared with younger generations; the grandparenting experience which examines the challenges and rewards of being a grandparent; and memory and nostalgia which encompasses reflecting on past events and relationships.

And I found a 2024 post in Substack, titled “Where are grandparents in literature“, by novelist and journalist Penny Hancock. She writes that “she’d been told by publishers that people don’t want to read about older people’s lives because no one wants to think about getting old”. She argues that this presupposes that grandparents are old (whatever that means) and that readers are narrow-minded. Whatever the reason, she found that, with the exception of children’s books, it is unusual to get a grandparent’s point of view in novels. She asks whether we are still marginalising and generalising a group that has always been subject to prejudice. Anyhow she names a few great books, which most of you will know (but check out the post!) Meanwhile …

Select list of (mostly recent) grandparent-lit books

Now, here is where the fun starts. I will share a few books (mostly novels but with some exceptions) in which grandparents feature significantly – and then hand it over to you. I am not including children’s books because they are too numerous and geared to a different audience to my readers, albeit some of us are grandparents and might like to promote ourselves! (If you are interested, Readings has produced a list of picturebooks for grandparents.)

My books will, of course, be Australian, but you can share anything you like (even if you’re Australian. I’m generous like that!)

Book cover
  • Tony Birch, The white girl (my review): a novel about Odette, a First Nations grandmother, who is determined to save her grand-daughter from falling under the control of white authorities.
  • Melanie Cheng, The burrow (my review): a novel about grief, and the role played by a rabbit and the grandmother in restoring some sort of balance.
  • Helen Garner, The season (my review): nonfiction/memoir about Garner’s spending a football season with her teenage grandson, and the insights she gains into boys and men (among other things).
  • Elizabeth Jolley, The orchard thieves (my review): a meditative novel in which a grandmother ponders the meaning of family and children, and quietly uses her wisdom and humanity to rebalance some family tensions.
  • Jeanine Leane, Purple threads (my review): a First Nations multigenerational story told by two girls, their matriarch grandmother Nan, and two aunts, all working together to forge an authentic and sincere way to live when you are “not the ideal colour”.
  • Eleanor Limprecht, The passengers (my review): dual narrative journey story of an American war-bride returning to her home after 68 years, with her 20-something Australian granddaughter.
  • Favell Parrett, There was still love (my review): a novel about two Czech sisters, one who ends up in Melbourne while the other remains in Prague, told mainly through the eyes of their grandchildren who learn that love can survive, that home is wherever you make it, and the importance of keeping on going.
  • Andra Putnis, Stories my grandmothers never told me (my review): dual biography-memoir of the author’s two Latvian grandmothers, with reflections on her relationship with them.
Cover

Various themes recur here, including the offering of protection and support, showing resilience, and passing on traditions. While some of these stories are warm-hearted, none are sentimental. These grandparents tend to be real and flawed, with their own demons, but they also tend to offer, either directly or indirectly, some wisdom about how to keep on going, even when times are hard.

Now, do you have any favourite grandparent stories?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition

/ Whispering Gums / 14 Comments

Now THIS is something different for Monday Musings. Yes, it is Australian, but it’s not a literary award. Its full title is The Australia for UNHCR – SBS Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition and, according to Australia’s UNHCR website, it “recognises and celebrates the contribution of refugees who are shining a light on the situation of forcibly displaced people”. The winner receives $10,000, which is donated by SBS, as part of their goal to promote positive awareness and understanding of refugees.

The site explains that the Award, which is supported by Murray’s daughters, Tania and Natalie Murray, is “offered in memory of Les Murray AM, the iconic sports broadcaster and much-loved host of The World Game on SBS television”. In other words, NOT Les Murray the poet. This Les Murray (1945-2017) was born László Ürge in Hungary, but fled Hungary with his family as a refugee in 1956, arriving in Australia in 1957.

Wikipedia’s page, linked on his name, says that he began work as a journalist in 1971, and was also lead singer of a small rock music group, The Rubber Band. He joined the Australian television station, Network Ten, as a commentator in 1977, which is apparently when he changed his name to Les Murray. He moved to Australia’s multicultural broadcasting service, SBS in 1980, initially as a Hungarian language subtitler, but soon turned to sports commentary – football, primarily. In 2011, he won the inaugural “Blogger of the Year” award at the FFDU Australian Football Media awards.

UNHCR says he used his public profile and his own refugee experience to advocate for refugee rights, and this, of course, is what’s behind these awards. To be eligible for the Award nominates must “have settled in Australia as refugees”; “demonstrate significant contributions to raising awareness of refugees and forcibly displaced people in Australia”; “be committed to continuing to engage the Australian public in support of refugees”; and be willing “to engage in Australia for UNHCR and SBS events” including participating in media coverage as requested.

The award was first made in 2022, and the winners have been:

  • 2022: Danijel Malbasa: former Yugoslav refugee, now “a powerful advocate, writer and lawyer”
  • 2023: Anyier Yuol: former South Sudanese refugee, recognised for “her diverse achievements across sport, women’s empowerment and refugee advocacy”.
  • 2024: Hedayat Osyan: a former refugee from Afghanistan, founder of a leading social enterprise that employs refugees in the construction industry

So, as I said, not a literary award per se. However, the 2025 winner, whom I read about in With You (Australia for UNHCR’s newsletter), is Huda Fadlelmawla, otherwise known as Huda the Goddess. She is an “internationally renowned slam poet”, hence her relevance to my Monday Musings.

Huda the Goddess

Fadlelmawla tells her story in With You (Issue 1, 2025, p. 7). I’ll provide a quick summary, but you can read it at the link. Her mother decided they should flee Sudan when Huda was 5 years old, because, under the dictatorship, her mother couldn’t work properly, put her daughter through school, help the family, or “even move around freely as a woman”. They spent 5 years in Egypt, living in poverty, before coming to Australia, when Huda was 10.

She writes of her mother’s telling her this was her chance to be what she wanted to be, and she was determined to take it. But, school wasn’t easy:

In school, I wasn’t good at English at all. Writing was just not my subject. But I had a very, very good teacher in Grade 7. She was the one who motivated me to master verbal language. She also asked me to do the graduation speech. It was the first time I was properly on stage. I thought I was going to throw up. I don’t even remember what I said, but I got a standing ovation from everyone.

After school, she started a nursing degree, but also started attending events. It was here that she saw/heard/met a poet named Anisa Nandaula, who encouraged her to do an open mic. She writes of the impact of the experience of doing open mics:

That was a time in my life when I didn’t know who I was outside of being smart and being a good oldest daughter, a good refugee. It was the first time it wasn’t about how good I was. It was about how I made people feel. I wanted to make people feel better – that was now my objective.

She must have been “good” because in 2021 she won the Australian Poetry Slam. She describes herself as “an improvised poet”, meaning she makes up her poems on stage. They are “not pre-written, edited” works. What she does is “deeply spiritual … deeply ancestral”. She talks about her activism as things she’s “had to do”, because, for her, “activists are not birthed out of choice … [but] … out of urgency … out of care … out of obligation”.

She wants to speak for her country and advocate for the youth. Refugees, she points out, do not need to be saved. Indeed, “sometimes they just need people to get the hell out of their way so they can rebuild countries that were taken from them”. She ends on this:

I am here for every Black girl who does not get to dream out loud. I have to stay in the room so that, when they step through the door, there is another Black face waiting for them.

That of course is the critical thing – for there to be role models, for us all to see people like us on the stage, in print, on TV, in art, and so on.

She will perform at Australia for UNHCR’s World Refugee Day lunch, Sydney, Thursday 19 June 2025. Click here for more info.

In the meantime, here she is on a UNHCR-published YouTube – and doing a TedX talk/improvisation a few months ago:

Art has been my greatest gift.
It is my greatest privilege.
It is my greatest weapon.

Have you either heard, or heard of, Huda the Goddess?

PS Oops, this is late. I scheduled it and then forgot to press the green button!

Monday musings on Australian literature: Stella Prize Shortlist 2025

/ Whispering Gums / 10 Comments

I missed reporting on the Stella Prize shortlist when it was announced in April, which is unusual for me, but it was a busy time and I just didn’t get to it. It was well reported at the time, so I’m sure those who wanted to know didn’t miss the news.

Consequently, my aim here is not so much to share the shortlist – though I do want a record for my blog – but to value-add by sharing some resources that are available which might help those who are interested in checking out or reading the shortlist.

I’ll start, though, with the shortlist – for the record:

  • Jumaana Abdu, Translations (fiction, kimbofo’s review)
  • Melanie Cheng, The burrow (fiction, my review)
  • Santilla Chingaipe, Black convicts: How slavery shaped Australia (non-fiction/history)
  • Michelle de Kretser, Theory & practice (fiction, review coming soon but here is kimbofo’s review)
  • Amy McQuire, Black witness: The power of Indigenous media (non-fiction/essays)
  • Samah Sabawi, Cactus pear for my beloved: A family story from Gaza (memoir/non-fiction)

As Judging panel chair, Astrid Edwards, pointed out, this is the first time that all Stella shortlistees are women of colour:

“This year’s shortlist is consequential for Australian literary history, as it is the first time the Stella Shortlist features only women of colour. Now in its 13th year, these works showcase an incredible command of craft and understanding of our uncertain time. These works are riveting, and they stood out to the judging panel for their integrity, compassion and fearlessness.” 

The winner will be announced at 5pm on 23 May, at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, and will be live-streamed for those of us unable to attend.

Now, here are the value-adds:

  • Shortlist Films: Created by Stella, these short films feature actors presenting extracts from each of the six shortlisted books: Susie Youssef on Cactus pear for my beloved, Tiana Hogben on The burrow, Chika Ikogwe on Black convicts, Salme Geransar on Translations, Ella Ferris on Black witness, and Michelle Perera on Theory & practice.
  • Reading Guide: The ABC’s Kate Evans (The Bookshelf), Claire Nichols (The Book Show), Daniel Browning, Nicola Heath, Anna Kelsey-Sugg, and Declan Fry have put together a Reading Guide for the six shortlisted books. It briefly introduces the Stella, and then provides an overview of each book, along with links to some other content, such as a discussion about it on an ABC program.

However, Stella has created, for each shortlisted book, an almost one-stop-shop page that includes the judges’ comments, the short film, review excerpts with links to the full review, other av content where available such as from the ABC, and podcasts): Juumana Abdu’s Translations, Melanie Cheng’s The burrow, Santilla Chingaipe’s Black convicts, Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice, Amy McQuire’s Black witness, and Samah Sabawi’s Cactus pear for my beloved.

A related value-add: Early last year I wrote a Monday Musings on the Stella Book of the Month. Only three had been nominated at the time, but by the end of 2024 they had named ten (here). It looks like they may not be continuing the initiative this year.

Anyhow, I’d love to know if you are reading any of the shortlist, and/or your thoughts on the list.