Monday musings on Australian literature: Changing literary tastes (1)

Research can send you off on all sorts of tangents - particularly if don't have to be focused. What fascinating things you can find when you go with the flow (in the wonderful Trove)! It started with my recent post on Currawong Press, which, somewhat serendipitously, led to a post on books published in The Australian Women's … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Changing literary tastes (1)

Monday musings on Australian literature: ACT Writers Centre

Do you have a writers centre in your neck of the woods? We do in Australia, but I've barely written about them before. They generally provide support and/or training for writers, via online and face-to-face mechanisms, some free-of-charge but most fee-paying, and tend to be membership organisations. Over coming months, I'll share what's happening in … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: ACT Writers Centre

Monday musings on Australian literature: Reading the reader (Survey)

Late last month, the Australia Council of the Arts released the results of a survey they conducted with Macquarie University. It is, the introduction to their final summary says, "the third stage of a major study of Australia’s changing book industry, by the Australian Research Council and Macquarie University." The project, according to the Macquarie University website … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Reading the reader (Survey)

Monday musings on Australian literature: Books in The Australian Women’s Weekly, 1930s-1950s

This will be a short post, tonight, mainly because I couldn't find, in the time I had available, enough information for my original idea - which was to discuss The Australian Women's Weekly's support for Australian writers. This was inspired by my coming across, during last week's research into Currawong Publishing Company, an article about … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Books in The Australian Women’s Weekly, 1930s-1950s

Monday musings on Australian literature: Currawong Publishing Company

As regular readers know, I've been involved in much clearing out of houses over the last eighteen months. I have, as a result, accumulated a small but interesting collection of older books, several of which I have already posted on. Today's post is inspired by another such book, And all the trees are green (1944), by … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Currawong Publishing Company

Monday musings on Australian literature: Sisters in Australian fiction

Yesterday I posted my review of Sara Dowse's novel As the lonely fly, which centres on the lives of three sisters (well, primarily, two sisters, and the daughter of the other sister), and today, playwright Joanna Murray-Smith mentioned another book about sisters, Shirley Hazzard's The transit of Venus, when giving her Top Shelf on Radio National's … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Sisters in Australian fiction

Monday musings on Australian literature: NLA Publishing, and some free e-Books

I was idly following links around the 'net over the weekend and somehow ended up at NLA Publishing's site. For those of you who don't know, they are the publishing arm of the National Library of Australia. I first mentioned them back in 2011 when I referred to publisher Alec Bolton as the person who established … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: NLA Publishing, and some free e-Books

Monday musings on Australian literature: ABDA 2017 Shortlist

Five years ago, I wrote a Monday Musings on book design, in which I featured three book designers. I've mentioned book design occasionally since then but, having just seen the shortlist for this year's ABDA (Australian Book Design Awards) which are sponsored by the ABDA (the Australian Book Designers Association), I've decided to write another … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: ABDA 2017 Shortlist

Monday musings on Australian literature: Aussie novels titled with foreign place names

I've done two Monday Musings posts inspired by Tony (from Tony's Book World) - one on novels with real place names in their titles and one with fictional. To complete the trifecta, I thought why not look at Australian novels with foreign place names in their titles. This turned out to be rather fun to do. Many … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Aussie novels titled with foreign place names

Monday musings on Australian literature: Aussie novels titled with fictional place names

Last week, inspired by Tony (from Tony's Book World)'s post, I posted on novels with places in their titles. I limited my titles then to "real" places, but in my research I came across many books with fictional places in their titles, so, well, you know what I decided to do with that! There are good reasons for … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Aussie novels titled with fictional place names