Australia is an immigrant country, with the first immigrants, the original Aboriginal Australians, believed to have arrived 40-60,000 (there are arguments about this!) years ago via the Indonesian archipelago. They established what is now regarded as one of the longest surviving cultures on earth. Today, though, I'm going to write on some of our more recent … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Asian Australian writers
Monday musings
Monday musings on Australian literature: Christina Stead
I have mentioned Christina Stead several times on this blog - and yet she remains the guilty gap in my reading. I thought 2011 would be Stead year, but things have conspired to restrain the rate of my reading this year. Maybe 2012! I have also written several posts inspired by articles in The ABC Weekly, and I'm returning to this paper … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Christina Stead
Monday musings on Australian literature: Meanjin’s Tournament of Books
Many Monday musings ago I wrote about the reduced visibility of women writers in Australia. I wasn't the only one concerned and things have been afoot to up the ante for women writers. For example, a new award targeting women writers, the Stella Prize, was announced earlier this year. And now Meanjin, a longstanding literary … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Meanjin’s Tournament of Books
Monday musings on Australian literature: Ada Cambridge
It's time, methinks, for another Monday Musings post highlighting a specific writer - and this time I've chosen Ada Cambridge. I discovered Cambridge back in the late 1980s when there was a resurgence (in Australia anyhow) in recognition of women writers. What was great about this resurgence was that it not only saw increased publication of … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Ada Cambridge
Monday musings on Australian literature: Are short stories on the rise?
Today I'll dip my toes into the muddy waters that comprise short stories. Regular readers of this blog know that I'm rather partial to short stories. Why, I wonder, are they still pretty much the second class citizen of the literary world? Marion Halligan said, on the release of her latest collection, Shooting the fox, that her … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Are short stories on the rise?
Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian literary couples
Are you fascinated, like I am, by literary couples? It seems so romantic to share one's calling with another ... even if the reality is not always as idyllic or as successful as it sounds. We've all heard of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, to name … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian literary couples
Monday musings on Australian literature: Writers from Victoria
Over the course of these Monday musings have been occasional posts on writers from specific geographic locations in Australia - but I have not done our two most populous regions, the states of Victoria and New South Wales. The time has come to confront there two - and so, today, I present you Victoria. Now … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Writers from Victoria
Monday musings on Australian literature: Japanese poetry in Australia
Papa Gums loves to give me clippings of obituaries that he knows will interest me. Last week, from his hospital bed, he gave me one for an Australian poet I'd never heard of, Janice Bostock. She was, according to the obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald, "one of Australia's leading writers of Japanese poetic forms", … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Japanese poetry in Australia
Monday musings on Australian literature: Late bloomers
I guess every country has them, the writers who aren't recognised until their middle age. Australia certainly does, and many of them seem to be women. I'm not sure whether this apparent gender imbalance is a fact or simply reflects my biased interest in the lives of women writers. I wouldn't be surprised if it … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Late bloomers
Monday musings on Australian literature: Bookseller turns publisher
Bookseller-as-publisher (and vice versa) is not an original idea but, in our digital environment with its plethora of production and distribution technologies, this combination clearly offers new possibilities - one that the Australian bookchain, Dymocks, has announced it is going to try. Its aim? To "support Australians with stories to tell" ... and, of course, … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Bookseller turns publisher
Whispering Gums 