Monday musings on Australian literature: Forgotten writers 8, Jessie Urquhart

November 18, 2024February 9, 2025 / Whispering Gums / 12 Comments

While some of the forgotten writers I have shared in this series are in the category of interesting-to- know-about-but-not-necessarily-to-read, others probably are worth checking out again. Jessie Urquhart is one of these latter, though I’ve not read any of her novels, so don’t quote me!

However, there are articles for her in Wikipedia and the AustLit database, and I have mentioned her on my blog before, so this must all count for something in her favour. My reference was in a Monday Musings on Australian women writers of the 1930s in which I discussed an article by Zora Cross. She talked about, among other things, writers who had achieved success abroad without leaving home. One of those she named was Jessie Urquhart, who, she says, “will not, I think, do her best work until, like Alice Grant Rosman, she relinquishes journalism for fiction”. I commented at the time that this was interesting from someone who, herself, combined fiction and poetry writing with journalism. I also wondered whether Urquhart needed her journalistic work to survive. (I suspect she did.)

I also wrote earlier this year about Urquhart on the Australian Women Writers (AWW) blog, as did Elizabeth Lhuede last year. This post draws from both posts and a little extra research. In my post, I shared a 1924-published short story titled “The waiting”. It is an urban story about a very patient woman. It’s not a new story, but Urquhart writes it well. … check it out at AWW. You might also like to read the story Elizabeth posted, “Hodden Grey”, which is a rural story. Like many writers of her time, Urquhart turned her head to many ideas and forms.

Jessie Urquhart

Novelist, short story writer and journalist Jessie Urquhart (1890-1948) was born in Sydney in 1890, the younger daughter of William and Elizabeth Barsby Urquhart. Her father, who was a Comptroller-General of NSW prisons, had emigrated from Scotland in 1884. She joined the Society of Women Writers and was secretary for 1932-33. She had an older sister, Eliza (1885–1968) with whom she emigrated to England in 1934 (years after Zora Cross’s article!) There is much we don’t know about her life, though her father’s obituary does say that neither of the sisters married.

In an article titled “Women in the World” in 1932, The Australian Women’s Mirror includes a paragraph on Urquhart, because they were about the serialise her story Giving Amber her chance. They say she “started writing very young, and in her teens had a novel, Wayside, published; she is now a Sydney journalist. Short stories and articles from her pen have appeared in the Mirror, her latest contribution being “The Woman Prisoner” (W.M. 8/3/32), based on her knowledge of the Long Bay women’s reformatory.”

Elizabeth’s thorough research found that Urquhart had turned to short story writing and journalism, in the 1920s, with most work published in The Sydney Mail, but she was also published in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Woman’s Mirror, The Australian Women’s Weekly, The Sun and Queensland Figaro. Elizabeth read (and enjoyed) many of her stories, and wrote that they cover “a broad range of settings and topics, giving glimpses into the lives of modern Australian urban and rural women and men, encompassing the adventures of spies, adulterers, thieves and deserters; the faithful and unfaithful alike”.

According to Elizabeth, Urquhart’s first publications actually appeared when she was in her twenties, including a series of sketches titled Gum leaves which was published in The Scottish Australasian. The Goulburn Penny Post quoted the paper’s editor, who said that:

The sketches represent her initial effort, and indicate that she has the gift of vivid description and the art of storytelling in a marked degree. All the delineations show power and a creative facility which promises well. Some are indeed gems. [The author shows] promise of a successful literary career.

Her novel Wayside appeared in 1919, and is probably based on these sketches. (She was not a teen in 1919, so I’m not sure about The Australian Women’s Mirror’s facts.)

Anyhow, according to Elizabeth, Urquhart had “a year’s study abroad” sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and wrote more articles on her return. She lived in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, and continued to publish what Elizabeth nicely characterises as “her quirky short fiction”. She also wrote more novels. Giving Amber a chance, serialised in 1932 in The Australian women’s mirror, was published in book form in 1934. The Hebridean was serialised in 1933, but was not published in book form though, wrote Elizabeth, it was “arguably” the better novel. She liked “its setting and its depiction of class tensions” and believes – a propos my introduction to this post – that it deserves to be more widely read.

Another novel, Maryplace: the story of three women and three men, was published in 1934, but unlike the previous novels does not appear to have been serialised. Elizabeth found a contemporary review, which she liked for the sense it gives of the debates surrounding Australian writing at this time, including a reading public “mistrustful of its own novelists”. The author of the review writes that Maryplace is

a story which takes the art of the Australian novel to a new plane of modernity of treatment and universality of appeal.

In style, in theme, and in the power of characterisation and analysis this book is far above the work of the average of our novelists. It is deserving of the highest recommendation. Despite the fact that the scenes of Maryplace, with the exception of one period, are laid in a New South Wales country town, the story will be of equal interest to any reader of novels anywhere. That, after all, is the real art of the novel, and it is one which is not so frequently cultivated by our writers that we can afford to ignore it when we encounter it.

The reviewer believes there’s been too much self-conscious talk about “an Australian story-art”, that all literature is naturally a product of the country which produces it and the life and times in which it is produced. In other words, says R.N.C.,

All stories have their roots in the soil. They will be true of a nation and be part of a national contribution to art without ceaseless striving to label them and brand them as ‘Australian’ on every page and in every paragraph.

Urquhart’s story, R.N.C continues, has the “unselfconsciousness that gives her book a real Australian atmosphere and setting” but that also “makes it a story of absorbing human interest and power so as to be a world novel for the world”. (I like R.N.C.’s thinking.)

The novel apparently deals with the class tensions, and a changing order which sees “the local butcher or grocer” no longer willing to deliver their goods to “the back door”. This is part, says R.N.C. of “any fast changing democracy, and Miss Urquhart in her Maryplace has drawn it with pitiless detachment, giving to her theme sympathy and understanding but the touch of irony and satire which it demands”.

After she went to England in 1934, Urquhart’s stories continued to appear in the Australian press, but whether she published elsewhere is not clear. She was clearly still active in writing circles in 1941, because she was chosen as Australia’s delegate to the PEN conference in London. She and her sister survived bombing during the war, and Jessie sent regular reports about life in London to The Sydney Morning Herald.

In 1944, the Herald reported that “gossip of London theatres, the Boomerang Club, books and their authors comes from Miss Jessie Urquhart, formerly of Sydney, who went to England before the outbreak of war”. It says that “during the first great blitz, she was an A.R.P. telephone worker” but was now “a reader for Hutchinson’s Publishing firm”. She and Eliza had been “staying with novelist Henrietta Leslie in Hertfordshire for the past three months”. Wikipedia tells me that Leslie was a “British suffragette, writer and pacifist”, which makes sense when you read in the next sentence that Jessie had “just been re-elected to the committee of the Free Hungarian Club Committee” which was chaired by Hungarian writer and exile, Paul Tabori.

She is an interesting woman, and would surely be a great subject for one of Australia’s literary biographers!

Anyhow, in 1945, another Sydney Morning Herald paragraph advised that Jessie and Eliza Urquhart would “probably visit Australia” again in 1946, and that they had reported that London was “beginning to recapture its old smartness”. I suspect Jessie never did get back to Australia, as she died in a nursing home in St John’s Wood, London, in April 1948. Eliza died in 1972.

Sources

Zora Cross, “Australian women who write: Many fine novelists and poets“, The Sydney Morning Herald (Women’s Supplement), 4 April 1925 [Accessed: 18 November 2024]
R.N.C., “Australian woman’s powerful novel“, Sunday Mail (Qld), 30 December 1934 [Accessed: 18 November 2024]
Social News and Events, (1944, November 1). The Sydney Morning Herald , 1 November 1944, p. 6. [Accesed: 18 November 2024]
Social News and Events, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August 1945, p. 6. [Accessed: 18 November 2024]
Jessie Urquhart, AustLit.
Jessie Urquhart, Wikipedia [Accessed: 18 November 2024]
“Women in the world”, The Australian Women’s Mirror, 5 April 1932 [Accessed 18 November 2024]

Monday musings on Australian literature: Ausmus Month

November 11, 2024November 11, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 22 Comments

AKA Australian Music Month. The things you learn, thanks to other bloggers! It was kimbofo’s post of last Monday that brought this month to my attention, though I now see that our ABC is celebrating it, along with other musical organisations. I should have been aware. Anyhow, as kimbofo wrote, it offers an opportunity to “celebrate music of all persuasions — rock, pop, classical, country and so on — made by Australian musicians”. Kimbofo, as you’ll see from her post, did so by sharing ten Australian music biographies. Do check her post if you are interested.

Clearly, I can’t do the same. That would add nothing to the discussion. So, I’m going to go broad and share a variety of ways in which music is reflected in my Australian reading. First though, I have written Monday Musings on music-related AusLit topics before – Pianos in Australian literature, and Musician’s memoirs – so there will be some overlap. However, I will avoid duplicating too much, and hope, instead, that the posts will be complementary.

Of course, as kimbofo ably shows, there are many memoirs/autobiographies written by musicians. Fortunately, I have read some different ones to those kimbofo lists: Emma Ayres’ (now Ed Le Brocq’s) Cadence: Travels with music (my review), Anna Goldsworthy’s Piano lessons (my review). Linda Neil’s All is given (my review), and Archie Roach’s Tell me why: The story of my life and my music (my review). These musicians vary, from classical performers to singer-songwriters, and so do their stories. Anna Goldsworthy is particularly relevant this month, because she delivered the first of this year’s Boyer Lectures. The overall theme is Future Classic (or, classical music for the contemporary age) and Goldworthy’s topic was Kairos, “the right shared moment” or “the right time”. You can listen to the lecture here.

Then there are novels which specifically feature music, musicians and/or musical instruments, including Murray Bail’s The voyage (my review) about a piano inventor trying to sell his new-style piano in Vienna; Christine Balint’s Water music (my review) about a music school for orphans in Venice; Carmel Bird’s Field of poppies (my review) in which an eccentric musician goes missing; Diana Blackwood’s Chaconne (my review) about a young woman finding connection through music in Europe; and Henry Handel Richardson’s classic Maurice Guest (on my TBR) about a music student in Leipzig.

There are novels written by musicians who have branched out into novel writing, like singer Nadi Simpson, whose Song of the crocodile I’ve read and reviewed, and who has now published Bellburd. Both titles suggest music in some way. In Song of the crocodile, a spirit songman, Jakybird, plays a significant role in the resolution. Another musician is the solo artist, Holly Throsby, whose third novel, the non-music “bush noir” Clarke I’ve reviewed. And there are more, such as indie rock band member, Peggy Frew, whose Hope farm won the Barbara Jefferis Award.

Short stories often feature music and musicians. One anthology in particular comes to mind, Red hot notes (on my TBR), edited by Carmel Bird. This book contains stories by some of our best-known writers from the end of the 20th century, like Thea Astley, Robert Dessaix, Helen Garner and Marion Halligan, exploring some aspect of music in their lives. I have written about music-focused short stories, including Myra Morris’ “The inspiration” (my review). Stephen Orr’s long short story or novella, “Datsunland“, in his collection Datsunland (my review), includes a struggling musician who ends up teaching in a “poor” elite school.

There are also books that aren’t necessarily about music but whose titles are inspired by it. Nigel Featherstone’s Fall on me (my review) is titled for an R.E.M song, while the title of and chapters in Julie Thorndyke’s Mrs Rickaby’s Lullaby (my review) reference music.

Finally, I must mention this year’s spoken-word-and-music album, The Wreck Event (my post) which was created by the Hell Herons, a new “spoken-word/music collective” comprising poet-writers Melinda Smith, CJ Bowerbird, Stuart Barnes and Nigel Featherstone. I have also written about Nigel Featherstone’s foray into art song, The weight of light (my post).

And this, I think, is perfect place for my final point. A pay-walled article in The Spectator (14 June 2023) commences with

Haruki Murakami said that ‘I feel that most of what I know about writing fiction I learned from music.’ Music and literature enjoy a close relationship. Authors rely on rhythm and tone for their writing.

As I thought about this post last night, this was the point that I wanted to make. I love books about musicians and music. After all, creativity is inherently interesting, and music can be used in so many ways. But, this topic also makes me think about writing. I care about tone, and I love writing that is rhythmic. Some of the writers at this year’s Canberra Writers Festival talked about the craft of writing, and how the craft provides the “propulsive” element, rather than the more obvious aspects like plot that they tended to focus on when they were beginners. These writers – like Emily Maguire, Charlotte Wood and Robbie Arnott – concentrate, then, on their sentences. In my review of Arnott’s Limberlost, I shared an excerpt and wrote that “the rolling, breathlessly joyful rhythm of this description is very different to that in the next paragraph where Ned’s old fears return, and the sentences become clipped, and staccato-like”. I love it when the writing itself supports, if not carries, the meaning.

Anyhow, my point is that music meets literature in all sorts of ways. I’ve only touched some of them, and superficially at that, but now I want to pass it over to you.

Do you love music in literature or literature about music? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts or examples.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Final thoughts on Canberra Writers Festival 2024

November 4, 2024November 4, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 15 Comments

In 2019, I wrote a detailed wrap-up of that year’s Canberra Writers Festival, and I thought to do one this year, though I didn’t have the fascinating stats I had in 2019. However, with this year’s festival bumping up against November, which is a very busy month in the blogosphere, I’ve decided to scale down my plans and just share some ideas which caught my attention, mainly because they popped up more than once in the six sessions I attended.

Many of the ideas related to the ideas that drive the authors or that affects their writing lives.

Who are the decisionmakers, how are things being decided: Rodney Hall and Catherine McKinnon, in slightly different ways, indicated that these questions drive much of what they write. Hall said “we don’t know when the things that affect our lives are hatched”, and that too often we react (and act) without asking “why” things have happened. Similarly, McKinnon is interested in understanding our governments and the decisions they make, in thinking about who we are trusting to make decisions.
Writing about the self: While autofiction and writing about the self are a strong trend of modern writing, they don’t appeal to all writers. Not surprisingly, the self-described classicist Rodney Hall is one of these. He sees his classicism as being out of step with his peers, whom he admires but who are interested in more personalised expression, because people “want the dirt of what you are yourself”. Robbie Arnott was more forthright. He sees the modern focus on writing on the self as raising mundanity to art. (I can enjoy both – it’s all about degree!)
Writing to encourage feeling in readers: Robbie Arnott and Anita Heiss were both very clear about wanting to make people feel. Heiss wants readers to feel with her characters. She see this as the power of fiction. (In fact, she suggested this differentiated fiction from nonfiction, which I can’t agree with. I know I’m not the only one who has been powerfully moved by nonfiction. As a blog-reader wrote to me, what about Anne Frank’s diary, for a start?) Arnott was also vey clear about his goals in this regard. For him, the aim of fiction is not to render the world as it is but how it feels. He starts by looking for the emotion.
Historical fiction, and looking at what it is about NOW that the past can illuminate: Once upon a time I avoided historical fiction, but that time has long gone, because I’ve learnt that historical fiction can explore ideas that speak to me. Catherine McKinnon and Emily Maguire both talked about the relevance of historical fiction to now. First, there’s the issue of retrieving history that has been lost (the role played by women, for example, or queer lives), because it didn’t meet the prevailing (often patriarchal) mindset. But McKinnon also talked about how you look for the story you want to tell now – at what it is about now that you want to speak to, at what it is about humans that is interesting to us now. So, the 2005 Oppenheimer-biography, American Prometheus was, she felt, about how people could be picked up and then dropped, but she was interested in decisionmaking (and how it can be petty).
On living in our loud, noisy, controlling, egotistical world: Charlotte Wood and Robbie Arnott both referred to this (but would have covered it more in the session I couldn’t attend due to a clash, The power of quiet): Wood said she understands the appeal of asceticism in our “you-can-have-everything world”, bur recognises that the idea of “obedience” (versus wanting to argue) is a challenge for the ego in our egotistical world. Arnott’s quietness is based in his focus on landscape and nature. Both, at least as I heard them, see value in withdrawing (at least for a while) from the noise that can get in the way of being.

Some ideas, not surprisingly, related more to their craft.

The craft: What I heard was writers knowing (or learning) how much the craft of writing does the job they want, rather than focusing on plot or character, for example. A good structure, the right voice, sentences that do something – these are what makes writing come alive, what makes their stories work. Structure, for example, is fundamental to what Rodney Hall does. Arnott talked about crafting his books sentence-by-sentence. Maguire and Wood talked about “propulsion” in their narratives coming from the language, the sentences, the voice. “If the voice is strong”, said Wood, “the reader will follow along. It’s propulsive. That’s the key.”
Writing as a vocation, that is, as something you must do, kept coming through, and was specifically mentioned by Charlotte Wood, Emily Maguire, and Robbie Arnott. It’s their sacred place.

None of this is mind-shatteringly new, I suppose, but these ideas interested me for different reasons – usually related to the context in which they were explored, or the slant or angle they were given. I hope you find something of interest here.

So, does anything here speak to you?

Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Publishing Prize 2024 Winning Books Launch with Conversation

November 3, 2024December 17, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 10 Comments

I mentioned the nonfiction winner of the 2024 Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Publishing Prize, in this week’s Monday Musings, but saved the full winner announcement until after I attended the launch at a conversation with the winning authors this weekend.

The participants

This year, as publisher Julian Davies had hoped, there was a prize for fiction and one for nonfiction. The winners were all present at the conversation, and were:

Sonya Voumard for Tremor, which the judges described as “notable for its compellingly astute interweaving of the author’s personal experience with our broader societal context where people with disabilities, often far more challenging than her own, try to adapt to the implicit expectations and judgements that surround them”.
P S Cottier & N G Hartland for The thirty-one legs of Vladimir Putin, which the judges said “welcomes us to a world where absurdity and reality are increasingly indistinguishable and where questions of identity dominate public discourse. The book spirits us off on a playful journey into the lives of a group of individuals whose physical attributes appear to matter more than who they may be.”

The conversation was led by Sally Pryor who has been a reporter, arts and lifestyle editor, literary editor and features editor at The Canberra Times for many years. Born in Canberra, and the daughter of a newspaper cartoonist, she has a special connection to our city and its arts world.

And of course, the publisher, Julian Davies, started the proceedings. As I wrote in last year’s launch post, he is the inspiring publisher and editor behind Finlay Lloyd, a company he runs with great heart and grace (or so it seems to me from the outside.)

The conversation

Before the conversation started proper, Julian gave some background to the prize, and managed to say something different to what he said last year. He described Finlay Lloyd as a volunteer organisation, with wonderful support from writers like John Clanchy. He reminded us that they are an independent non-profit publisher, but wryly noted that describing themselves as non-profit seems like making virtue out of something that’s inevitable! Nonetheless, he wanted to make clear that they are not a commercial publisher and aim to be “off the treadmill”. And of course he spoke of loving “concision” and the way it can inspire real focus.

As last year, the entries – all manuscripts, as this is a publishing prize – were judged blind to ensure that just the writing is judged. The judging panel, as I wrote in my shortlist post, included last year’s winners.

Then, Sally took over … and, after acknowledging country, said how much, as a journalist, she also loved concision. Short books are her thing and they are having a moment. Just look, she said, at Jessica Au’s Cold enough for snow (my review) and Claire Keegan (see my post). Their books are “exquisite”. She then briefly introduced the two books and their authors. Sonya’s Tremor is a personal history told through vignettes, but which also explores more broadly the issue of viewing differences in other. She then jokingly said that she “thinks” Nick and Penelope’s book is fiction. Seriously though, she loved the novel’s set up which concerns the lives of 16 Putin “doubles”. It’s a page-turner. The books are very different, but share some themes, including identity, one’s place in the world, and how we can be captured and defined by the systems within which we live.

On Sonya’s journey

The conversation started with Sonya talking about her journey in writing this book. She was about to have brain surgery, a stressful situation. But she’s a journalist, and what do journalists do in such situations? They get out their notebook. Her coping mechanism was to cover it as a story, one of big stories of her life.

She has had a condition called Dystonia – mainly tremor in her hands – since she was 13. She managed for many years but, as she got older, more manifestations developed, not all easily linked to the condition, and her tremor got worse. Getting it all diagnosed took some time.

Sally noted that in the book, the doctor is thrilled that he could diagnose her and have someone else to observe with this condition (which is both environmental and genetic in cause). Sonya, of course, was thrilled to have an answer.

On Nick and Penelope’s inspiration and process

It started when they were holidaying in Queensland. I’m not sure I got the exact order here, but it included Penelope’s having read about Putin doubles, and Nick having been teased about looking like Putin. Penelope said it was a delight to write in a situation where humour would not be seen as a negative. The story is about look-alikes being recruited from around the world to act as Putin doubles should they be so needed.

Sally commented that the doubles respond differently. For some, it provides purpose, while others feel they lose their identity. What’s their place in the world, what does it mean?

Putin, said Nick, is an extraordinary leader who has morphed several times through his career. They tried to capture different aspects of him, though uppermost at the moment is authoritarianism. How do we relate to that? Penelope added that it’s also about ordinary people who are caught up in politics whether we like it or not. Capitalism will monetise anything, even something genetic like your looks.

Sally wondered about whether people do use doubles. Nick and Penelope responded that it is reported that there are Putin doubles – and even if they are simply conspiracy theories, they make a good story.

Regarding their collaborative writing process, Nick started “pushing through some Putins” so Penelope wrote some too, but they edited together. Nick is better at plot, at getting a narrative arc, Penelope said.

On Sonya’s choosing short form not memoir

It was a circuitous process. There is the assumption that to be marketable you need to write 55,000 plus words. She had the bones, and then started filling it out, but it was just “flab”. The competition (and later Julian) taught her that there was a good “muscular story” in there, so she set about “decluttering”. Sally likes decluttering. The reader never knows what you left out!

“Emotional nakedness” was a challenge for her, and to some degree members of her family found it hard being exposed – even if it was positive – but they learnt things about her experience they hadn’t known. Sonya’s main wish is that her family and loved ones like what she’s written.

But, did she also have a sense of helping others? Yes! There are 800,000 Australians with some sort of movement disorder, and many like she had done, try to cover it up. (For example, she’d sit on her hands during interviews, or not accept a glass of water). Her book could be liberating for people.

Continuing this theme, Sally suggested there are two kinds of people, those who ask (often forthrightly) about someone’s obvious condition, and those who would never. She wondered how Sonya felt about the former. It varies a bit, Sonya replied, but it feels intrusive from people you don’t know well. At work it can feel like your ability is being questioned.

On Nick and Penelope’s editing process

Nick explained that their story had a natural boundary, given they had a set number of Putins. (And they didn’t kill any Putin off in the writing!) There was, however, a lot of editing in getting the voice/s right, and getting little arcs to the stories.

In terms of research, they read biographies of Putin, and researched the countries their Putins come from.

Sally wondered whether Nick and Penelope saw any legal ramifications. Not really, but they did research their Putins’ names to get them appropriate but unique, and they have a fiction disclaimer at the end (though Julian didn’t believe it necessary!)

On Sonya’s writing another book on the subject, and on negotiating with those involved

While there are leads and rabbit holes that could be followed, Sonya is done with this story (at present anyhow).

As for the family, Sonya waited until the book was finished to show them, but she also tried to avoid anything that might be hurtful or invade people’s privacy. She’s lucky to have a family which has tolerated and understood the journalistic gene. Regarding work colleagues, she did talk to those involved. It was a bit of a risk but she didn’t name those who had been negative towards her. Most people just thought her shaking was part of her, and she liked that.

Sally talked about the stress of being a daily newspaper journalist, with which Sonya agreed, and gave a little of her personal background. She started a cadetship straight out of school and was immediately thrust into accidents and court cases. It was a brutal baptism. Around the age of 30, when the tremor and other physical manifestation increased, she decided she couldn’t keep doing this work.

Were they all proud of their achievement with this format?

As a poet Penelope is comfortable with brevity, so this was an expansion (to sentences!) not a contraction. Nick was obsessed with “patterning” – with ordering, moving between light and dark, internal and external, providing an arc. Penelope added that it started with less of an arc, including no names for the Putin doubles.

Sonya paid tribute to Julian for being “such an amazing editor” who taught her about how to impose structure on chaos. Penelope added that it was an intense editing process. It was also a challenge because, being a publishing prize it’s not announced until publication so she couldn’t tell people what she was working on. But the editing process was interesting.

Q & A

There was a brief Q & A, but mostly Sally continued her questions. However, the Q&A did bring this:

Is Nick and Penelope’s book being translated into Russian and/or will it be sent to Putin: Julian said Finlay Lloyd were challenged enough getting books to Australians. Penelope, though, would love Russians having the opportunity to read it. Perhaps, said an audience member, it could be given to the Russian embassy …

Julian concluded that it had been a joy working with these authors who “put up with him”, and thanked Sally sincerely for leading the conversation.

This was a lovely warm-hearted event, which was attended by local Canberra writers (including Sara St Vincent Welch, Kaaron Warren, and John Clanchy) and readers!

These books would be great for Novellas in November. You can order them here.

The Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Publishing Prize Winning Books of 2024 Launch
Harry Hartog Booksellers, Kambri Centre, ANU
Saturday, 2 November, 12.30-1.30pm

Monday musings on Australian literature: Nonfiction awards 2024

October 28, 2024December 17, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 33 Comments

It’s been a very busy weekend, and I have a few posts waiting to do, plus a reading group book to finish for tomorrow, so this post is a quick one. Phew, you are probably saying if you stuck with me over the weekend!

Today’s topic recognises that our litblogosphere’s annual Nonfiction November event, currently coordinated by Liz Dexter, starts today. I don’t usually write a Monday Musings for this event, but I thought it might be interesting to look at what Australian works of nonfiction won awards this year. Most of the awards are specific nonfiction awards, but some are more general awards which can be won by fiction or nonfiction (like the Stella, albeit was won by fiction this year.)

I’ll list the awards alphabetically by title of award:

ABIA Biography Book of the Year: Anna Funder, Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s invisible life (biography) (my review)
ABIA General Non-Fiction Book of the Year: Thomas Mayo and Kerry O’Brien, The Voice to Parliament handbook (handbook)
ACT Literary Awards, Nonfiction: Kate Fullagar, Bennelong & Phillip: A history unravelled (history)
Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Prize, Nonfiction Winner: Sonya Voumard, Tremor (I’ll be reporting more on this prize and the Fiction winner next weekend) (memoir/essay)
Indie Awards Book of the Year Non-fiction: David Marr, Killing for country: A family story (history)(Jonathan’s post)
Magarey Medal for Biography: Ann-Marie Priest, My tongue is my own: A life of Gwen Harwood (biography)
Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award: to be announced on 27 November, but 5 of the 6 shortlisted titles are nonfiction
National Biography Award: Lamisse Hamouda, The shape of dust (memoir)
NSW Premier’s History Prize, Australian History: Alecia Simmonds, Courting: An intimate history of love and the law (history)
NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction: Christine Kenneally, Ghosts of the orphanage (history) (Janine’s review)
Northern Territory Literary Awards, Charles Darwin University Creative Non-Fiction Award: Dave Clark, Remember (creative nonfiction about truthtelling)
Prime Minister’s Literary Award, Australian History: Ryan Cropp, Donald Horne: A life in the lucky country (biography) (Lisa’s review)
Queensland Literary Awards, The University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award: Abbas El-Zein, Bullet, paper, rock: A memoir of words and wars (memoir)
Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, Prize for Non-fiction: Ellen van Neerven, Personal score: Sport, culture, identity (memoir and polemic)

So 14 awards here, and life writing (biography and memoir) is by far the most represented “genre”, partly because some of the awards are specifically for biography (life writing). History is second, and again, this is partly because there are specific history prizes (some of which are won by biography!) It is noteworthy, however, that other genres – nature writing and eco-nonfiction, for example – rarely get a look-in in these sorts of awards. And yet, there is some excellent writing in these genres being published (by Upswell, for example).

And a little survey…

Do you write nonfiction or non-fiction? In my admittedly minimal research, I have read that Americans are more likely to drop the hyphen, and this seems to play out in American versus English dictionaries.

I note that:

Liz has nonfiction in her banner, which is how I first titled this post
the above Australian awards vary in their usage – some using the hyphen and some not, but the hyphenated form seems to be winning.

I am tending to go with not, just as during my lifetime (or is it life-time!!) we’ve dropped the hyphen from tomorrow and today. (Hmm, a little research into these revealed that Chaucer for example had “tomorrow” – in his form “tomorwe” – unhyphenated. It was then later hyphenated and later again, re-unhyphenated – and I think I really need the hyphen there! Actually, it’s not as simple as this because through much of time the two forms have coexisted!)

What do you do?

Canberra Writers Festival 2024: 6, The case for critics

October 28, 2024October 28, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 19 Comments

Presented in partnership with Sydney Review of Books and Radio National’s The Bookshelf

This was my final session of the festival, and it felt the perfect choice after five sessions focussing on authors and their novels. The program described it this way:

Derided, disparaged and cursed to the heavens, book critics are depicted as literature’s grand villains – as frustrated creators and gleeful wreckers. But what do critics really do? And why are they necessary for a healthy literary ecosystem? James Jiang, Beejay Silcox and Christos Tsiolkas – a trio of Aussie critics – make the case for criticism. In conversation with Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh (recorded for Radio National’s The Bookshelf).

Again there was no Q&A, because it was being recorded.

The session was conducted jointly by Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh though the participants didn’t need much guidance as this was a topic they cared deeply about.

Cassie did the acknowledgment of country. The participants were introduced – author Christos Tsiolkas (who has appeared several times on my blog), Editor of the Sydney Review of Books James Jiang, and critic and Canberra Writers Festival Artistic Director Beejay Silcox. Then the discussion commenced. I considered using my usual headings approach but the discussion was so engaged and free flowing, that I decided breaking it up would lose some of the connections. So, I’ve bolded a few ideas here and there as a guide. And, I’ve put my own reflections in parentheses.

Kate leapt right with a question to Beejay about what happens when she “sees the whites of the eyes” of someone she has critiqued. This indeed had happened, Beejay responded, as she had loved one book by Christos and not another! But, if she can’t be honest she shouldn’t be doing the job. She doesn’t feel uncomfortable facing people if she has done her job properly, thoughtfully, respectfully.

Christos admitted that it can be difficult to receive criticism, but he also writes criticism. However, it’s film criticism, because as an Australian novelist he feels he can’t be objective about other Australian novelists. He has critiqued novelists no longer with us, such as Patrick White.

Beejay had been writing criticism out of Australia for seven years before she appeared on the scene, so she didn’t have that issue of being known. (In fact, some thought her name was a pseudonym being used by an author, and Christos was one of the suggestions for that author!)

James, who is ex-academia, believes reviewing living authors offers a “massive opportunity” because you can guide the development of the art into the future. Critical thought, in other words, gets sucked up into the culture at large.

Kate and Cassie, who use reviewers on their radio program, were interested in how you choose who reviews what. Debut authors can sometimes want to make a name for themselves and, for example, love to attack the sacred cows. So, their practice is to give these authors books from other countries to review. They are also conscious of hidden agendas they’d like to avoid, like friends or lovers who had fallen out! (I suspect that working for a national broadcaster that people love to criticise requires a different mindset.)

James, on the other hand, doesn’t mind a gung-ho critic. But he feels that increasingly in Australian letters there is the official story and the backroom chat, with the latter often not appearing in social media. He would like transparency, and wants these informal ideas to make their way into formal criticism.

Christos took this idea up, arguing that criticism is a conversation, an argument, but he likes to know the perspective of the critic, where they are coming from. He thinks Australians are scared of having the debate. He also thinks that to be a good reviewer you need to be a good writer. This came up a few times through the discussion, the idea that good criticism is a work in its own right.

Picking up the idea that Australians are scared of the debate, Beejay suggested that we are a comfortable country but criticism is inherently uncomfortable. She’s been told she is brave, but she’s not. She knows what bravery is and it’s not her. Rather, she is being honest. She worries for our culture if what she does is seen as “brave”. Criticism should open doors, but it is often mistaken for closing things down. (Thinking about bravery versus honesty, I wonder if it’s more about confidence. Confidence in what you think, confidence that you can present it clearly, and confidence that you can defend it.)

Christos talked about loving the American film critic Pauline Kael. She starts by asking what is the work doing, and how is it doing it. But, she has criticised – negatively – films that he loves. So, immediately he is in a conversation with her about why he loves the work, perhaps even despite her criticisms.

Writing schools, Christos said, should teach criticism and how to deal with criticism, because there is a sting to a critical review. He quoted Hemingway’s advice to young writers – don’t compare yourself to the present because you don’t know what will hold, compare yourself to the past. (This is probably good advice for critics too! So many works we read now won’t hold, for reasons that, admittedly, aren’t always due to quality.)

At this point, Kate asked what is good criticism. For her it is not about guiding her on whether to read a book or not. In fact, she said, let’s define criticism!

James suggested that criticism was ultimately a form of ekphrasis. The most interesting reviews are those that “recreate the object of scrutiny”, that “conjure the object”, for the reader. In other words, criticism explores the work itself rather than whether it is better or worse than some other work. So, probed Cassie, it’s not about evaluation but context? Not in a discrete way, James said, but you are evaluating all along. Every process of description contains evaluation. But it’s not plonking some assessment at the beginning or end. (I wrote YES! here, because I often worry that I don’t pronounce enough on my feelings about a book. Today’s session has encouraged me to continue with my preference for trying to work out what a book is doing, rather than focusing on whether I like it.)

Christos suggested that the best way to show you care about the art is to ask why it doesn’t work.

Kate then got to the nub of the word “criticism” which people tend to understand as something negative rather than something more analytical. Beejay took this up, saying that people want to ask about the negative, the “bloody”, but she also looks for awe. It’s about opening a book and being prepared to be drawn in, of watching a mind at work. (This is what most intrigues me when I’m reading: What is the mind behind this doing? Where is it going? Why is it doing this?) Her greatest fear is that she will lose the capacity for awe, to be amazed.

Christos said that it can be hard to write about what gives you the awe. (It can be hard to write about the opposite too, though, methinks?) Beejay suggested that the best critics bring doubt, not certainty. They offer “a (their) theory” about the work.

Christos talked about having trust in the critic (and he gave an example of a music critic he trusts, who works in an area he knows little about).

Asked about bringing in expertise, James made the interesting statement that he wants to estrange experts from their expertise. He talked about the difficulties of public writing – and used The Conversation as an example. Experts tend to dilute their writing for the public so that it ends up being “high advertising” for the university. He wants to get away from that. Good public writing might change the style – from academic – to make it interesting, to engage the reader, but shouldn’t dilute the content. SRB will accept essays from 3000 to 10000 words. He gave the example of a 10000-word essay by a poet on the poetics of videogames. There was a mismatch between the subject (video games) and perspective (a poet) but the the result was something good.

On this expertise issue, Beejay commented that many feel they need to have read everything relevant to be able to comment, but she doesn’t believe that’s so. Christos suggested it was partly generational, and came out of the post-modern era. He had to wash it all off when he left university. (I understand this.)

Beejay on the other hand was a lawyer, not an academic. She left the law, and thought academia was solipsistic, not willing to have conversation. She found criticism by accident. Books saved her life, and now she’s giving back to them. She’s jaded about academia.

James, however, grew up with working class parents, and was looking for where he could go to have the conversations he wanted. He found it in an English seminar. The classroom environment taught him to edit his own writing. (Kate commented that Michelle de Kretser’s latest novel, Theory and practice, feeds well into this discussion.)

The conversation then moved on to the focus on the latest thing, and how to not be “just recent”. Christos said the best festival panels for him are those where they discuss influences and books loved. We need to find space for this because there is the danger that some of what we focus on is just fashion, and that we are being influenced by the language around us. He wishes there were more spaces for reflective pieces. (Being involved in the Australian Women Writers blog, and a Jane Austen group, I don’t disagree with any of this!)

Beejay loves reading favourite writers on how they became who they are. She criticises Australia because she loves it, but we are anglophone and protestant. We have an incredible critical legacy and we forget it. Rodney Hall, for example, has a large body of work but only one book, besides his latest, can be bought in bookshops. Critics can keep older work alive, and the more alive our discourse, the more alive our culture.

Christos agreed, and talked about a community radio session that focuses on the things we love. (The damage done by academia is that there’s no love.)

Cassie wondered about pulling punches, and talked about being told to pull one. Beejay had never pulled punches, but she knows which punches she wants to make. James offered a different angle, suggesting that some things are interestingly bad, whereas others can be good but dull. There’s much good but dull publishing he suggested. Christos talked about being told he should have pulled a punch when reviewing a promising young woman because what she was doing was important. What he’d written was “fair but not right”!

Returning, it seemed, to the idea of evaluation, Kate grapples with “stars”. She’s not good with binaries, but if you’re not binary, are you being nuanced or wishy-washy. (I feel her pain!) Beejay suggested that how she feels is almost irrelevant to the reader, it’s how she thinks that’s important. Feeling can impact thinking, but she has written positive reviews about things she didn’t care for.

Cassie then asked about spoilers. For Christos, to do justice to a work, to get to a conversation about it, he assumes you are interested in the whole, in how it works. James gave the example of classical tragedies. We all know how they are going to end. But then, he said, he is more of a voice and style rather than a plot person. (Yes!) Criticism is an ethical activity, and you need to be brave about owning your idea. (I think I might have missed how this related to spoilers.) Beejay talked about having the trust of her reader and working out when to share what. Criticism is the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot of effort and care beneath it. (This discussion of spoilers missed a significant point that wasn’t addressed at all during the discussion which is whether there is a different between Review and Criticism. I feel there is, and that in reviews spoilers are generally not what readers want, whereas with criticism it’s as Christos said, it’s about the whole and you can’t do that without talking about the end.)

And that was that … have you made it to the end? If so, do you have any thoughts to share?

Canberra Writers Festival, 2024
The case for critics
The Arc Theatre, NFSA
Sunday 27 October 2024, 12-1pm

Canberra Writers Festival 2024: 5, Your favourites: Anita Heiss

October 27, 2024October 27, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 11 Comments

In conversation with Astrid Edwards

Astrid Edwards is a podcaster who conducted a “conversation” I attended at last year’s Festival (my post), while Wiradyuri writer Anita Heiss (my posts) has made frequent appearances on my blog. This was my second (and final) “Your favourites” session at the Festival, though there were more in the program. Here is the program’s description:

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Bathurst Wars. Anita Heiss’s thrilling new novel, Dirrayawadha, takes its title from the Wiradyuri command ‘to rise up’ and is set during these pivotal frontier conflicts. Join Anita in conversation with Astrid Edwards (recorded for The Garret podcast).

Contrary to usual practice, it was the guest, Anita, who opened proceedings. She started by speaking in language which she then translated as acknowledging country, paying respects, honouring it, offering to be polite and gentle (I think this was it, as my note taking technology played up early in the session!)

Astrid then took the lead, saying it was a privilege and honour to be on stage with Anita Heiss. She did a brief introduction, including that Anita had written over 20 books across many forms, had published the first book with language on its cover, and was now a publisher. She also said there would be no Q&A, presumably because the session was being recorded for her podcast.

The Conversation proper then started, with Anita teaching us how to say the title of her new book, but I was still playing with my technology, so will have to look for YouTube instruction later, as I did with Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray. She then read from the beginning of Dirrayawadha.

On choosing fiction for the story

Astrid was not the only person to ask this question, said Anita. So had some of the Bathurst elders. Her answer was that we all read differently, so stories need to be told in all forms – children’s, young adult, adult fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and so on. She talked about her first novel, Who am I? The diary of Mary Talence (2001), which was commissioned by Scholastic for young adults in their My Australian Story series. Told in diary form, it’s about a young girl’s experience of the Stolen Generation – and it made a bookseller cry. That’s the power of fiction – to make people feel. Anita wants people to feel with her characters. You can’t do that in nonfiction, she believes.

She has four points-of-view (POVs) in the novel: the land, the historical warrior Windradyne, his fictional sister Miinaa, and the fictional Irish political convict Daniel. Her original idea had been to use Baiame (the creator) as her POV, but she’s received mixed feelings about this. She thought, then, of using the land, but she found it hard to tell her love story through that POV. So, she ended up with her four POV novel!

As well as fiction’s ability to appeal to our feelings, Anita said the other power of fiction is reach. She quoted someone (whom she can’t remember) who said that if women stopped reading, the novel would die. Men rarely read fiction, she believes, particularly fiction by women. The composition of this morning’s audience didn’t contradict this! Her aim is to reach women in book clubs. This led to a brief discussion about “commercial” being seen as a dirty word, but it means reach!

On the violence

An interesting segue perhaps from the idea of encouraging women readers! But, violence is the subject of this historical novel about the 1824 Bathurst War, which was fought between the Wiradyuri people and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Every act of violence by the settlers brought revenge. Anita described the Proclamation of Martial Law made by Governor Brisbane which included that “Bloodshed may be stopped by the Use of Arms against the Natives beyond the ordinary Rule of Law”. While there was reference to its being a last resort, it sanctioned violence.

Anita talked a little about the history, and recommended nonfiction books for further reading, but said she wanted to translate the massacres into a palatable form for wider audiences. And, she wants people to know this story through the Wiradyuri lens. (She commented that the colonisation of Gaza is the same story. What have we learnt as human beings.) She talks about the book so people can learn but every time she does, it is re-traumatising.

On her main characters

Anita spoke about each of the characters, about the historical Windradyne, and his bravery in fighting for his people. All she had to do to fight Bolt (see Am I black enough for you?) for his racist attacks was go to court, but in Windradyne’s time people lost their lives. She created his sister Miinaa because she wants to show strong Wiradjuri women (and Suzanne, for a strong settler woman).

As for Daniel O’Dwyer, she spoke about the Irish political convicts who were transported because they fought the Britain for their sovereignty. It’s the same story. However, most of Dan’s Irish convict friends did not recognise the similarity because, once in Australia, they were fighting for their own survival, for jobs.

Anita spoke quite a bit about Dan, because he helps represent conflict or opposition within settlers about what was happening. She talked about there being long standing connections between First Nations people and the Irish because they experienced loss of sovereignty at the same time. Through Dan, we see an Irish man who is conscious of being on Wiradyuri country. There are people who put themselves on the line for the right thing (like, today, the Jews for Peace group.)

And, Anita told us something I didn’t know which is that the word “deadly” as we hear used by First Nations people comes from the Irish, who use it in a similar way. There were other similarities between the Irish experience and that of First Nations people, including not being allowed to use their language.

Ultimately though, First Nations people were measured against Eurocentric behaviour. The Wiradyuri were seen as barbaric, and the convicts, who lived in fear, did not see that the violence they experienced was a reaction to their own behaviour

Astrid said she was catching a glimpse of a what if story – or alternative history. That is, what if the Irish had sided with the Wiradyuri?

The landownder family, the Nugents, and their place Cloverdale, were based on the Suttors and Brucedale in the Bathurst region. Sutter (who sounds a bit like Tom Petrie in Lucashenko’s Edenglassie) learnt Wiradyuri and built a relationship with the people. Co-existence, in other words, can happen. Again, what if? (Anita auctioned the name of her settler family in a Go Foundation fundraiser.)

On the love story

Anita said it is difficult to write about violence, so the love story between Miinaa and Dan, gave her a reprieve from violence and heartache. Further, through all her novels – this came through strongly in her early choclit books (see my review of Paris dreaming) – she wants to show that First Nations people have all the same human emotions, to show “us as complete, whole people”. She likes humour, but it was hard to find humour in a war story. Still, she tried to find moments of distance from painful reality.

On learning her language

Anita said her aim is not to write big literary novels, but using language does make her writing more rich, powerful. However, she is still learning it. She told a funny story about posting a YouTube video on how to pronounce Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray. Readers practised it, messaged her and sent clips of their achievement, but then an Aunty (I think) told her that she’d got it wrong. She was distressed, until a friend told her, “you are learning what should be your first language at the age of 50”. She does, however, feel privileged to be able to learn her language in a university setting when her mother wasn’t allowed to speak it at all.

There was more on language – including the Wiradyuri words for country, love, and respect, and that Wiradyuri words are always connected to place. Country matters to Anita. She talked a little about her growing up, and her parents, about her experience of living with love and humour. Race was never an issue between her Austrian father and Wiradyuri mother.

Astrid wondered whether there had been any pushback from using language – Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray – for her last novel’s title, given it was groundbreaking. It was during COVID, Anita said, and a Zoom meeting with her publisher, who wanted to push boundaries. Anita suggested taking English off the over – and the publishers went with it. Anita doesn’t want the title to be a barrier, and she doesn’t want people to get upset if they get it wrong, but no-one has pushed back.

On her new role as a publisher

I have written about this initiative which involves Anita being the publisher for Simon and Schuster’s new First Nation’s imprint, Bundyi, so I won’t repeat it here. She talked about the titles I mentioned, albeit in a little more detail. She wants to produce a commercial list, including works by already published authors doing different things and by emerging writers.

The session ended with another reading from Dirrayawadha – of the novel’s only humorous scene, which has Suzanne explaining Christianity to a very puzzled Miinaa.

A friendly, relaxed session, which nonetheless added to my knowledge and understanding of Anita Heiss and of First Nations history and experience.

Canberra Writers Festival, 2024
Your favourites: Anita Heiss
The Arc Theatre, NFSA
Sunday 27 October 2024, 10-11am

Canberra Writers Festival 2024: 4, Your favourites: Robbie Arnott

October 26, 2024December 30, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 10 Comments

In conversation with Karen Viggers

Karen Viggers is no stranger to this blog (my posts), and I have read Robbie Arnott’s previous novel, Limberlost (my review). One of several “Your favourites” sessions with loved authors, this one was described as

Robbie Arnott’s fiction is steeped in the wild: women return from the dead as walking ecosystems; mythic birds circle the skies; the water calls to us. In writing these sumptuous, near-sentient landscapes, he grapples with our most wrenching and necessary questions: eco-grief, stolen land and human frailty. He joins local author Karen Viggers to talk about his new novel, Dusk, a tale of a feral creature loose in the Tasmanian highlands.

Karen commenced by acknowledging the Ngunnawal people, their generosity and their stories, and spoke with passion about the importance of stories in our lives.

She then introduced herself, explaining that as an animal and landscape person, she relates to Robbie’s books and was keen to conduct this conversation for the Festival. She then introduced Robbie, his four books to date, and his many awards – Flames (2018), Rain heron (2020), Limberlost (2022), and Dusk (2024). Wildness and landscapes feature in all his work.

This was a fascinating but sometimes somewhat anarchic discussion in which Robbie didn’t always quite answer the question being asked, or, perhaps, not in the expected way. But Karen is an expert at going with the flow, so we got great insights into Robbie and his approach to writing – which is what it’s all about.

On how the accolades make him feel and their effect on his writing

It’s nice to be acknowledged, but living in Tasmania, away from the literary scene, they don’t make much difference to his daily life. Career-wise they’re good, but they don’t affect his writing. He is all about his work, to the detriment of his other responsibilities.

On the novel’s origin

Dusk is about twins Iris and Floyd joining the hunt for a feral puma, the titular Dusk, because a bounty has been offered. Karen described it as a story of wildness, freedom, connections, relationships, and asked about its origin. Robbie said it goes back to his childhood, and times in the bush when they would see feral deer which shouldn’t be there. He wanted to write this story.

On the siblings and their relationship to their parents

Iris and Floyd are 37-year-old twins whose parents had been convicts, then bushrangers, and had dragged their children through their life of crime. Now these children want to live straight. They need the bounty cash, but they have no idea about what they are doing.

He wanted two protagonists who have a close relationship, like siblings do. He didn’t make them twins for any particular twin-connection idea, but because he wanted a flatness of hierarchy between them. However, Karen felt that the sort of connection twins have comes through.

Karen wondered about the twins’ outsiderness, and whether it comes from within himself. Robbie, though – and this was reiterated throughout the interview – said he had no idea about himself. He hasn’t had therapy! They are outsiders because we live in colonial landscape. The other characters – except for some near the end (First Nations I’m guessing) – are outsiders too, but don’t realise it.

Later, Robbie talked about the deep trust Iris and Floyd have in each other. They are committed completely to each other, they rely on each other, despite frequently irritating each other.

On Dusk the puma, and wild beast myths

Dusk was not inspired by big cat stories but people are more scared of cats. They are terrifying, and play into our idea of wild landscapes. He is interested in outsiders tracking outsiders, in the strangeness of the colonial landscape. Colonists would bring things to new countries to hunt, also to rid other pests, so he had the idea that someone might bring a cat over to get rid of deer. But his pumas were more interested in easier animals than deer, like sheep. Like the cane toads brought over to eat cane beetles, but which ended up eating other things. (And, to extend this example, before the cane toads, the sugar cane itself was introduced, which then led to blackbirding.)

As for the name, Dusk, he didn’t choose it for any metaphorical meaning, but liked it as a name for a creature which appears at a liminal time of day.

Robbie doesn’t seek metaphor when he’s writing. It feels more like cleverness than openness. Karen suggested that a joy for writers is when readers see things that the writer doesn’t see. Robbie agreed, sharing Richard Flanagan’s advice that the least interesting thing in a novel is the writer’s intention. Flanagan, we learnt, is a friend and writing mentor for Robbie.

Despite this, readers did, said Karen, think about metaphorical meaning of Dusk!

On the wild and dangerous creatures in his novels, their source, relevance, meaning

Robbie has had no therapy, he reiterated, so can’t explain why! But, currently there is a focus in writing on the self and raising mundanity to art. However, he is interested in the world outside humanity. In stories, wild animals are often the impetus for change, but animals don’t work like that. They just are, going about their lives.

The discussion then turned to savagery and brutality. Humans can be as savage and brutal as wild animals, but in urban societies we fear wildness and savagery, and try to keep it at bay. However, we keep bumping up against the edges of it. Robbie has had publishers and readers complain about brutality in his novels, though it’s drawn from reality. For example, Iris and Floyd slaughtering bobby calves with sledgehammers comes from a friend’s experience in 2012. In another novel, his publisher tried to talk him out of a scene involving the skinning of rabbits. Where do they think meat comes from, Robbie asked. Savagery and brutality are part of us.

We have become separated from the bush. We say we love it but is our attitude to it essentially about power and control? For Robbie, taming the wilderness is ridiculous. He shared a scene from Richard Powers’ beautiful novel, Overstory, in which people suggested removing sticks and natural debris from the forest floor.

Staying with the idea of animals, Karen spoke of Iris and Floyd living in a savage world but taking such exquisite care of their horses. She asked Robbie about his thoughts on the human-animal bond. He wanted to show the intensity of the relationship, that it was an unquestioned one, and a necessity.

On what landscape means to him, and how he writes it

Robbie always starts with the landscape, not plot or character, and then thinks about who would be there. Landscape moves him. It offers the greatest way to feel small, the most beautiful form of insignificance. To write about landscape with feeling, the first thing he does is to free it of baggage, like the idea that the forest is green. He describes it as it is, which is not green, and then focuses on emotional reactions to it. For him, the aim of fiction is not to render the world as it is but how it feels.

To write freshly about landscape he gets out into it, and draws on his memory (memory is critical). He searches for the “atmosphere”. He most enjoys a book when he has slid into its atmosphere.

Staying with the idea of feelings, Karen asked him about the feelings he wanted for Dusk, who is omnipresent from the beginning. Robbie said that it wasn’t quite menace but a “hauntedness”. She’s not vengeful. He wanted her to feel alive.

On his novel as Western (and more!)

Robbie has described the novel as being something like a western, in that it is framed like a western, like a quest. It is also a journey novel, which makes it fun to write and enjoyable for the reader.

The discussion got into other aspects of his writing, such as his blurring of the line between realism and the magical in most of his books. It’s about, he said, conveying how the world feels. The magical wasn’t needed in Limberlost which was inspired by his grandfather. He edits a lot out, because it must feel real.

Karen loves the opening of Rain heron, and suggested that cutting out is an art. Robbie doesn’t want to waste anyone’s time. He wants to keep his books vivid, vibrant, alive. He doesn’t write drafts, but writes sentence by sentence, crafting each one carefully as he goes, so that by the end he has his book.

On Iris

Is Iris looking for belonging? Robbie said Iris feels connection to the landscape, and realises she doesn’t want to leave but she also recognises that she has no cultural connection to the place. Does she have a right to stay? This is the unanswered question – for Iris and for us. She does her best but the question is never resolved.

This point, this, above all else, makes me keen to read Dusk.

Q & A

On his becoming a writer, and his influences: He was a bookworm from the start (as soon as he learnt his sister got to stay up later because she could read!) He started writing when he was 11 or 12. There was never a decision, he just started writing. His literary influences are many, but he loves Annie Proulx for her amazing descriptions of the world; he loves Denis Johnston “at the sentence level”. He thinks Kevin Barry’s new novel is excellent, and later he mentioned David Mitchell and Claire Keegan.

On his thoughts about relationships between humans and wild animals (like the seal and fisherman in Flames): He agrees with ecologists who advocate staying away, but narratively he is pulled to these relationships.

On how he manages to keep his unique, glorious style: He can tell when he Is writing like himself, and when he “is wearing his influences too heavily”. When this happens, he writes a description of something he knows – not necessarily related to his current project – to get back to his own style.

On other art forms that influence or inspire his writing: Photography; poetry for its imagery; oh, and when he is writing he often puts on moving image of salmon leaping and grizzly bears trying (and usually failing) to catch them. This live and unscripted action inspires him.

Karen concluded by simply saying that Robbie’s writing is magical. This conversation would surely have convinced anyone not already in agreement.

Canberra Writers Festival, 2024
Your favourites: Robbie Arnott
The Arc Theatre, NFSA
Saturday 26 October 2024, 2-3pm

Canberra Writers Festival 2024: 3, Get thee to the nunnery

October 26, 2024November 4, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 5 Comments

Emily Maguire and Charlotte Wood with Kate Mildenhall

I chose this session primarily because of Charlotte Wood, given I’d seen Emily Maguire the day before, but her presence was plus, as was having author Kate Mildenhall conduct the conversation. Here is the session’s description in the program:

Emily Maguire and Charlotte Wood have both written novels of cloisters – of monks and nuns and clerical power-broking. What is it about these reclusive places that makes for such potent and irresistible storytelling? In conversation with Kate Mildenhall.

Kate did a lovely acknowledgement of country, starting by saying we were honoured to be on this land. She thanked the Ngunnawal people for their care and recognised that the country always was and always will be theirs.

She then said that BeeJay Silcox deserved an A+ for the title of this session “Get thee to the Nunnery”, and did the usual introduction to the authors, Emily Maguire (and Rapture) and Charlotte Wood (and Stone Yard devotional), listing their books and achievements, which includes, of course, Charlotte being listed for this year’s Booker prize.

Kate introduced the conversation by saying that the two books were set more than 1000 years apart but both involved women – one young, one middle-aged – seeking monastic life albeit for different reasons, the former to live a life of the intellect and the latter to retreat from the world.

On their characters

Emily explained that Agnes starts as child in Mainz, living with a widowed father who makes the shocking-for-the-time decision to keep his daughter. She consequently grows up listening to men. As a child of the era, she believes in God and constantly looks for signs of God.

Charlotte’s character, on the other hand, is unnamed and about Charlotte’s age. Charlotte liked a reader’s description that her character had “unsubscribed from her life”. She had hit an unspecified “wall of despair” so leaves her life as an environmental activist, and goes to a convent to rest. There is also a sort of “homing instinct” because she returns to the region where she had grown up. She initially finds the nuns’ lives embarrassing, all this singing and praying, until she realises that this is the work. After a narrative gap, we turn the page and find she’s been living there for a few years.

On “the heat” or seed for their books

Emily was inspired a decade ago by the legend of a female pope, which was believed through the high Middle Ages. The story thrilled her. It is a great trickster narrative, and she is personally interested in the early church and early Christianity. She started the novel 10 years ago but didn’t have the skills to write it then.

Charlotte can’t remember the beginning, but she was interested in why would a contemporary woman become a Catholic nun. She shared some of her personal background with Catholicism. She had skedaddled from it as a young woman, for all the obvious reasons, but has remained interested. As she thought about her question regarding modern women becoming nuns, she came across the idea of retreat and she got that, the idea of leaving a chaotic world for one of order. Then the pandemic happened. It pulled the rug from under her. The 2019 fires and the pandemic felt like a biblical wave of catastrophe and made her realise that our certainties about our lives were a complete delusion. She had driven through the Monaro – where she had grown up – during pandemic. “Old stuff came up” and “brought unlike things together”, so she invented a nunnery on the Monaro.

On wrestling about faith, religion, church when writing these books

Emily had to buy wholeheartedly into Agnes’ world in which God is the answer to everything, the good and bad. She also plugged into her childhood when Jesus was her best friend. It was easy, but also complicated, to sink into that. She boiled her thinking down to one idea: What does personal faith have to do with organised religion? As Agnes gets entrenched into the life, she starts to question what are her wants versus God’s?

Charlotte doesn’t believe in God but also doesn’t sneer at people who do. She can’t make the step to believe, but dislikes the fundamentalist atheist’s view. Also, as a young person, she loved spectacle of the Catholic Church, the language, rhythm, poetry, metaphor, the imaginative world of Bible, the stories of saints (horror fiction, and crime, interjected Emily!)

On the suffering of women (physical, spiritual, emotional)

Charlotte referred to the church’s idea of the mortification of the flesh. In our you-can-have-everything world, she understands the appeal of asceticism as conveyed in Emily’s novel.

Emily spoke of the saints’ stories involving harm to women’s bodies. But women can also feel that the body is what they have control over, and can accept (or do) harm to it, because it’s the “last site of resistance”. Religion can see women’s bodies as bad, dirty but there are also ideas about cleansing. It’s not either-or.

On deep reading, the idea of “lectio divina” in both works

Charlotte described its use in her book – read, think, read the same again, think, then say what comes up – and Sister Bonaventure’s advice that if you don’t understand something hand it over to God. This idea of handing one’s confusion to God is both disturbing and a relief to her narrator.

Emily said there’s been a long tradition of this practice, which is not Bible study but repetitive reading and thinking. It surprises Agnes. Does this “copying”, as she sees it, this not questioning, mean anything? She is shut down when she tries to argue, but if God made her mind one that could argue isn’t that what she’s supposed to do? Yet, sometimes sitting with ideas offers clarity.

Charlotte suggested that this idea of obedience (versus wanting to argue) is a challenge for the ego in our egotistical world. Emily added that she loved the lectio divina section in Charlotte’s book. She had turned hardline atheist, after her deeply believing youth, but now she is more “I don’t know”.

On research

Charlotte talked about being asked to speak at a conference in Melbourne on “communicating monasticism” run by nuns and priests. She was very nervous, because she didn’t research nuns, didn’t even interview any. It’s all imagined. But the conference attendees were very warm because they saw that she was respectful about their chosen life. And, they asked incredible questions.

Kate commented on the freedom writers of fiction have in this regard, but said there was evidence of extraordinary research in Emily’s book, though it’s held lightly. Emily explained that to make Agnes’ world and choices real she needed to do the research, including very basic levels, such as what is a chair, were there roads, and bigger questions like why didn’t Agnes choose a convent and would she have done this. She talked about how the modesty in monasteries – versus in ordinary Middle Ages life – was a gift to her plot of a woman presenting herself as a man.

On plotting, whether it comes naturally or has to be worked at

For Charlotte the plot alleviates the boredom, provides a change in the rhythm. She wanted quietude, stillness, but also needed an energy spike. She told us about asking a still-life artist friend about how she gets her very still pictures to shimmer. The answer was that she breaks up surface, the texture of paint, making it a bit unstable, though the image remains static. Charlotte said using the diary form gave some narrative movement to her story, but then she included the mouse plague, and the return of the wild-child nun with the bones.

Emily used the journey taken Agnes by Brother Randolph, but also, the legend has built into it the risk of being uncovered. She has learnt that propulsion is in the craft – the language, the sentences. Every sentence must do something. Charlotte added that the voice is likewise critical. If the voice is strong, the reader will follow along. It’s propulsive. That’s the key.

On “devotion” being part of the artistic life

Emily said that you lean into your writing, you just do it (like religion), and constantly check whether you are getting the answer you expected. There is devotion to the art, a communion with the page.

Charlotte agreed saying most writers feel a sense of sacredness when doing their work. For her it’s a vocation, a calling, not a job. (It doesn’t pay like a job!) It taps into something bigger than the self, connects with something outside self. At times you can feel it’s coming through you. Not from God for her, but the unconscious, perhaps. She said that when you leave Catholicism there’s a big hole, a yearning. Writing, for her, fills that.

Q & A

On Rapture not looking down on women, while the character in Stone Yard devotional does: Emily described Agnes as a “pick-me” girl, an imposter. It’s a power move to keep women separate, but Agnes, who separates herself, also feels a loss. Charlotte agreed that her character is an outsider and “judgey”, feels separate. She has ego, but respects Sister Simone, who has rigour, versus the other women whom she sees as embarrassing little girls. Simone picks her as someone who finds obedience hard. Charlotte realises she often writes about women who have disagreements. She’s interested in power dynamics.

On whether Charlotte has a name for her character in her mind: No, partly because the character is partly Charlotte herself. She wanted to risk showing part of her real self (her feelings about her mother, her memories of the town). Also the form of book. Starting as a diary means she’s not going to name herself. Charlotte likes the interiority of that.

On Emily’s relationship with Agnes: yes, she misses her!

There was also a question to Charlotte from a Cooma person whose family had connections with Charlotte’s. They had all read the book, including the men, and found it real. She wanted to know how men had responded. Charlotte said there’d been intense responses, though fewer in number than she’d had for The weekend. People, both men and women, had particularly shared their feelings of grief.

Kate concluded by asking what Charlotte and Emily do when the touring is done, what they retreat to for contemplation: Emily said writing is meditation, it stills the internal chatter, and Charlotte agreed, saying “writing time is home”.

This was another engaging session, topped off by my having a great chat afterwards with Karen Viggers (my posts), who was also in the audience, about our favourite reads of the year.

Canberra Writers Festival, 2024
Get thee to the nunnery
The Arc Theatre, NFSA
Saturday 26 October 2024, 10-11am

Canberra Writers Festival 2024: 2, History repeating

October 26, 2024November 4, 2024 / Whispering Gums / 14 Comments

Another preamble

What I didn’t say in my first post on this year’s festival is that the venue where I attended the sessions today is a favourite of mine – and not only because it’s where I spent most of my working career. This year, some strands of the festival are being held at the National Film and Sound Archive, which has two beautiful theatres – the big Arc theatre and the gorgeous, cosy Theatrette. I love the Theatrette, which was carefully refurbished around a decade ago to meet modern needs but retain its heritage art deco style and fittings.

History repeating

I chose this session because it featured two authors I have read, and was about historical fiction which – I’m going to say it – in its more literary form, interests me greatly. The session was described in the program as:

Catherine McKinnon has woven her new book around Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty – the ultimate nuclear family; Emily Maguire’s new novel is an audacious portrait of an audacious woman – a mystery from the Middle Ages. Rebecca Harkins-Cross joins these dauntless storytellers to discuss the narrative lure of historical legends, and what the past can tell us about our present.

I have read Catherine McKinnon’s clever Storyland (my review) which took us from the early days of the Australian colony far into a dystopian future, and Emily Maguire’s not-quite crime fiction, An isolated incident (my review). (Interestingly, my 2022 post on an essay by Emily on Elizabeth Harrower’s short story, “The fun of the fair”, is among my most popular posts this year.)

Anyhow, Rebecca Harkins-Cross commenced by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we were meeting, then shared a quote from McKinnon’s book:

When Robert [Oppenheimer] works, there is seemingly no intrusion from the past into the present. But this, he knows, is illusory. The past shapes the present, creates the future. If thoughts are a trinity of past, present and future, losing the past means obscuring the future. (p 21)*

On its own, this idea is not especially new or dramatic, but it nicely framed the discussion we were about to have.

She then went on to briefly summarise Emily Maguire’s and Catherine McKinnon’s new books, Rapture and To sing of war. Rapture is set in the ninth century and tells the story of a young girl who, at the age of 18, to avoid the usual life for a woman as wife or nun, enlists the help of a lovesick Benedictine monk to disguise herself as a man and secure a place at a monastery. This story was inspired by Pope Joan.

To sing of war, on the other hand, is a polyphonic story set in December 1944 – in New Guinea, with a young Australian nurse who meets her first love, Virgil Nicholson; in Los Alamos, with two young physicists Mim Carver and Fred Johnson who join Robert Oppenheimer and his team “to build a weapon that will stop all war”; and in Miyajima, with Hiroko Narushima who helps her husband’s grandmother run a ryokan.

These two novels are set far apart in place and time but they have, said Rebecca, some unexpected parallels – plucky women confronting a patriarchal society, an interest in the natural world and the sustenance it can offer, and the lives of ordinary people.

She then asked her first question which concerned the idea that with every novel writers often say they have to start anew. Is this how Emily and Catherine felt?

Emily said yes, because her previous novels are contemporary, so while she wanted to write this story it was a challenge. Her method was to stop thinking about it as historical fiction but to focus on the main character and her experience – because she is living in her “now” – and then sort out the necessary details.

Catherine also said yes, that with every new project you feel like a baby again. She looked to Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy, not because it’s the same subject, but for how Barker made her era feel like now.

This led Rebecca to ask Emily whether any historical fiction writers were a guiding light for her? Hilary Mantel looms large, she said, and she loves her work, but she wanted to write something shorter, tighter, something pacy. She turned most to Angela Carter, not an historical fiction writer, for how she handles this and for the carnality of her language. She also looked to Danielle Dutton’s Margaret the First, not for her language but for her pacing.

On why their topics

Rebecca, who mixed her questions up for the different authors, then asked Catherine why she’d chosen her particular period and those series of events. Catherine was interested in understanding our governments and the decisions they make. Also in what happens to the land we are on. In World War II, a global war, who were we trusting to make decisions? (This reminded me of Rodney Hall in the morning session and his point about what was being hatched that would affect us later.) She was also interested in who became leaders, in the decisions being made by young people, in the bomb and its impact on the land – and more. Her interest is cultural.

Turning then to Emily, Rebecca wanted to know why she’d chosen the story of the female pope which is now accepted as apocryphal. Emily had come across the story due to her interest in early Christianity, and how it had grown from a small desert cult to a big power. She was interested in this story which most people believed from 1200 to 1600 until the Reformation protestants started questioning Roman Catholicism and its promotion of this story.

But, continued Rebecca, why this particular story? It’s a trickster story, said Emily, and she’s interested in Christianity and the idea of belief vs faith. Her Agnes is a genuine believer. Emily is interested in people’s own beliefs regardless of what the institution is telling them, and in Agnes being in a position where she had to either deny her faith or her femaleness.

At this point Emily did a reading, from early on when Agnes recognises the “bloody service [aka breeding] required of girls”. (This reminded me of Jane Austen who, centuries later, shows, in her letters, acute awareness of what motherhood means for women, including death. She was not impressed or keen!) Emily talked about how she got into Agnes’ character, which included trying to read what she would have been reading – things like the lives of saints. Many of these were violent, including that of her namesake, St Agnes, whose body and purity were deemed more important than her life.

On research

Back to Catherine, Rebecca about her research. She did the common thing – too much! And started by including too much in her book. She went to New Guinea, and spoke to people whose families experienced the war, and researched the botany. She went to Japan – to Hiroshima and the Peace Park and Museum, and to Nagasaki. She read and spoke to people there. She went to America, where she followed the Oppenheimers’ life, and then specifically to Los Alamos and Alamogordo, looking at the desert landscape. She wanted to connect the horror of war with the beauty of the landscape.

She then did a reading, from the opening of the novel.

Rebecca asked Emily how she’d approached research as a novelist, that is, how she balanced doing enough research while leaving space for the imagination.

Emily’s challenge was needing to balance the myth and history surrounding her origin story – Pope Joan. She managed it by keeping tightly focused on the character, on what kind of person is she. She also kept in her head Elie Weisel’s comment that there’s a difference between a book that is 200 pages at the beginning and one that starts at 800 pages and ends up at 200. She started with a much longer draft, which had a lot of scaffolding which she gradually tore down as it was no longer needed. When the novel was well along, she gave it to her first reader, and asked whether there were bits that didn’t make sense because she’d taken too much out, and, conversely, if there was information still in that wasn’t needed.

On their writing choices

Asked about finding Agnes’ voice, Emily said she’d started first person, but it felt right when she turned to “deep third person”. She tried to keep the language to words with Germanic and Latin origins, and she was careful about concepts, metaphors, similes. Something can’t feel “electric”, or can’t “evolve”, for example, in the ninth century!

One choosing her polyphonic structure, Catherine said that the polyphonic or braided novel has been around for a long time. Look at Chaucer’s Canterbury tales. Certain stories call for it, like her interest in small lives in a global world. She wanted a young woman in Los Alamos. She wanted to retrieve New Guinean history because at the time the people were not named. And so on. Her challenge was to find a way to keep the reader interested while jumping from story to story.

And, on history

This led to a question about history and revisionism. What had been written out of the history books that they wanted to return? Emily wanted to show that women could be intellectual forces, be present, be visible, that, just like the present, different women could have different interests and ideas. She wanted to imagine these women into being. I appreciated this response because readers often see such individuals is anachronistic, but I’m with Emily. Intellectual women, feminist women, and so on, don’t pop out of thin air. They have just been hidden.

Similarly, Catherine wanted to bring woman to the fore as thinkers, as scientists, etc, not only as nurses. She wanted to tell of ordinary people, to share queer stories. In other words, she likes finding the hidden stories, and searching out what is kept secret (in societies, and personally). What are the inner emotions, drivers, experiences that frame actions?

Q & A

On Catherine’s inspirations for her characters: Mim was based on a few women who were chemists and mathematicians; Fred was based on a real person called Ted Hall, who worried about America having a monopoly on bomb after war.

On negotiating telling one’s story against big presences like Hilary Mantel’s grand, involving historical novels, and Prometheus Unbound (which was adapted into the film Oppenheimer):

Catherine didn’t know the film was coming out, but she did use American Prometheus in her research. However, you look for the story you want to tell now – at what is it about now that you want to speak to, at what is it about humans that is interesting to us now. American Prometheus , she felt, was about how people could be picked up and then dropped, but she is interested, for example, in how decisionmaking can be petty. Writers have control over what they see, over their version of it.
Emily said that “anxiety of influence” is part of being an author, but she has a set of touchstones – such as Angela Carter for this book – of things you admire but that aren’t doing what you are doing. Other Pope Joan stories, for example, have “truth” agendas, but that wasn’t her interest/angle.

I enjoy hearing historical fiction writers talking about what they do because it’s a challenging but, worthwhile, endeavour. This thoughtful session was capped off by my having a delightful private chat with author Robyn Cadwallader (my posts), who had also been in the audience, about some of her historical fiction writing experiences.

* Thanks to Robyn for providing this quote.

Canberra Writers Festival, 2024
History repeating
Friday 25 October 2024, 12:30-1:30pm

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