A short Delicious Description today from Kim Scott's That deadman dance, but an important one because it attempts to convey to we non-indigenous people just how closely indigenous people relate to their environment. It comes from the same expedition as my previous Delicious Descriptions post: Sometimes Wooral addressed the bush as if he were walking … Continue reading Delicious descriptions from Down Under: Kim Scott on Indigenous connection with the land
Australian literature
Monday musings on Australian literature: Five fascinating fictional fathers
This week's Monday musings has a personal, sentimental, genesis. Last Friday, my 91-year-old father underwent his third major abdominal surgery in 6 years. It's a big ask for an older body but he's hanging in there. My parents, not surprisingly I suppose, were instrumental in my becoming a reader. My mother introduced me to Jane … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Five fascinating fictional fathers
Delicious descriptions from Down Under: Kim Scott on confronting the new
Here is the first of two or more (depending on how the spirit moves me) Delicious Descriptions from Kim Scott's book That deadman dance. My first one presents two excerpts which describe people confronting the new. First, the British settlers during their expedition to find land: They found a path, rocky and scattered with fine … Continue reading Delicious descriptions from Down Under: Kim Scott on confronting the new
Kim Scott, That deadman dance
(Image courtesy Picador Australia) About a third of the way into Kim Scott's novel That deadman dance is this: We thought making friends was the best thing, and never knew that when we took your flour and sugar and tea and blankets that we'd lose everything of ours. We learned your words and songs and stories, and never … Continue reading Kim Scott, That deadman dance
Monday musings on Australian literature: Writers from South Australia
In the decade from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, South Australia, under premier Don Dunstan, was Australia's most progressive state. I won't list all the achievements - you can read them in the Wikipedia article linked on his name - but there were big social justice ones including the recognition of Aboriginal land … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Writers from South Australia
Monday musings on Australian literature: eBook publishing in Australia
First off, the disclaimer: I don't know a lot about what is happening with eBook publishing in Australia, so my goal here is as much to find out more from readers of this post as it is to impart knowledge. I thought a good place to start would be the Australian Publishers Association (APA) but didn't … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: eBook publishing in Australia
Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian Poetry Library (online)
It seems appropriate now, when I've been exploring the iPad app for TS Eliot's The waste land, to introduce the Australian Poetry Library website that was launched in late May. Essentially a digital library, it contains over 42,000 poems from over 170 poets. That's a pretty good start, particularly when the poets range from pioneers like … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian Poetry Library (online)
Winners of the 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards
Brought to you straight from the afternoon presentation with Caroline Baum in the National Library of Australia Theatre: Fiction: Traitor, by Stephen Daisley Non-fiction: The hard light of day, by Rod Moss Young adult fiction: Graffiti moon, by Cath Crowley Children's fiction: Shake a leg, by Boori Monty Pryor and Jan Ormerod This afternoon's panel discussion followed the formal … Continue reading Winners of the 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards
Amazon: The good, the bad and the …
Well, let's not go there because, really, we all want convenient, economic access to good books don't we? And Amazon has done a great job of forging/championing a whole new world of book distribution - both through their online service for selling traditional books and then their development of the Kindle and eBook distribution. (I … Continue reading Amazon: The good, the bad and the …
Monday musings on Australian literature: the National Centre of Biography
What is life? Life itself, as you will realise if you consult a dictionary, is hard enough to define. But what is a life? And why does it matter? For itself (a question of honour)? Or for what one can make of it as a biographer (which may mean trespass)? I am old-fashioned enough to … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: the National Centre of Biography
Whispering Gums 