I'm writing this from my chilly Gold
Coast apartment. We can all be forgiven for some seasonal confusion
in this issue of eNews. Firstly, autumn lingers with a preview of
the Brisbane launches of Fine Salt and Swelter and reports on successful
events already held in Melbourne and Rockhampton to celebrate these
titles.
Next, we give winter the early flick and preview
our Spring Season,
with a focus on three of our new authors,
Liam Guilar, Paul Mitchell and John Veron. Liam and Paul are winners
of IP Picks Awards for
Poetry and John’s biography Inge is being released through Glass
House Books.
In keeping with our tradition of featuring cover artists, we present
a gallery of Alana Hampton’s work
for your viewing pleasure. Alana’s image Moon
Rose appears
on the cover of Liam Guilar’s I'll
Howl Before you Bury Me.
Spring 2003 is shaping up to be our busiest season yet and one which
will continue cementing our reputation as a national literary publisher.
Five titles will be released, with our authors appearing at
events on the Gold Coast, and in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmania.
We provide a sneak preview
of the author tour this issue. Watch this space and check your inbox
for further details.
In his editorial, David
provides us with an update on the machinations of Arts Funding in
Queensland.
He’s a little happier, but I think
we’ll save the champagne for the book launches!
IPS adds two Bush Poetry CDs to its distribution list by Stanthorpe-based
Jack Drake: Dinkum Poetry and The Cattle Dog’s
Revenge.
While IP doesn’t publish
Bush Poetry, we’re always on the look-out for excellent spoken
word material and are happy to offer these CD to you with our recommendation.
And don’t leave this site until you’ve visited our
store. I get a thrill these days from watching the growing list
of titles.
Keep warm!!
Sara Moss, Editor, IP eNews
From
the Director's Desk
Welcome
to the new financial year! With tax returns and the latest Statements
of Account now safely behind us we can look forward to more literary
activities and a very active last half of the year.
Somewhat belatedly, we are launching our Autumn list in Brisbane,
with authors Sally Finn, Louise Waller and Kristin Hannaford warming
up with reading events at Chermside Library (Brisbane North) and
Logan West Library before the peak event at Riverbend Books. We’re
pleased to be partnering with Riverbend, which increasingly is
becoming the focal point for live readings on the local bookshop
scene. If you're going to be in Brisbane on 13 August, please attend
and support these very fine authors.
I’m especially happy to announce that the Australia Council has
provided us with another grant this year in support of our publishing
program for the next 18 months. The Council commended all of the titles
that we put forth to them, but there was only enough money for them
to support four new poetry titles: I'll
Howl Before You Bury Me by
Liam Guilar; minorphysics by
Paul Mitchell;
Popular Mechanics by
Liam Ferney; and Café
Boogie by Jennifer Nixon. The first two
books will be released in our Spring 2003 Season in October, while
the other two are scheduled for Autumn Season 2004. The Australia Council
grant was welcome given Arts Queensland’s lack of support this
year.
Other highlights since I last wrote to you included return trips to
Orange and Wagga Wagga for multimedia workshops with teachers and readings,
Stanthorpe Library for a workshop on setting up a writers’ group
the right way, and a publishing presentation for English students at
St Hilda’s
School on the Gold Coast. I’ll be heading back to the Central
West shortly for a full-day publishing workshop at Dubbo’s Western
College on 16 August.
Another busy Spring Season is shaping up, with our Brisbane launch
of five new books tentatively scheduled for 12 October. Planning for
events on the Gold Coast, Sydney, Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne and
Adelaide is now under way. Read on for features on three of those titles
heading your way!
There’s never been a better time to join our Friends of IP Club
to get generous discounts on all of your IP titles, so please do!
Regards
Dr David Reiter
Two steps forward...?
In my last column, I served up some complaints about Arts
Queensland and the one-publisher culture that seems well-entrenched
in
this State. I even was so bold as to send a copy of the
editorial to Rosemary Sorenson, Book Editor at The Courier-Mail,
whose own column had served as inspiration for my own. I hoped
that she would see this as furthering debate on what is an important
issue
for
not only the writing community but the arts community as a whole.
Well, Rosemary hasn’t printed anything, or even responded to
my covering message. It seems that she is content to air her own
views but not those of others. A rather curious stance for a journalist,
don’t you think? Mirror, mirror on the wall, whose is the
fairest opinion of them all...
That’s not to say that nothing’s been happening since
I last wrote to the Minister and the Director-General asking them
to expedite the “review” process. About a month ago,
the Minister wrote to me to appoint me as an advisor to the very
panel I had been criticising!
Perhaps this was an attempt to redress the imbalance from the previous
committee on which UQP was represented by two of its employees to
the exclusion of other publishers. Or perhaps I was supposed to take
the offer at face value: it had nothing to do with me as IP’s
Director, everything to do with me wearing my author’s hat,
and the Minister was expressing confidence in my ability to not wear
my publisher’s hat during proceedings of the committee.
Earlier, the Minister told
me in conversation, backed up by a call by the Acting Director-General,
that Arts Queensland would be taking my criticism on board by ensuring
that no individual who has received a grant will be eligible to serve
on the panel until at least a year after the grant period has finished. Seem
contradictory? Read on!
Let’s give credit where it’s
due: in spite of The Courier-Mail’s
silence on the issue, Arts Queensland (AQ) seems to have
taken action by announcing changes to its Cultural Infrastructure
Policy
(CIP). These will allow ‘eligible’ organisations
to apply for CIP funding, apart from any applications they might
make for project funding under the peer review process. They’ll
have to jump through several hoops on the way and submit a wad of
paper thick as your arm in support of their wish list, but at least
there’s “movement at the
station”.
Further,
AQ will exclude ‘employees of CIP organisations’ from
participating in the assessment of project grant applications during
a round in which their organisation has an application. This is still
not good enough because these
employees could still protect the interests of their employers between
years
in which they have to apply. The only way to head off conflicts of
interest is to exclude these employees from ever being involved in
the assessment of competing organisations.
What this would mean to my appointment as an advisor is that I would
never have the chance to assess the application of UQP or any other
publisher applying for a grant.
That’s fine by me, and it should
be fine for the employees of other publishers, too.
This does not undo the damage suffered by IP in the September 2002
grant round, but
it’s certainly two steps forward. But before
we break out the sparkling white, we’ll
need
to see the small print. And there are some very important issues that will still
need to be addressed if the new system is to work fairly.
The most important issue is funding. While the structural change AQ has made
is long overdue, it will succeed only if the Government injects more money into
the system. AQ bureaucrats have already admitted that one potential headache
they may have is in deciding between existing CIP clients and new ones clamouring
at the gates.
The new funding process requires organisations to fit their activities
into AQ “outcomes” and develop a detailed business and marketing
plans that will all add up to submissions of 50 pages or more from each hopeful.
If AQ is really serious about evaluating the submissions in detail, the added
workload to their staff will be significant. And they should not be surprised
if CIP applicants expect more transparency and about the new review
process
than
there has been with the peer review process lately.
Accountability should work both ways.
If no new money becomes available, there are only two possible
outcomes. The first and most likely outcome would see new clients
apply and be knocked back
if AQ does not reduce funding to existing clients. Let’s
call that the Sacred Cow Scenario.
What if AQ does have the backbone to reduce or even eliminate funding to existing
CIP clients? Doubtlessly these organisations would mount public campaigns and
do their best to reverse the decision. Can you imagine actors and singers hitting
the pavement with placards calling for blood? Especially with a State election
coming up next year? We can call that the Politically Unwise Scenario.
In the absence of new funding for CIP, we will certainly find ourselves playing
out the Sacred Cow Scenario. Existing CIP organisations will have an advantage
on several fronts: they already have an effective lobby with the Government;
performing arts groups in particular have audiences and subscribers they could
mobilise to fight any reduction in funding. They also have the advantage of paid staff
who can devote time to the lengthly application process and lobbying key decision-makers.
I can see a Queensland version of Yes, Minister coming on. A CIP Committee
of independent spirits meets and decides to fund new clients at the expense of
existing
ones
and
puts
its recommendation to the Government. The Minister, thinking he might
go with the recommendation, floats it to his Private Secretary, who takes a deep
breath before commending the Minister on his “courageous” [politically
stupid] stance.
The problem is that Queensland has so damned
many deserving organisation!
It will be hard enough to mediate between old and new clients even with a significant
injection of funding into the system. Without
new
money,
the
Committee’s
job will be fertile ground for migraines. The Government needs to
recognising the contribution that new organisations like IP are making to the
Queensland cultural scene by increasing funds to this area. The alternative will
see more frustration, in-fighting between competing arts organisations, and ultimately
a
stagnation
of
artistic
activity at the grassroots.
Fertile ground for Sir Humphrey...
—DR—
<title>IP eNews</title>
You could be forgiven for thinking it’s winter,
so why should we still be having Autumn events? Of course
in sub-tropical Brisbane, "winter" is a relative term,
so an "autumn" frame of mind should be allowed to linger.
We'll be doing our best to help out in the second week of August,
with no less than three events to tempt you away from the fireplace
- if you're lucky enough to live in or around Brissie.
IP has been keen to foster closer ties with the Brisbane Library
system. WIth more than 30 branches, it's the largest by far in
Australia. Working centrally has its advantages, and we hope
to realise in the near future. Up first will be a reading on
Tuesday 12 August at Chermside Library, 375 Hamilton Road, 1
p.m. for 1:30 p.m. Kristin Hannaford and Louise Waller will read
from Swelter and Sally Finn from Fine
Salt.
Tuesday evening, we travel south to Logan West Library, 69 Grand
Plaza Drive, Browns Plains for another reading by the same crew.
6 p.m. for 6:30 p.m., so if the cool night air suits you, why
not
come
along?
We know of other libraries that will be watching how we go with
these events, so we suggest , if you're interested in seeing
more live readings at a library near you, that you show your
support in the usual way — by turning up!
Finally, the launch itself at Riverbend Books, 193 Oxford Street,
Bulimba on Wednesday, 13 August from 6 p.m. It's been a while
since IP's had an event at Riverbend, but the bookshop has become
something of a focal point for literary activities in Brisbane,
so we're happy to enhance Riverbend's reputation!
Obviously Riverbend is in the business of selling
books, so while you're enjoying their hospitality please show
them you care about quality Australia content by buying, and
buying often!
All three events are free, and the authors have promised to minimise
any duplication of selected readings, so why not attend more
than one event?
In celebration of extended Autumn we're offering a free postage & handling
deal to people who can't make it to the launch. And a special
deal for people who order both books or more than one copy of
each. Check Your Deal for the details.
[In this issue we preview three
of the authors to be launched
in our Spring Season 2003. Liam Guilar and Paul Mitchell were winners
in the poetry categories of IP Picks 2003, while John Veron talks
about his reasons for writing a very entertaining biography of
Inge Moessler, who attained cult status on Orpheus Island in the
Great Barrier Reef. John is an internationally recognised expert
on corals and has written many books and monographs, but this is
his first foray into literary writing.]
LG: I’ve never thought of poetry as purely
decorative, nor as something confined to universities or an elect
few “in the know”. It’s not an art of non-communication.
I think you can write poetry that is direct, memorable and intelligent,
even mischievous, which carries its learning lightly, and entertains
or provokes the reader.
There are a lot of writers I admire but my favourite poet is Anon,
that genderless genius who composed the great work songs of the
sea, the ballads, and the records and investigations of human relationships
that make up the British “folk tradition”. Remembering
this has allowed me to write about the things that matter to me,
in a way that hopefully makes them interesting to strangers. Technically,
it means I’m interested in what can be done within the lyric
tradition of poetry in English.
When I was nine, I heard a version of the Tain, the story of how
Cuchulain saved Ulster. Here was exuberant defiance, and it seemed
like a birthright. A single figure standing to defend what he believed
in, against overwhelming odds. Much later I read Kinsella’s
translation. It’s inevitable that as one grows older each
rereading of the story means something different in the light of
experience and knowledge. I wanted to do something with that understanding.
In some ways writing this collection was like coming to the end
of a long journey, and pausing to take familiar objects out of
the kit bag, and reexamine them. So, the first sequence in my book
begins with Cuchulain at the ford, and then spirals (aptly Celtic)
through a rediscovery of other elements of that story sequence:
lust, sex, death, terror, and (to my surprise) the benefits of
a literary education.
From the Tain, I moved to folklore in general. I grew
up surrounded by story tellers and I wanted to honour that. I’ve
spent most of my life travelling to out of the way places. I used
this
as a way of thinking through the collection. Journeys don’t
have to be physical. Poetry allows an exploration of other people’s
voices. You can “be” someone else and try on different
attitudes and beliefs. The desire to see what’s round the
bend on a river is no different to the desire to see what lies
underneath a familiar story. If you look closely, apparently innocuous
stories like Rapunzel or the Narnia Chronicles start
to grow thorns.
Going back to the stories I knew was a liberating movement. The
moonlight, wind and water surfaced naturally in the imagery. The
other unconscious decision was to let the music I was playing and
listening to ripple through it. Some were written with particular
pieces in mind. “Poetry and blood” was written to match
the rhythm of a slip jig. “A folk tale” owes a great
deal to some ney music I was listening to. Others were influenced
by particular musicians and, being a lute player, it’s impossible
not to admire the lyrics of the Elizabethan lutenists.
Some time ago, at the end of a particularly frustrating period,
I spat the dummy and wrote a ranting piece. It will certainly never
be published but the last two lines are still important to me:
This is my song/and I am singing it
I realise there’s neither profit nor pleasure in trying to
sound like anyone else or in trying to mimic what’s fashionable.
There is only the pressing need to write: to let the kite out and
watch it fly. Hence the title of this collection, I’ll
Howl Before You Bury Me.
— Liam Guilar
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PM: I started writing poetry
at 16 because it seemed to come naturally – plus
I needed somewhere to put my teenage angst and general confusion. I read William Blake and I sensed that his poems were about something ‘underneath’ everyday
experience. I looked into the front yard of my parent’s house
in Geelong; the ‘underneath’ was beneath their flowerbed
and patch of grass. It was somehow beyond the air I was breathing
and the bones I was walking around with.
When I write, I’m not always aware of what I’m trying
to say. It’s only when reading it later that I question whether
this poem is alive? If it is alive to me then it has succeeded in
expressing something normally hidden under the surface of everyday
experience.
Poetry for me is a kind of thinking that has to be written down.
It somehow pierces through my everyday cognitive processes to a language
of its own on the page or screen. It seems to occur at random and
about random things: from looking at the back of someone’s
neck, to wondering why water bottles have different labels.
The beauty of poetry – if you’re someone that can’t
make up your mind – is that you can say two or three things
in one line and several in one poem. The more I write poetry the
more I understand Les Murray’s contention that poetry is the
only “whole thinking”.
There are times that this ‘poetry process’ seems deeply
connected with emotion, either directly, at the time I’m experiencing
it, or later as my mind falls back to the experience. I was moved
to write a poem after my wife’s miscarriage several years ago
and also after driving through my father’s hometown. But generally
the poetry and emotion exist together in a more fragmented way.
There’s no doubt I tackle the notion of contemporary understandings
of masculinity in Minorphysics, writing from both my own and others’ experience.
I think I went through a stage in my poetry where I was reacting
against a long journey into my ‘feminine side’ and tried
to recapture – or at least understand – the depths of
my masculinity.
I put some of these poems, which form the “Burbin’” part
of my book, into a dramatic monologue, called “Sleepless in
Braybrook”. A woman who heard me perform it said she was blown
away to think that beneath the skin of tough, blokey, swearing, beer
swilling meathead (not me – I don’t think!) men, there
might be a gentle person capable of being wounded by the smallest
and strangest things. To me, that showed my poetry was getting somewhere
on the topic.
When it comes to the ‘suburban’ aspect of my work, I
search my present geographical setting – and the setting of
others I know – for what’s truthfully going on, via a
number of voices and characters. I moved into my current suburban
address at a time when it was a little ‘rougher’ than
it is now and that pushed me to address my own masculinity and the
masculinity and femininity of people with, what seemed on the surface,
different values to me. It also made me question where the valuableness
was in the place I was living. This grated against me because I spent
the first 12 years of my life in small country towns.
Minorphysics is not quite the opposite of “metaphysics”.
It looks up from below – maybe even further below than subterranean
earth – towards shining sheds, collapsing and reforming families,
friends – the fullness of life itself.
I hope in reading Minorphysics that you’re shaken up and tested
by works that deal with suburban life, death, betrayal and the life
of the spirit.
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JV:My life as a marine biologist working
on corals has taken me to most countries of the tropical world. There
I have
worked with the “natives” and thus, hardly surprisingly,
I’ve come to know hundreds of people who live a life that is
very different from anything we see in Australia. Even so,
one person has always stood apart: Inge is the most extraordinary
person I ever
met, and just about everybody who knew her would say the same.
Many knew Inge as the exotic fun-loving excentric, living alone in
a fairy-tale house on a beautiful island on the Great Barrier Reef.
Some would come to see
her witch-like capacity for penetrating the minds of other people and her all-consuming
love of Nature. But the more one would learn about Inge, the more remote from
reality she would appear to be. For me she became a challenge, as well as a close
friend. It took two decades, but I eventually came to know who Inge was, and
why (the only person who ever managed that, according to Inge herself!).
I have written about 100 scientific publications including thirteen books and
monographs, but the writing of Inge became
a challenge I did not even vaguely foresee. I had to capture the life and mind
of someone who I described for the
book’s back cover as a ‘femme fatale, aristocrat, hermit, traveller,
linguist, outcast and circe, Inge embodies an enduring spirit rarely seen in
today’s material world.’ (I might have added ‘comedian’ and
perhaps ‘dare-devil’, not to mention ‘witch’, but who
would have believed me?)
The challenge was to put all these dimensions of Inge into a book that was true
to the person as neither Inge nor I wanted anything fictional. Fifteen years
ago I tried to do this, but gave up – it was too hard. But Inge had kept
a silverfish-chewed copy of what I wrote. Towards the end of her life (she died
last January), she wanted me to finish ‘her book’.
With my redraft
I thought I succeeded. As it turned out this was not quite so – Inge still
had a way to go. It only got there with the some very good advice from professionals,
notably David Reiter of Interactive Publications. I sent the manuscript to IP
primarily because of their website: they appeared to offer what I needed, and
this turned out to be the case.
Inge certainly enriched the lives of many people:
my one wish with this book is that she will continue to do so.
— John Veron
<title>IP
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Maybe it’s just an attempt
to keep warm on these chilly winter days, but IP staff are planning
the most exciting Season yet, and, chances are, a warm wind is
heading your way!Actually
our previous Spring Season had just as many new titles,
but we
were more
modest about taking them outside Brisbane during the Season itself.
But we’ve found that organising author tours after the
major launch helps keep up the momentum, so that’s exactly
what will be happening this year — big time!
The new titles
are, alphabetically: • I’ll
Howl Before You Bury Me by Liam Guilar
• Inge by John Veron
• Liars and Lovers by David P Reiter
• minorphysics by
Paul Mitchell
• Terminal Velocity by Molly
Guy
Howl and minorphysics were
the two winners in the poetry catagories of IP Picks 2003, while
Liars and Terminal are
a novel and a fiction collection respectively. Inge is
a new biography from our Glass House Books imprint.
For starters, we’re planning the combined launch in Brisbane,
tentatively scheduled for Sunday, 12 October [watch this spot!]
That same weekend we’ll have our first-ever event
on the Gold Coast, for a very good reason, since Liam Guilar
is from Labrador (Queensland, not Canada!] This event, time
& venue TBA, will establish,
beyond
the reasonable doubt of
even a Rumpole, that there is cultural life beyond Big
Brother and
Dreamworld on the Coast. We hope to have at least some of the
other Spring list authors there as well. The idea might
even tempt
a few media moguls to cover it — just
out of curiosity.
Then the roadshow moves on to Sydney where David and Liam will be joined
by Louise Waller and Kristin Hannaford, whose book Swelter was
released in May. IP will have a stall at the Independent Publishers’ Bookfair
on 18-19 October and a showcase for its new authors during the NSW
Writers’ Centre
Spring Festival, which is held at Rozelle. The Centre also plans to
host a Meet the Author for David to celebrate the release of Liars
and Lovers, which is a satire on contemporary life and relationships
[now that we have that theme resolved...]
Next stop for David will
be Tasmania and events in support of local author Molly Guy’s Terminal
Velocity, which has already had rave reviews from Margaret Scott,
David Owen (Island) and Philomena van Rijswijk (Famous
Reporter). A reading asociated
with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is scheduled
for Molly and David at the old Bond Store on the Hobart waterfront
on
25 October from 2-4pm. There will also be a reading in Launceston
on Friday, 24 October and perhaps some others along the way.
Then a one-day blitz of Melbourne, where Paul Mitchell’s minorphysics will
be launched on Sunday, 25 October, details to be announced.
The final leg for David will be an extended stay in Adelaide — more
details on that in Out & About.
It’s a good thing that he likes to fly...
<title>IP
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A good time was had by all up
on the Capricorn Coast in early May at our launch of Swelter by
Louise Waller and Kristin Hannaford.
The Rockhampton Art Gallery hosted the first event on 2 May,
which was well attended despite competition from various other activities
in town that day. Liz Huf, editor of Idiom 23 did the honours by launching
the book with kind words about Kristin and Louise’s
many artistic achievements on the local scene. We were also pleased
to see Marie Farr, who provided the very distinctive cover art, in
attendance.
The next day, after a recording session in Yeppoon with Kristin and
Louise that yielded some sample readings that you can hear on our site,
David
had
a Meet the Publisher session with several local authors.
The launch that followed
on the library’s spacious
verandah was informal in keeping with the casual lifestyle of this
beachside community. We were pleased by the support of offered by local
booksellers like the Yellow Door, which has an impressive array of
literary titles, now including Swelter.
< title>IP
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The second leg of our Autumn
Season activities took David to Melbourne for the 13 May
launch of Sally Finn’s
award-winning first novel,Fine
Salt.
The venue this time was
the West St Kilda RSL, a historic building complete with stained glass windows,
and it was wall-to-wall with Sally’s
enthusiastic audience, who delivered the most successful book launch
we’ve ever had.
Since then the orders have continued to flow in, putting Fine Salt on
track to be a sell-out. We’ve even
had an order from a book group who have the novel high on their reading
list.
Don’t miss
out on either of our new titles — order your copies now!
< title>IP
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On his way back from Melbourne,
David paid a visit to David Gilbey at Wagga, Wagga. The
two met a couple of years ago when David R was writer-in-residence
at the Booranga
Writers’ Centre, which is associated
with Charles Sturt University. David G is also Editor of WWWW,
the journal of the Wagga Wagga Writers Writers group.
The two Davids have
kept in contact, so this time around, David R was invited to read
to the assembled multitude. He treated them to selections from Kiss
and Tell, which did a good job of warming the autumn night!
<title>IP
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Another day, another master
class! The venue was a meeting room in Orange
Library, and, in this case, the participants were poets
who had lived to tell the tale from a previous master class that
David
had led. More importantly, they had continued to write and they
were keen for a return engagement. David reports that all had made
significant
progress
on their pet
projects since the first all-day workshop, so he was able to pitch
his comments at an even higher level.
The Central-West Writers’ Centre also arranged a session
with local high school teachers interested to hear about how multimedia
can be used in the classroom. The teachers left the workshop better
informed about hybrid artforms like literary multimedia and how they
can help their students compose meaningful projects in this area.
<title>IP
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Another first for IP was David’s
participation in the Queensland Public Library Association’s
Innovations Forum on 2 June. Mackay turned on the showers
outside, but the locals, still in the grip of drought, weren’t
complaining. It did mean that the lunchtime reading, which was
to include Louise Waller, KristinHannaford and
David, had to be shifted from the gazebo on the lawn outside the
conference centre. As it happened Louise and Kristin came down
with the dreaded Yeppoon flu and had to cancel their drive up,
but the show must go on, so David read from their work as well
as his. Judging by the unofficial review from Debbie Burn of Yeppoon
Library, he acquitted himself rather well!
<title>IP
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We
want to applaud the State
Library of Queensland for approving funding to Stanthorpe Library for a workshop
that will see a new writers’ group take shape in that country
centre south of Brisbane.
Writers’ groups are only effective if they know enough about
the genres their members write to give competent constructive criticism.
Old habits die hard, so it’s best to start with
groundrules that keep the group on track.
The library organised some technical help to video the full-day workshop,
and IP hopes to eventually make the video available to interested people
seeking to give their group a professional edge.
Just before press time, David headed
for the Gold Coast and St Hilda’s College, a private
girls school, where he gave a talk about publishing and the future
of the book. Some of the teachers in attendance noticed a few long faces after
the session, which doubtlessly had something to do with the reality
check David gave them on their prospects for getting their first
novel on the desk of someone at HarperCollins, but at least now they
have a few insights into the business side that will hopefully increase
their chances of escaping from the slushpile of those publishers
who still consider unsolicited manuscripts straight from the author
rather than through an agent. There’s a lot more to the game than
having a brilliant manuscript!
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One last reminder of David’s
online composing and publishing workshop at Western
College of Adult Education, Dubbo on 16 August.
The full-day workshop provides an introduction to the essentials
of online work and the adjustments that authors need to make
in
adapting
their work to the digital environment
or composing from scratch. David provides case studies from his
literary multimedia work, as well as advice on what software
packages
work best. Participants are encouraged to come with questions.
Bookings are essential. Contact Lindy
Allen at the College.
<title>IP
eNews </title>
Old Silvertail, lesser known as Professor David
Myers, Publisher of Central Queensland University
Press, which he prefers to call Outback Books when he's wearing
his gumboots, crossed paths with our Director at the Stanthorpe
Art Gallery recently. The occasion was the launch of a
new Outback title, The
Cattle Dog's Revenge, by local bushpoet celebrity Jack
Drake.
While
IP doesn’t publish bush poetry, we do admire quality spoken
word material when we hear it, and that’s exactly what we got
from Jack, who definitely looks the part, and who seems to have a
fetish for seeing Rottweilers ravished by cattle dogs.
He has one delightful poem that takes the mickey out of citified poets who
turn their noses up at their bushy cousins. Even so, in the interests of cross-generic
harmony, David made Jack an offer even a bushranger couldn't refuse. IPS, our
distribution wing, will take on a supply of Jack's two CDs and market them,
starting now.
Jack’s
poetry has a serious as well as a humourous side, but in each
case you’ll find a craftsman at work, someone who deserves
to be heard more widely. Dinkum
Poetry or his latest The
Cattle Dog's Revenge — which do we prefer? It’s
a hard call. For this price you can buy both and give away
number two to a friend.
You’ll find both titles waiting for you on our orders
page. And while you you’re waiting for them to arrive, please keep
your cattle dog on his lead, mate!
<title>IP eNews </title>
We’re
pleased to showcase the work of Alana Hampton, whose
striking work Moon Rose features on the cover on Liam Guilar’s I’ll
Howl Before You Bury Me.
Alana is an artist and art educator working on the Gold Coast.
She has a BA in Visual Art Education with a major in Photography and
currently works with manipulated digital images.
She is interested
in the aesthetics of symmetrical order and Jungian archetypal theory: “I
essentially create Forms and give form to archetypes, ordering the
ordinary. In alchemising the object’s reflection with itself
the simulacra reveals its concealed or secret archetypal Form. This
amalgamation of the corporeal with its counterpart creates a third — the
Reconciling Third — the Form; the marriage of flesh and reflection.”
Moon Rose comes from a series called Symmetrica
Naturae. Her exhibition, Thought
Experiments in Time, Light and Space:Domestic Mythologies opens
on 19 September and runs until
11 October at Doggett Street
Studio in New Farm, Brisbane. For further information on Alana and her work,
check out her website.
Deal 1:
Spring Back to Autumn
Did you miss out on our Autumn Season events? Won’t be in
Brisbane for our August tour. Never mind – with this deal you
can still be there in spirit. Order both Swelter and Fine
Salt for
the package price we offer at tour events: $40 (GST included). That’s
a savings of $6. Plus we’ll throw in free postage and handling
for an additional $7 savings. Order by email,
quoting YD:19_1. Payment by cheque, money order or EFT only. Credit
card orders, add $2.
To buy all five titles separately, you'll pay $149. Pre-order on
or before 30 September and we’ll send you the lot for $125
(postage and GST included). That’s a savings of 20% off the
cover price and 50% off the postage charge. Order
by email, quoting YD:19_2. Payment by cheque, money order or EFT
only. Credit card orders, add $5.
FIPC members get a further
10% discount off the cost of either package
plus free postage. Sign up now and get the benefits of Club membership today.
Offers available only to individuals. One order per household, please.
There are a lot of writers I admire but my favourite poet is Anon,
that genderless genius who composed the great work songs of the
sea, the ballads, and the records and investigations of human relationships
that make up the British “folk tradition”. Remembering
this has allowed me to write about the things that matter to me,
in a way that hopefully makes them interesting to strangers. Technically,
it means I’m interested in what can be done within the lyric
tradition of poetry in English. 
When I write, I’m not always aware of what I’m trying
to say. It’s only when reading it later that I question whether
this poem is alive? If it is alive to me then it has succeeded in
expressing something normally hidden under the surface of everyday
experience.
Yeppoon with Kristin and
Louise that yielded some sample readings that you can hear on our site,
David
had
a Meet the Publisher session with several local authors.
Since then the orders have continued to flow in, putting Fine Salt on
track to be a sell-out. We
The two Davids have
kept in contact, so this time around, David R was invited to read
to the assembled multitude. He treated them to selections from 
The library organised some technical help to video the full-day workshop,
and IP hopes to eventually make the video available to interested people
seeking to give their group a professional edge.
While
IP doesn’t publish bush poetry, we do admire quality spoken
word material when we hear it, and that’s exactly what we got
from Jack, who definitely looks the part, and who seems to have a
fetish for seeing Rottweilers ravished by cattle dogs. 
Jack’s
poetry has a serious as well as a humourous side, but in each
case you’ll find a craftsman at work, someone who deserves
to be heard more widely.