After a public vote to select a name for the Booker Prize trophy, convenors of the British literary award have revealed Iris to be the winning choice. Interestingly though, the winner of the vote was actually the name Bernie, being a nod to Bernardine Evaristo, the first black woman to win the Booker, with her 2019 novel Girl, Woman, Other.
‘I’m surprised and flattered that the name Bernie was nominated by readers in the Booker Prizes’ trophy competition and that it received the most votes in the public poll,’ Evaristo said. ‘But as the only living author on the list, I feel it would be more fitting for the honour to go to a writer who is no longer with us,’ she added.
Thankfully her agent, Jenny Darling, was sending out the book. “I was a bit shielded in that sense, I don’t know if I would have sent it out 25 times off my own bat. But having that support behind me, I can’t tell you how important that was. It felt very lonely, and I felt very much like I was a bit deluded about myself and my work, but she believed in it.”
It’s kind of surprising, though maybe it isn’t, but Preston already had two books to her name, The Inheritance of Ivorie Hammer, a novel published in 2012, and Not Just a Suburban Boy, a biography of late Australian artist Howard Arkley, published by Duffy & Snellgrove, in 2002.
Unpublished authors are not the only ones who struggle to get their work into print.
It takes ten-thousand hours to become an expert. Or so some people claim. Malcolm Gladwell made the assertion in his 2008 book, Outliers. Broken down, if ten-thousand hours are required to become proficient at something, it will take about five years to achieve expert status. Assuming you put in about forty-hours per week.
Aunty June, a private investigator, and owner of Yanakirri Investigative Services, on the other hand, reckons thirty-hours is enough. That’s thirty-hours all up. That’s how long it took her to complete a certificate course in investigative services, at a nearby vocational education school.
And with the ink on her business cards barely dry, Aunty June has landed — sort of — her first case. Investigating the whereabouts of her missing nephew, Thommo. The thing is, Aunty June’s investigative services weren’t exactly asked for. Fed up at the lack of progress local police were making in the wake of Thommo’s disappearance, she decided to get involved, whether anyone else liked it or not.
Aunty June is the protagonist in Madukka The River Serpent, published by UWA Publishing, December 2022, written by New South Wales based Australian playwright, poet, and Darug Burruberongal woman, Julie Janson. But as Aunty June delves into the mystery surrounding her nephew’s disappearance, it quickly becomes apparent this is far more than a missing person’s case.
She runs up against racism, corruption, and lies. Bikie gang members and cotton farmers are also in the mix. And with water levels in the Darling River, one of Australia’s longest rivers, in decline, water theft may also be on the cards. Along with murder. Aunty June soon comes to see why police want to give the case a wide berth.
Madukka The River Serpent is Janson’s first foray into crime fiction, and is one of only a few such works by Indigenous writers. Australian author Jock Serong has described Janson’s novel as “raw, visceral, rude and tough, [and a] new perspective on Australian noir that we’ve been waiting for.” Perhaps then Madukka The River Serpent will be the beginning of something.
It’s been ten years since Philipp Dettmer founded educational science portal Kurzgesagt. To mark the milestone, their latest video looks at Kurzgesagt’s inner workings, and explores how the operation is financed. There may not be too much for science enthusiasts to take away, but this is invaluable learning for content producers.
Kurzgesagt charges nothing for people to access their content. Rather than imposing a paywall, they have developed other revenue streams, including a shop and sponsorships. Readers/viewers are not assailed with ads, or thoroughly annoying popup prompts to subscribe to newsletters, instead leaving the content to be enjoyed at leisure. This is the way to do it.
Thank you Kurzgesagt for the first ten years, and here’s to the next decade.
Ayat as not seen, nor spoken to, her mother, Khadija, and sister, Laila, who live in Canberra, for six years. Ayat hurriedly moved away to Melbourne after her mother and sister learned she was dating Harry, a Catholic. Ayat made clear her boyfriend would not convert to Islam, the religion of her Indian family, in the event they decided to marry.
Ayat also took exception to Laila agreeing to marry a man of the family’s choosing, in accordance with tradition. Arranged marriages may have been appropriate in another time and place, but Ayat sees no place for the institution in today’s world. After six years though in the Victorian capital, she has made a new life for herself with Harry.
But Khadija is unwell. She has only a short time to live. Laila contacts Ayat, and asks her to come home and see her ailing mother, while there is still time. But on arriving in Canberra, Ayat is asked to travel far further afield. Khadija would like to make a final trip to India, with her daughters, before she dies.
But the prospect of visiting India is daunting for Ayat. For one thing, it will bring her face to face with her extended family, and their expectations. But Khadija hopes the trip will help Ayat understand her values, and desire to uphold tradition, in Once a Stranger, published by Hachette Australia, March 2023, the debut novel of Canberra based journalist and author, Zoya Patel.
Based in part on Patel’s own experiences, which she also explores in her 2018 memoir, No Country Woman, Once A Stranger treads a path that will be familiar to many first generation Australians.
People who sometimes feel they are neither here nor there, as they walk a line between the traditions their families adhere to, and embrace the culture of another country. And where acceptance and alienation comes from compatriots and locals alike, in attempting to navigate the difficult middle ground.
Constance Grady, writing for Vox, on the impact BookTok — the book lovers’ community within video-sharing platform TikTok — has had on book sales in recent years. In terms of the American book market at least, BookTok is almost unrivalled when it comes to selling books. That could come down to the (unrivalled) sincerity of BookTokers, when they talk about their favourite novels:
The main reason BookTok sells so many books, according to most of the BookTokers I talked to, is because it feels authentic and personal. TikTok’s native format of short, punchy videos and culture of casual chattiness combine to create an atmosphere of intense intimacy between content creators and their audience. In the book world, that kind of intimacy and emotional connection is rare. All the caps-locked blog posts in the world can’t match the visceral force of a camera on a real person’s tearstained face as they sob over their favorite books — books that could easily become your favorites, too, if you want to buy them.
Grady also explores the matter of remuneration. Some BookTokers are making a living from their channels, but many are wary about accepting payments from book publishers. Others of course do, but usually declare which of their posts are sponsored, and which are not.
I’m not sure it’s territory I’d like to venture into. As regular readers know, I frequently feature new and recently published books, that are usually Australian. But they are outlines, and seldom reviews, and are written at my own volition, and not at the request of anyone else.
Irish author Sally Rooney, writing for The Irish Times, about the end of an eviction moratorium that may render many people homeless:
The wave of evictions expected to begin from the end of this month is not merely theoretical: we already know that during the period of the ban, tenants in the State sought advice on roughly 1,500 new eviction notices. In a few weeks’ time, if the Government does not reverse course, these evictions will be eligible to proceed. Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has even publicly accepted that homelessness will “very possibly” increase when the moratorium comes to an end.
While the situation is different, the outlook for residential renters in Australia is likewise challenging. In January 2023, vacancy rates nationwide were just 0.8 percent. In some centres — Perth and Adelaide — vacancy rates were 0.3 percent, which might as well mean there are next to no residential properties available to rent.
Changes are coming to the voting process used to select the winner of the Packing Room Prize, traditionally the first award made in the annual Archibald Prize for Australian portraiture.
In short, Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) packers unbox and install the works for the Archibald Prize exhibition, then decide on the portrait they liked the most. However the past head packers, Steve Peters and Brett Cuthbertson, both of whom have recently retired, held the deciding vote.
The new Packing Room Pickers are Timothy Dale, Monica Rudhar and Alexis Wildman, three professional art handlers with 19 years of hands-on Archibald Prize experience between them. “In line with the discussions around how the prize was actually judged we felt that a more collaborative decision would be more appropriate,” Dale says.
I’ve always seen the Packing Room Prize as a light aside to the main competition, suspecting the winning choice was always subjective, which was fine by me. If I were selecting a winner, I’d choose the painting that personally appealed to me the most.
The changes could well suit participating artists though, who have long considered the Packing Room Prize to be the “kiss of death”, as, to date, no winner has gone on to win the main Archibald Prize.
Limberlost joins five other titles on this year’s shortlist:
Seven Steeples by Sara Baume
God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu
I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel
Send Nudes by Saba Sams
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire
The prize is named in honour of Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas, who died in 1953, and is awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged thirty-nine, or under. The winner will be announced on Thursday 11 May 2023.
