A good writer never blames their apps for a lack of productivity
18 December 2021
Can distraction-free devices change the way we write, asks Julian Lucas, writing for the New Yorker. A writing app, a word processor, one that cuts out the clutter, menu bars, formatting options, font choices, and all the impedimenta that might distract us: would we be more productive as writers if that were the case?
But focus mode on an everything device is a meditation room in a casino. What good is it to separate writing from editing, formatting, and cluttered interfaces if you can’t separate it from the Internet? Even a disconnected computer offers plenty of opportunities for distraction: old photographs, downloaded music, or, most treacherous of all, one’s own research. And so, just as savvy entrepreneurs have resuscitated the “dumb” phone as a premium single-tasking communication device, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would revive the stand-alone word processor.
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Beautiful Country, by Qian Julie Wang
18 December 2021
Mei Guo is what Qian Julie Wang’s parents called America, before the family left their native China to start new lives in what they believed to be the beautiful country. Once on the ground though, what they saw and experienced was anything but beautiful. Wang’s parents, who in China held down academic careers, found themselves working in below minimum wage jobs, earning barely enough money to keep a roof over their heads.
Beautiful Country (published by Penguin Books Australia, September 2021) is a no holds barred account of the childhood of New York litigator Qian Julie Wang, as an undocumented immigrant. Here Wang recounts contending with racism, poverty, and loneliness, among other things, while maintaining the façade the family’s papers were in order, she was of American birth, and they were residing legally in the beautiful country.
It may be a cliché to go and say the grass is not greener on the other side, at least not at first, but from this life on the run, Wang rose above every obstacle before her. She studied law while working four part time jobs, and now manages an organisation that advocates for education and civil rights. As a footnote, Wang composed her memoir on a smartphone during her commute to and from work, a detail the time-poor authors among us will find notable.
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memoir, Qian Julie Wang, TBR list, writing
The difference between introversion and social anxiety
17 December 2021
Kylie Maddox Pidgeon is a Sydney based psychologist, who is also an introvert. The world needs more psychologists who are introverts, because there are some psychologists who are extraverts but appear to have little real-world understanding of introverts. To put it mildly. One once told me I needed to be more outgoing, because I seemed to be too reserved. Thanks for that.
Kylie is a psychologist, academic and introvert. I met Kylie playing netball in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales and I wouldn’t have guessed she was an introvert. She loves socialising and sparks with energy during conversation, but she says if she overdoes it, she feels drained and can experience headaches.
My favourite analogy when explaining introversion is to suggest introverts have a constantly playing media device in their minds. There’s times we’re able to turn down the volume, say for the first hour or two of a social gathering, but as time passes the volume from our in-built media device begin increasing, as the ceaseless thoughts cascading through our minds begin competing for attention. At some point we need to get away, to somewhere quiet, to make sense of this almost subconscious brainstorming.
But instead of being recognised as an introvert, our sometimes reserved demeanour can be mistaken for social anxiety. Although something else entirely, there is a link between introversion and social anxiety, but as Maddox Pidgeon points out, there is a key difference. Social anxiety occurs when a person is worried about what others will think of them. That’s generally not the case for introverts. If they’ve had enough of being at a party and want to leave, they won’t be concerned at what anyone thinks.
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introversion, personality, psychology
Scrublands, by Chris Hammer, most read Libby ebook in 2021
16 December 2021
Canberra based Australian crime writer Chris Hammer’s 2018 novel Scrublands was the most read ebook on the Libby reading app this year in Australia. Unsurprisingly, Overdrive, the developers of the app, said 2021 saw record issues of digital titles, with the pandemic resulting in fewer than usual physical book loans, given many libraries were closed because of COVID lockdowns.
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Another win for Amanda Lohrey’s novel The Labyrinth
16 December 2021
It’s been a good year for Tasmania based Australian author Amanda Lohrey. In July her novel The Labyrinth won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and yesterday the same novel was named winner of The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2021, in the fiction category, with the judges describing the novel as a work of considerable literary artistry.
‘The Labyrinth’ is shadowed and haunted by strangeness. It is a novel in high realist mode that also has romance elements, if only in the way it encompasses a tragicomic mood and a certain formal audacity that brings to mind the moodiness and restless shifts of late Shakespeare. ‘The Labyrinth’ has a gravity that outstares everything that may seem grey or gaunt in a literary endeavour where autumn seems to sink to midwinter. It is a work of considerable literary artistry.
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Amanda Lohrey, Australian literature
Being the Ricardos, by Aaron Sorkin
15 December 2021
Being the Ricardos (trailer), by American playwright and filmmaker Aaron Sorkin, brings the life of late comedian Lucille Ball to the big screen. While early reviews of the film – which opened in Australian cinemas last week – have so far been mixed, Australian actor Nicole Kidman portrayal of Ball has been praised by some critics. Simran Hans, for example, writing for The Guardian, describes Kidman as “brilliant.”
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A book may be a writer’s baby, but babies are not books
15 December 2021
A writer’s second book, and having a second child, are similar experiences – difficult – says Australian author Anna Downes, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald. But don’t go thinking books are the same as babies, well, not most of the time anyway.
The difference with books is that one day you must let go. Once your novel is published, its success or failure in the world is out of your hands. You can’t control where it goes or with whom, can’t protect it from criticism. All you can do is love it, be proud of it, celebrate its birthdays, spend time with those who adore it, and maybe rescue it from a dark corner once in a while. Because your work is finally done. Your book comes through you, but it is not part of you. It is not who you are.
Downe’s second novel The Shadow House was published in September this year.
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Anna Downes, Australian literature
Voting open for Triple J’s Hottest 100
15 December 2021
Voting is open for Australian radio station Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 listener’s poll. I don’t hear too much radio format and have come to regard the Hottest 100 in the same way I do the long and short lists of literary awards, a great place to seek out quality music listening inspiration. Voting closes on 17 January 2022, and the countdown can be heard a few days later on 22 January.
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Vale Anne Rice, author of Interview with the Vampire
14 December 2021
American author Anne Rice, best known for her 1976 book Interview with the Vampire, and the subsequent series of sequels called The Vampire Chronicles, died on Saturday, 11 December 2021, aged 80. Other of Rice’s notable works include The Feast of All Saints, and Servant of the Bones.
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The books your favourite authors recommend
13 December 2021
Apart from literary award long and short lists, book recommendations from the world’s best authors are a sure fire way to find novels to add to your to-be-read list. Along with American writer Min Jin Lee, and British author Kazuo Ishiguro, Australian novelists Anna Funder, Helen Garner, Hannah Kent, Sofie Laguna, Alexis Wright, and Craig Silvey, talk about their favourite reads of the past twelve months.
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