Debut Writers Over 50, a literary award for mature authors
26 April 2023
Jenny Brown Associates, a literary agency based in Edinburgh, Scotland, announced the launch of a literary prize for emerging authors aged fifty and over, the Debut Writers Over 50 award, at this year’s London Book Fair. Speaking at the event, which was held last week, agency associate Lisa Highton said when it comes to starting out as a writer, youth should not be a prerequisite:
“The bestseller lists are full of debut novelists who are older, but the perception is that you have to be young when your first book comes out,” says literary agent Lisa Highton of Jenny Brown Associates. “But being a debut is not just about being a shiny, sparkly, young person. The reason we launched the award was to say to people over 50 yes, you too can be a shiny, sparkly, new writer – just older.”
This is a great initiative. I’m not sure how many literary awards cater for mature authors, but there sure seems to be plenty aimed at youth writers, and people aged under thirty-five. And that’s fine. Emerging younger writers need to be encouraged, since it’s difficult to become established in an industry dominated — usually — by, you know, older, big name authors, or those with several books to their name.
While the Debut Writers Over 50 award is for unpublished novelists residing in the United Kingdom, it’s good to see people commencing writing careers later in life being recognised. Submissions for the inaugural award close at the end of next month. A shortlist will be published on 27 July 2023, and the winner will be named on 26 August 2023, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
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More than a Spotify genre, Glitchcore explored and defined
24 April 2023
Image courtesy of Enrique Meseguer.
Too Long; Didn’t Read: Glitchcore is a type of electronic music that features noisy digital artefacts including distortion, static, crackle, interference, and other warning sounds that means something’s not right. But there’s nothing wrong with the music itself. Read on for more of the story…
Twenty five years ago — give or take — a web design trend called “TV lines” was all the rage. Like all fads, it was short lived, but if you were a web designer who was anyone, the graphics on your website had to feature TV lines. The effect would have looked a little like the image above, created by Enrique Meseguer, and conveyed the impression your image was a screen-grab from a TV show.
Although images with TV lines have largely disappeared from the web, it can be argued their influence lingers, albeit non-visually, in the form of Glitchcore music. As the name suggests, Glitchcore is a genre that blends what are considered to be inharmonious noises, caused by errors of some sort, into the mix. These anomalies include distortion, static, crackle, interference, and other noisy artefacts. But Glitchcore is more than an amalgamation of discordant sounds, it’s also a blend of other genres, according to volt.fm:
Glitchcore is a genre of electronic music that combines elements of glitch, IDM, and breakcore. It is characterized by its chaotic and unpredictable sound, often featuring heavily distorted and chopped up samples, rapid-fire drum patterns, and complex, syncopated rhythms.
Yecch, syncopated rhythms. I sucked at syncopated strumming during my guitar playing days. But back to Glitchcore, which actually owes little to mellow, mostly unobtrusive, TV lines, than it does to boldly coloured, garish online memes, and Glitch art. Like Glitchcore music, Glitch artists make use of visual digital defects, in their artworks. And while Glitch art sounds like a contemporary movement, it isn’t. Instances of the form can be traced back to 1935, when experimental New Zealand filmmaker Len Lye incorporated analogue flaws into his short film, A Colour Box.
But Glitch art became more prominent in the early twenty-first century, when digital artists began to embrace errors and unwanted visual artefacts, spewed out by digital technologies, and crafted artworks from them. A Glitchcore musician then might look at a work of glitch art — refer again to Meseguer’s image above — and wonder how it could be rendered as a musical piece.
Musically, Glitchcore is seen as subgenre of Glitch music. Or Hyperpop, depending on who you ask. Glitch music became popular in the 1990s, but its origins can be traced back to the second decade of the twentieth century. In 1913, Luigi Russolo, an Italian artist and composer, produced The Art of Noises (L’arte dei rumori), a Futurist manifesto, which was considered by some to be the basis of noise music. Here, anything, particularly machinery, that made noise, could, somehow, be used in a musical composition.
Hyperpop (think of the music of Charli XCX), meanwhile, emerged about ten years ago, even though the term was first used in 1988 by a music writer named Don Shewey, when describing the Cocteau Twins, an erstwhile Scottish act. Wikipedia defines Hyperpop thusly:
Hyperpop reflects an exaggerated, eclectic, and self-referential approach to pop music and typically employs elements such as brash synth melodies, Auto-Tuned “earworm” vocals, and excessive compression and distortion, as well as surrealist or nostalgic references to 2000s Internet culture and the Web 2.0 era.
Glitchcore become more widely heard in 2020. And like Hyperpop, the name also seems to have preceded the music, if this excerpt from the March 2001 edition of SPIN magazine (and might they be referring to Matthew Herbert here?) is anything to go by:
Herbert is a former piano prodigy and Exeter drama student who went from touring with UK big bands to freaking clubbers with samplers and kitchen utensils, and his cozy records merge glitchcore buzz and tech-house heat.
So, there, at last we have it, an explanation of Glitchcore. Assuming the genre, subgenre, in fact exists, something Cat Zhang, writing for Pitchfork, says is debatable. And given its smorgasbord of genre ingredients, I can see where the doubters are coming from. Spotify, however, has no such misgivings. It’s a verified genre to them, as people perusing their annual Spotify Wrapped music listening reports would have noticed.
In case Glitchcore is new to you, as it was to me, here’s a small selection of the music to check out: Money Machine by 100 gecs, Ethanol by Madge, and This World is Sick by IC3PEAK. I should say a language warning may apply to some of these tracks.
And on the off chance the existence of Glitchcore is blowing your mind, and you think there’s too many music genres, and subgenres already, bear in mind some one hundred and twenty three thousand new songs are released daily across the world. That’s daily with a D. If that’s the case, there’s going be a whole lot more music genres coming to Spotify Wrapped in the future.
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The 2023 BookPeople Book of Year shortlist
21 April 2023
It’s been a busy several days for literary awards. Since last Friday, shortlists for The Age Book of the Year, the International Booker Prize, the Australian Book Industry Awards, and the Australian Book Design Awards, for book cover design, have been published.
And to cap off the week, the 2023 BookPeople Book of Year shortlist was announced earlier today. Six books have been selected in three categories: kids, adult non-fiction, and adult fiction. The following six titles are on the adult fiction shortlist:
- Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
- Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
- Horse by Geraldine Brooks
- All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien
- Willowman by Inga Simpson
- Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
The BookPeople Book of Year awards honour new Australian book releases, which have been selected by Australian Booksellers Association members as their favourite hand-sells of the last year. The winners in each category will be named on Sunday 19 June 2023.
Nice to see Willowman on the fiction list, I think everyone else has had at least one listing previously. Oh, and another accolade for Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow. Incredible, hey?
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Australian literature, books, literary awards
Night at the Last Bookstore, this could be a film idea also
21 April 2023
A sleepover in a bookshop, especially one that is reputed to be haunted, sounds like a fun way for bookworms to spend the night. That’s what happened recently at the Last Bookstore in Los Angeles, when the bookshop made fourteen sleepover spots available every night for two weeks, earlier this month. Julia Carmel, writing for the Los Angeles Times, described the experience:
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for one of the first ever sleepovers at California’s largest new and used bookstore. I had vague hopes of staying up until sunrise, reading and exchanging slumber party-esque gossip with strangers, all while surrounded by the highly-Instagrammed book tunnel and book sculptures that fill the former bank building.
I don’t know if this ever happens in Australia, but it’s something local bookshops ought to consider. Decent size stores, that have the book-tunnel and horror vault intrigue of the Last Bookstore would be needed. There’s surely options, but at the moment I’m thinking of the Harry Hartog bookshops.
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Could libraries be a place to offer affordable housing?
21 April 2023
Libraries are more than somewhere to go to merely read, or borrow, a book. They’re often places were people study, work, and, to a degree, socialise. In short, libraries are community hubs.
But the idea that libraries could be expanded upon — subject to certain caveats — to offer affordable housing, is compelling. It is however a proposal the Boston Public Library has been considering, says library president David Leonard:
These three libraries will serve as a model to expand alternative affordable housing options. But Leonard said adding affordable housing may not be right for every neighborhood. Programming studies of the Field’s Corner branch revealed the space was too tight to deliver affordable construction; in Egleston Square, the community valued the existing greenspace over an expanded library/housing footprint.
On paper it’s an intriguing idea. People who need affordable housing would have somewhere to live, and potentially a community to tap into, downstairs in the library itself.
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The rise and rise of Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
19 April 2023
Cold Enough for Snow (Giramondo Publishing), by Melbourne based Australian author Jessica Au, is a heart-warming story of a young woman and her mother, who holiday in Japan together.
A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafes and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother’s family in Hong Kong, and the daughter’s own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken?
But Au’s debut novel has had run of success that authors — both new and established — could only dream of. Since being published in February 2022, Cold Enough for Snow has won a slew of awards. Gongs so far include the 2020 Novel Prize, of which it was the inaugural recipient, and the 2022 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction.
Au’s book also cleaned up at the 2023 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, collecting both the Fiction award, and the Victorian Prize for Literature, valued together at A$125,000. The novel has also been shortlisted in the fiction categories of the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards, and the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Cold Enough for Snow was also shortlisted for the fiction award in the 2022 Age Book of the Year.
Literary award longlist listings meanwhile include the 2022 Indie Book Awards, 2023 Dublin Literary Award, and the 2023 BookPeople Nielsen award. These are incredible achievements, and are all the more remarkable given the page count barely exceeds one hundred. Compelling stories do not need to be of epic proportions.
But Cold Enough for Snow’s winning streak may not be over just yet. Today, the title was included in the shortlist of the Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year category in the 2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs). The winners of the ABIAs will be announced in late May. We can only be left wondering: what’s next for Au’s debut work of fiction?
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2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) shortlists
19 April 2023
Another day, another literary award shortlist announcement, this time it’s the 2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) shortlists. All up, seventy-one books have been shortlisted across fourteen categories, including Audiobook of the Year, Biography Book of the Year, several Children’s and The Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, with five titles selected in two fiction categories:
Literary Fiction Book of the Year
- All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien
- The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane
- Horse by Geraldine Brooks
- Seeing Other People by Diana Reid
- Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
General Fiction Book of the Year
- Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor
- The Tilt by Chris Hammer
- Exiles by Jane Harper
- Day’s End by Garry Disher
- Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
The ABIAs are pretty close to Australia’s equivalent of the Oscars (or Logies), but for books rather than movies. Accordingly, winners will be named at a ceremony on the evening of Thursday 25 May 2023, in Sydney.
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Australian literature, books, literary awards
The 2023 International Booker Prize shortlist
18 April 2023
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, book cover.
The 2023 International Booker Prize shortlist was announced earlier this evening (east coast of Australia time) at the London Book Fair, and includes these six titles:
- Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated from Catalan by Julia Sanches
- The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated from French by Richard Philcox
- Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated from French by Frank Wynne
- Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
- Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim
- Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for the finest single work of fiction from around the world which has been translated into English and published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The winner will be named in London on Tuesday 23 May 2023.
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Sales of paper books surge in the United Kingdom in 2022
18 April 2023
Paper, or physical, books are by no means relics of a bygone era, if sales thereof in the UK last year are anything to go by. Six hundred and sixty nine million books were purchased in 2022. Against a population of sixty seven million people, that equates to about ten books per person.
A Year in Publishing, a look at the state of the book market by trade body the Publishers Association, found that sales were up 4% from 2021 in 2022, 669m physical books were sold in the UK, the highest overall level ever recorded.
UK book exports also increased by eight percent, with Heartstopper, by Alice Oseman, topping the list of books sent out of the country. To date, there are now five books in the Heartstopper series — which has spawned a Netflix TV show — with a sixth, and final, title on the way.
Meanwhile in Australia, nearly seventy one millions books were purchased in 2022, an increase of about eight percent on 2021, according to Nielsen BookData figures. I’m not sure what quantity of books sold were physical, but it seems bookshops had a good year, so I’m guessing a lot were paper.
It’s to be hoped bookshops in Australia (and elsewhere, of course) are doing well again, after a difficult few years. While it’s purely anecdotal, I saw that Dymocks, a large Australian bookseller, is opening a brand new store in the Sydney suburb of Bondi Junction in June. Saying re-opening a bookshop is probably more accurate, as the company did have a shop there, which closed several years ago. While opening one bookshop does not a trend make, the move can only be a good sign.
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A big anniversary, twenty five years of The Big Lebowski
17 April 2023
It’s not being remade, but it is being re-released. Whether you’re ready or not. The Big Lebowski, trailer, the slapstick comedy crime caper by American filmmaking auteurs, Joel and Ethan Coen, is having a special theatrical re-run in some parts of the world this week. The move marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the film’s release in March 1998.
For those who (somehow) missed it earlier, The Big Lebowski follows a couple of chaotic days in the life of easy-going stoner Jeff “the dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges).
Debt collectors arrive at his house demanding payment of a loan. They quickly realise they’re at the wrong Jeff Lebowski’s place, and leave. But not before damaging some of the dude’s belongings. Upset, the dude tracks down the other Jeff Lebowski, being the “big” Lebowski (David Huddleston), the debt collectors’ actual target, and demands compensation.
When the big Lebowski refuses, the dude steals a rug from his house. Soon after, the big Lebowski receives a ransom note from someone claiming to have kidnapped his wife. He asks the dude to help him find her. Walter (John Goodman), a friend of the dude, who thinks the kidnapping is a sham, hatches a plan for them to keep the ransom money the big Lebowski gave the dude.
Needless to say, the idea turns out to be terrible. Soon rival gangs, the big Lebowski, and the police, are after the dude, his friends, and the million dollar ransom money.
The Coen Brothers said the idea for The Big Lebowski came partly from the work of American-British author Raymond Chandler. The character of the dude, meanwhile, was reputedly inspired by Jeff Dowd, an American film producer, and political activist. While the film did not fare all that well on release — it garnered mixed reviews, and had a relatively modest box office take — The Big Lebowski gained a cult following in later years.
While fans in America will have the chance to see screenings on Sunday 16 April, and Thursday 20 April 2023, in selected cinemas in the United States, Australian fans will need to be a little more patient. And they may have to be prepared to travel. So far, the only upcoming cinema screening I can find of The Big Lebowski in Australia, is at the Wallis Piccadilly, in the South Australian capital, Adelaide, on Friday 28 July 2023.
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