Sydney Writers Festival 2023 program

16 March 2023

The Sydney Writers Festival 2023 program was published this evening, and features a star studded line-up of Australian and international speakers. Among them are former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Sydney author Tracey Lien, Tasmasian writer Robbie Arnott, and Fiona McFarlane.

Overseas speakers include Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka, winner of the 2022 Booker Prize, and British author Bernardine Evaristo, who will be one of the opening night address speakers. Australian author Richard Flanagan meanwhile will deliver the closing night address.

The festival — which runs from Monday 22 May, to Sunday 28 May 2023 — will take place at a number of locations around Sydney, including Carriageworks, the State Library of NSW, Penrith City Library, Sydney Town Hall, and PHIVE, Parramatta, to name a handful.

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2023 International Booker Prize longlist

15 March 2023

The 2023 International Booker Prize longlist was unveiled yesterday, and features eleven novels published internationally, which have been translated into English.

The 2023 judges are looking for the best work of international fiction translated into English, selected from entries published in the UK or Ireland between May 1, 2022 and April 30, 2023. The books, authors and translators the prize celebrates offer readers a window onto the world and the opportunity to experience the lives of people from different cultures.

French author Maryse Condé, at age 89, becomes the oldest person to be named on the Booker International longlist, with her novel The Gospel According to the New World.

Works by a film director, four poets, two former security guards, and a writer who had declared himself “dead” (curious), are also included. The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 18 April 2023.

Manuscript thief apologises, says he only wanted to cherish the works he stole

15 March 2023

Filippo Bernardini, also known as the Spine Collector, was arrested in early 2022, after stealing the manuscripts of numerous high profile authors. Bernardini managed to convince his victims — who included Sally Rooney and Margaret Atwood — to send the manuscripts of their latest novels to him, instead of their publisher.

Through recently filed court papers however, Bernardini has apologised for his actions, and says he merely wished to “cherish” the works of the authors he swindled, before their novels were published:

Former Simon & Schuster staffer Filippo Bernardini has said stole more than 1,000 unpublished manuscripts because he wanted to read books before they hit stores. In court papers published on Friday (March 10th), Bernardini apologised for his crime but claimed he did it so he could dive into the stories before they were available to the general public. “I never leaked these manuscripts. I wanted to keep them closely to my chest and be one of the fewest to cherish them before anyone else, before they ended up in bookshops,” he wrote.

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The Not So Chosen One, young adult fiction by Kate Emery

15 March 2023

The Not So Chosen One, by Kate Emery, book cover

If you felt like a fish out of water during your school days, spare a thought for seventeen year old Lucy. She’s just been enrolled at Drake’s College, a school nurturing the magical talent of young people, located in Perth, Western Australia. But there’s only one thing: Lucy’s not so sure she’s possessed of any magical talent.

That’s not the end of it though. Somehow Drake’s believes Lucy is the “chosen one”. They see her as a prodigy, one who will defeat the forces of evil. Again, Lucy has her doubts about that idea as well. On the other hand, she has a fearsome reputation for being sarcastic and cynical. Perhaps those attributes will suffice instead?

But Lucy has other things to think about, at this place she never knew existed until walking through the gates. One of them is her new friend, Jack, a teacher’s assistant at Drake’s, who seems to know far more than what’s printed on the curriculum. Then there’s all sorts of strange incidents occurring on the school’s grounds.

It strikes Lucy as slightly odd that these weird, often frightening happenings, seemed to start around the time she arrived at Drake’s. As if that’s not enough, Lucy discovers she has become pregnant. Taking on the forces of evil could be a walk in the park, compared to having explain her pregnancy to her mother.

This is the premise of The Not So Chosen One, published by Text Publishing, July 2022, debut young adult fantasy fiction by Kate Emery, a Perth based journalist and writer. This is a title that will delight anyone who’s previously lamented the absence of a Hogwarts like school of magic in Australia.

While the ending of The Not So Chosen One has polarised readers, some people believe a sequel may be the result. That could well happen, considering Emery’s debut has been named on the shortlist of the 2023 Aurealis Awards, in the Best Fantasy Novel category. The Aurealis Awards recognise the work of Australian science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers.

Dark Mode, the debut novel of Ashley Kalagian Blunt

13 March 2023

Dark Mode, by Ashley Kalagian Blunt, book cover

Presently about fourteen percent of Australians do not own a smartphone, while some seventeen percent do not use social media. So although a minority, they don’t exactly — no pun intended — stand in isolation. Twenty-something Sydneysider Reagan Carsen is a person who resides in both camps, in Dark Mode, published by Ultimo Press, March 2023, the debut novel of Sydney based Canadian Australian author, Ashley Kalagian Blunt.

When it comes to smartphones and social media though, Reagan seems like an unlikely holdout. But it’s not just smartphones and social media she shuns. Reagan has no online presence whatsoever. As the owner of the Voodoo Lily Garden Centre, a small business, a smartphone would surely be a must. As would a social media presence. After all, is not Instagram a pathway to fortune untold? And if there’s one thing Voodoo Lily needs right now, it’s a little good fortune.

But Reagan’s reluctance to embrace these technologies, stems from a fear of them. Reagan is deliberately keeping herself out the way of the all-seeing, and invasive, internet. Ever since being stalked as a teenager, Reagan has understandably gone all out to shield herself from the digital domain. But when Reagan stumbles upon the mutilated body of women while running one morning, she immediately fears the worst.

The murdered woman, lying in alley not far from where Reagan lives, looks almost exactly like her. Reagan sees this as a veiled threat, and a message that her old stalker has found her. In her trepidation, she refuses to even tell the police of her gruesome discovery, petrified she will expose herself. Instead she turns to a friend, Min, an investigator, and true crime writer, for help.

But this turns out only to be the beginning. There are more murders. To Reagan’s mind the victims all resemble her. But still she continues her quest for answers. Having avoided the internet for so long, Reagan now finds herself venturing into its darkest recesses. But that’s not all. Having struck up some new friendships, the usually guarded Reagan may have become a little too trusting, perhaps making herself vulnerable.

Although Dark Mode is her first novel, Kalagian Blunt is an accomplished writer. In 2018 she wrote My Name Is Revenge, a collection of short stories and essays. She followed this up in 2020 with her memoir How to Be Australian. Her work has also featured in Kill Your Darlings, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Overland. When not writing, Kalagian Blunt teaches creative writing, and also mentors emerging authors.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe removed from Queensland library shelves

13 March 2023

Gender Queer: A Memoir, a graphic novel written and illustrated by American cartoonist and author Maia Kobabe, has been removed from the shelves of a Queensland library, according to a 9News report. Local police have since referred the publication to the Australian Classification Board (ACB), following a complaint that the book contains pornographic material.

Following a four-day investigation, Queensland Police confirmed to 9news.com.au they flagged Gender Queer: A Memoir to the ACB on Thursday for review. Gender Queer, which includes illustrations of masturbation, sex toys and oral sex, is written by Maia Kobabe, a nonbinary author from California. The 2019 graphic novel is centred on coming out to friends and family.

Despite being removed from the shelves at Logan Central Library, Kobabe’s book is still is available on request. The ACB said it was not usually standard practice to classify publications that Australian libraries made available, and that Gender Queer had not been referred to them previously.

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What about a best of the best Miles Franklin award in 2027?

12 March 2023

Image courtesy of Eli Digital Creative.

To mark its twenty-fifth anniversary, Britain’s Baillie Gifford literary prize, which recognises excellence in non-fiction writing, is holding a Winner of Winners Award to select the best title — the best of the best, if you like — among the past twenty-four winners of the prize.

Riffing on this idea, Jason Steger, literary editor for Australian newspapers The Age, and The Sydney Morning Herald, suggests the Miles Franklin Literary Award could do likewise to commemorate its seventieth anniversary in 2027. The Booker Prize also did something similar in 2008, for their fortieth anniversary, with the Best of the Booker.

Steger put forward the proposal in his weekly newsletter The Booklist last week. A special panel of judges could create a shortlist of perhaps a dozen past Miles Franklin winners, with a public vote to determine an overall victor:

Like the Booker, choosing a shortlist and a public vote would seem the optimum way to go if the Miles were to do it. A panel of judges would have to be chosen and they could pick perhaps a 10- or 12-book shortlist. And then the likes of you and me would have our say.

Selecting a crème de la crème winner would be a big ask, as would drawing up any shortlist, but anything that boosts interest and excitement in Australian literature can only be a good idea.

Hydra, debut literary horror fiction by Adriane Howell

11 March 2023

Before she lost her job, Anja sold antique furniture at an auction house in Melbourne, capital of the Australian state of Victoria. The pieces she prepared for sale though were more than mere objects to her. These aged items of furniture, and bric-a-brac, were possessed of intricate histories. Imagine the stories each could tell, were they able to speak.

Perhaps it was partly this fascination with the past that lead Anja to lease a ramshackle old cottage, on a naval base on the Mornington Peninsula, to the south of Melbourne. The cottage’s isolation makes for the ideal place to retreat from the world, something she is seeking right now. Being sacked is not the only misfortune to befall Anja. Her mother died recently, and her marriage also failed.

The cottage is in need of attention, and Anja thinks fixing up the old place could be the beginning of something new. It might also help her keep her sanity. Anja finds a new job, and goes about making a home of the cottage. But strange things seem to be happening, and Anja comes to believe she is not alone on the grounds of the cottage.

She begins looking for answers. Like the history of the antiques she once obsessed over, Anja learns the cottage also has something of a history, a somewhat dark one, at that. Do these alleged past events — which the reader is given glimpses of by way of classified defence department reports — have any connection to what Anja thinks is happening now?

But Anja is a troubled person, and may not be the most reliable of narrators. Hydra, published by Transit Lounge in August 2022, is the debut novel of Melbourne based Australian author and arts worker, Adriane Howell. Howell is also the co-founder of Gargouille, a literary journal she established with Sarah Wreford in 2014.

Hydra, which has been longlisted for the 2023 Stella Prize, has variously been described as mystery, thriller, and literary horror. Anyone looking for slasher variety gore though, may be disappointed. The real horror in Hydra perhaps lies in the protagonist’s struggle to maintain her sanity, and keep a grip on reality.

Trailer for Class of ’07, by Kacie Anning, with Emily Browning

11 March 2023

A ten year high school reunion goes horribly awry, after a tidal wave transforms the venue into an island, leaving old students of an all-girls school stranded. Will the former school-mates co-operate, or will tensions and rivalries from their school days resurface and overwhelm them?

Emily Browning and Caitlin Stasey, star in the Amazon Prime produced Australian TV series, Class of ’07, trailer, created and directed by Kacie Anning, which goes to air on Friday 17 March 2023.

The 2023 Penguin Literary Prize shortlist

9 March 2023

The 2023 Penguin Literary Prize shortlist, consisting of six manuscripts by new and emerging Australian writers of literary fiction, has been unveiled:

The Elementals by Liz Allan
The Boy Who Wept Rabbits by Benjamin Forbes
Falling and Burning by Michael Krockenberger
Jade and Emerald by Michelle See-Tho
Nothing Like The Sun by J.N. Read
The Guggenheim by Heather Taylor-Johnson

The winner, to be named on Thursday 15 June 2023, will win a cash prize, and have the opportunity to see their work published.

Update: the winner has been named.

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