Upswell: the author publisher relationship is one of trust

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Upswell: the author publisher relationship is one of trust

18 June 2022

A statement from Terri-ann White of Upswell, publisher of Australian author John Hughes novel The Dogs, made in the wake of additional allegations of plagiarism by Guardian Australia:

I have published many writers who use collage and bricolage and other approaches to weaving in other voices and materials to their own work. All of them have acknowledged their sources within the book, usually in a listing of precisely where these borrowings come from. I should have pushed John Hughes harder on his lack of the standard mode of book acknowledgements where any credits to other writers (with permissions or otherwise), and the thanks to those nearest and dearest, are held. I regret that now, as you might expect.

I think the sympathy of most people lies with Upswell. As White points out, the relationship between writer and publisher is one of trust. A publisher cannot be expected to check every last sentence in a manuscript to ensure there are no duplications between it and another work. It is the author’s obligation to declare such borrowings, and is something just about all do.

On the other hand, it is also unrealistic to expect works to be completely devoid of references to other titles. For example, I could understand how a sentence — perhaps read in a book years ago — might linger in the mind of a writer to the point they come to think of it as theirs. And while I’m not sure many people would expect to see upwards of sixty instances of such borrowings in a single book, authors referencing each other’s work is, and always has been, intrinsic to writing.

John Hughes accused of more instances of plagiarism

16 June 2022

Allegations of further instances of plagiarism have been levelled against Australian author John Hughes, following a Guardian Australia investigation which identified almost sixty similarities between Hughes’ 2021 novel The Dogs, and a 1985 book, The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich.

Although Hughes apologised, describing his use of the phrases and passages from Alexievich’s title as inadvertent, another probe has found The Dogs — which has since been withdrawn from the longlist of this year’s Miles Franklin literary award — apparently contains sentences drawn from other notable literary works, including The Great Gatsby and Anna Karenina.

It has since been revealed that The Dogs also contains passages which are similar to books including The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina and All Quiet on the Western Front. Guardian Australia has cross-referenced all the similarities between Hughes’ work and those classic texts and found some cases in which whole sentences were identical or where just one word had changed.

Some people might have been prepared to give Hughes the benefit of the doubt after he apologised for using Alexievich’s work, given the explanation he offered seemed some what plausible. Unfortunately it is difficult to look passed these latest allegations. I’d been looking forward to reading The Dogs, as I do any title on the Miles Franklin longlist.

The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner a memoir by Grace Tame

14 June 2022

The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner is a memoir by activist, advocate for survivors of sexual assault, and former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, being published by Pan Macmillan Australia in September 2022.

From a young age, her life was defined by uncertainty – by trauma and strength, sadness and hope, terrible lows and wondrous highs. As a teenager she found the courage to speak up after experiencing awful and ongoing child sexual abuse. This fight to find her voice would not be her last. In 2021 Grace stepped squarely into the public eye as the Australian of the Year, and was the catalyst for a tidal wave of conversation and action. Australians from all walks of life were inspired and moved by her fire and passion. Here she was using her voice, and encouraging others to use theirs too.

Tame is also a talented artist, having illustrated the artwork for the cover of her book, “using a cheapo $1 ballpoint pen from Woolies,” and in the past has accepted commissions from John Cleese, and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode.

Robert Lukins speaks with Corrie Perkin about Loveland

14 June 2022

Melbourne based Australian novelist Robert Lukins, speaks with Corrie Perkin on her Spotify podcast The Book Pod, about his recent book Loveland, a title, incidentally, I finished reading a few days ago.

When a man writes women in domestic noir and gets it so right he’s one to watch. Corrie chats to Melbourne writer Robert Lukins about his long and winding road to to getting Loveland published, and also how he managed to inhabit his, female characters with such clarity.

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Australian literature, Robert Lukins

2022 Australian Book Industry Awards Winners

10 June 2022

Love & Virtue by Diana Reid won Book of the Year, and Literary Fiction Book of the Year, in the 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards. In other categories, Before You Knew My Name, by Jacqueline Bublitz, won General Fiction Book of the Year, while the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year went to Amani Haydar for The Mother Wound.

Books + Publishing have posted a full list of ABIA 2022 winners across all award categories.

QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection

9 June 2022

QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection, published by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), is not only a catalogue for the exhibition of the same name running until Sunday 21 August 2022 in Melbourne, but also a collection of LGBTQIA+ stories and histories, edited by Ted Gott, Angela Hesson, Myles Russell-Cook, Meg Slater, and Pip Wallis.

More than 60 essays from authors with comprehensive knowledge of the historical and contemporary subjects encompassed by the NGV’s QUEER project are presented along side stunning reproductions of more than 200 works from the NGV collection, either by queer artists or engaging with queer issues. The essays in QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection explore the history of LGBTQ+ activism; the creation of queer spaces and communities; queerness as an artistic strategy; the expression of love, desire and sensuality; queer aesthetics; and the concepts of camp and the fantastic.

2022 Text Prize shortlist for unpublished manuscripts

9 June 2022

Seven middle-grade and young adult writers have been named on the 2022 Text Prize shortlist for unpublished manuscripts.

Bellamy Jones and the Lost Treeheart, by Emily Beck
How to be Normal by, Ange Crawford
One Thing You Can Feel, by Robbie Taylor Hunt
Year of the Dog, by Kate McCabe
Finding Liminas: The Sudden Tree, by Bria McCarthy
The Collector of Gifts, by Jamie Ramjan
Let’s Never Speak of this Again, by Megan Williams

The winner of the 2022 Text Prize, along with the recipient of the Steph Bowe Mentorship for Young Writers, will be named in late June.

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Australian literature, literary awards

2022 Australian Book Design Awards winners

7 June 2022

The winners in the 2022 Australian Book Design Awards (ABDA), which recognise outstanding book cover design, were announced on Friday 3 June 2022.

In Moonland (published by Scribe Publications, August 2021), by Melbourne based Australian author Miles Allinson won the Best Designed Literary Fiction Cover, while Catch Us the Foxes (published by Simon & Schuster, July 2021), by Sydney based Nicola West, took out the award for Best Designed Commercial Fiction Cover.

Cover designs in twenty categories were nominated, and all winners can be seen on the ABDA Instagram page.

Winnie Dunn, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, speak with Roanna Gonsalves

6 June 2022

Roanna Gonsalves, creative writing lecturer and author, speaks to Winnie Dunn and Dr Michael Mohammed Ahmad, at Waverley Library, in Bondi Junction, Sydney, on Saturday 11 June, from 11AM until 12PM.

Dunn is the general manager of the Sweatshop Literacy Movement, while Ahmad’s third novel The Other Half of You, was published last year. The speaking event is part of an initiative by Waverley municipal council to curb racism in the community.

Zelensky, a book by Andrew L Urban, Chris McLeod

6 June 2022

Zelensky, by Andrew L. Urban, Chris McLeod, book cover

Zelensky (published by Wilkinson Publishing, April 2022), is a portrait of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, written by Australian author and former film critic Andrew L. Urban, and journalist and author Chris McLeod, which examines Zelensky’s resilience in the face of the Russian invasion of his country.

No one has been more surprised by Zelensky’s power to inspire and mobilise his countrymen and the world than Vladimir Putin, who expected Russia’s conquest of its beleaguered neighbour to be the work of an afternoon. Outfoxed and isolated, Putin is not the first person to have underestimated the former comedian with a spine of steel.

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