Showing all posts tagged: writing
Male authors name their favourite woman writers
1 June 2022
Men don’t seem to read too many books written by women. Why this should be, who knows. But if I were to take a guess at it, I’d say men are more likely to be given recommendations for books authored by men, from their male friends. Then there’s also the point that it may not occur to men to read titles written by women in the first place, which is unfortunate.
Some of my recent reads include novels by Sally Rooney, Sophie Hardcastle, Susanna Clarke, Jane Caro, Holly Wainwright, Katherine Brabon, and Madeleine Watts.
British author and journalist Mary Ann Sieghart, writing for The Guardian, notes “studies show men avoid female authors,” while “women read roughly 50:50 books by male and female authors; for men the ratio is 80:20.”
To redress the imbalance, Sieghart spoke to male writers including Ian McEwan (who I’ve read), Salman Rushdie, Richard Curtis, and Lee Child among others, asking them to name their favourite women authors. There’s some solid reading ideas here.
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Poor financial incentives deter emerging Australian writers
18 May 2022
“Artists in this country are used to living one paycheque away from poverty.” With those words, Evelyn Araluen, winner of this year’s Stella Prize, had everyone’s attention. The proceeds from the literary prize mean Araluen will be able to pay down some debt, and work two jobs instead of three.
But that’s not the reality for many other writers — even those who are published — in Australia, if working two jobs, while still focussing on their art, is meant to constitute reality.
Most writers are forced to take other work, because the rewards for writing all those books we like to read are virtually non-existent. It’s a state of affairs, warns Melbourne based literary agent and author Danielle Binks, that will force young and emerging authors to consider other lines of work all together:
“Kids are already hung up on how much money you can make and whether you can do this for a living … I tell them the reason I write – the reason we all engage in books, art, theatre, anything – is that art changes people and people change the world. But I’m convinced there’s a whole generation of artists, and writers in particular, who will not choose this path.”
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Australian literature, Evelyn Araluen, writing
Koenji’s Manuscript Writing Cafe, for writers on deadlines
19 April 2022
If you’re a writer with a deadline you simply cannot afford to miss, then the Manuscript Writing Cafe, in Koenji, a district in the Japanese capital Tokyo, is the place for you. Upon arrival writers inform management of their writing goal for the day, be it a five-thousand word article, a couple of chapters of a novel, or a few blog posts.
Everyone in the cafe is working on a manuscript with an imminent deadline. This unique sense of tension like studying for an exam in a library will really stimulate your creative work!
Every hour a staff member will come along and check on your progress, and gently prod you if necessary. But here’s the thing, you will not be allowed to leave the cafe until you’ve finished what you set out to do. I’m not sure exactly how strictly that dictate is enforced, but not being able to go home might be pretty good motivation to meet your deadline.
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#IndieApril and ways to support writers everywhere
7 April 2022
While there may not be a whole lot of Australian government support for authors in this part of the world, as book readers there are things we can do. Jake Uniacke posted a few #IndieApril suggestions on Twitter, but these are ideas that can be acted upon at anytime of the year.
- Review their work. Goodreads, Amazon, and Google are good places to start.
- Share their work. Spread the word on your social media channels, Twitter, Facebook, BookTok, and Bookstagram.
- Buy their books. Through the author’s website if possible, or an indie bookshop, any bookshop really.
- Interact with their content. Instagram stories, Twitter polls, and Q&A sessions, are a few suggestions.
Joe Walters, writing for Independent Book Review, also offers a number of suggestions.
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Government support for Australian writers declines
7 April 2022
The Australian federal budget was handed down last week, but there was little in it for writers. Funding for the arts sector is being reduced by almost twenty-percent, with the RISE Fund, which was established to support the sector during the pandemic, scheduled to be phased out.
Unlike the performing arts, which benefit from a dedicated funding stream inside the Australia Council, literature has enjoys very little federal support. In 2020-21, the Australia Council gave out just $4.7 million in grant funding to literature – 2.4% of the total funding pool last year. In contrast, the major performing arts organisations received $120 million.
The funding situation serves to draw attention to just how little writers earn. Sydney based author Charlotte Wood, speaking at a recent parliamentary hearing, set things out in pretty blunt terms:
Wood told a House of Representatives inquiry into Australia’s cultural sector that “writers themselves are in absolutely dire economic difficulty”. She cited figures that literary writers’ annual income from their books was just $4,000 a year.
Four thousand dollars a year? What is anyone meant to conclude from that? Writing is indeed poorly looked upon in Australia.
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Australian literature, writing
Unforgettable descriptions of food in literature
4 April 2022
Some meal time reading for sure… twelve of the most unforgettable descriptions of food in literature, curated by Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic. The writing of Haruki Murakami, Nora Ephron, Marcel Proust, and late American writer and illustrator Louise Fitzhugh, among others, is featured.
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Melbourne Writers Festival slims down to four days for 2022
28 March 2022
The Melbourne Writers Festival runs this year from Thursday 8 to Sunday 11 September 2022. This represents a change in format for the festival which has in the past run for at least ten days. The 2021 event for instance ran from Friday 3 September to Wednesday 15 September 2021.
This year’s event will see “a concentrated program that would feature about 250 Australian and international writers in 120 events“, says artistic director Michaela McGuire.
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Sydney Writers Festival program 2022
26 March 2022
The program for the 2022 Sydney Writers’ Festival was unveiled on Thursday, and refreshingly for the lockdown-fatigued is choke full of face-to-face, in person events. Spread across venues including Sydney Town Hall, City Recital Hall, and Carriageworks, the festival opens on Monday 16 May, and concludes on Sunday 22 May 2022.
In addition, numerous other “neighbourhood” events, will be held in other areas, both in and out of Sydney, hosted at places including the State Library of NSW, WestWords Parramatta, Ashfield Town Hall, Chatswood Library on The Concourse, Penrith City Library, and Wollongong Art Gallery. Top up your Opal card, you could be covering a bit of ground.
The opening night address takes place at Sydney Town Hall on the evening of Tuesday 17 May, and features Ali Cobby Eckermann, Jackie Huggins, and Nardi Simpson.
Nearly four hundred Australian and international authors and writers, along with actors, sports people, academics, and many others, are scheduled to participate in proceedings, including Emily Bitto, winner of the 2015 Stella Prize, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Mick Elliott, former Australian footballer Adam Goodes, Muireann Irish, Bri Lee, Charlotte McConaghy, J.P. Pomare, Teela Reid, Yumi Stynes, and Murong Xuecun, also known as Hao Qun.
The theme of this year’s festival, explains artistic director Michael Williams is change my mind. How perfectly apt, because what is writing, if not transformative?
Change my mind with a stanza or a couplet, a jarring dissonance, a beautiful echo or a rhyme. Change it with a flight of fancy, an intricate, imagined world, a compelling character I’ll never meet but never forget. Turn it upside down with searing rhetoric, impeccable research, the knock-out argument that has me questioning everything I know and all that I believe.
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The Tolkien Estate, a repository of J. R. R. Tolkien’s work
23 March 2022
The Tolkien Estate looks to be the ultimate resource of the work and life of British author, poet, and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, writer of The Lord of the Rings, and other works. It’s incredible to think — given the depth and scope of his writing output — that Tolkien worked mainly as a teacher at Oxford University, instead of a full time author.
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J. R. R. Tolkien, literature, writing
Virtual Literary Speed Dating 2022
21 March 2022
The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) is hosting several virtual literary speed dating events this year for its members. Prospective authors will be given three minutes to pitch their completed manuscript to local literary agents and publishers, at online events in May, and then again a few months later.
Canberra based Australian author Shelley Burr is a literary speed dating success story, having found a publisher for her debut novel Wake, at an event in December 2020. Here’s speed dating that’s worth participating in.
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