a walleah press weblog
[Alistair Duncan, The Oxford Times, July 2nd 2009]:
Nicholas has recently moved to Jericho with his wife and two young children, having spent several years living in Tasmania. I am interviewing him because he has contributed to Oxfam’s new collection of short stories and poetry, Oxtales. Normally he shuns interview requests when his novels, such as his critically applauded 2008 offering, Secrets of the Sea, come out (he prefers his books to do the talking).
[UTV News, June 30th 2009]:
Just before he was hospitalised for what was supposed to be routine heart surgery, he had a sudden surge of creativity, producing a moving elegy for his one-time student, Michael Murphy, and poems in which he addresses his own heart, apologising to it for not realising how “a chunk of you’d been dead for years … So it’s me now all cut-up”. To say that the death of this dear, good man, and outstandingly good poet, leaves all of us who knew him cut up, is far too weak an expression of our loss.
[Bernard Lane, The Australian, July 4th 2009]:
Frank Devine, a great spirit of journalism, curiosity and loyal friendship, has died in Sydney at 77 years of age.
>SEEKING:
>Two leading Australian poets to represent Australian poetry
>on an international reading circuit of leading festivals and
>venues in the UK and Ireland for a one-month tour.
Nothing yet on the Australian Poetry Centre’s site about the two poets chosen for the gig – at least, as far as I can see – but this from Andrew Burke on poetryetc:
“Let it hereby be known that Alison Croggon has been awarded one of two prestigious International Tour spots from the Australian Poetry Centre. (The other spot was awarded to Robert Gray.) She will be visiting UK and Ireland and promoting Australian poetry and poets, as well as occasionally reading and talking about her own works.
“I might add she won her place against stiff opposition! Poets from east to west applied for the gig. (It’s my turn next year.)
“Congratulations, Alison – you’ll do us proud.”
Sunday 5 July, 3-5pm – Republic Readings @ The Republic Bar & Café, 299 Elizabeth St, North Hobart (corner of Elizabeth St & Burnett St), run by Liz Winfield. Fiction reading by Rosie Dub and poetry by Jan Owen, followed by the open reading section (open to all, 5 minute time limit). Tasmanian poetry broadsheet The Poets’ Republic will also launch its next issue.
For most of her life Rosie Dub has been closely linked to storytelling: as a writer, an editor, mentor, and a teacher of creative writing in its many forms. She is currently working on a PhD thesis which explores the mythic structure of stories, and storytelling as metaphor for the inner journeys we make. Rosie’s short fiction and travel writing has been published in both Australia and the UK. Her novel, Gathering Storm was published by Penguin in 2008. She has recently completed her second novel, Flight.
Jan Owen began writing poetry in her thirties and her first collection, Boy with Telescope (1986), won the Anne Elder Award. She has had several writer’s residencies in Australia and also Italy and Malaysia. Her awards include the Mary Gilmore Prize and the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. In 2007, she won the Max Harris Poetry Award for her poem “Scent, Comb, Spoon”. The judges wrote: “a well crafted poem full of intriguing resonances on the theme of memory and association. The poem spins a chain of possibilities and disharmonies but always returns to the idea of the value of what we have experienced. This is a poem of turns and surprises and we enjoyed it more with each reading”.
[John Medley, 'The Afterward', June 9th 2009]:
In a Publishers Weekly profile which ran last December, Freeman opined the job of a book critic is “to be a public reader. Reading’s a private, intimate experience. But to know what it feels like to read a book you haven’t read, you need to have someone write to you about it, which is what a critic does: explain what it feels like to spend a few hours inside a book.” I ask Freeman, considering his new job title, what he thinks is the job of an editor?