Entries from September 2007 ↓

Day 2 at the Brisbane Writers Festival and things have kicked off early with a lively session of chat, songs and guitar strumming with indigenous musicians Kev Carmody and Richard J Franklin.

Franklin urged the audience to help change the shape of Australia and recognise Aboriginal culture as a ‘living, breathing entity’ to make the nation more inclusive of the 500 aboriginal tribes and all the other cultures which make up Australia in 2007. And together they led the audience in a range of old style ‘Protest Songs’ and witty prose!

More to come later in the day…

New Zealander Lloyd Jones is being tipped to win this year’s Man Booker Prize for his novel Mister Pip.  A betting surge and massive hike in book sales have been reported since the longlist was announced, meaning Jones has now overtaken Ian McEwan (for On Chesil Beach) as the bookie’s favourite… Joining Jones and McEwan on the shortlist is Nicola Barker Darkmans, Mohsin Hamid The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Anne Enright The Gathering and Indra Sinha for Animal’s People.

Interested, but no time to read all the shortlisted books in full? For a brilliant digest check out John Grace at The Guardian.

The results will be announced on 16 October.

After you’ve had your first book published, the following will be true:
1. You will be rich
2. You will top the New York Times (or similar) Bestseller list
3. You will lead an exciting life
4. You will have lots of amazing fans
Won’t you? Ok, so it may not all be exactly true (well not straight away)…

Check out cult US gothic novelist Cherie Priest’s brilliant list of ‘Things I’ve Learned Since My First Book [Four and Twenty Blackbirds] Got Published’.

Writers around the world are nodding their heads in vigorous agreement…!

Is there no end to the world domination of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace? Now writers the world over are increasingly using sites such as these as a way of promoting that bestseller. The premise is this: submit a synopsis or chapters of your book onto your chosen networking/blogging site, create a discussion around it and sit back and wait for the hype to build. Tantalise your readers until they are just gagging to buy the book as soon as it hits the shops.

Or take it one step further and post as you write – using the feedback to change the direction of the book, develop characters, storylines etc. One Brisbane-based author is doing just that, check out Andrew Girle’s MySpace site to see how it works…

And in an increasing number of cases popular bloggers are being offered publishing contracts – in the UK Zoe Margolis landed a lucrative book deal for her pseudonymous blog ‘Girl With a One-Track Mind’, and former US soldier Colby Buzzell’s blog about his time fighting in Iraq was snapped up by Berkeley/Penguin and became the book ‘My War: Killing Time in Iraq’.

Not that I’m suggesting for one moment that Speakeasy will turn into a best-selling publication – but you never know…!

The often debated subject of who really wrote the works of Shakespeare has reared its head again with a new ‘Shakespeare Authorship Coalition’ group forming in the UK.

Frontlined by Shakespearian actors Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance the group questions how a 16th century commoner, raised in an illiterate household in Stratford-upon-Avon could have penned plays based on historical and legal fact and have such an intimate knowledge of the upper classes and all things Italian.

The group also cites ‘doubters’ of the past, naming Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Charlie Chaplain as amongst those who think that Shakespeare may have been an imposter or just one member of a much larger group of writers!  Others believe that ‘William Shakespeare’ was merely the nom de plume – a theory much circulated in the 18th century, with Christopher Marlow or Francis Bacon touted as the ‘real’ playwright.

Of course Shakespeare isn’t here to defend himself and we’ll probably never know the truth – but if you think there might be something behind what they’re saying, add your name to the list of doubters at the Coalitions fascinating website, www.doubtaboutwill.org.

The Brisbane Writers Festival kicks off next week and the AWM team will be out and about getting all the latest news for you – and we’ll post regular updates onto Speakeasy to keep you involved!

If you are coming to the festival be sure to stop by our stall in the marketplace and say hello – we’d love to see you! And if you’re around on Sunday morning (16th) don’t miss our ‘How to Get Published’ seminar from 9.30am. Publishers Annette Barlow (Allen & Unwin) and Bernadette Foley (Hachette Livre), and literary agent Sophie Hamley (Cameron Creswell Agency) will be on hand to give you advice on the how and how-not-to’s when it comes to getting published and will be participating in a live Q&A session – your chance to ask the experts! The venue is the State Library of Queensland Auditorium 2 and tickets ($100/$80) are available from QTIX, 136246. 

We look forward to seeing you there!

A brutal murder which has police baffled; a series of emails hailing it ‘the perfect crime’ and an anonymous tip-off to the police – ingredients for an intriguing crime novel perhaps? But this is reality becoming fiction – and then back to reality again…

Polish ‘crime writer’ Krystian Bala was jailed for 25 years this week after police discovered that his ‘fictional’ novel Amok was actually a grisly account of the murder of his estranged wife’s lover. The murderer-turned-author told authorities he had based his book on press reports and the rest was fiction – but the book was in fact a graphic re-telling of the crime complete with all the intimate details which could only have been known by the police – or the killer! And with true psychotic vanity, Bala had also injected his own characteristics into the book’s narrator – sharing psychological characteristics and life experiences.

At the time of his arrest, a shocked and outraged Bala told supporters that the police ‘were treating the book as if it was a literal autobiography rather than a piece of fiction’. Perhaps the ‘autobiography’ now needs a new chapter – because in the book, the murderer got away with it!

Today is the inaugural Indigenous Literacy Day. Supporting booksellers and publishers will be donating a percentage of their earnings to support literacy programs in remote Indigenous communities. Many Australian authors are volunteering their time and/or books, and any writer can get involved in the many activities being held across the country.

For more information go to the Indigenous Literacy Project website.

The Melbourne Writers Festival drew to a close on Sunday following the most successful year in its history. The cash-strapped festival saw a massive increase in ticket sales with more than 40,000 people attending, and the event was well represented by a vast selection of local and international authors, poets, editors, booksellers and journalists.

Next year the Festival will move to Melbourne’s high profile Federation Square and sessions are already planned in the two ACMI cinemas, the Atrium and the BMW Edge, along with a festival hub for people to relax between sessions; outdoor events; free events; live streaming; children’s activities and plenty more.

MWF Website