Entries Tagged 'poetry' ↓

With a list of past contributors that includes such Oz lit luminaries as Patrick White, Peter Carey, Elizabeth Jolley, David Williamson, Judith Wright, Thea Astley, Xavier Herbert, Bruce Dawe, Frank Moorhouse, Manning Clark, Christina Stead—to name just a few—the pages of Overland have long been considered one of Australia’s premier literary storehouses.

However, there is much more to the magazine than simply promoting the who’s who of Australian intelligentsia. Overland, like all good journals should be, is active in promoting and encouraging Australia’s emerging writers. The Overland Victoria University Short Story Prize for New and Emerging Writers is currently open and offering $8000 dollars in prizes, as well as publication and serious exposure for the winning authors. The doors are also about to open for The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets. So check out the links for more details.

Radically political, Overland has a long-standing commitment to providing a platform for dissenting opinions, marginalised voices, and alternative viewpoints. That being said, a romp through the pages of Overland is not all socialist manifestos or scenes from Zola. There is a wonderful eclecticism, which has seen recent issues include a short story by 19-year-old Stephen Pham, an article on the leftist politics of steampunk fiction, and a fascinating and provocative editorial on the ongoing epidemic of American mass shootings by Overland editor Jeff Sparrow.

Speakeasy recently caught up with Jeff.

Speakeasy: Overland announces itself as ‘the most radical of Australia’s long-standing literary and cultural magazines’. What does this ideological stance mean to the journal’s content, in particular the creative content (e.g., fiction, poetry, etc.)? In what ways do you look for this ethos to be reflected in submissions?

Jeff Sparrow (JS): We are a political literary journal. That doesn’t mean that every poem or story must be about striking coal miners or the plight of refugees. Rather that, both with essays and creative work, we look for writers who have something to say and know how to say it; that while we seek to publish fine writing, we’re not simply after belles-lettres so much as work that engages with the questions of its era. But really, the best way to get a sense of what Overland publishes is to look at previous issues.

Speakeasy: Despite remaining committed to the print journal, Overland’s online presence seems to offer further opportunities for the exchange of opinions in a more dynamic and immediate way than what is available to more traditional print media. Can you speak a little about this and how the foray into online publishing has altered what Overland is capable of?

JS: As you say, Overland is still very much committed to the print journal. Most writers prefer publishing in print and it’s still the favoured option for many readers.

At the same time, we are increasingly devoting resources to our website, which publishes new material most days.

Online publishing has several great advantages. It’s instant, for a start, and so can respond to current debates in a way that a quarterly print journal simply can’t. It also facilitates a dialogue with readers: the Overland blog fosters a very lively ongoing debate about culture and politics. Finally, you can publish different kinds of content online. For instance, we’ve just put online our first ever selection of spoken-word poetry, a really exciting new venture for us.

Speakeasy: Overland has a long and proud tradition of publishing some of Australia’s most celebrated writers. This legacy can often be daunting to emerging writers. That being said, Overland recently published a story by 19-year-old Stephen Pham. What advice would you give to emerging writers who would love to see their work published in Overland?

JS: It’s important not to think of publication as an end in and of itself, but to ask why you want to see a particular piece of work in print. What are you trying to do with it? What do you seek to convey? When you are clear on those answers to those questions, it’s a lot easier to assess the writing.

Specifically, when it comes to Overland, we encourage writers to get involved. Visit the website, engage in the discussions, take out a subscription. When you interact with the journal in its various forms, you can get a sense of what its project is, and then you can decide whether it’s something of which you want to be a part.

Speakeasy: I know it’s cutting it close to the deadline, but could you tell us a little about The Overland Victoria University Short Story Prize for New and Emerging Writers and The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets?

JS: Both prizes are attempts to provide opportunities for new writers. The Australian publishing industry is going through lean times at the moment, and it’s very difficult for emerging writers to catch a break. These prizes offer substantial cash prizes as well as publication, and they’re exclusively for writers who have not yet had a book published under their own name. There’s more details about both on the Overland website.

Speakeasy: The Overland website is announcing two new projects: an online fiction series and Audio Overland. Could you tell us a little about these projects, and any associated publication opportunities that our readers might be interested in?

JS: As I mentioned, we’re putting a lot of resources into the Overland website. As part of that, we’re using the site to expand the amount of fiction we can publish, as well as providing opportunities for emerging editors. Next year, we’ll be supplementing our print editions with a certain number of special online fiction supplements, showcasing the work of emerging writers. We will shortly announce a similar project for poetry, including spoken-word and digital poetry.

Speakeasy: Is there anything else you would like to mention to our readers?

JS: Again, I’d encourage people to get involved. We are a not-for-profit organisation, depending on the support of our community. Overland subscriptions are incredibly cheap. If you like the project, consider becoming a subscriber.

For more details about anything mentioned above, visit the Overland website. Remember that entries for The Overland Victoria University Short Story Prize for New and Emerging Writers close midnight, 31 August 2012, so get busy

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Julian Thumm is a freelance editor and writer. He has degrees from The University of Queensland and The University of Adelaide. He has worked with the Australian Journal of Communication, The University of Queensland Press, and Corporate Communication International through The City University of New York. He is currently based in Brisbane.

Ever wondered how readers find books? It’s certainly one of those topics that’s of interest to publishers everywhere, and to the folks behind the Goodread’s website. They’ve recently posted an Anatomy of Book Discovery: A Case Study using Charles Duhigg’s nonfiction book, The Power of Habit that makes for interesting reading

If you’ve ever found yourself wishing for something akin to  movie review aggregator Rottentomatoes.com for books, you may have gotten your wish. The recently announced iDreambooks aggregates book reviews  from “professional critics”, which translates as reviews from many of the  major American newspapers and magazines. They’re hoping to fill a niche that isn’t serviced by either traditional print reviews or massive online review sites such as bookslut.com or The Millions.

Alan Rinzler has a great post on What should you expect from a developmental editor?

Install your own website or use an established service such as blogger or wordpress.com? Blogging: Self-Hosted or Not? addresses one of the core questions writers face when they decide to initiate their online presence, and presents Pros and Cons from writers on both sides of the argument.

Chris Flynn has a great post about Pathways to Publication over on the Meanjin blog, outlining some of the paths available to Australian novelists seeking publication.

It may not be open for submissions, but poets might be interested in the possibilities that come with Wearable Poetry and its ability to bring an unexpected burst of poetry into public spaces.

Booklife.com has a great post that suggests Success is Like Lightning, complete with the ways in which you can prepare before you’re struck.

Mary Robinette Kowal has been running a series of Debut Author Lessons on her blog, which encompasses topics  from book launches to signing bookstore stock to  signing up for a frequent flyer program.

There’s plenty of advice about long term goal setting for writers, but is this doing more harm than good? A recent study examining the psychology of goal-setting suggests that focusing on the results, rather than the practice, could be doing more harm than good.

Those are the links that caught our attention here at AWM this week. How about you? What posts, opportunities, and rants caught your eye? Let us know in the comments.

Faber launches an iPad app for Eliot’s The Waste Land, and has the pundits wondering whether digital publishing will save the classics…

Chris Meade of if:book gives it a big thumbs up:

The gallery is my favourite bit, giving us a clutch of relevant postcards – of Bob Dylan, Dante Alligheri, the first Mrs Eliot, a crowd of people crossing the river Thames,

‘so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.’

These images create real breathing space around the poem. They evoke, inform and leave the poem be.

See a sample of this beautiful app, and interviews with Faber Digital and Poetry Editors who helped put it together, here.

Cory Doctorow denies that blogging is dead; killed off by newer forms of social media:

I still blog 10-15 items a day, just as I’ve done for 10 years now on Boing Boing. But I also tweet and retweet 30-50 times a day…. the more media I have at my disposal, the more ways there are for me to work out my own ideas.

Nearly 70 tweets and blogs every day? Truly, Doctorow is a man for the times.

Proving that blogging is alive and well is Queensland Poet-in-Residence, Emily XYZ. When fighting the writers’ demons – the doubts and distractions that plague us all – Emily convinces us that action brings answers! (And she proved it at the recent Speed Poets gig).

Emily XYZ in action at Speed Poets

And have you seen Tom Cho’s beautiful blog? Full of writerly wisdoms, like the ones he offered at last night’s Writing Race:

• "We who write live in a kaleidoscopic world of ever-shifting assessments and judgments, unable to determine whether it is revelation or supreme self-delusion that fuels our most crucial efforts" – Joyce Carol Oates
• "Ask yourself ‘What am I too lazy or afraid to write?”’ – Gerald Murnane (Tom’s former fiction teacher).

You can catch Tom at the upcoming Byron Bay Writers Festival.

The opportunity to interview founders and editors of literary magazines is one of the most exciting and humbling aspects of my job. This interview with John Tranter, poet and founder of Jacket magazine, brought home to me how much great work is being done in the Australian literary scene by people who are dedicated to their craft, and savvy about their industry. Read on to find out more about this wonderful publisher of modern Australian poetry.

Sp: When and why did you set up Jacket - what’s the best anecdote from the early days of Jacket?

JT: I set up Jacket in 1997. I was the sole employee (unpaid) for the first eight years, then we doubled our staff: Pam Brown joined as Associate Editor (unpaid) in 2005. We are up to issue number 37 now (mid-2009).

When I began, I had no idea if anyone would ever get to know that the magazine was there, among the millions of pages on the net, or what kind of reach it might have. In the first issue I published an interview I’d done with the British poet, Roy Fisher. In a week or so I received an email from a fellow thanking me for publishing it. He said ‘I’m a great fan of Roy Fisher’s and it’s hard to find work on him up here in Nome, Alaska.’

Sp: Your favourite paragraph from a published submission and why?

JT: ‘Three sentences on the way to Belize’ (by Eliot Weinberger)

Sitting in the last row of the plane next to a Belizean woman of uncertain age. The choice for lunch was pasta, fish, or chicken, but by the time the meal cart reached us, there was only pasta or fish. My seatmate smiled sweetly at the stewardess and said, "Next time you’ll have to kill more chickens." 

Sp:  Your favourite image from any edition of Jacket and why?

Photo copyright (c) Walter Crump, from Ruth Lepson and Walter Crump:
"Morphology", reviewed by John Mercuri Dooley (Design, Christina
Strong) BlazeVOX Books, 2007. http://www.blazevox.org/bk-lc.htm

JT: I like it because it seems to be trying to tell a strange story, and I think the clouds look beautiful.

Sp: Top 3 things that will turn you off a submission?

• Tired, conventional ideas
• Sloppy, careless or egotistical writing
• Writing that tries too hard to be cute 

Sp: What are you most interested in at the moment in Australian publishing?

JT: The need to reduce the proportion of "Australian" publishers which are entirely owned and managed by foreigners from the current 90% to about 40%. This would take the emphasis away from the idea that every single title must turn a profit, and replace it with something more civilised: the idea that a great publisher carries a wide range of titles: from blockbuster profit-makers to massively popular biographies of "media" "celebrities" and sporting "heroes" to a small but distinguished list of poetry titles that will inevitably lose a small amount of money: that is, a tiny fraction of the obscene profits that the other books make.

Sp: Speakeasy is interested in gaining a snap shot of the future of publishing in Australia. Where do you think your mag will be in 5 years?

JT: I really don’t know: still there, I hope.

SP: We hope so, too!

Check out the submission guidelines for Jacket: they are an exemplar of good-humoured professionalism, and a great guide to understanding the special requirements and opportunities of online publication.

 

Yay, Friday – random links day!

• An incredible opportunity for Australian playwrights just got even better! 
• Drive trucks? Write poetry? Then get on board dust poems! But truckie poets take note, if you want to contribute to the anthology, the deadline is tomorrow…
• All the postulating about the recession leading to better book sales might come true, if this article is anything to go by. Apparently, hard liquor sales and art class attendance soars in hard times .
• Starting at 5 bucks and going as high as your wallet and compassion extends, Issue #1 of Hope is ready and waiting for you!  ‘Hope is a new multi-part fanzine raising money for bushfire relief in the Australian state of Victoria. It is edited by [...] Grant Watson, with contributions donated by writers, artists and fans in Australia and from overseas. It is supported by the Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation (WASFF), and has received assistance from the Film & Television Institute of WA, Supanova and Big Finish Productions.’
•  And of course, you already know about the Daily Cabal, don’t you? Bite-size fiction to enliven each and every working day!

Have a great writing weekend. I’m going to write a scene set in a pathology lab. Can’t wait!