Welcome to SPUNC, home of Australia's small press and
independent publishing community.
What is Splog?
Splog is the Small Press Log, maintained by Zoe Dattner and Laurie Steed. Here guest writers and small press luminaries contribute lots of lively opinions and ideas, discussions and speeches, about the small press sector and the industry at large.
I was lost …and alone
A reader and writer since I was very small, I’m also a little bit solitary, and a bit aloof. I’m not apologising. But [and you may pause here for a knowing smile] I had somehow become attached to an image of publishing that allowed for solitary hours in front of my layouts and contributions. Hah!
…and confused
Writers are allowed to spend their creative time alone. Publishers? Not since centuries ago, if ever. Publishers network and get to know people. They keep their ears to the ground and they keep their eyes peeled. And in between all this positioning and mutilation of sensory organs, they are out there, in the world, with their fingers on the pulse of ‘what readers want’ and ‘who to publish next’.
What a shock to realise that one of my main responsibilities when I started publishing a journal, was to tear myself away from words, sounds and images and go ‘out there’, mixing it up with the fresh young faces and weary old inhabitants of a community of writers and readers who might like to hear about extempore.
…and then I discovered Twitter Twitter was a mystery, and one I had little interest in unravelling. I bought into the prevailing lack-of-wisdom that said it was just a forum for narcissistic, Gen-Y, empty-headers to tell us what they’re eating for breakfast. As you can tell, I had the arguments down pat.
But in desperation to reach and grow my readership, I discovered what Twitter is really all about. It’s about people and community. As a form of communication it can be transparent, friendly and engaging. And it also takes skill to craft short, interesting Tweets. I love a writing challenge! I use Twitter as @extemporeAus and I found a kind of magic there. I can be me [solitary, aloof and a text-based organism] and still conversing. I can combine my Twitter conversations with real-life encounters that enrich both spheres. And I can build the journal’s readership and reach by quietly, honestly, showing people what we offer and sharing what we like. Try it… people will start to find you… and you don’t have to exhaust yourself seeking them out.
Here are four things I learned about Twitter, and they changed my life:
• If you are doing something authentic and interesting, there are people in the Twitterverse who want to hear about it. Guaranteed.
• You can really boost visits to your website by combining interesting content and invitingly written Tweets.
• Twitter is a stream. And like a stream in real life, you can dip in and out, or follow it for its whole length. It will keep on flowing during the days you’re not swimming in it. You can be busy and splash around a lot or just chill out on the Li-Lo and let it carry you along. You choose, and it’s all okay.
• Find your authentic Twitter voice, your authentic Twitter pace and be your authentic self. It will show, and you’ll be irresistible, to the people who matter.
With Twitter’s help, extempore is now much better at building and participating in a community of musicians, writers and readers. I’m genuinely hopeful that we have a future. Perhaps in a different format, perhaps with a different frequency, but now I’m in touch with many of our readers and contributors and I can measure (using Twitter statistics and feedback) what information gets people excited.
And I understand a lot more about being a publisher. Now that Twitter lets me network and communicate authentically, on my own terms, I’ve started to have a lot more fun reaching out to readers and potential readers, contributors and reviewers.
Thanks Twitter!
Useful links:
Already Tweeting? I found Marian Schembari ’s Twitter Critique service very useful.
Want to read a bit more about how and why Twitter works? Try this famous blog by Kevin Marks.
And if you’d like to find out more about extempore, please visit us at our website.
Join extempore on Twitter for the announcement of the winners of the National Jazz Writing Competition. 6:30pm on Tuesday 7 September 2010, just follow @extemporeAus and take your chances. Free giveaways and the chance to chat to one or more of our winning poets (connectivity and twitter-literacy dependent).
Miriam Zolin is publisher and editor of extempore, a journal of writing and art inspired by jazz and improvised music.
Extensible Markup Language was, a few years ago, (and still kind of is) the next big thing in the tech world. Perhaps one of the principal stumbling blocks in understanding both what it is and what it can do for you is that, theoretically, it can do whatever you want. XML is the kind of technology you are using on a regular basis without even realising. XML forms are the basis of both RSS news feeds and the new office 2007 file formats. It’s a technology that even I don’t completely understand. I am still learning how best to apply and use it. What I do understand, however, is how useful and fundamental it can be in any modern publishing set up… so let’s skim the details and look at what it is and why you might want to use it as opposed to its methodology.
XML is not a programming language, but rather (as the name would suggest) a ‘markup’ language. Back in the days of yore, markup language was used in desktop publishing to layout print pages, distinguishing how a designer would like a printer to produce a page. Markup language found its way into early computerised desktop publishing packages but it’s oldest remaining vestige is something we all use on a very regular basis, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), which forms the foundation of over ninety percent of the web pages we view, but with a lot of increasingly fancy bells and whistles bolted on.
XML doesn’t actually do anything per se, but is a structured way of storing and holding data and utilising other software to represent that data. If I’ve done my job well, then that statement might just have given insight into why XML would be potentially useful to the publishing world.
To elaborate and clarify…
You have a book and you lay its structure out in XML, i.e. Chapters, headings, body text, intro, contents page. Taking this one structured representation of your content you can easily generate a print version, web version, eBook version, mobile version and even a version for your fridge (I am not making this up, there was talk of such devices in the past) using appropriate software that understands XML.
Now, this may all sound very complicated, but the good news is that everyone’s favourite Desktop publishing tool, InDesign (amongst others), will do all the hard work and generate XML for you. But that, as they say, is another story, and one I’ll delve into next time.
nobody ever asked me
what if the words don’t come
said but if there’s only silence
what then
& even if they had
i wz young
& in love
& poetry
& i
we were gonna last
forever
random google search
a poem for the anniversary of a blog
probably you got here by accident
random google searches pull you to places like this
you were thinking of tennis when you entered ‘slam’
or accidentally clicked over some link
& are too embarrassed to admit it
i wd never know
you cd stumble outta here
faster than you came in
maybe you are even thinking
man / this blog is shit
& anyway / what the fuck is up
with this so-called poet
that she is so damn volatile
all the time / i mean
seriously sister / calm down
you might never come back
or were looking to be outraged
when you word searched unaustralian
are you my mother / cringing at my language again
a reader waiting for another poem
& sick as hell
of me talking about myself
where are the poems
i come here for the poems
jesus / wd you just stop all of this crapping on
& by the way
what is with these abbreviations
learn to goddamn spell
you cd be that publisher i am
talking to / or god forbid
that odd looking woman in the back row
of my last three gigs
eager faced & unpredictable
maybe you know me / or wish you did
or think you do / or thank fuck
or who or whatever you might pray to
that you don’t
it is two in the morning where you are
watching my origami unfold
you are a reader
or a writer
dutch scottish
or cambodian
did you get / what
you came here to find
tell me you left with something
blinking underscore
blinking underscore
are you still online
probably you got here by accident
random google searches pull you to places like this
you were thinking of tennis when you entered slam
or accidentally clicked over some link
bt in any case
here we both are
the cyberspace between us
unquenchable
exile
for the speechless / the silent
the tongue-cut / the breathless / for
the voiceless / the mute
the dumbstruck & ignored
from the messengers
the griots / the preachers / the toasters
the MCs / the hip-hoppers
the beat-boxers / & the bards
in the margins / on the fringes
the space between the lines
Launching the latest issue of Voiceworks, writer Tom Cho quoted The Greatest Love of All. While it’s in your head (and I’m sorry, but it will be for the next hour), let’s revisit those lyrics: ‘I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.’
Unlike reality television contestants announcing they are singing Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah, you’ll forgive most people for thinking that Houston either wrote this song herself or was the first person to sing it, but neither are true.
Wikipedia says it was written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed and first performed by George Benson. But I digress. This isn’t about the song, the writer or the original recording artist. This is about children. This is about the tag line that gets them to take notice, which is actually more difficult than you might think. Express Media recently came up with a new one. It’s better than ‘Moving Forward’. It’s better than ‘Real Action’. It’s ‘we’re here for young writers’.
‘Teach them well and let them lead the way’ may well have made it, if it A) wasn’t already taken and B) synonymous with those laneway karaoke bars. You see, you can’t take the piss with a tag line. So, what does it actually mean? It may sound simple, but we took ages to come up with it, because so many lines were just not true. We tossed and turned with ‘giving young writers a go’ but that implies they can’t write without us – that they can’t get a WordPress account, or write an essay or a poem by themselves. That’s simply not true. We also thought about changing the line to suit different audiences (one for funding bodies, another for schools, another for hipsters etc), but that proved to be just as difficult.
We were deliberately vague when describing what we are actually here for. Our line suggests that we provide a broad spectrum of services. One young person might call to ask about getting a novel published, another might drop around to ask how to staple together a ‘zine. We’re here for them.
On Q & A last week, the panel debated the meaning of political slogans. Moving forward? Moving forward from what? Lots of people are talking about that, which seems to detract from the real election issues. This may be a smart move by both the major parties and perhaps I am talking about Express Media’s slogan too much while the ‘real action’ for Express Media (the next funding round, getting more kids involved) takes a back seat. But I do think it’s important to choose something you stand for and make it as noticeable as you possibly can. That’s why you’ll hopefully see ‘we’re here for young writers’ everywhere.
At Express Media’s mini-festival The Big Splash recently, Steven Amsterdam reminded us that writing is the cheapest art form, that you can do any type of special effect for free. That has nothing to do with this post, but I liked it so much that I wanted to include it. Sometimes writers forget that writing is limitless. You can go anywhere.
Express Media might be your first point of call.
Bel Schenk is the Artistic Director of Express Media. If you hadn’t quite noticed, they are here for young writers.
It’s a non-question I’m often asked and one which has, hidden in its depths, an absent phrase – ‘instead of more profitable stuff, like prose’. This comes from a naïve idea that most writers of creative fiction make money from their work. (Snorts) As if.
Poetry is alive and well and has been for centuries. Get used to it.
What poetry doesn’t do is sell bucketloads of any one title at any one time. It is not the Olympics; it is not the Grand Prix; it is not Avatar; it is not KFC.
You’ve got a choice if you’re a poet and/or publisher. You can bemoan the state of the universe and try to educate people about how poetry is good for them, that they are morally obliged to consume it: cod liver oil for the intellect. Or you can put it out there and if people like it, they’ll come, they’ll buy it, they’ll read it, they’ll participate. If you’re not prepared to do this, I suggest you go and stand on a street corner and call out ‘Love me! Love me!’ – it will be about as effective as trying to tell people that they should like poetry.
I’m a poet. I work from the premise that poetry is good, and that (at least some) people like it. If I were an oboe player, I’d work from the premise that oboe playing was good and that some people like to hear oboes. I refuse to accept the patronising crap that some greet this with.
So. This is why I set up a small poetry press. I am not insane. I knew before I started that there were going to be distribution/sales issues, so I chose to consider those before I published a single item.
Because I’m a poet, I know how poetry is most often bought: at readings, at specialist bookshops and from poets. Because, in the past I’ve flogged off a literary magazine and books of poetry with other presses, I knew what the economies of these were and how big a slice has to go to bookshops and distribution and the question was: how much you are likely to get back from selling that way? Answer: bugger all. Or, if you did get enough to make publishing economic, the cost of a book of poetry would be high and the enterprise shaky. This went against the grain – I wanted to get it out there – and also, as I am a poet, I have very little money (aka capital) to launch such a venture. At the time I was also exceedingly time-poor. (You don’t want to know.)
Cutting to the chase: I set up PressPress to be as simple an operation as it could be, with the economies of time and money taken into account. I chose chapbooks because they are a very economic format: they use standard sizes of paper, envelopes, postage and simple, flexible technologies. I chose not to sell to bookshops and, until very recently, did not even have a trade price. I only have one now because a few of bookshops were very keen. This price only applies in very specific circumstances. Mostly the chapbooks sell from the site, from the poets, and at readings.
How does that work? Patiently. That’s how it works. The chapbooks don’t usually sell a large number immediately. They sell slowly, over a long period of time. They don’t go out of print. This means there is a backlist which is always active. No doubt in the future I will cull the backlist, but it’s early days and a small operation. I see no need to do this at the moment.
I want to support the poets where I can afford to and have the inclination and resources. The poets who sell are the poets who are proactive, who do readings and get out onto the net and into the cafes and CWA halls. PressPress gives them a page on the site and publicity when they tell readers what the poets are up to. As an operation, it’s as cut back as is possible.
Will PressPress be moving into ebooks? I don’t know. I’m thinking about it. I want poets to be paid for their work and I can’t see it being an economic model for small poetry publication yet. Yet. Further down the track I’ll be going this way. For now I’ll be sticking to the physical artefact that is designed to fit into a shirt or jeans pocket.
Each chapbook has been lovingly edited, designed, fretted over by poet and press. They’re small but taken seriously. They’re political and not, humorous and not, profound, light, socially aware or not. Because the initial investment is mostly in love and labour, I can take big risks in content. Frankly, the way the press is set up, if I love a manuscript, I publish it whether or not I think it will sell. It will always sell some.
I’ve begun to publish in languages other than English because I think it’s a good idea to expand our ideas and our reach. I’m answerable to no one other than the poets. This is the great strength of small publishing: a wild independence that feeds, quietly sometimes, into the cultural soup.
The unofficial motto of PressPress is ‘Poetry in a time of fire’. I think it has been a time of fire for a very long time. It is never an easy time for poetry, but it’s never a time when poetry is entirely extinguished either.
PressPress is hosting a number of upcoming events. For more info, head here.
Chris Mansell has an articulate take on what she does (see the note on her poetics). She writes, gives writing classes and reads extensively and has won and been short-listed for a number of awards.
For a sample of Mansell’s work, including some new media poems, head here.
Where are you from? How can you tell? You have to be from somewhere, don’t you? So, where are you from? What? Huh?
These are questions I am confronted with quite often in Australia, as I am sure they are inquired of everybody who has relocated here as an adult and has stayed long enough to forget that they are the ones who sound funny (unless you’re from Adelaide, but that’s a story for another post).
Australians are an inquisitive brood and I applaud this. Now, more often than not, I field the polite query of, “So, where in Canada are you from?” The slope of my accent clearly triggers two immediate possibilities of what nation the answer might be. My ‘fromness factor’, as I hereby dub it, is a little murky. Typically, I reply with, “No, just south of there” or, in more persnickety moods, “Nup, the other, eviler one”.
I am never offended at these guesses of Canadian ‘fromness’ (fromosity? Not a word, but ought be) because they not only prove the curiosity of the enquirer, but instantly entertain a possible answer. And that’s an engagement, if a perpetually incorrect one, that intrigues me. The capacity that ‘from’ holds is both huge and ephemeral. It’s never static. It’s flawed.
An example of from’s evasiveness:
Where are Cheezels® from?
Cheezels® come from a box.
Oh?
No, wait. They come from the supermarket and handy milk bars when you’re legless.
Really? That’s it then?
Okay. Even that’s not accurate. Cheezels® come from the Snack Foods Limited company.
But that company is in South Australia?
Ah yes. Cheezels® must come from South Australia. My mistake.
Wow? That’s a monumentally dull conclusion, isn’t it? And likely not even accurate.
I think the truest answer to where Cheezels® come from is, quite simply, irrelevant. Thankfully, they exist. They are Australian and a miniscule part of the home I feel here. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Okay. So. I am from America. But which part? That’s a difficult question. I do not have a pinpointed, geographic ‘from’. I’ve lived all over. Is birthplace the true answer of where you’re from? Codswallop. Of course not. But if ‘from’ is so fleeting, then from what previously existing fixture, point, state of being or shutter click can from’s reference be contrasted against? At what point after? What do you grab a hold of, keep and make into you? If I were to answer the standard ‘from’ inquisition with, “I am from the marriage of my wife and me,” I’d surely solicit bemused stares. And maybe a poke in the chops. But why? It is a much more accurate answer than Lakeville, Minnesota, USA nowadays in my life, even if I was born there and do have a stoically Lutheran sense of timid pride that I was so. Yes. I am aware that most people assume a geographical starting point will be included in an answer. And this is an inherent flaw in ‘from’.
The better question is this – where’s home? Humans have the capacity to provide a sense of home. As do states of being. Once again, now we’re getting somewhere.
I think about this often and my thoughts generally careen off into un-winnable debates with myself about where lines can be drawn and exactly what utility pole I’ll smash the bumper of my reasoning into. What about the two whingeing cats I live with and dearly love? My favourite collection of August Kleinzahler poetry? My Galaxie 500 records? Tacos? Can they individually provide ‘home’? Or are they merely parts that make up a whole essence? One must respect the bigness that ‘home’ feels and clearly is. I am not sure a pet, a book or a plate of rigatoni can instill ‘home’ by themselves, even if they echo it in perfect science.
Here’s a quote from Michael Ondaatje:
A marriage exists in the space between two people – and that can be a part of the home too, but you carry it with you like a snail carries a shell.
And this from W.H. Auden in his poem ‘War Time’:
When no one whom we need is looking, Home
A sort of honour, not a building site,
Wherever we are, when, if we chose, we might
Be somewhere else, yet trust that we have chosen right.
Spot on. I would argue that a marriage, a state of being, can BE the home, not just a part of it.
See? This icy reasoning easily slides off into identity, nation building, politics, etc. Lately, all this has got me to thinking about how home, its possible abstractions and the entities that home inhabits are presented in writing from authors who no longer reside in their original geographic place of birth.
I recently attended the launch of Emmett Stinson’s short story collection, Known Unknowns. As a fellow expatriate, I was very drawn to these words in his speech that night:
The last word in Known Unknowns is the word ‘home’, and to me it’s an important word both for me and for this book. Calling someplace home doesn’t just mean that it’s where you come from; calling someplace ‘home’ also means that you’ve invested yourself in it, that you care about it and recognise a set of responsibilities and obligations to it. Calling a place home means caring about something bigger than yourself.
Bingo. I asked a few other expat writers about their take on home. Here are their replies.
Friend, colleague, master chef of both words and food in her own right (long before the show, folks) and the freshly minted Curriculum Officer at the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, Bev Laing, answered:
Home is that little bit of you that remains the same, no matter where you are in the world or what language you are operating in. It’s the kernel that survives all change, grows with growth, is the voice you had when you were a kid.
Interesting. I’m buying that. Now we have the kernel of ‘voice’ as home in the foray from none other than the reincarnation of M.F.K. Fisher herself! She knew a thing or two about home and hearth, as does Laing. Hyperbole aside, nothing in Laing’s response is fettered to a singular spot on Earth. Home’s moveable, ephemeral. It remembered to pack a towel in its suitcase. And a wine corkscrew.
Kiwi novelist, Julian Novitz, had this to say about his fromness factor:
I spent my childhood constantly being asked where I was from … I was raised with a greater awareness of what was going on in the rest of the world than the other kids I knew. The world outside of New Zealand was just much more of a focus in our household, and our parents encouraged us from quite an early age to think about living in other places, not limiting our sense of opportunity to one country. It’s probably wrong to say that it didn’t feel like home, but New Zealand and being a New Zealander seemed like it was a less important facet of my identity than it was to the New Zealanders I grew up with and still encounter.
OK. So here’s a reply that’s an outright rejection of one’s native geological space defining the sense of ‘home’. Let’s go back to my question then: where’s home for Novitz? His home lies in the potential of ‘other places’ as opposed to the ‘limiting sense of one country’. That may or may not be true for Novitz – that’s my assessment – but I would like to think (and do think) that the essence of home or feeling at home can be expressed abstractly in humans. Possibly feeling at home in worldliness versus myopia (self-imposed or not)?
I’ll wager this is exponentially truer in authors. I am linking to various authors’ laurels and details because I fancy my wager is an awfully, awfully safe bet. I don’t have the answer to why that is, other than my own experiences, but it intrigues me immensely.
Plus, this is a blog. They’re good writers. Read about ’em.
Home for me is Wisconsin, but I am occasionally confused between my actual hometown of Barron and my fictional hometown of Failing. I spent my first eighteen years living in that real place, but I’ve spent the rest creating a shadow world for my characters. In some ways, I’ve lived in Failing much more than I ever lived in Barron; I pay more attention in fiction.
This seals the deal on my earlier bet. I win. But so do you. It also adds another intriguing layer: is home a capacious state entirely of an experiencer’s making? Can it be damned well whatever you want it to be, even if that semblance of home is a 100% netherworld concocted in your own head and spilled out onto paper? Why not.
Two Americans, a Canadian and a New Zealander – like me, all now permanently living and writing in Australia. Here’s my tale on how I got here (issue 40 of Gangway ,the story I read at Dog’s Bar Storytelling event). Veering off a bit again, I argue that these nations are ‘easy’ locations to be from, call home, attest something in between or be in rebellion of. In all four spots, there is common language, identical pursuits of stuff and prefab allegiances to help you along the way.
Problems with ‘from’ exacerbate when gulfs of language churn into the mix … but that doesn’t affect ‘home’ at all, does it? Veering further, is home’s potential to be felt strictly via mental state(s) its only saving, accurate grace against it being as equally flawed as ‘from’ if, say, you’ve been in prison for 30 years? Denuded of place variety? Melbourne PEN’s Writers from Prison program is something I need to know more about.
I’ve lobbed questions in this post left, right and kitty-corner. I’m not an admiral in a boatload of answers. Who is? And what is her or his fromosity?
Home is alive, well and collecting its 9% superannuation from all of us nicely, thankyouverymuch. From? From … panhandles. Both have been written about for eons and will be for more no matter where you started and moved on to or remained. What writers put in to ‘home’ in waking life, we later extract in attempts toward a smattering of paragraphs that run, not walk. And when you look back down through that palimpsest of lines, it’s shape, their symbols, you discover that it spells your name.
Kent MacCarter studied writing at University of Chicago and University of Melbourne. An expatriate of various places in Minnesota, Montana and New Mexico, he is now a permanent resident in Melbourne, Australia. His first collection of poetry, In the Hungry Middle of Here, was published by Transit Lounge Press in 2009. He is currently on the executive board of SPUNC (Small Press Underground Networking Community) as Treasurer.
His poetry collection, In the Hungry Middle of Here is available from Transit Lounge, and he is appearing at Debut Mondays on August 2nd.
Earlier this year indigo journal’s managing editor Donna Ward sent a message to fans of the Indigo facebook page. The journal had failed to secure a grant from the Department of Culture and the Arts (DCA) and is not going to continue past its sixth issue. The DCA’s main reason for doing so – I’m lead to believe – is that the journal has a policy of only publishing West Australian writers. The DCA would much rather a product that’s nationally or internationally viable.
Here in the West, people in the arts community like to tell themselves that the west is not enough. ‘Melbourne,’ they say. ‘Fair Melbourne is where the publishing houses grow glorious, and the streets are teeming with an intelligent and stylish readership.’ I don’t know Melbourne, so I won’t disagree necessarily, but I do think you have to be pretty blind to not realise that the Western Australian writing scene has been surging up these past five years. I also believe it’s a simple grass-is-greener case. You’re not necessarily going to be better off as a writer or as a publisher in a new environment. Wherever you are, you got to do that same hard work if you want to make it in this crazy biz.
In a conversation I had with Alisa Krasnostein, head of Twelfth Planet Press, a small speculative fiction publishing house in Perth, she told me that she initially got into small presses thinking that they were a good stepping stone. But what she’s been increasingly finding is that major presses – as well as struggling to survive – are more likely to provide coffee table books and novelty reads than actual reading content. Small presses are not just an transitional period for emerging writers. They’re now essential. Writers and editors can deliver well-crafted and well-loved content without pandering. And as small presses generally have the time to give their readership close contact with the author and the publishing house, readerships are loyal, active, and can sometimes cross over to become authors. I jubilantly agree with Alisa. I think it’s an exciting time for new writing and art. As mass communication and technology makes everything more accessible, and cheaper to produce, the writing community at large multiplies, becoming many micro-communities – writing has never been more vital and more present.
I digress. I was asked for a report on the WA writing scene, not a rant about small presses and reader-writer relationships. And yet this rant seemed inevitably given that in the West – in a completely non-parochial sense – we are grassroots and promise. With my background as the editor of dotdotdash magazine, I’ve seen a lot of proactive talent from many different organisations. The aforementioned Aurealis award-winning Twelfth Planet Press, powered by Alisa, is publishing among many exciting projects this year, acclaimed horror writer Rob Hood.
The good folk at Fremantle Press are currently organising/hosting numerous events tied into Fremantle Poetry Month, one of which was the launch of the book New Poets, a collection of works from Scott-Patrick Mitchell, J.P. Quinton & Emma Rooksby. They also have a fairly wonderful blog. Love is my Velocity, although originally an indie club night and mostly a record label, intermittently publishes numerous literary artefacts of choice – a collection of short story and artwork collaborations from emerging talent called First Page; a series of A3 Riso posters collected a paper bag aptly named Riso; two issues of The Love is My Velocity Cookbook, which are a series of collaborations between local artists and bands, pairing up artworks with homemade recipes from local indie bands. There are pockets of creativity. Underground writers is a local online literary zine run by five exuberant university students.
The Three Day Blow is another literary zine distributed freely to local independent cafes and book stores. The Perth Zine Collective have collated together over 40 local publications that are completely independent – written, conceived and printed by the authors themselves. There is also WA’s burgeoning spoken word scene – the Perth Poetry Club gathers together fine readers every Saturday; a venue called Double Lucky in Leederville is also hosting weekly poetry readings; and lastly, there is Cottonmouth, who have recently released The Cottonmouth Anthology, which collated together over a year of incredible readings from many talented writers and speakers. But sadly, it also tied in with Cottonmouth’s indeterminate hiatus from the spoken word scene.
Which brings me back to Indigo journal – both Cottonmouth and indigo journal shared in common the fact that they had relatively unparalleled success, hosting launch events that were joy and literature, that were pure, unabashed glances of a creative community. First fleeting loves. They were part of what inspired me to try my hand WA’s literary community; they made me realise how essential and good it was as a university student to form a community, to become independent and proactive with our literary careers.
In answer to the question as to how to write in the west, I will say the process is the same as anywhere nowadays. Get independent! Get independent right now! Support independent publishing, either learn how to physically and professionally create the story and the collection of poetry that you want to, or seek out independent literary journal and publishing houses and build relationships with them. Most people that work in creative journals and independent publishers earn very little, and simply do it for the love – they are waiting for the chance to help polite and eager new authors. Most, if not all, successful authors begin with support from local publishing houses, editors, and journals.
Of course, success is not a permanent thing; it’s ever-striving. It’s terribly sad that the organisers of Cottonmouth have seemingly moved on to other projects, and that indigo journal is currently unable to continue, but it’s a consequence of time. At some point, new blood is needed to keep the wheels turning. What I’m saying is that the scene has space for you; jump into it.
Sj Finch is currently the managing editor of dotdotdash, a local creative journal begun by Curtin University students that publishes artwork, short stories, poems, creative non-fiction essays, and interviews from Perth and beyond. He began PhD study earlier this year, and is still freaking out about how little he knows about his proposed topic: Kierkegaardian theories of original sin as they relate to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. But it’ll be okay, cause his supervisors have got his back.
www.dotdotdash.org
He has been heard to simply call himself a ‘song and dance man’, but he often mocks the question, as in the lyrics to one of his songs: ”I’m a poet, and I know it. Hope I don’t blow it.” And in the liner notes of his second album, he writes: “Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can’t sing, I call a poem."When the Australian Poetry Centre ran its Songwriters Wax Lyrical event earlier this year, featuring Kate Ceberano reading her lyrics to Pash as poetry, Facebook users scoffed. Some said the Centre should be supporting poets. Not Kate Ceberano!
But what about Nick Cave? Leonard Cohen? And Paul Simon has had books published of his lyrics, that seem to stand alone without music. Are they poets? They write songs, publish lyrics, carefully select and arrange words for performance and publication using tools of rhyme, rhythm, simile and metaphor to convey meaning and connect with readers (and audience) on an emotional level.
So what is poetry? And if they don’t write it, who does? Some definitions of poetry, found in the more popular reference books, are as follows: “poetry is literature in metrical form”, “any communication which evokes a feeling”, or “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. Emily Dickinson said, “If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry”, whereas Dylan Thomas suggests: “Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing.” Who could possibly write that? Maybe very few of us are poets? Maybe all of us are. It is certainly not the role of any person or organisation to judge who is or isn’t a poet, what is or isn’t poetry.
James Roche, from the Aria Award Winning Band, Bachelor Girl, has written a pop tune and is calling for lyrics – whether you be a poet, novelist, zine-maker, songwriter, lyricist, full time wordsmith or part time scribbler – download the track and pen some words to this can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head tune. Deadline is September 30th. Details are here:
Paul is the current Director of the Australian Poetry Centre and has initiated many of the innovative programs run by the APC this year, including: the Poetry in Film Festival, Cafe Poet Program, poetry radio shows with RRR and SYNFM, the Dear Dad publication for Father’s Day, the Mobile Poetry Library, the Out Loud program, School Poet Laureate Program and the education website, Poetopia. Paul has a background in writing for theatre, film and television, having had a feature film produced in 2006 (WIL) and been in-house as a writer for Home and Away, while also being a published author with Macmillan Education and Insight Publications. He currently lectures in screenwriting and has recently received a commission by the Queensland Music Festival to write their opening show for 2011, Drag Queensland.
There are many options for publishing your print titles and more importantly, getting them distributed online. Some of these I will cover at a later date, but first let’s take a step by step tour through using one of the better all-in-one services, the web service Smashwords.
Smashwords has many positive features including support for pretty much all the major eBook formats including Kindle (.mob), Stanza (ePub) and plain old PDFs. It also distributes to a plethora of stores including what it terms ‘premium stores’ such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the new Apple bookstore. However one of its main downfalls is its inability to create eBooks from any format other than word files. For many this may not be an issue, but if you’re creating image heavy titles (such as cook books) it may not be your best option.
Your mission, should you accept it, is to go to Smashwords, register, and then come back to this page…
The first task is to set up the title. Click the ‘publish’ link in the menu bar; more astute readers will notice the three warnings in the green box at the top of the page. I assume and hope we can ignore most of those, but pay attention to the first warning as it will save us a lot of trouble in the long run.
Whilst the Smashwords book converter is pretty solid and does a frankly amazing job at crunching your word file, it requires documents to be laid out in a particular way. But don’t worry! Smashwords produces an easy to understand guide to what it requires. If you still have problems in your document, it tries to tell you what they might be, but not, sadly, what line they’re on.
Have a read of the aforementioned guide, format your document and fill in the rest of the form. Most of it is pretty self explanatory and can always be changed at a later date. When it comes to the subject of price bear in mind that Smashwords takes a very generous 15% commission. While it may also seem strange to offer 50% sampling (what customers can see before they choose to buy the book) this is a usual figure across most eBook suppliers.
Another question that may confuse is the ‘ghost author’; this enables you to set up authors for your titles and you can manage ‘ghost authors’ on the accounts page.
Now that everything is filled in, it’s time to click that tempting ‘publish’ button!
All things going according to plan you will be met with success… but it’s more likely Smashwords will find a problem with your word file (probably with the premium store guidelines). Review your doc and keep uploading until everything flows smoothly. You should now be greeted with the books profile page. There are a bunch of helpful titbits that appear here, such as the number of copies sold, coupon management, print and audio book version links. For further investigations, settings tweaking and a wide variety of other goodies such as coupons, affiliate deals, sales histories and more, take a look at the ‘dashboard’ link.
That’s it for now! Soon your book will be available in dozens of eBook stores, and all without you having to pick up the phone or even leave the comfy chair.
Chris Chinchilla has been a ground breaking eZine writer, indie rockstar, solo troubadour, professional geek, activist, street press writer and much more… He believes in not preaching to the converted and breaking open ideas to make them appealing and accesible to everyone. Now as the new publisher at aduki Independent press he intends to do much the same. Watch this space…
Chris Meade from the Institute of the Future of the Book recently visited Australia and the Emerging Writers' Festival were lucky enough to have him for a guest with us in Melbourne.
His thoughts about ‘future books’ at our online chat was aimed at emerging writers but some of his comments are also relevant to indie publishers:
I’m especially interested in how emerging writers respond to the big shift going on with digital. I’m excited because it seems to me that there’s now a clear continuum for those who want to write to ‘amplify’ their words.We all have the ability to put our words on the global bookshelf of the web for free…
In the UK independent booksellers are folding all the time which is sad, but I think it could be a great time to create the Future of the Book Shop and think afresh about how people want to spend their money on and off line. The future belongs to those who can think clearly about NOW and stop trying to compare the past to the future…
I think there’s also a new kind of reader who doesn’t buy paper books but does read intelligent writing on websites who may well be lured to reading whole books on their iphone or kindle. Don’t you think most readers of literary fiction and poetry are also writing their own or wanting to?? It’s been a read/write art form for a long time I reckon…
He also stopped by our indie press fair, Page Parlour, and had a few words to say about how independent publishing will be affected by the digitisation of our media here:
Lisa Dempster is the Director of the Emerging Writers Festival.The 2010 Emerging Writers Festival ran from May 21st to May 30th. If you would like to become a festival pen pal for 2011, go here.
Earlier this year indigo journal’s managing editor Donna Ward sent a message to fans of the Indigo facebook page. The journal had failed to secure a grant from the Department of Culture and the Arts (DCA) and is not going to continue past its sixth issue. The DCA’s main reason for doing so – I’m lead to believe – is that the journal has a policy of only publishing West Australian writers. The DCA would much rather a product that’s nationally or internationally viable.
Subscribe to our RSS feed
Follow us on Twitter