Splog
06 September
Welcome to SPUNC’s Spring 2011 poetry feature. Over the course of National Poetry Week, we’ll post parts 1,2, 3 and 4 … a bumper crop of great poetry from some of our member presses' books.
If one, two or many of the poems jump out at you and offer you a cuppa, then we strongly encourage you to pick up a copy.
We look forward to featuring great poetry put out by Sunline Press, Odyssey Books, Hybrid Publishers, Papertiger.Media / SOI3 and Illura Press this summer.
Part 1: Hart, Ryan, Wearne, Harrison
Part 2: Sharkey, Alizadeh, Sykes, Goodfellow, Charlton, Tredinnick
Part 3: Day, Sherborne, Ballou, Mateer, Holland-Batt, Liversidge
Part 4: Adamson, Farrell, Nunn, Hardacre, Kerdijk Nicholson, Beesley
Currently, it’s springtime. Now, Part 2.
The Paradise Flick ~ Michael Sharkey
How do we know Eve and Adam were happy,
deprived, as they were, of a childhood?
Eve never knew, unlike Adam, a world
that was free of the chatter of others.
How did she cope? And how could she choose,
if she’d wanted, to live by herself?
What did the man eat that made him hear voices,
while Eve was inventing frustration?
Where could she go for a break from the sound
of Himself, in his skin suit, like Tarzan
assuring the bush that he’d just given birth to a woman?
Did she smile at the fool, or remind him that he was
asleep when she turned up and found him?
Where could she go to be shot of his need for a mother?
(A pity she woke him.)
Life for them both was a training film shown in real time,
on the zen of zoo-keeping.
When the encyclopedia seller arrived, who could blame her for buying?
No exit pollster asked how she felt
when she left at the end of the movie.
This poem appears in Michael Sharkey’s collection, The Sweeping Plain, published by 5 Islands Press and reprinted in the Aegis Series by Picaro Press. The Sweeping Plain is also available in audio format from River Road Press.
Language(s) ~ Ali Alizadeh
I’ll speak you mine, you speak me yours
since all’s in the telling, content, form
to mangle the Master’s eavesdropping
on subalterns’ whispers, going Chinese
subversive, maybe just incomprehensible
or incomprehensibly blunt. My Farsi
the fierce Real or the sad Other of the Master-
Signifiers, Sylvester to their Tweety or
a Roadrunner, mercurial, radical
to thwart the tyrant’s order of things? I’ll say
something to you, you say something
to me, and bar me from understanding
this or that – who’d ever want me
in control, so damn crazy to accumulate
secrets, gossip, sedition, gesticulation
even if I am, say, sentient, so what
’s in it for you? Forge a discourse
to chain your/my tongue/s. You’ll write me
yours, I write you mine, and we’ll relish
the mystery of the written sign, the tricky
similitude between things, incoherent
thorn in the monoglot Master’s eye.
This poem appears in Ali Alizadeh’s new collection, Ashes in the Air, published by UQP.
song of walking ~ Patricia Sykes
having come so far, having gone-
this way and none other
the ever hidden duck
who had planned to be a silence
it is known her voice added weight
to creator and beginning
that where she touched air water land
whoever follows has to make a choice
‘the sweet fish will fight you
for their lives
the geese claim their own wings
against the winter
the frogs have a reason
to suspect poisons…’
breathe! breathe!
is this why the duck teaches caution?
how once she gave permission
for a landing and was invaded
by desperates sprouting sails
from their backs? now
an historian writes of strangers who
dance to each other upon the shore
as if they have the sheen upon them
so that when they spread their footprints
they can become not plague but proposition
clearly something hears a music-
what more is there to say of longing?
This poem appears in Patricia Sykes’s collection, Modewarre, published by Spinifex Press. Her upcoming collection, The Abbotsford Mysteries, will also be published by Spinifex Press in October 2011.
Maybe ~ Geoff Goodfellow
In the Head & Neck ward
most of us blokes are fifty plus
old Marlboro men
on Alpine white beds
now that’s Kool
& i’ll give you the Drum
it could well be Winfield
Reds on the right
& Blues on the left
(geez that looks like Blue
in bed seven
hasn’t he lost some weight)
& where is Paul Hogan
when we really need a laugh
post op now with stapled
throats after our neck dissections
maybe it’ll hurt too much
maybe there’s nothing much
to laugh at anymore
maybe now the laugh’s
on us.
This poem appears in Geoff Goodfellow’s collection, Waltzing with Jack Dancer, published by Wakefield Press.
Letter to Walt Whitman re: Iraq ~ James Charlton
If you were there now,
you’d lie down with those
who struggle on the ground
like half squashed worms,
down with the maimed,
misused, disowned.
If you were there now,
you’d kneel, importunate,
give yourself to silence, mutely
cradle the stomach-blown
villager.
This poem appears in James Charlton’s collection, So Much Light, published by Pardalote Press.
Hell ~ Mark Tredinnick
I’ve been reading a canto
of Dante each night. Each night,
line by line, I circle down
deeper into the Divine
Comedy. It’ a hard road
even in terza ryma
and not especially funny.
Some nights I drag my feet. Hell,
I growl, here we are again.
Beside me my beloved
lies already. Why not, I
think, jump straight to Paradise?
This poem appears in Mark Tredinnick’s collection, Fire Diary, published by Puncher & Wattman.
05 September
Welcome to SPUNC’s Spring 2011 poetry feature. Over the course of National Poetry Week, we’ll post parts 1,2, 3 and 4 … a bumper crop of great poetry from some of our member presses' books.
If one, two or many of the poems jump out at you and offer you a cuppa, then we strongly encourage you to pick up a copy.
We look forward to featuring great poetry put out by Sunline Press, Odyssey Books, Hybrid Publishers, Papertiger.Media / SOI3 and Illura Press this summer.
Part 1: Hart, Ryan, Wearne, Harrison
Part 2: Sharkey, Alizadeh, Sykes, Goodfellow, Charlton, Tredinnick
Part 3: Day, Sherborne, Ballou, Mateer, Holland-Batt, Liversidge
Part 4: Adamson, Farrell, Nunn, Hardacre, Kerdijk Nicholson, Beesley
But for now, it’s springtime. Let’s kick things off with Part 1.
Lone figure – Malin Head ~ Libby Hart
The wind talks of its travels
and the muse’s head turns to listen.
And its wildness is something remembered,
as if long, long ago it clung to me.
And it is wild-reaping. It’s the future coming at us –
the past loitering, loitering a little bit too long.
And it is distance, and does not sew its sides together.
Instead, it leaves the measurement as is:
horizon without trace of you, and
these eyes searching and never getting close.
And my head is in the ocean,
full of splashes. I’m fleet-footed
as the weather turns sharp as cut stone.
It blades my face and all that it touches.
This poem appears in Libby Hart’s collection, This Floating World, published by 5 Islands Press.
Tchaikovsky in Italy ~ Gig Ryan
Every passing carriage drives me mad
Every shout, every sound, lacerates my nerves
as he gives out what used to attract
Each year a new thing hated
though you loved the town’s forgotten gang
Free at last to lack at leisure
as glee recalls its vast paddling pool
Emoticon of happiness shins down a skylight
and cheeping quartets wafer to an urn
Dismiss your foes, of which many
over clopped seas, blame follows
its pressed blue wedding roses
skiffle my return
This poem appears in Gig Ryan’s latest collection, New and Collected Poems, published by Giramondo Publishing. Her collection, Heroic Money, is published Brandl & Schlesinger.
Neutral Bay ~ Alan Wearne
The speaker was a courier for the Mr. Asia
Drug Syndicate.
I’d get in from the airport after midnight
and wait a day, till someone came around,
unloaded me and made me *Thanks sweetheart*
$15,000 richer. Then I’d hardly be noticed,
not till Allison called, or Kay, and we went off to buy
all these incredible clothes.
I knew of two apartments, ours and theirs;
theirs, a place where you went in,
(saw The Organization dropping by to pack the stuff)
and you went out.
What did I think I was,
not old enough to break the law? What law?
By then the only law I had to keep
was getting away with knowing Terry Clark,
so yes I was old enough. I did it,
did it often enough; and whoever I was
I just needed an identity, even if
I didn’t need an identity. I was smart and
waiting about on the fringes of Terry Clark’s
banal life, hardly knew what I did,
except that I was that damn special.
Giving myself a week away from spending
I caught a light aircraft back to the folks,
stayed up to near midnight
doing gossip with Mum. Of course
someone’s kid was ‘into drugs’,
always someone’s kid and always drugs.
And I thought
Who knows what The Organization’s doing
right now: cutting, grinding and packing;
delivering, collecting and waiting
and how I never wanted to feel damn special again.
But Thanks a lot sweetheart of course I did.
This poem appears in Alan Wearne’s collection, The Australian Popular Songbook, published by Giramondo Publishing.
Port Fairy Folk Festival ~ Jennifer Harrison
Like praying mantises, the stilt walkers glide along
Port Fairy’s streets, carnival meadows adrift with balloons.
A statue busks for animation and, later, we sit with him
on the Post Office steps where he washes off his face paint
with a towel. A British actor with a back complaint,
I can’t bend anymore, he says; and we sympathise
with his damp grass bones, having listened all day
to the Tent 3 bands: The Mojos from New Orleans;
the habibis, Zydego Jump and from New Zealand:
When the Cat’s Been Spayed.
At night, from the football oval where campers
pitch their Macpac igloos beneath the pale March moon,
we hear drinking songs wrecked on a reef of guitars,
the slurred thirst of music’s love-loneliest voices.
By day, we stroll past stalls selling plastic beads
and AFL-themed Harlequins, face-painters brushing
children’s eyes with colour, as though fun is façade
and glitter maternal. A small violinist plays Twinkle
her cap at her feet. Here, music rises
to be day’s first memory and its last. Here sleep is cloud-free,
dreamless, the near earth cold. Soon the locals, relieved,
will tear down the posters and reclaim the glass-free zone.
It’s Sunday with Eric Bibb. Only one more day to go.
Wristband non-transferable, invalid if tampered with
or broken. On my way to the gospel gig, I watch
the bible buskers Trucking for Jesus on Sackville Street.
This poem appears in Jennifer Harrison’s collection, Colombine, published by Black Pepper Publishing.
25 August
Look out for ruminations and traces of invective from Alan Wearne early next week to kick things off.
For National Poetry Week in early September, our Spring 2011 poetry feature has a bumper crop of poems from …
Robert ADAMSON, Ali ALIZADEH, Emily BALLOU, James CHARLTON, Sarah DAY, Geoff GOODFELLOW, Paul HARDACRE, Jennifer HARRISON, Libby HART, Sarah HOLLAND-BATT, Ray LIVERSIDGE, John MATEER, Kate MIDDLETON, Graham NUNN, Gig RYAN, Michael SHARKEY, Craig SHERBORNE, Patricia SYKES, Mark TREDINNICK and Alan WEARNE.
But not in alphabetical order, of course. We encourage you to browse on in, read and get inspired to purchase a few books from our member presses.
If you missed it the first time around, have a look at our Winter 2011 poetry feature:
Part 1: Hawthorne, Cottier, Takolander, MacKenzie and Jenkins
Part 2: Temperton, Beveridge, Leber, Cahill and Lea
19 August
What Miriam Zolin learned about eBooks by talking to readers
In this recent series of Q&As (listed at the end of this post) with real readers, I was trying to tap into how readers are approaching the phenomenon of eBooks. For those of us who publish, it’s a conversation we’ve been having for a while – and as is often the case in industry groups with specialised knowledge, we knew about eBooks before they existed in the minds of readers, and we’ve been talking about them in abstract terms ever since. We worry about how to price them, where to sell them and who should do our conversions and uploads. Good business concerns, but not really tapping into the experience of reading an eBook. And therefore not really about how we market them or where they should sit on our production schedules.
To put my motivation in context, apart from being a publisher, I’m a writer who’s been approached by the publisher of my first novel to give them the rights to release it as an eBook edition. I’ve hesitated, because there are some rights and pricing questions I’m not comfortable with. I really want my eBook out there – but I want it available in every country in the world, and at the lowest possible price. That’s because I want new readers to discover my writing, and hopefully through my first novel become interested in reading the next cab off the rank. I want sales volume – lots of it – and as it’s old news now, I think a high eBook price will get in the way of that. Other writers will feel differently. And I know some publishers do as well. But there are readers and writers (and maybe publishers) out there who fall squarely on my side of the fence on this one.
And I’m a reader who has an account with Kobo and has started reading and buying books to read on my smartphone. Kobo will have noticed me giving them more money recently as I started buy some books to read electronically, as preferred option to a print edition, not a poor facsimile.
I approached the Q&As trying to keep these three roles in balance. Or maybe it’s four roles. I’m also a web content producer in my day job and blessed to be in a team led by someone who constantly advocates for the site’s real users. We research to find out who our site’s visitors are, why they come to our site, what they find challenging when they get there, what they find that they like… pretty standard stuff if you read the text books but rare enough in real life.
Q&A Methodology
I talked to about a dozen readers of eBooks in the last couple of months. Not an enormous sample, and hardly random because they were mostly in my workplace, my circle of friends and acquaintances or fellow public transport travellers. All of them are already reading eBooks or intending to very soon. I spoke to strangers and people I knew, men and women, younger and older, with families and single, inner city dwellers and suburbanites. I told people I spoke to that I was researching for a series of blogs and wanted to find out about their experience of eBooks. I avoided publishers, writers and booksellers.
Key messages
Some key messages came out of all the interviews – you might find some of them surprising!
Readers will be reading more:
When people start using an eReader, they read at least as much as they did before, but generally more books, more often.
Readers want to pay a reasonable price:
Readers think print books in Australia are too expensive. They are generally happy to pay a ‘reasonable amount’ for an eBook. The reasonable amount varies from person to person, but if you price your eBooks by offering a $30% discount on the print edition, you’re probably just making the eBook a little bit closer to what people really think they should be paying for a paperback, i.e. too expensive for an eBook! With everybody reading more as they shift to eBooks, maybe we need to price our eBooks to attract readers and maybe our bottom lines will thank us.
Readers don’t know about Kobo or Booki.sh:
When you mention eBooks everybody thinks of Amazon and Kindle first. iPads come next, but there are far fewer of them (at least among the sample I spoke to). This is a frustration for these Australian readers, as they are blocked from downloading so many books on Amazon. And they want more Australian content. Kobo and Readings, are you listening?
Readers are choosing eBooks first:
Some readers don’t consider the eBook an alternative option any more – it’s already their first choice. That means that if publishers can get their eBook editions uploaded to coincide with the release of the print book they’ll maximise readership. If people can’t find a legal version, they will download an illegal one. A small number of people will always want the free stuff – it’s one of life’s constants – but why give anyone an excuse?
The print book will still have a place:
Many people love the feel of a book in their hands – the sensory experience. These people like the idea of having a bookshelf of treasured print books and an eReader full of books they’ll never own in print.
Coincidentally, at the time I was doing this research, I found myself having my own frustrating eBook experience …
A real life example – how it feels to want the eBook
Recently, listening to the Book Show on Radio National while I sat at my desk at work, I heard an interview with the editors of Australian colonial adventure fiction and I was interested – the book aligns with some research I’m doing for a writing project. I jotted the name down, and noted that the book is published by Melbourne University Press. They’re a pretty switched on crew, who are actively producing eBook editions, so in my lunch break I searched for them on Kobo – my preferred source of eBooks. The book wasn’t there, even though a previous book in the series – Australian colonial crime fiction was. The price of the (somewhat older) crime fiction volume was good ($16.99 discounted to $12.31) and I downloaded it and have been reading it on the tram. It’s great! Later I went to the Readings site, thinking maybe the adventure book was available in their eBooks collection, and sure enough, there it was. I was surprised to see, however that the eBook edition was priced at a whopping $27.99. The paperback is $39.99 so it’s definitely a discount, but if I were desperate to read this book (I kind of am a bit) then I would go to my library, or buy it in paperback. An eBook at $27.99 feels like too much. I think most – if not all – of the readers I spoke to in the last few weeks would agree.
Miriam Zolin is the publisher at extempore and the convener and coordinator at the National Jazz Writing Competition, now accepting entries! She reads and writes fiction, blogs, reviews and essays.
Read the four Q&As in this series
Instalment 4, Instalment 3, Instalment 2, Instalment 1
17 August
This is the final instalment in our small series of four Q&As with readers who are not writers, not publishers, not in any way involved in the creation or distribution of books or magazines. Publishers talk among themselves of course – the eBook is going to change the way people read that’s going to affect the business of publishing. Writers are talking too – in fact there’s a dialogue going on that includes writers, publishers and booksellers. Meanwhile, readers are just getting on with reading. These Q&As provide some insights into how a small group of them are deciding what eBooks to read, how much they’re willing to pay for them and what to read them on.
Our fourth and final reader in this series is R-
R- is a test analyst, working in Information Technology, who reads on his Kindle and also continues to enjoy print books.
Miriam Zolin: Is this the first Kindle you’ve owned?
R-: It is actually the third unit that I have had – the Kindle broke twice … but before the Kindle I had never used another eReader.
My cousin had an eBook reader before me and when I saw it I thought it was quite a good idea. I liked the screen contrast ratio. It was very similar to a book and that is the thing I dislike about backlit computer displays – I find my eyes get sore after a full day’s use. That’s what I prefer – on the way back home or the way into work, to have a more traditional device to read on, like the Kindle.
MZ: How many books would you have in your Kindle?
R-: Normally I have about five books. I tend to read one then delete it then read and delete.
MZ: What kinds of books are you reading on it?
R-: Well, it depends. Recently I enjoyed a book called Forest Gump, same as the movie. The book was a lot more expanded than the movie – it contained a lot more detail and I enjoyed it.
MZ: Have your reading habits changed since you got the eReader?
R-: I think my habits largely remain the same. Before, when I had heard about a book, I would usually source it from amazon.com or from a local store if they had been discounted – now I think I buy and download from Amazon and in addition to this I sometimes sample illegally downloaded books, to try it out first, say read a few first chapters. And then if I decide I am going to proceed, I buy the book.
MZ: So why do you choose to buy the book instead of just reading the illegal download?
R-: Well it’s similar to the sampling process. I feel when you are in a bookstore you open a book for a few pages to see if you like it. Currently, I acknowledge, I do it in an illegal way but I don’t want to abuse the system so if I enjoy the book I still either buy it for my Kindle or buy the paperback.
MZ: So when you download eBooks you are paying for them, are you happy with the prices that are being charged? Would you expect to pay the same for an eBook as you would for a print book?
R-: I think I would expect less for an eBook because it does not involve the print cost or distribution costs and currently the print book in Australia is way over-priced compared to say, when I buy a book online from amazon.com or UK sellers … and Kindle books are usually a lot cheaper than buying from the bookstore … books that are about $25 in a local bookstore are $9.99 online. So I think the price difference kind of justifies purchasing the eBook.
MZ: And you said that even before you had an eReader you were trying to find books at a more reasonable price anyway – either discounted locally or purchased overseas.
R-: Yes, that’s right and purchased overseas mostly.
MZ: I’m getting quite a bit of feedback that books in Australia are priced too high.
R-: It’s usually double the American prices and it’s the same book.
MZ: Is there anything you find in the eReader that you miss about the print book? Are there aspects of it that you don’t like or are you comfortable just using that from now on?
R-: I think recently I read that there was a guy in New York who would be happy to live with just a MacBook and his Kindle but I think I’m different. I think if I have a good book, I’d rather buy it in paper back, read it slow and have the feeling of turning the pages, smelling the fragrance, all of the sensory things about the paperback. But content-wise I find that the content of the eReader doesn’t present a problem during the reading process.
But usually for boring content I just lose my patience on an eBook reader. For me I still discount eBook over traditional book because of the overall sensory experience.
MZ: Do you have print books at home that you wouldn’t give up even if you were doing most of your reading on your eReader?
R-: I think I compare this to my collection of wine bottles! When I drink a wine that I like I tend to put the bottle away in my spare cupboard, just to acknowledge that I appreciated it. I would rather buy a book in paperback and store it in the same way – that sense of belonging or just … kind of a feeling that I own this thing, that I enjoyed and acknowledge it.
Miriam Zolin is the publisher at extempore and the convener and coordinator at the National Jazz Writing Competition, now accepting entries! She reads and writes fiction, blogs, reviews and essays.
Read other instalments in this series
Instalment 3
Instalment 2
Instalment 1
14 August
Seizure Editor-in-chief log: 14/08/2011
It’s crunch-time at Seizure magazine. Our second issue is due to go to print at the end of this month and wrangling the 14 authors and the accompanying designs is like getting a room full of toddlers to put their toys in a box and come sit on the mat. It’s within the realm of possibility but the process is messy and loud.
Seizure is a journal for new writing that launched in June of this year. Our first issue was themed ‘Food’ and can be found in bookstores around the country, often in the cooking section. We have recently wrangled the digital edition online, just search ‘Seizure’ in the Apple app store.
Everyone involved in the project works full-time, one has a theatre company and another teaches cello on top, but this is a project that we’re doing for the love of it. At a time when so many people are naysaying about the future of publishing, Seizure is about showing how clever, relevant, and not to mention funny, a magazine can be.
The response to the first issue has been better than we’d hoped. Thanks to our distributors, NewSouth, we’re available in bookstores around Australia and getting feedback from different states is such a thrill. It’s the support of independent bookstores, as well as a chain like Dymocks, that have meant we’re able to reach such a wide audience.
One of the best outcomes from Seizure is the community that is building up around the publication. The magazine is a living, growing entity, as alive in the events and responses as in the magazine itself. From joining the SPUNC network to collaborating with authors and photographers and designers, we’ve all enjoyed tapping into the creatives of Sydney. Our contributors regularly read at Story Club and Penguin Plays Rough and we’ve got an event coming up at Dymocks George St on the 25 August, where five of the contributors from the first issue will be reading some of their recent work.
The second issue, ‘Sci-Fi’ will be launched in November. And it’s exactly the sort of mash-up the Seizure brains-trust was aspiring to produce. The genre has had – some might say – more than its share of finger-pointing-and-laughing; with some justification. The plots can be silly, the costumes ridiculous and its proponents can be the kind who reject showers, etiquette and respect for personal space. However it’s the classic science fiction traditions of social commentary, satire and dystopia that inform the pieces in the next issue.
Design was a crucial component of our first issue; one of the most engaging elements of the magazine is the interplay between design and words. Our designers (at Xou Creative) read the stories while they’re being edited and develop the visuals at the same time that we’re developing the text. The layout and design for ‘Food’ was a bit more straightforward; from the trompe l’oeil cover image of a plastic pie, to the photography that accompanied the internals. For ‘Sci-Fi’ this has certainly been more of a challenge, given many of the stories take place in alternate times/spaces/realms/dimensions, a photo shoot is a little tougher to coordinate. Ultimately though, the pages are coming along to be just as saturated and visually sumptuous as the first issue.
Next up, the Seizure team will be in Newcastle for the National Young Writers’ Festival in September and for the launch of our second issue we are working with the NSW Writers Centre as part of their Speculative Fiction Festival on 5 November. Details will be forthcoming.
Back to my editing for now. Keep an eye out for the next issue in your favourite local bookshop and in the meantime you can follow us on Twitter (@Seizureonline).
Alice Grundy, @alicektg, is Editor-in-chief at Seizure.
12 August
A revised version of this post is forthcoming. RMIT Publishing apologies for the inconvenience.
WATCH THIS SPACE!
10 August
This is the third instalment in our small series of four Q&As with readers who are not writers, not publishers, not in any way involved in the creation or distribution of books or magazines. I’m finding some consistencies across our interviewees, and also across the many others I’ve spoken to and haven’t recorded. All, without exception, read at least as much and usually more when they switch to eReaders as their main mode of reading. Most cite convenience as a main reason for reading with an eReader of any sort. And numbers are growing fast. Readers, that is. Hungry for eBooks.
Our third reader in this series is F-
F- is a lawyer who uses an iPad to do most of his reading. In fact his iPad has pretty much replaced a briefcase for him. He reads for work and leisure – books and contracts, fiction, non-fiction and documents. He regularly purchases from Amazon and carries all this combined reading matter around with him on the iPad. Many of his peers and friends also read the same way.
Miriam Zolin: I notice you use an iPad … What do you read on it?
F-: Books, on the Kindle application … I download books from Amazon, which are so much cheaper than buying the print version … I mean you can buy books for about a third of the price of the paperback.
MZ: Not just books you’d read because they’re cheap or free?
F-: No, I would read them anyway and I actually prefer reading on this because you can annotate, highlight, comment, stick a post it note on it … and it saves you carrying around ten books when you can have just the iPad.
MZ: How many would you carry around in there?
F-: Well I only have about five books in here at the moment but I mainly use this at the moment for legal documents, reviewing contracts. I’m currently on secondment at another company as well as working here with the firm and I’m always attending meetings – I go to meetings without any paper, this is all I carry.
MZ: So when you’re reading books, are they for work? Or for pleasure?
F-: All, al l… I read books on law as well as fiction, books on politics, spirituality …
MZ: How long have you been reading books on the iPad?
F-: I’ve been using this one since it came out and I’ve been using the iPad 1 … well it must be … about a year.
MZ: Have your reading habits changed? Are you reading more, less, about the same?
F-: I’m reading more on the go. Before I’d tend to find I didn’t have time to properly sit down and read but now I don’t have to carry a book on the tram or anything… this is all I carry [points to iPad] … I don’t need a briefcase!
MZ: So apart from changing how much you have to carry, is there anything else that’s changed, like the way you find books? or …
F-: Yeah, well Amazon’s good because you can buy everything on line … when I want to buy a book, I try and look for the Kindle version … they’ll have a paperback, a hardback etcetera but I’ll deliberately always look for the Kindle version … you download it instantly a nd you have it within minutes.
MZ: When you’re looking for a book, are you searching for other people’s recommendations of top tens etc on the web?
F-: Not so much other peoples' recommendations – I get that more from word of mouth but you see a book appear sometimes on popup ads, and if you’re looking for a book on a particular topic you might use search keywords …
MZ: Does the cover of an eBook affect on your choice of books?
F-: Yes it does. They capture your attention. You always read the description, but the cover is what catches your eye.
MZ: What do you think is driving this move to eReading that you’re part of?
F-: I think it’s the convenience … and having everything at the tips of your fingers.
MZ: Are there any books that you like to have in print, even if you’re doing most of your reading on your eReader?
F-: No books come to mind that I would want in print copy. But if there were any they would likely be professional or non-fiction texts I prefer to have in the event I need to refer to them with a colleague who may not be inclined to read electronically, otherwise much prefer an electronic version.
MZ: You said before that you read non-fiction … some non-fiction comes with illustrations, photos etc. How is that experience for you?
F-: It’s fine. I find it still fine … you can zoom in and zoom out. But the Kindle is just a reader… there’s an application on the iPad that you can read PDFs with and that makes it easer.
MZ: How many of your friends and colleagues are using this as a way of reading now?
F-: A lot of my friends, and at work … it’s really … mainly lawyers my generation rather than the older ones.
MZ: Do you get books recommended by friends?
F-: Yeah, definitely … books I learn about I either find out about from friends or a I find out about online. I don’t so much find out about books by walking into a shop and browsing and looking.
MZ: Has browsing in physical bookshops ever been something you did?
F-: Yes, if I was passing through a shopping centre … like I used to go to Borders a fair bit while I was waiting for a movie and they had coffee too, so I did that. The only other bookshop I now walk into is the law institute bookshop but then I try an identify which book like and then see if I can get an electronic copy.
MZ: And generally you can find the electronic copy of what you want?
F-: No not yet, a lot of legal books are still print only. Some of them are there but it’s changing. It’s very slow.
Read other instalments in this series
Instalment 2
Instalment 1
Miriam Zolin is the publisher at extempore and the convener and coordinator at the National Jazz Writing Competition, now accepting entries! She reads and writes fiction, blogs, reviews and essays.
02 August
The Ember was born out of a combination of enthusiasm and frustration: enthusiasm for reading, writing, thinking, arguing, praising and questioning, and frustration that the visibility and market-value of these activities seemed to be on the decline. Perhaps we were looking in the wrong places – but it seemed like some kind of twilight. With a gloomy sense of quixotic purpose, we decided to light a candle – or fan an ember – rather than curse the oncoming dark. So we brought our redundant commitments to the small circulation print ideals of the little magazine – attention to detail, faith in an engaged readership, a sense of possibility and a willingness to be out of step with the grander ambitions of our medium – and set up a modest stand in the grand bazaar of pixelated infotainment.
Of course, once we were set up and started to have a look around, we found the online arts media field was undergoing an electronic renaissance. From highly regarded individual bloggers to sleek collective e-zines and professional commercial ventures, there was plenty of new noise, plenty of light, plenty of heat. There was good journalism and good writing, but we still weren’t finding too much in the way of quality criticism that didn’t come with a price tag. Discerning readers will pay for a reputation, but we were in the building phase, so we needed to be freely accessible. With longevity in mind, we started out with a sustainable schedule. We’ve published one longish review, essay, or opinion piece every week for the last two and a half years. Quantity-wise, that’s about the same as a quarterly journal. In doing so, we’ve gradually gathered up a readership who know they can drop in a couple of times in a month and spend a bit of time with us. Now we’d like to offer them more, and more often.
We’re looking for writers with a clear style who are committed to ideas, language and the creative process.
From the critics, essayists and thinkers we enjoy reading, we know that good criticism can tell a compelling story. We also know that there is a web-based audience for engaged, thorough and thoughtful writing. Our focus has been on well-expressed argument and analysis, properly edited and presented in a conversational style. While finding our feet, we’ve favoured critical writing with creative sympathies. It’s where we’ve felt most at home. Now we’re looking to balance that tendency with its natural complement: creative writing with critical sympathies.
What do we mean by ‘creative writing with critical sympathies’? Well, it’s a definition that’s vague enough to include just about anything, and that’s the idea. We’re not ruling anything out. If you’re conscious of your medium or genre, and conscious of your audience and the effects you are hoping to achieve, you are probably a writer with critical sympathies. We’ll leave it at that.
Maybe you work in the culture industries, maybe you don’t. Maybe you’ve embarked on a research career but still want to share your expertise with a general readership, or maybe you are a disillusioned humanist looking to break the shackles of professional specialisation. Maybe you have an insider’s perspective, maybe you’re a disinterested observer. Maybe you are a published author, maybe you will be.
We are looking for philosophical or critical essays that appeal to the general reader; social commentary and non-fiction features on ideas, people and society; poetry and short fiction; long-format review essays on work that might be new or not; and casual reviewers to review new books, theatre, film, exhibitions and events.
Submissions will be assessed by an editorial panel, and accepted contributions will be edited and promoted to the best of our abilities.
For The Ember, joining SPUNC offered a way to get involved with a network of writers, readers and experts. To a large extent, the SPUNC network is probably representative of the greater portion of our readership. The membership also covers the sector of the Australian publishing industry we are most interested in writing about. Which brings me to the second thrust of this rousing communiqué: use us! Send us your press releases, previews, excerpts, etcetera. We’re on a recruiting drive for contributors, but we also want to make sure we’re hearing about what’s happening across the publishing spectrum.
Interested? Send submissions and enquiries here.
Nick Terrell is editor of The Ember.
27 July
On a recent trip to the US, old friends and distant relatives were surprised to learn that I still work in publishing (I thought that industry was dying!). Even more extraordinary, that I help produce a literary journal (Those still exist?) in the relatively small reading market that is Australia (I heard Amazon isn’t interested in Australia because the population is too small.).
Yes, there are pressures on literary publishing in Australia – and pressures on just about every other form of publishing world wide – and yet there is a vibrant and evolving local landscape of small magazines and literary journals that are surviving or subverting these pressures. A quick glance at LitMags.com.au or SPUNC’s growing list of members will introduce you to some classics like Meanjin and Overland plus newer arrivals such as Kill Your Darlings and Spineless Wonders.
Regardless of whether these magazines and journals are print-only, online-only or a hybrid (and there have been some excellent SPLOG posts addressing this issue), Australian literary magazines and journals continue to fill specialised niches.
Griffith REVIEW, established in 2003, saw a gap in the landscape for vibrant Australian long form writing. Our model features a mix of essays, memoir, reportage, short fiction, poetry and visual essays by emerging and established authors who tease out the complexity of current events in themed quarterly editions.
That the long form format – ‘too short for a book, too long for a magazine’ – is having a renaissance thanks to the rise of social media and e-readers is no secret. This is good news for Australian literary magazines and journals which are especially well suited to take advantage of the buzz, potentially reaching those millions of English-reading consumers vital to our long-term success.
One initiative we’re excited to launch in September is the first Griffith REVIEW ‘Single’: an individual article sold separately from its edition, available exclusively in digital format. This first Single will feature internationally acclaimed author Lloyd Jones who has written a 10,000 word memoir, ‘Looking back: a self-portrait’ which features in Griffith REVIEW 33: Such Is Life.
We have always recognised that our themed editions attract two audiences; let’s call them the specialists and the generalists. The specialists with a particular interest – say, Rugby World Cup Fever or memoir aficionados – can now enjoy a satisfying long read tailored to their taste (at an attractive price and conveniently delivered, thank you very much) that they might not have encountered otherwise. Everyone else benefits too: the author receives more royalties; Griffith REVIEW gains a portion of ‘converted’ subscribers; book sellers and publishers benefit from the knock-on effects of greater visibility for the author’s other titles.
This is just one example of the spirit of innovation, collaboration and optimism that characterises Australian literary magazines and independent publishing. We look forward to many more.
Erica Sontheimer is Deputy Editor of Griffith REVIEW.
Subscribe to our RSS feed
Follow us on Twitter