Book bingo Eleven – A Book by a person under thirty

book bingo 2018.png

It is the beginning of June, and I have completed the book bingo I was participating in with Amanda Barrett and Theresa Smith Writes. The final square I had to mark off, and perhaps the one I was the most unsure about what I was going to read. So I left it until I could find something.

So to check off this final square, I read P is for Pearl by Eliza Henry Jones. First written when Eliza was sixteen, the book has been polished and published into the story that I reviewed last week, the full review is here.

p is for pearl

In P is for Pearl, Gwendolyn Pearl Pearson is struggling with the memories of her childhood that a strange incident at work has stirred up, and the pain that these memories are bringing her as she pushes through school and spends time with her friends. As she pieces together the past, she realises that what she thought about some people is not what they really are, and this revelation will change her whole life.

With my completed book bingo, I am about to embark on a second. So my first post for that will appear in two weeks time, with the category and a book not featured in this go around to be decided – I had several that would have fit into a few categories that might be reused in the second but in another box. I will be using books already read and not featured, and any new reads that fit the categories.

I am still going with my other challenges, so there will be a lot of books read at the end of this year I imagine!

Completed Book Bingo:

Challenge #3: Book Bingo

(Rows Across)

Row #1 – – BINGO

A book set more than 100 years ago: Rose Raventhorpe Investigates: Hounds and Hauntings by Janine Beacham – AWW2018

A book written more than ten years ago: Thunderwith by Libby Hathorn – AWW2018

A memoir: Skin in the Game: The Pleasure and Pain of Telling True Stories by Sonya Voumard

A book more than 500 pages: Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies by Jackie French – AWW2018

A Foreign translated novel: Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutschner (translated by Niall Seller)

Row #2 – BINGO

A book with a yellow cover: Tin Man by Sarah Winman

A book by an author you’ve never read before: The Secrets at Ocean’s Edge by Kali Napier – AWW2018

A non-fiction book: Spinning Tops & Gum Drops: A Portrait of Colonial Childhood by Edwin Barnard

A collection of short stories: Australia Day by Melanie Cheng – AWW2018

A book with themes of culture: The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson

Row #3: – BINGO

A book written by an Australian woman:The Tides Between by Elizabeth Jane Corbett – AWW2018

A book written by an Australian man: The Opal Dragonfly by Julian Leatherdale

A prize-winning book: Miles Franklin: A Short Biography by Jill Roe – AWW

A book that scares you: The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford

A book with a mystery: Olmec Obituary by LJM Owen – AWW2018

Row #4 – BINGO

A forgotten classic: Selected Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield

A book with a one-word title: Munmun by Jesse Andrews, Thunderwith by Libby Hathorn – AWW2018

A book with non-human characters: Monty the Sad Puppy by Holly Webb

A funny book: Grandpa, Me and Poetry by Sally Morgan

A book with a number in the title: Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-Time Husband by Barbara Toner – AWW2018

Row #5 – BINGO

A book that became a movie: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

A book based on a true story: Mr Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva

A book everyone is talking about: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris – AWW2018

A book written by someone under thirty: P is For Pearl by Eliza Henry Jones – AWW2018

A book written by someone over sixty: Eventual Poppy Day by Libby Hathorn – AWW2018

Rows Down

Row #1 – – BINGO

A book set more than 100 years ago: Rose Raventhorpe Investigates: Hounds and Hauntings by Janine Beacham – AWW2018

A book with a yellow cover: Tin Man by Sarah Winman

A book written by an Australian woman:The Tides Between by Elizabeth Jane Corbett – AWW2018

A forgotten classic: Selected Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield

A book that became a movie: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Row #2 – BINGO

A book written more than ten years ago: Thunderwith by Libby Hathorn – AWW2018

A book by an author you’ve never read before: The Secrets at Ocean’s Edge by Kali Napier – AWW2018

A book written by an Australian man: The Opal Dragonfly by Julian Leatherdale

A book with a one-word title:Thunderwith by Libby Hathorn – AWW2018, Munmun by Jesse Andrews

A book based on a true story: Mr Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva

Row #3: – BINGO

A memoir: Skin in the Game: The Pleasure and Pain of Telling True Stories by Sonya Voumard

A non-fiction book:Spinning Tops & Gum Drops: A Portrait of Colonial Childhood by Edwin Barnard

A prize-winning book: Miles Franklin: A Short Biography by Jill Roe

A book with non-human characters: Monty the Sad Puppy by Holly Webb

A book everyone is talking about: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris – AWW2018

Row #4 – BINGO

A book more than 500 pages: Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies by Jackie French – AWW2018

A collection of short stories: Australia Day by Melanie Cheng – AWW2018

A book that scares you: The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford

A funny book: Grandpa, Me and Poetry by Sally Morgan

A book written by someone under thirty: P is For Pearl by Eliza Henry Jones – AWW2018

Row #5 -BINGO

A Foreign Translated Novel: Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutschner (translated by Niall Seller

A book with themes of culture: The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson

A book with a mystery: Olmec Obituary by LJM Owen – AWW2018

A book with a number in the title: Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-Time Husband by Barbara Toner – AWW2018

A book written by someone over sixty: Eventual Poppy Day by Libby Hathorn – AWW2018

Eleanor’s Secret by Caroline Beecham

eleanor's secret.jpg Title: Eleanor’s Secret

Author: Caroline Beecham

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 1st May 2018

Format: Paperback

Pages: 432

Price: $29.99

Synopsis: An engrossing wartime mystery of past deceptions, family secrets and long-lasting love…

London, 1942
When art school graduate, Eleanor Roy, is recruited by the War Artists Advisory Committee, she comes one step closer to realising her dream of becoming one of the few female war artists. But breaking into the art establishment proves difficult until Eleanor meets painter, Jack Valante, only to be separated by his sudden posting overseas.

Melbourne 2010
Although reluctant to leave her family at home, Kathryn can’t refuse her grandmother Eleanor’s request to travel to London to help her return a precious painting to its artist. But when the search uncovers a long-held family secret, Kathryn has to make a choice to return home or risk her family’s future, as Eleanor shows her that safeguarding the future is sometimes worth more than protecting the past.

Kathryn’s journey takes her back to Eleanor’s life as a young woman as she uncovers Jack’s missing war diaries and uses new technology to try and solve the puzzle of the missing artist, confronted by Jack’s record of war compared to the depiction of terrors of the present day.

But when it becomes evident that Jack’s nephew is trying to stop her finding him, and her concern for Christopher’s care of Oliver deepens, she has to decide whether to return home or risk the dangers to carry on.

Eleanor’s Secret is at once a surprising mystery and compelling love story.

~*~

Having just graduated art school Eleanor Roy is recruited to the WAAC – the War Artists Advisory Committee – to do her part for the war effort during the 1940s. To her, this is a stepping stone to becoming a female war artist, in a time when women were often relegated to domestic jobs or working at home. For Eleanor though, breaking through tradition into a world her parents and family didn’t want her to go into, this is her chance. Seconded to a series of administrative meetings for the council, Eleanor encounters Jack Valante, a war artist, and SOE officer, whose friendship encourages her to paint her war, and to try and submit them to the WAAC, and other exhibitions. But she is a woman, and Jack comes up with a plan to get her art shown, and a relationship forms – and then falls away as he is sent overseas to serve. Almost seventy years later in 2010, Eleanor’s granddaughter, Kathryn, has returned to England to help her grandmother uncover the secret of a painting and where Jack is. She takes it as a welcome break from the family problems that plague her back home with her husband, Chris, though being apart from son Oliver, is testing. But what Kathryn will discover is more than a missing painting – she will discover a secret that Eleanor has been holding onto for many years.

Lately, I have been reading a lot of World War Two based historical fiction, covering the Holocaust, the ghettos and the home front in England. Each story is a mere drop in the ocean of the experiences of these six years, on all sides, and for all those affected. There are still many stories to discover and be told. One of my favourite themes has been the role of women in the war on the home front, and their stories. So, I was quite delighted to receive Eleanor’s Secret by Caroline Beecham, having previously read Maggie’s Kitchen two years ago. Like in Maggie’s Kitchen, the protagonist inEleanor’s Secret is also seeking to do something for the war effort and break out of the confines of what is expected of her gender. Instead, she strives to become an artist in her own right, and tries to gain the attention of a colleague, Aubrey, whom she hopes will help her exhibit her paintings. Through Eleanor, the home front of destroyed buildings in London and the East End is shown, though nobody wishes to accept them as hers, though she tries to make them see she is just as capable. Caroline Beecham’s characters – especially the female ones – find a way to step out of the norm whilst maintaining a facade in public that allows them to find a way to go against what is expected of them.

The impacts of the war that Eleanor captured in the novel – destroyed homes, families with nothing, picking through the ruins for something to hold onto, to sell for food, and the orphans, with nobody but the people running the orphanage and Eleanor’s art lessons to lift their spirits – are not the images of war that the WAAC wanted. It was Eleanor’s determination to capture these scenes that I found the most powerful, because it was her world, the world she lived in and passed by every day, rather than the battle fields of Europe that felt so distant to many, and though those events still affected people back home, what those left behind experienced also needed to be captured in paints.

The love story between Jack and Eleanor is woven in nicely, and I enjoyed that they each grew as characters and developed in their own way, with their own secrets that were woven throughout and took time to come out, ensuring that the mysteries of art and Jack, and Eleanor’s own secrets were not so easily revealed. Going back and forth between 1942 and 2010 was effective – it allowed for the mystery to develop, and for the reader to discover what was happening at the same time as Kathryn. Family and friends were also important in this novel, and the effects of what Jack and Eleanor did and had to do came through. Eleanor’s sister Cecily, a nurse, was an important character – acting as Eleanor’s confidant and secret keeper. This was an important relationship too as it showed that sibling and familial love during times of war was just as important, if not more so, to get people through hard times and challenges that came their way, that they needed help to face.

Overall, a good novel, with a fascinating historical backdrop. Prior to reading this novel, I did not know much about the WAAC or war artists, and I found it really interesting, and the way that reporting and creation of art was done back then, sometimes months after a battle, compared to today when images appear instantly, or within hours or days of something happening in current conflicts. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, reading it in about three sittings. The mystery of the paintings, the art and Eleanor’s determination to become more than an assistant were what caught my attention the most, and the love story with Jack was a nice bonus.

Some of the authors appearing at the Sydney Writer’s Festival…

It’s that time of year again, when the programs and author schedules for the annual Sydney Writer’s Festival are announced. Held between the first and the sixth of May, mostly at Carriageworks but with some events at a variety of other places around Sydney, there will be many events to choose from, and many authors to meet and hear speak.

Below is a sampling of the authors published by Hachette who will be attending this year, which has a diverse and intriguing calendar of events that I am sure will sell out quickly! So here are some of the authors appearing, and when and where they will be appearing.

American author, Jennifer Egan, author of Emerald City and Other Stories, The Invisible Circus, The Keep, Look at Me, Black Box, A Visit From the Goon Squad, and Manhattan Beach. Jennifer will be appearing at the following events, all in Bay 17 at Carriageworks.

Thursday, the 3rd of May, at 3pm – On the Record: Historical Fiction

Saturday the 5th of May at 6pm – Jennifer Egan: Manhattan Beach

Sunday the 6th of May at 6pm: Closing Address: Jennifer Egan.

Also from America, Zack McDermott, author of Gorilla and the Bird, will be appearing on the following dates at the following locations:

Thursday, the 3rd of May at 7pm, Carriageworks, Bay 20: The Full Catastrophe

Friday, the 4th of May, at 11.30am, Carriageworks, Track 8: Zack McDermott: Gorilla and the Bird

Alexis Okeowo, author of A Moonless, Starless Sky, also from America, will be appearing at four different events over the course of the week, all at Carriageworks, where the majority of the events are held.

Tuesday, the 1st of May at 6.30pm, Carriageworks Bay 17: Opening Address: André Aciman, Min Jin Lee and Alexis Okeowo

Friday the 4th of May, 3pm, Carriageworks, Bay 17: Conflicting Narratives

Saturday, the 5th of May, 1.30pm, Carriageworks Bay 17: Resisting Unjust Authority

Sunday, the 6th of May, 1.30pm, Carriageworks Bay 20: Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky

Michael Mohammed Ahmad, an Arab-Australian writer, editor, teacher and community art s worker will also be appearing. His book, The Lebs, is about breaking down stereotypes and showing people that a small minority don’t determine the majority of a culture. Michael will be appearing at the following events at the Seymour Centre, and the Riverside Theatres.

Monday, the 30th of April, at 9.30am, Seymour Centre, Workshop Room 1: Michael Mohammed Ahmad: Good Writing versus Bad Writing.

Wednesday, the 2nd of May, 11.15am Seymour Centre York Theatre: Student Session: The Next Wave.

Friday, the 4th of May, Seymour Centre, Sound Lounge, 4.30PM: New Australian Voices.

Saturday, the 5th of May, Riverside Theatres, Lennox Theatre, 10am: From the Sidelines AND at 5pm in the Everest Theatre of the Seymour Centre, Return of the Big Black Thing.

Walkley Award winning journalist, Michael Brissenden will also be appearing at the festival, at will have one event at the Seymour Centre.

Thursday the 3rd of May, at 1.30pm, Seymour Centre, York Theatre: Straight from the Headlines,

The third Australian author published by Hachette to appear is Indigenous author, Claire G Coleman, author of Terra Nullius, a speculative fiction looking at the concept of invasion and settlement, using aliens taking over the world as a metaphor and symbol. It was an interesting and eye-opening book to read, my review is here. Claire will be appearing at three events across each precinct of the festival.

terra nullius

Thursday, the 3rd of May, at 11.30am, Seymour Centre, York Theatre: Home Truths: Telling Australian Stories.

Friday the 4th of May, at 11.30am at Carriageworks Blacksmith’s Workshop: Claire G Coleman: On Fiction, Villains and the Nature of Evil

Saturday the 5th of May, 1.30pm, Riverside Theatres: Architects of New Worlds.

fairvale

Another Australian author appearing at the festival is Sophie Green, author of The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club, reviewed on this blog as well and it, and the previous book, Terra Nullius, were included in my Australian Women Writer’s Challenge last year. Sophie will be appearing at one event this year.

Thursday, the 3rd of May, at 10am at the Seymour Centre, Reginald Theatre: Family Ties.

Royce Kurmelovs is another author appearing, and he has written the following books: Death of Holden, Rogue Nation, and Boom and Bust (2018). He will be appearing at an event about the rise of Australian populism.

Saturday the 6th of May, at 11.30 at the Seymour Centre, York Theatre: The Rise of Australian Populism.

Peter Polites, author of Down the Hume will also be in attendance at the following events and is another new Australian author whose book has come out recently.

Peter will be appearing at two events this year:

Saturday, the 5th of May at 5pm in the Everest Theatre of the Seymour Centre, Return of the Big Black Thing, with Michael Mohammed Ahmad.

Sunday, the 6th of May, at 10am at the Seymour Centre, Sound Lounge: Pajtim Statovci: My Cat Yugoslavia

Award winning journalist, Hugh Riminton, a news presenter and foreign correspondent, will be at the festival chatting about his book, Minefields. Hugh will be appearing at three events across the week of the festival.

Thursday, the 3rd of May at 11.30am, Seymour Centre, Reginald Theatre: Becoming the Story.

Thursday, the 3rd of May at 7pm, Hurstville Library: Hugh Riminton: Minefields/

Saturday, the 5th of May, 11.30am, Carriageworks, Bay 17: Peter Greste: The First Casualty.

Michael Robotham will also be appearing, and has written the following books: The Suspect, The Drowning Man, The Night Ferry Shatter, Bombproof, Bleed For Me, The Wreckage, Say You’re Sorry, Watching You, Life or Death, Close Your Eyes, The Secret She Keeps, and The Other Wife (2018). Michael will be appearing at the following events:

Thursday, the 3rd of May at 1.30pm at Carriageworks, Blacksmith’s Workshop: Michael Robotham: On Plotting the Perfect Crime.

Thursday the 3rd of May, at 6.30pm at Blacktown City Max Webber Library: Michael Robotham: The Secrets She Keeps.

Saturday, the 5th of May, at 10.30am, Seymour Centre, Reginald Theatre: Michael Robotham: The Secrets She Keeps.

Wednesday, the 2nd of May, 7pm, The Concourse Concert Hall: Jane Harper: Force of Nature.

Saturday, the 5th of May, at 1.30pm, Carriageworks Bay 20: Gabriel Talent: My Absolute Darling.

Sha’an d’Anthes, a new Australian author based in Sydney who has had a career as an artist and illustrator and has travelled all over the world. She will be speaking at two events on the final day of the festival. Her picture book, Zoom, was published by Hachette Australia.

Sunday the 6th of May, at 10.00am, Carriageworks, Bay 25: Storytime Clubhouse.

Sunday the 6th of May at 2.15pm. Carriageworks, Track 8: Illustrator Battle Grounds.

Libby Hathorn, well known Australian author of books for children and young adults will also be appearing. Some of her books are: Thunderwith, The Blue Dress, Georgiana, Dear Venny, Dear Saffron, Volcano Boy, The Painter, Feral Kid, Chrysalis, Love Me Tender, Eventual Poppy Day, A Soldier, A Dog and A Boy, and Butterfly, We’re Expecting You!

eventual poppy day

Libby will be appearing at the following events:

Sunday the 6th of May, at 10.00am, Carriageworks, Bay 25: Storytime Clubhouse.

Sunday the 6th of May, at 11.15am, Carriageworks, Track 12: Outside: A Feast of the Senses.

Binny Talib will also be appearing, at the same event as Libby Hathorn and Sha’an d’Anthes on the Sunday morning of the festival. Binny has two books published by Hachette Australia, Origami Heart and Hark It’s Me, Ruby Lee!

Sunday the 6th of May, at 10.00am, Carriageworks, Bay 25: Storytime Clubhouse.

Another Australian author to appear will be Shaun Tan. who has worked in theatre and films as concept artists and designers. His works include Lost Thing, Memorial, The Red Tree, The Rabbits, The Viewer, Rules of Summer, The Arrival (an acclaimed wordless novel), and Cicada, published in 2018. Shaun will be appearing at one event on the Saturday.

Saturday, the 5th of May, at 3pm, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta: Bringing Imaginary Worlds to Life.

Hachette’s final author to be appearing is Debra Tindall, author of The Scared Book. she began her career as a social worker before becoming an author. The Scared Book is a CBCA notable book for children. She will be appearing at the same event as Libby Hathorn, Binny Talib and Sha’an d’Anthes.

Sunday the 6th of May, at 10.00am, Carriageworks, Bay 25: Storytime Clubhouse.

Check out the Sydney Writer’s Festival website for more events and authors.

NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Shortlist for 2018

One of the Australia’s literary awards has just announced the shortlist for 2018 – The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, with the winner to be announced in April. Each category and the shortlisted novels for this prize are listed below for 2018, and information about each prize category can be found here in a previous post:

The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction:

Common People by Tony Birch, published by UQP

Seabirds Crying in the Harbour Dark by Catherine Cole, published by UWA

Pulse Points by Jennifer Down, published by Text Publishing

The Book of Dirt by Bram Presser, published by Text Publishing

The Restorer by Michael Sala, published by Text Publishing

Taboo by Kim Scott

Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction:

Victoria: The Woman Who Made the Modern World by Julia Baird, published by HarperCollins Publishers “A passion for exploring new countries” Matthew Flinders & George Bass by Josephine Bastian, published by Australian Scholarly Publishing

The Enigmatic Mr Deakin by Judith Brett, published by Text Publishing

Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth by Paul Ham, published by Penguin Random House Australia

The Green Bell: a memoir of love, madness and poetry by Paula Keogh, published by Affirm Press

The Boy Behind the Curtain by Tim Winton, published by Penguin Random House Australia

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry:

Archipelago by Adam Aitken, published by Vagabond Press

Euclid’s dog: 100 algorithmic poems by Jordie Albiston, published by Gloria SMH Press

Bone Ink by Rico Craig, published by Guillotine Press

Argosy by Bella Li, published by Vagabond Press

Captive and Temporal by Nguyễn Tiên Hoàng, published by Vagabond Press

These Wild Houses by Omar Sakr, published by Cordite Books

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature

The Patchwork Bike by Maxine Beneba Clarke and illustrated by Van T Rudd, published by Hachette Australia

The Elephant by Peter Carnavas published by UQP

Blossom by Tamsin Janu, published by Omnibus Books for Scholastic Australia

Figgy Takes the City by Tamsin Janu, published by Omnibus Books for Scholastic Australia

How To Bee by Bren MacDibble, published by Allen & Unwin

The Sorry Tale of Fox and Bear by Margrete Lamond and illustrated by Heather Vallance, published by Dirt Lane Press

Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature

In the Dark Spaces by Cally Black, published by Hardie Grant Egmont

the blue cat

The Blue Cat by Ursula Dubosarsky, published by Allen & Unwin

The Ones That Disappeared by Zana Fraillon, published by Hachette Australia

A Shadow’s Breath by Nicole Hayes, published by Penguin Random House Australia

The Build-Up Season by Megan Jacobson, published by Penguin Random House Australia

Ballad for a Mad Girl by Vikki Wakefield, published by Text Publishing

Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting

The Sound of Waiting by Mary Anne Butler, published by Brown’s Mart Arts Ltd

Rice by Michele Lee, Presented by Queensland Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company, published by Playlab

Black is the New White by Nakkiah Lui, published by Sydney Theatre Company

Mark Colvin’s Kidney by Tommy Murphy, published by Currency Press and Belvoir

Little Emperors by Lachlan Philpott, published by Malthouse Theatre

The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man by Tom Wright, published by Malthouse Theatre

Betty Rowland Prize for Scriptwriting

Deep Water: The Real Story written by Amanda Blue and Jacob Hickey – Blackfella Films

Top of the Lake: China Girl, Series 2 Episode 4 ‘Birthday’ by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee – See-Saw Films

Sweet Country by Steven McGregor and David Tranter – Bunya Productions

Seven Types of Ambiguity, Episode 2 ‘Alex’ by Jacquelin Perske – Matchbox Pictures

Please Like Me, Series 4 Episode 5 ‘Burrito Bowl’ by Josh Thomas, Thomas Ward and Liz Doran – Guesswork TV

Multicultural Award NSW

No More Boats by Felicity Castagna, published by Giramondo Publishing

The Permanent Resident by Roanna Gonsalves, published by UWA Publishing

Dark Convicts by Judy Johnson, published by UWA Publishing

The Family Law, Series 2 Episode 4 by Benjamin Law and Kirsty Fisher – Matchbox Pictures

Down the Hume by Peter Polites, published by Hachette Australia

Quicksilver by Nicholas Rothwell, published by Text Publishing

Indigenous Writer’s Prize

Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling by Larissa Behrendt, published by UQP

Common People by Tony Birch, published by UQP

Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms by Anita Heiss, published by Simon & Schuster Australia

The Drover’s Wife by Leah Purcell published and produced by Currency Press and Belvoir in association with Oombarra Productions)

Taboo by Kim Scott, published by Pan Macmillam Australia

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing

2018 Shortlist The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on 30 April 2018. There is no shortlist for this category.

About the award

The UTS Glenda Adams Award ($5,000) is for a published book of fiction written by an author who has not previously published a book-length work of narrative fiction or narrative non-fiction.
The Award seeks to recognise outstanding new literary talent. The winning author may produce an excellent piece of writing in a traditional fictional form or may challenge and expand the boundaries of the genre.
The winner of the UTS Glenda Adams Award is chosen from entries submitted for the Christina Stead Prize (no additional entry fee is required for this award).
Entrants who meet the UTS Glenda Adams Award criteria should indicate on the nomination form if they wish to be considered for the Award.
There may not be a shortlist in this category.

NSW Premier’s Translation Prize – Next awarded 2019

Multicultural NSW Early Career Translator Prize – Next awarded 2019

Dymocks Children’s Charities: Book Bonus 2018

BookBonus_Duck

One of Australia’s most well-known booksellers, Dymocks, runs a series of children’s charities to help improve and promote literacy to children, and encourage them to read. Dymocks Children’s Charities also aim to help children find a love of reading that they can carry through their lives.

One of the initiatives and campaigns that Dymocks Children’s Charities are running this iyear is Book Bonus. Book Bonus 2018 is an online read-a-thon that is linked to the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge. What Book Bonus does is provide students with a safe and secure opportunity to gain support from family and friends from the books they read for the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Through this campaign, Dymocks Children’s Charities aims to deliver thousands of new books to school libraries and classrooms in NSW. During Book Bonus, students and school raise money for the campaign, and the money raised will be matched by Dymocks Children’s Charities. For every $1 raised, Dymocks Children’s Charities will match it with a 25% bonus – $1.25 per dollar earned towards new books for schools.

They will also award an additional 25% of the amount raised to schools in need to select the right books for their students.

Students and schools can fundraise up until the 7th of September, but funds raised after the completion of the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge, which closes on the 31st of August, will not be counted.

Best of luck to all participating!

Stella Prize Shortlist

download

The announcement of the 2018 shortlist for the annual Stella Prize happened today, on International Women’s Day. From a long-list of twelve, six have made the shortlist, and it is a diverse, eclectic and powerful selection of the voices of Australian women. The importance of this, at a time when women’s voices are demanding to be heard in all spheres is important: the diversity in these books should be interesting, and I have at least two on my to read list, and one on my read list. Of the others, I am yet to decide if I will add them to my growing to be read lists and piles, as they look just as interesting as the ones I have chosen to read.

This year’s shortlisted books and authors are diverse and relevant and show the breadth of writing by Australian women. The themes in the books are about family, politics, identity and what has been, and what might come. The diversity of these stories is what gives them their power.

Shortlist:

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar

This book is an extraordinarily powerful and evocative literary novel set in Iran in the period immediately after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Using the lyrical magic realism style of classical Persian storytelling, Azar draws the reader deep into the heart of a family caught in the maelstrom of post-revolutionary chaos and brutality that sweeps across an ancient land and its people. Azar is the consummate storyteller, using the panoply of Persian mythical and mystical entities to bring life, humour, hope, resignation, and profound insights to the characters and their world.

Terra Nullis by Clare G. Coleman

Jacky was running. There was no thought in his head, only an intense drive to run. There was no sense he was getting anywhere, no plan, no destination, no future. All he had was a sense of what was behind, what he was running from. Jacky was running.

The Natives of the Colony are restless. The Settlers are eager to have a nation of peace, and to bring the savages into line. Families are torn apart, reeducation is enforced. This rich land will provide for all.

This is not Australia as we know it. This is not the Australia of our history. This TERRA NULLIUS is something new, but all too familiar.

This is an incredible debut from a striking new Australian Aboriginal voice.

The Life to Come by Michelle de Krester

Set in Sydney, Paris and Sri Lanka, The Life to Come is a mesmerising novel about the stories we tell and don’t tell ourselves as individuals, as societies and as nations. It feels at once firmly classic and exhilaratingly contemporary.

Pippa is a writer who longs for success. Celeste tries to convince herself that her feelings for her married lover are reciprocated. Ash makes strategic use of his childhood in Sri Lanka but blots out the memory of a tragedy from that time. Driven by riveting stories and unforgettable characters, here is a dazzling meditation on intimacy, loneliness and our flawed perception of other people.

Profoundly moving as well as wickedly funny, The Life to Come reveals how the shadows cast by both the past and the future can transform, distort and undo the present. This extraordinary novel by Miles Franklin-winning author Michelle de Kretser will strike to your soul.

An Uncertain Grace by Krissy Kneen

Some time in the near future, university lecturer Caspar receives a gift from a former student called Liv: a memory stick containing a virtual narrative. Hooked up to a virtual reality bodysuit, he becomes immersed in the experience of their past sexual relationship. But this time it is her experience. What was for him an erotic interlude, resonant with the thrill of seduction, was very different for her—and when he has lived it, he will understand how.

Later…

A convicted paedophile recruited to Liv’s experiment in collective consciousness discovers a way to escape from his own desolation.

A synthetic boy, designed by Liv’s team to ‘love’ men who desire adolescents, begins to question the terms of his existence.

L, in transition to a state beyond gender, befriends Liv, in transition to a state beyond age.

Liv herself has finally transcended the corporeal—but there is still the problem of love.

An Uncertain Grace is a novel in five parts by one of Australia’s most inventive and provocative writers. Moving, thoughtful, sometimes playful, it is about who we are—our best and worst selves, our innermost selves—and who we might become.

The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe

Sparked by the description of a ‘Malay trollope’ in W. Somerset Maugham’s story, ‘The Four Dutchmen’, The Fish Girl tells of an Indonesian girl whose life is changed irrevocably when she moves from a small fishing village to work in the house of a Dutch merchant. There she finds both hardship and tenderness as her traditional past and colonial present collide.

Told with an exquisitely restrained voice and coloured with lush description, this moving book will stay with you long after the last page.

Tracker by Alexis Wright

Alexis Wright returns to non-fiction in her new book, a collective memoir of the charismatic Aboriginal leader, political thinker and entrepreneur Tracker Tilmouth, who died in Darwin in 2015 at the age of 62.

Taken from his family as a child and brought up in a mission on Croker Island, Tracker Tilmouth worked tirelessly for Aboriginal self-determination, creating opportunities for land use and economic development in his many roles, including Director of the Central Land Council of the Northern Territory.

Tracker was a visionary, a strategist and a projector of ideas, renowned for his irreverent humour and his determination to tell things the way he saw them. Having known him for many years, Alexis Wright interviewed Tracker, along with family, friends, colleagues, and the politicians he influenced, weaving his and their stories together in a manner reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize–winning author Svetlana Alexievich. The book is as much a testament to the powerful role played by storytelling in contemporary Aboriginal life as it is to the legacy of an extraordinary man.

I look forward to hearing which of these books wins in April. Reading about them, I think the judges have a very tough decision to make.

Skin in the Game: The Pleasure and Pain of Telling True Stories by Sonya Voumard

Title: Skin in the Game: The Pleasure and Pain of Telling True Stories

Author: Sonya Voumard

Genre: Non-fiction/Essays

Publisher: Transit Lounge

Published: 1st March 2018

Format: Paperback

Pages: 224

Price: $27.99

Synopsis: Stella Prize long-listed author Sonya Voumard’s Skin in the Game is original, incisive and hugely entertaining. The daughter of a European refugee mother and a journalist father, Voumard recounts with aplomb her passionate but questioning relationship with journalism and the nature of the interview. There’s a disastrous 1980 university encounter with Helen Garner which forms the seed for her fascination with the dynamics of the interview and culminates in her connecting again with Garner more than three decades later to work out what went so wrong. There are the insights of a career played out against the changing nature of journalism including the author’s time as a Canberra correspondent. And there are revealing and tender portraits of Kings Cross, of growing up in suburban Melbourne, her father’s love of journalism, and a family journey to the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre where her mother’s Australian life began.

Throughout it all Voumard is a sharpshooter, never afraid to hold a mirror up to her own life and practices as a journalist, to dig deep into the ethics of journalism and the use of power, and to sensitively explore the intertwined nature of life and work and personal relationships. The writing is at turns sharp, funny, direct, strong and affectionate.

‘I’ve immense admiration for how Sonya Voumard so deftly wields a writer’s scalpel, both on her subjects and herself. Together, these dispatches provide a fascinating insider’s account of Australian journalism and a forensic look into the myriad pitfalls involved in telling people’s stories.’ Benjamin Law, author of The Family Law and Gaysia

Stella Longlisted in 2017 for The Media and the Massacre: Port Arthur 1996-2016 (2016).

~*~

In a series of essays, Sonya Voumard explores the dynamics of journalism in the eighties and nineties, and interview techniques that work, and ones that don’t, the challenges of keeping records and subjects denying what has been said, even if it has been recorded, and the role journalism played in politics and the way it has changed since her days in the press gallery. In the midst of this, are family stories of running from war and oppression, as refugees and what it was like being the children of a refugee mother, and the interactions they had in their social circles – some with similarities, some completely individual, and the quest for family identity and sense of self. Within these essays, Voumard has made cautious and intriguing links to each story, so that they can be read in order or dipped in and out of.

Starting with her experiences as a child, Voumard tells of her family history – her journalist father, an Australian, and refugee mother from Estonia, who fled war-torn Europe with her mother and step-father in the years after the war – a story that is explored in depth in one of the final essays, on a pilgrimage to Estonia, where hints of Russian occupation still stand, in a country that has only been independent for two decades, and where attitudes seen as immoral or abhorrent, or maybe just ignorant in Australia, are acceptable there. Voumard’s journey to becoming a journalist began young, and she recounts her early days at university, studying journalism and having to write a political biography. Aiming high, she conducts her first interview with Helen Garner – a disastrous encounter that will take two decades to repair and be given a chance to write another profile.

As a journalist, she has travelled throughout Australia, part of the political gallery, and taking part in cadetships where the boy’s club was present around her, with an amusing anecdote about her standing up to them, leaving them in shock at what she said. She does not shy away from the challenges of journalism. In many places, she discusses the challenges of the interview – that even when something has been recorded and agreed to be recorded during an interview, and an ethics code followed, stories can still be pulled. She speaks of the frustration this can bring and the need to respect a subject’s wishes as well.

The experiences and challenges she speaks of in the journalistic world show the behind the scenes challenges that journalists faced and still face, as the world of journalism changed, and the pace quickened, and morphed into a 24/7 news cycle that never stops – and how it became a struggle to keep up, to keep editors happy, the public informed and maintain a sense of ethics and truth within the stories she wrote and reported on – the pleasure was in seeking and gaining these stories, the pain in how to deliver them truthfully and morally, but within tightening deadlines that might not always have allowed for checking and re-checking. She speaks of the politicians she encountered, and the ones she admired, and didn’t admire or like – she’s not shy about naming them, or being critical, but still fair, especially when it came to Julia Gillard and her challenges.

Reading about the challenges of journalism from the inside, and the ups and downs of telling stories for people or helping them tell their story gives an understanding of what is expected in the media, and that the demands put onto journalists doesn’t always come through when the public face is presented, or the story is published. Having studied communications and writing, the interview stories were amusing and interesting to me.

An intriguing read about the ethics and inner workings of journalism, and the challenges these present, coupled with family stories that all link together to tell Sonya’s story.

The Book Muse

Books, reading and writing

Category: Writing

Book bingo Eleven – A Book by a person under thirty

Eleanor’s Secret by Caroline Beecham

Some of the authors appearing at the Sydney Writer’s Festival…