Items for May/June 2009 Tascribe



Tascribe

State Newsletter: Print Post Number PP 733781/00010

The Fellowship of Australian Writers Tasmania Inc

PO Box 234 NORTH HOBART TAS 7002

.au

ISSUE No. 3 MAY/JUNE 2012

Patron: Wal Eastman OAM

2012 Committee

Karen Armstrong, President; Robyn Mathison Secretary/Public Officer; Jen Gibson, Treasurer

John Biggs, Solveig Hamilton & Yvonne Stadler Committee Members

Forthcoming Meetings

Friends Meeting House, 395 Argyle Street, North Hobart. All welcome

Saturday, May 12th at 2 pm: Announcement of the results of the Nairda Lyne Award will be followed by members’ readings. Need a trigger? With each year what is at the centre of the self grows stronger and compels more recognition. – Russell Hoban

Saturday, June 9th at 2 pm: Dr Lucy Tatman, who is a feminist theologian and the Co-ordinator of Gender Studies in the School of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania, will deliver The Biennial Gwen Harwood Poetry/ Philosophy Lecture. Guests are most welcome to attend. Gold coin donation, please.

Meeting Reports

Wednesday, March 14th: We enjoyed readings from Jen Gibson, Solveig Hamilton, Robyn Mathison and Karen Wilson and, as flagged in the March/ April issue of Tascribe, Yvonne Stadler read her report of the Michael Rowland presentation at Wrest Point. After the readings, a question from Jim Paterson about publishers prompted useful discussion.

Saturday, April 14th: Fiona Stewart spoke briefly about Bijou’s Secret, a one-woman show about three generations of women, which she has written and will perform in the Sidespace Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre at 6.30 pm. May 22nd – 27th. There was a good response to Megan Schaffner’s essay competition. Entries from Sue Scott, Karen Wilson, Betty McKenzie-Tubb, Jen Gibson, Robyn Mathison, John Biggs, Judy Waddell, Isolina Ottavi and Solveig Hamilton covered a wide variety of subjects and were all very well received. Megan awarded the entry-money prize to John Biggs and gave a special book prize to Jen Gibson. There was time before afternoon tea for readings of a piece of flash fiction from Gajinder Oberoi and a poem from Jasmine Lawrence.

News & Views

* Warm welcome to new members Robin Gisborne and Kate Welshman and Family.

* We sincerely thank Jasmine Lawrence and John Biggs for generous donations to our funds.

* Kathryn Lomer has an Australia Council grant to enable her to continue work on another novel. We hope the work goes well and look forward to seeing this book.

* Anne Kellas began work as an Australian Poetry Café Poet in February. She will be in the Afterword Café at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart between 12 noon and 1 pm every Saturday until July 1st. She will be happy to see visitors there and to discuss individual poems. She cannot read entire manuscripts at the café, but she is amenable to the idea of being hired as an editor or mentor and is happy to talk about this.

* Jim Paterson spoke about his latest manuscript at the March meeting, and was advised to submit it to Ginninderra Press, which he did. He has just had the news that it has been accepted for publication!

* Robert Cox launched our short-story anthology Other People’s Houses at Hobart Bookshop on February 16th. Megan Schaffner asked for his talk about the short-story form for Tascribe. Robert commented, ‘I’m honoured if a trifle bemused that the FAW should think this worthy of publication in its newsletter, for I claim no special expertise in that difficult form the short story, only a lifelong fascination with it and its mysteries.’

Other People’s Houses Launch Speech

Stories are the oldest literary form, only slightly younger than language itself. As soon as our remote ancestors had acquired and developed enough vocabulary to string phrases and simple sentences together, they began to tell stories around their campfires about their exploits. It’s not hard to imagine a Neanderthal man named, say, Abb-Odd, or, for short Odd, which is what most people called him, wiping his hands in his chest hair after a feast, then getting to his feet and demanding attention while he spoke, even though he often found it difficult to find the right words, especially if they were those new-fangled ones with more than one syllable. ‘Me Odd. Me great hunter. Me slay woolly red mammoth.’ His followers had heard the same boast many times before, although he’d never actually managed it, but they weren’t a very bright lot and he was the boss, so they nodded and grunted and went back to dreaming about the good old days when Ming was king and they weren’t required to think at all.

Over many millennia, as language developed and became more complex and more sophisticated, so did stories. Yet they continued to be about exploits, real or imaginary. The expanding language meant they grew longer and were better able to handle and inflate the hero’s doings. And although for a long time, until the invention of writing, they remained oral, they helped bring forward a new breed of professional storytellers called bards and minstrels – medieval spin doctors – as well as gifted amateurs like Scheherazade, who mollified her murderous husband by composing so many fresh stories, one a night for a 1001 nights, that he decided not to strangle her after all. Quite an interesting way to overcome writer’s block!

Somewhere way back then, stories began to be made more interesting with injections of psychology. It was no longer enough for Odd to boast about how he intended to slay the woolly red mammoth. Now stories began to focus not only on Odd, the hero, but on his ineffectual subject Malc – full name Malcontent, but Odd always had trouble with more than one syllable. Malc was puny and had no hair on his chest, and because of that he was always low man on the tribal totem pole. But it was politic for him to appear obsequious to Odd, kow-towing to him but all the time plotting and awaiting the opportunity to slay him with a single mighty spear thrust somewhere between the shoulder blades, after which he would be anointed by common consent to lead them in their endless running around in circles after the red woolly mammoth.

You see the difference? The shift of focus from hero to anti-hero broadened the story and made it far more interesting.

It was Shakespeare who took this psychological expansion to its first great heights, using the device of soliloquies to take us into the minds of his characters, weak or strong, villains as well as heroes. But it took another couple of centuries and a nineteenth-century Russian short story to shift the focus right away from great men and great women and their deeds and misdeeds, and instead put Everyman under the microscope.

The first short story to do that and have a major influence on writers who followed was Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat. As Turgenev commented, ‘We all came out from under Gogol’s Overcoat’. It’s a simple enough story. The protagonist is a minor clerk in the Russian bureaucracy with the ridiculous name of Akakey Akakeivitch. He is an absolute nonentity, a man mocked by his colleagues. His overcoat is so threadbare that his tailor can’t sew any more patches on it, and he’s too poor to buy another. Then he has a bit of minor good luck that enables him to buy a new coat, and for a short time that makes him a changed man, a different man. But the new coat is stolen, and his attempts to recover it bring him nothing but abuse and insults from the police and other officials, so he goes home and dies – because he is a complete mediocrity, a man who defines himself entirely by his coat.

The great Irish short-story writer Frank O’Connor wrote this of The Overcoat: ‘So far as I know, it is the first appearance in fiction of the Little Man.’ It was O’Connor who coined the phrase a submerged population to describe the little men and women who are the natural subjects of short stories – nobodies whose lives and deeds are not heroic or notable in any way and that are therefore unsuitable for the longer exposition of the novel. The short story’s brevity and intense focus make it ideal for examining a defining moment in the otherwise unremarkable life of an otherwise unremarkable person.

What makes a good short story? First of all, it needs to be entertaining even if the subject matter is unpleasant, for the primary purpose of all writing is to entertain, to engross, or, in Vladimir Nabokov’s words, to enchant the reader. In the opinion of our own Amanda Lohrey, ‘A short story should have at least one shock in it. A meaningful surprise is not only stimulating on a physical level, it also expands our perception of the world and both are experienced as pleasurable.’ The contemporary Irish writer Joseph O’Connor agrees. ‘A good short story is almost always about a moment of profound realisation – a quiet bomb,’ he wrote. William Maxwell, who once edited The New Yorker and who was himself a gifted writer, believed short stories ‘tend to have both an explicit and an un-spelled-out meaning’. Another opinion, one I like very much, is from the Launceston writer Ian Kennedy Williams. ‘It’s often said that the short story has a beginning, a middle and an end – but not necessarily in that order,’ he said. ‘There’s usually a resolution of sorts, accompanied by a lingering sense of unfinished business.’ I particularly like that phrase ‘a lingering sense of unfinished business’ because it accords with my own thinking that good stories don’t necessarily give up their meaning at first reading. But the late Geoff Dean, who had few peers in this country as a storyteller, was most emphatic about one essential thing in every story: ‘Something must happen,’ he said.

From all that, you may infer that short stories can be a little mysterious and aren’t necessarily easy, and you’d be right. Obviously they’re short pieces of prose, but, as William Faulkner pointed out, they have more in common with lyric poetry than they have with such longer pieces of prose as novels.

Despite all the difficulties associated with stories – both in writing and in publishing them – writers of all ages and degrees of experience and in all genres continue to write them, something we should all be grateful for. People have always told stories and people will continue to tell stories, even in the face of publisher and public indifference.

Some years ago I called on a writer friend of mine, a man who’s published several novels and nonfiction books internationally. I knew he had two completed manuscripts doing the rounds, a novel and a nonfiction book, and that despite his track record he was having no luck in getting either one published. To my surprise, I found him hard at work at his word processor. ‘What are you up to?’ I asked. ‘A new novel,’ he said. ‘I’m up to chapter fourteen.’ I expressed surprise at his determination to keep going in the face of repeated rejections. It was his turn to look surprised. ‘But it’s what I do,’ he said.

In other words, he was writing not because he was hoping to get rich from writing a bestseller – although I’m sure he wouldn’t have objected to that – but because he had to write. It was the writing itself that was important to him, not its acceptance or its sales. As US author Elliot Perlman observed, ‘If you ask different writers what it is that sustains them as a writer … a common answer might be the sense of satisfaction the writer gets from simply having finished their story.’

Other People’s Houses is evidence of a similarly sustaining credo. The pleasure of writing is evident in every one of these fifteen entertaining stories by thirteen Tasmanian writers, some who will be well known to you, others who will not – some who may go on to literary success, others who will not but who will continue to write anyway for the sheer pleasure of telling stories. I congratulate all of them on their work and on having it accepted for this anthology. I also congratulate the FAW for continuing the lonely task of promoting Tasmanian writing, and I have much pleasure in declaring Other People’s Houses officially launched and in wishing it and its contributors every success.

Note: Gogol’s The Overcoat is best read in the superb translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, available as a Vintage paperback. Several of William Maxwell’s works have been published in paperback by the Harvill Press. Ian Kennedy Williams’s most recent short-story collection is Fugitive Pieces: Stories from a suite of hotels [Ginninderra Press]. Many of the best of Geoff Dean’s stories are collected in The Literary Lunch, published in Tasmania by Roaring Forties Press and readily available.

Robert Cox

Obituary: Margaret Jessie Woudwyk née Wilson (13-7-1930 – 26-3-2012)

We are saddened to note the passing of Margaret, who had been a member of FAW for many years and a life member since 1981.

Margaret had worked for the ABC in Hobart and during the years of the late Joan Woodberry’s Presidency, she and her husband Peter, who predeceased her, were actively involved with FAW. Margaret co-edited the FAW anthology Poems 1981 with Doris Moore and Joan Goodrick, and she was a contributor to the 1982 FAW anthology Five Years, which she co-edited with Gerda Shelton. She was instrumental in establishing the FAW’s long-term Publication Fund Account, which was opened eventually in December 1980 and has been managed carefully ever since, so that the Fellowship has funds available for publishing members’ writing, or for helping members to achieve publication. While Margaret had been unable to participate in FAW activities in recent years, we remain grateful for the lasting contribution she made to the Fellowship.

Robyn Mathison

Members’ Credits

Anne Collins: Reader, Republic Bar & Café, April. Rose Frankcombe: Poem and article, SWWT Stylus, April/May. Fran Graham: On a Hook Behind the Door [Ginninderra Press, 2011] launched, Hobart Bookshop, March. Graeme Hetherington: 2 poems, Poetry Matters 14. Allan Jamieson: Book review, FAW NW Branch newsletter. Jacqueline Lonsdale-Cuerton: 2 poems, Poetry Matters 14. Robyn Mathison: 2 poems, Poetry Matters 14; 1 poem, . Lyn Reeves: Winner FAW VIC National White Light Short Script Award for a 10 – 15 min TV/film drama. Megan Schaffner: 2 poems, Poetry Matters 14. Anne Shimmins: Reader, Republic Bar & Café, April. Kate Tongs: Poem, The Mozzie, Jan/Feb. Karen Wilson: Review of Fatherless Daughters, April Clanicle.

FAW Library

We sincerely thank the donor of Top 20 Poems of 2011 [Cricket Poetry Award, 2011] added recently.

See Robyn Mathison at meetings or phone her on 6234 4418 (after 2 pm) about borrowing material.

FAW Tasmania NW Branch

The Branch meets at the Catholic Church meeting room, Alexandra Rd, Ulverstone on the second Wednesday of each month, at 2 pm in winter and at 7.30 pm in the months of daylight saving. Meetings are open to anyone interested in writing in any form. Enquiries: The Secretary. PO Box 538, Ulverstone 7315, email fawtas@ or visit

.

Competitions

Please note that Normal Competition Conditions are listed on our website .au

Always make out cheques or postal orders exactly as shown in competition guidelines.

May 25th: Bundaberg Poets’ Society Inc 2012 Bush Lantern Award for bush verse of no more than 100 lines, on an Australian theme, with good rhyme and rhythm. 1st Prize Trophy + $200; 2nd Certificate + $100; 3rd Certificate + $75. Entry Fee: $8 per poem or $20 for 3 poems. Full conditions are on the entry form, which is essential and available (with SSAE) from Bundaberg Poets’ Society Inc, PO Box 4281, Bundaberg South Qld 4670 or by email from leesjdsl@.au or blanata@.au

June 13th: FAW Tasmania NW Branch Poetry Competition for an open-theme poem up to 48 lines. Prize $50. Entry fee $5. Entries to be typed in 12 pt. font, 1.5 or double-spaced. on A4 page. Only the title to appear on manuscript. Enclose cover sheet with name and address and title of poem. Send to FAW TAS NW Branch, PO Box 538, Ulverstone TAS 7315.

June 30th: FAW Tasmania Iris Milutinovic Award for an original, unpublished short story between 1500 and 3000 words, depicting an event with realism and good characterisation. 1st Prize $200; 2nd $100; 3rd $50. Normal conditions apply. Entry fee: $5 per story. Please make cheques or money orders payable to FAW Tasmania Inc. Send entries to FAW Tasmania Inc, PO Box 234, North Hobart TAS 7002.

June 30th: FAW Tasmania 2012 Poetry Prize, open to all Australian writers, is for a poem of up to 60 lines. 1st Prize: $150; Runner-up: $50. Work must be original, unpublished and must not have won a prize in any other competition. Please type work in 12 point plain font, single-spaced on white A4 paper. Only the title is to appear on the poem, On a separate sheet give author’s name and address and title/s of work entered. Entry fee is $5 per poem. Please make cheques or money orders payable to FAW Tasmania Inc and send to FAW Tasmania Inc, PO Box 234, North Hobart TAS 7002.

June 30th: FAW NSW Manly and Peninsula Branch Cyril Bentley Short Story Award for a story to 2500 words; Betty Bennell Poetry Award for traditional or free verse to 30 lines and Article Award for an article to 800 words. Prizes: Short Story 1st $150; 2nd $50 + HC and Commended Certificates; Poetry & Article 1st $50; 2nd $25 + HC and Commended Certificates. Entry fees: Story $10 (each story will receive 3 lines of constructive criticism from the judge); Poetry & Article $6 or 4 for $20. No entry form required. No names to appear on manuscripts. Enclose cover sheet with each entry with category, author’s name, address, email address and phone numbers and statement that entry is original, unpublished, has not received any other award and is not under consideration elsewhere or in any other competition. Entries must be typed double-spaced (except poetry) in Times New Roman 12 or 14 point font on one side of A4 paper. Include SSAE for results sheet and comments. Entries will be destroyed after judging. Make cheques / money orders payable to FAW Manly and Peninsula Branch. Post entries to The Competition Secretary, FAW Manly and Peninsula Branch, PO Box 241, Manly NSW 1655.

June 30th: FAWNS Vibrant Verse Poetry Competition for unpublished work that has not won a prize and is not submitted elsewhere. Category A: Free verse. Category B: Traditional, rhymed or structured verse. Both categories: Maximum 60 lines, open theme. Prizes: 1st $200; 2nd $100. Entry fee: $5 per poem, cheques/money orders payable to Fellowship of Australian Writers North Shore Branch. No entry form required. Include cover sheet showing title, category, line count and author’s name and contact details. Work must be typed in 12 point plain font, single-spaced on one side of A4 paper. Author’s name must not appear on the work. Send entries to Competition Convenor, 5 Clement St, Strathfield South NSW 2136. Enclose DL-size SSAE for results and judge’s report. Enquiries: email fawnorthshore@ or go to FAWNS website

June 30th: Elyne Mitchell Rural Women’s Writing Award for a short story up to 2500 words on the theme of ‘Leaping Into the Future’. Categories: Emerging (women and girls aged 12 – 18 years) 1st Prize; $500. Open: (women aged over 18 years) 1st Prize: $1000. All shortlisted authors receive a bookpack from Harper Collins Publishers. Fee: $10 per entry. Full terms and conditions

July 27th: Mudgee Valley Writers 13th Biennial Competition Two categories: Open; and Novice, for an author who has not won a monetary prize in any other competition Two sections in each category: short story to 2000 words and rhyming poetry to 60 lines. Entries: $5 per entry, or $12 for three. Prizes in all sections: 1st $200; 2nd $50 + Highly commended and Commended Certificates. Full guidelines on the entry form, available with SSAE from PO Box 356, Mudgee NSW 2850 or by email from jillb@.au

An anthology of winning entries may be produced. Complimentary copies will be sent to writers of published stories and poems. Copies at $12 (including postage) can also be ordered with entries.

August 31st: Cricket Poetry Award for a poem of no more than 150 words, in any genre, that depicts life in and around the game and sport of cricket, in settings of backyard, street, beach, park, village green or social cricket. One entry only per competitor. Entry fee: $20, payable to Publishers’ Cup Inc. Details and entry form (essential) are available with SSAE from Cricket Poetry Award, Suite 23, 53 O’Brien St, Bondi Beach NSW 2026 or from cricket-poetry-award/entry-2012

September 30th: FAWNS Super Short Story Competition for original, unpublished work that hasn’t won a prize and is not on offer elsewhere. Category A: Super Short Story. Category B: Memoir. Both categories: 700 words maximum. Prizes: 1st $200; 2nd $100. Fee: $5 per entry. Make cheques/ money orders payable to Fellowship of Australian Writers North Shore Branch. Work is to be typed, double-paced, on one side of A4 paper, with no clip art or decoration. Author’s name must not appear on the work. No entry form. On separate sheet give category, title, word count and author’s name and contact details. Include DL-size SSAE for results. Send to Competition Convenor, 5 Clement St, Strathfield South NSW 2136. Enquiries: fawnorthshore@ or FAWNS website

November 11th, 2012: 100 Years from Gallipoli Poetry Project Competition for new poems by female poets based on the proposition that: Behind every war there are good women.

November 11th, 2013: 100 Years from Gallipoli Poetry Project Prize for new poems written between Remembrance Days Friday, November 11th, 2011 and Monday, November 11th, 2013. Entry form is essential; entry fee is $20 per poem. Total prizemoney is $5000 and prize-winning poems will be published in the Project’s publication. Full details for both the competition and prize are on website or available with SSAE from Co-ordinating Editor, 100 Years from Gallipoli Poetry Project, PO Box 170, Deloraine TAS 7304.

Opportunities

100 Years from Gallipoli Poetry Project aims to use new poetry by today’s poets to illustrate the diversity of current views about Australia’s and New Zealand’s commemorations of military history. A publication of 200 poems – 100 newly written, unpublished poems and 100 older poems – will be produced. In addition a competition, 100 Years from Gallipoli Poetry Project Prize will be conducted. Full details are on the website or are available with SSAE from the Co-ordinating Editor, PO Box 170, Deloraine TAS 7304. Ph 6362 4390.

Bedtime Stories: Australian Women online seek short stories for children to be published – four each month – on the website, for free download to be read to children, or for children to read. They will pay $100 for each story used. Details on

Cedric’s Wall online magazine seeks previously unpublished poetry, fiction, essays or graphics by Tasmanian writers aged 12 – 25. They should send a short biography, saying where in Tasmania they live. Copyright remains with authors or artists for work published. There will be no payment. Send submissions to Ralph Wessman at cedricswall@.au

Eucalypt: a tanka journal: Submissions of up to 6 tanka close on March 31st and September 30th each year. Include a statement that your work is original, unpublished, not broadcast and not under consideration elsewhere. Send with ssae to Beverley George PO Box 37 Pearl Beach NSW 2256 or email to editor@.

History Magazine, the quarterly journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, accepts and pays for freelance articles, fillers, interviews, reviews and cartoons. Contact first by phone (02) 9247 8001 or email history@.au. Information on .au

Magabala Books Indigenous publishing house seeks manuscripts and art works from Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander writers, storytellers, artists and graphic designers. Magabala publishes a range of genres, traditional and contemporary, particularly memoirs, social history, young adult fiction and children’s stories. Submission guidelines from or Jacqui Wright on 08 9192 1991.

.Positive Words Magazine offers monthly challenges. Prize is publication + a six-month subscription. Poetry & prose submissions on any theme are also welcome at any time. Send (with ssae) to the Editor Sandra James PO Box 798, Heathcote VIC 3523. Send $2.40 in unused stamps for a sample copy.

Studio welcomes unsolicited submissions of poetry up to 100 lines; short stories, literary articles and other prose up to 3,000 words; letters and reviews. Payment is a complimentary copy of the issue in which work appears. Send with ssae to Studio, 727 Peel Street, Albury NSW 2640.

Windfall: Australian Haiku Contribution is restricted to Australian poets. The submission period is restricted to June 30th – July 31st each year. Acceptance will be notified by August 31st. Please head all submissions with your name, postal address and date of submission, together with a statement that the submitted haiku are original, unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere. You may submit up to 10 haiku per issue, but only 2 – 3 haiku by an individual poet will be selected for any given issue. The editor and publisher are seeking haiku that are relevant to the experience of urban and rural life in Australia and that celebrate landform, seasons and/or Australia’s unique flora and fauna. Submit unpublished haiku to Beverley George, PO Box 37, Pearl Beach NSW 2256 or email to beverleygeorge@ with Windfall and your name in the subject line.

Events

* Tuesday, May 1st: 7– 9 pm Bellerive Community Arts Centre, Eastern Shore Writers.

* Friday, May 4th: 5.30 pm Hobart Bookshop, launch of Warwick Morgan’s That’s Too Tough to Lose.

* Sunday, May 6th: 3 – 5 pm Republic Bar & Café Reading featuring Gina Mercer.

* Wednesday, May 9th: 2 pm Catholic Church Meeting Room, Ulverstone, FAW NW Branch meeting.

* Thursday, May 10th: 5.30 pm Hobart Bookshop, launch of Sally Wise’s Sweets.

* Saturday, May 12th: 2 pm Friends’ Meeting House, FAW Meeting.

* Wednesday, May 16th: 5.30 pm Hobart Bookshop, Famous Reporter launch.

* Tuesday, May 22nd – Sunday May 27th: 6.30 pm Sidespace Gallery, Fiona Stewart show.

* Thursday, May 24th: 5.30 pm Hobart Bookshop, launch of John Biggs’ Towards Forgiveness.

* Sunday, May 27th: 3 pm Hobart Bookshop, launch of Alison Lester’s Sophie Scott Goes South.

* Sunday, June 3rd: 3 – 5 pm Republic Bar & Café Open Reading with prizes.

4 pm Hobart Bookshop, Eve Masterman Peace Poetry Prize presentation.

* Tuesday, June 5th: 7 – 9 pm Bellerive Community Arts Centre, Eastern Shore Writers.

* Saturday, June 9th: 2 pm Friends’ Meeting House, FAW Gwen Harwood Poetry/Philosophy Lecture.

* Wednesday, June 13th: 2 pm Catholic Church meeting room, Ulverstone, FAW NW Branch meeting.

Hobart Bookshop

22 Salamanca Square gives FAW members 10% discount on all purchases.

Email hobooks@.au to be placed on their list for regular notices of events.

Deadline for July/August Tascribe is Friday, June 15th. Send news and credits to the postal address.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download