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Aiming for Zero Food Waste

This image is part of a series by photographer Steven Duade. He finds beauty in his compost like the people in this article.

Most people know that organic waste has the potential to become productive, fertile soil if treated in the correct way. What you may not know is that over 60% of our landfill is organic waste. If left to rot in landfill, it creates methane gas which is a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than C02. Managing food waste is a problem which some innovative companies like the Yume app, Spade & Barrow and City Harvest are addressing on a large scale.

Initiatives such as the Yume app put consumers and community organisations in touch with restaurants who have left over food to eat. This reduces the amount of quality food going into waste systems in restaurants. Spade and Barrow aims to reduce waste at the farm by selling produce which does not fit the aesthetic standards for supermarkets.

City Harvest is an initiative helping the restaurant industry aim for zero food waste. Using organic composting machines, they convert food waste from the restaurant industry into fertile compost. This compost is then delivered to urban gardens which can then sell produce back to the restaurants. These urban gardens also offer disadvantaged youth the opportunity to gain valuable skills and horticultural certificates.

Executive Officer of City Harvest, Joshua Benjamin, says that “their motivation was to change the way we think about 'waste', and show people how easily food can be turned into a resource through composting. In addition to this was the desire to increase green spaces in the city, encourage local food production and help the disadvantaged members of our community by providing education and training opportunities.”

“Their motivation was to change the way we think about 'waste', and show people how easily food can be turned into a resource through composting"

Kinfolk Café is a social enterprise and prides itself of donating all its profits to two Australian charities - The Cathy Freeman Foundation and Urban Seed. Composting is an issue that has been on the cards for a long time, but there were always obstacles to overcome.

They’re now composting in collaboration with City Harvest and their neighbours at The Savoy Tavern, who have invested in an organic recycling unit by Closed Loop that reduces the volume of food waste by 90 per cent in a 24-hour period.

General Manager at Kinfolk, Jarrod Briffa, says “We’ve been wanting to compost our food waste for years now, but operating out of the city, and in a large building with its own waste management system, has made it impossible.” The last time the café tried to implement composting it wasn’t a success. “To try and start a good habit, we went through a stage of collecting our food scraps in a compost bin. But we didn’t have anywhere to put the scraps, so we were just binning it in the general waste!”

The practicalities of composting in the city makes it very difficult. Briffa says “The body corporate of the building were worried about rats and the smell that a composting system would generate.”

“It wasn’t until we were able to collaborate with our neighbours at The Savoy Tavern that we could implement the City Harvest System and start composting properly” he said.

“It wasn’t until we were able to collaborate with our neighbours at The Savoy Tavern that we could implement the City Harvest System and start composting properly”

Other restaurants have had great success with the system. Benjamin says that “there are a number of key benefits of composting for food service businesses – environmental, economic and social. Of course, there is the major environmental benefit of diverting food waste from landfill. Given the amount of food waste generated in preparation and in service, restaurateurs find their general waste bills and collection reduce dramatically. For example, Maria Bortolotto, owner of Cecconi's Flinders Lane, says her restaurant has reduced their food waste bills by 65% and 75% reduction in food waste collections since they began composting. Other restaurants believe they have reduced their general waste production and collection by 90%.”

The key for implementing the system in Melbourne will be collaboration with neighbouring restaurants and the cooperation of the Melbourne City Council. In the CBD, where space is at a premium, it will often be necessary for neighbours to share their composting systems. It is important that council regulation allows for these systems to be installed safely and cost-effecively.

City Harvest has been in talks with the City of Melbourne over the last year and Benjamin says that “they have been really supportive about what we are trying to achieve.” He says that there are a few ways which the city council can help support initiatives like this including “promoting the cause, providing subsidies/incentives for onsite composting units so all businesses can participate, and providing collection service for food waste (as they do with household green waste)”

With restaurants collaborating and the city council on board, Briffa says “I’m looking forward to customers seeing their food scraps turned into a little bag of good, healthy soil for sale in the café.” He says that hopefully, this will help to start the conversation and inspire other hospitality organisations to do things a bit differently.

This article was written for Donkey Wheel House Events, see the original here.

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The Last Ice Age

A still from SBS documentary Struggle Street (Image source)

The US ‘war on drugs’ was announced in 1971 and has influenced drug-related government policy around the world. It seemed back then that the drug most feared was heroin, but now we are ushering in a new age – the Ice Age. It is straining our health system and something needs to be done quickly.

Controversial SBS documentary, Struggle Street, has placed ice usage in an uncomfortable spotlight. Public discourse has been heated about whether the documentary has been damaging or enlightening. Either way, it has opened discussions about ice addiction in Australia.

The attitudes to the ‘war on drugs’ have changed over the years as well. In April this year, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on 3AW “It’s not a war we will ever finally win. The war on drugs is a war you are going to lose. You may not ever win it, but you’ve always got to fight it.” In light of these comments, as always, the question is, where do you spend government money and how much? On May 5, the Victorian Government unveiled a $45.5 million strategy outlining their plan for tackling the ice problem.

For a bit of background, ice is a stimulant causing the user to lose their appetite and stay awake and alert sometimes for days at a time. It can be either smoked or injected and induces a euphoric rush which is dangerously addictive.

In Victoria, the drug is readily available, cheap and high in purity which makes it highly desirable on the street. It is now second only to heroin in overdose deaths in Victoria. From 2011-12 to 2012-13, there was an 88% increase in Melbourne ice related emergency call-outs.

The public discourse is raging, the experts have weighed in on the news, the government is vowing to fight. What about the people who experience the effects of the drug first hand? To get a better picture of the day-to-day effects that ice is having on the broader community, I spoke to some of the people on the front line.

In the community

Paige Mongomery is a Registered Psychiatric Nurse and Community Clinician who works an adult mental health service in the western suburbs of Melbourne. She makes home visits and assesses the mental health of people in the local community. She says that the risk factors for nurses have noticeably increased in the last few years. There are “more regularly entering unpredictable environments fueled by addiction, crime, violence and aggression. Essentially, this has made colleagues and myself more anxious working in the community because we are worried about how a client may present… Basically, the job has become increasingly more risk orientated.”

She said that the increased ice use has placed strain on the already stretched emergency services in her area. She said she regularly makes use of “emergency services such as police and ambulance… because community mental health clinicians do not have the adequate resources or training necessary to treat and deescalate ice affected individuals and situations at times.”

Montgomery says that ice has put much more pressure on the mental health system because it can induce psychosis in a person who has no biological history of mental illness or contact with mental health services. She said that “ice intoxication can cause a severe deterioration in mental state” in an otherwise ordinary person. “[Ice] induced psychosis is the main effect we see, were clients present with disorders of perception, express paranoid and persecutory delusions, and at times changes in behaviour, usually agitation and aggression.”

Sadly, ice usage also has long lasting effects on the broader community as well as the individual. Montgomery says “Often we see the negative effects ice has on factors such as relationships, employment and income, housing and increased crime rates.”

Intensive Care Units (ICU)

ICU is where the most acutely unwell patients are treated. Rischenda Greaves is a Psychiatric Nurse at a western suburbs hospital in Melbourne. She says that “roughly 80- 90% of our clients have a substance use problem as well as a mental illness. We call it dual diagnosis. I work in the Midwest catchment area and there appears to be a large influx of ice related presentations, larger than any other area I've worked…”

According to Greaves, ice is overtaking heroin in dangerousness. The affordability and availability of ice has increased dramatically over the last few years. “Ice is just so much easier to access than any other drug at the moment... That's what a lot of drug consumers say.”

Hospitals in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne are greatly affected by ice usage. Greaves says that “a study happening at the moment has yielded a stat of 1/3 of psychiatric admissions to Sunshine Hospital are ice related… I guess they just get so high and the symptoms mimic psychosis and therefore they appear unwell.”

The effect of ice patients in psychiatric wards has a damaging effect on the health and wellbeing of Psychiatric nurses as well. Greaves says that “nurses have the potential to burn out too which is concerning.”  She says that her day-to-day life “has become quite intense and stressful as the patient turnover is quite high as well. There have been a few assaults that I have witnessed and others that are adding to that stats.”

It is also having a major effect on perceptions of mental health issues in the wider community “I fear it's adding to stigma surrounding mental illness and associating aggression and violent behavior with mentally I'll people. Most of the time, mental health consumers are not aggressive… but ice users and their three days of psychotic behaviour [are] often very hostile and aggressive.” She also said that the process of coming down and withdrawing from the drug is horrific. The way people behave during this period of time puts a big red mark against other people with mental health issues.

Solutions

Experts are divided on how to tackle the problem, but the major focus seems to be prevention. Mongomery and Greaves both agree that ice usage is an increasing problem in the mental health sector. Montgomery suggests that early education is the first step to tackling this enormous issue, saying “drug use is sometimes a maladaptive coping strategy, therefore an emphasis on positive coping techniques from a young age is imperative.” On the other hand, Greaves stresses the importance of funding for public rehabilitation centers.

I have collated their suggestions into a list in order of importance below:

- Education; In both primary and secondary education. With a focus on the effects and risks associated with this dangerous drug.

- Increased funding into ice awareness and prevention at a national level.

- More funding for public rehabilitation centres; the harsh truth is the demographic being most effected by ice are the disadvantaged. Rehab is expensive and frequently out of reach for members of this demographic.  

The government strategy includes all of these suggestions and more but the funding allocation is slightly misaligned with the mental health workers’ priorities.

The largest misalignment of priorities seems to be the TV advertising campaign. Montgomery and Greaves both point to education in schools as the most important. Their second suggestion was a national ice awareness campaign. However, experts have warned that a more nuanced awareness campaign may be needed. The ABC reported that TV advertisements can normalise drug usage. It can also lead to the perception that the drug is more common and acceptable than it really is.

Premier Daniel Andrews claims that the new funding will allow the state to care for 500 more ice-affected patients in the next year, telling ABC news that “80,000 Victorians used ice in the last year.” These are huge numbers and will require a significant amount of funding.

The government will establish an ‘Ice Hotline’ for friends and family to contact for help. It will provide specialised counselling services for community members affected by ice. Some of the work for frontline mental health workers will be covered by this hotline, alleviating some pressure on the health system. It will provide a first point of contact for community members. The challenge here will be to promote the hotline and make sure its purpose is accurately conveyed.

However, $4.5 million has been reserved for mobilising specialised task forces to crack down on drug cartels. This is a large amount of money for something that the mental health community has not even listed in their suggested solutions.

According to the ABC, Premier Andrews is promising new laws to protect mental health practitioners from ice-related crime. Hopefully this will include funding for legal support and counselling for our nurses, paramedics and police, but details have not been released yet.

Our mental health practitioners will need an increasing amount of support in the coming years. They will be the ones acting on the government’s action plan. The long lasting effects of this drug can be crippling and we will need our emergency services and mental health practitioners to be in their best health to deal with this on-going problem.

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Winchester Books

Winchester is the old capital of England, and it is a very sweet village. It is home to the oldest public school in England as well as the largest gothic cathedral. Strict building codes mean that the architecture is very traditional throughout the village. 

The villages surrounding Winchester love to link their histories to Jane Austen. When I visited South Hampton, I found a plaque dedicated to the pub in which Austen celebrated her 18th birthday. However, Austen's final home is located in Winchester. It is owned privately and is not open for viewing, but I was able to visit the tomb of Jane Austen in the Winchester Cathedral.

The beautiful, clear River Itchen flows through the village. The romantic poet John Keats walked along the banks of the River Itchen during his stay in Winchester from August to October in 1819. He composed "To Autumn" about his time there.

The bookstore P&G Wells is located down a quiet road, between the 600 year old Winchester College and Jane Austen's home. It supplies school books to the primary and secondary schools in the area, which is an excellent position for a bookstore. 

It has beautiful stained glass windows and a wood interior. There were several people chatting and buying books while I was visiting.

Another in the village was the very cute Kingsgate Books and Prints. As the name suggests, the store was located in the remains of the original stone wall. As well as selling new and second hand books, it also sells work by local artists. 

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Book Review: We Are Not The Same Anymore by Chris Somerville

Debut Review is a monthly column that I write for the Emerging Writers' Festival, looking at the debut books by Australian writers.

Somerville really shows off the strengths of the short story form in his debut book, We Are Not The Same Anymore. The stories reflect on loneliness, loss and longing in a quiet and intelligent way. The humour is gentle and embedded in the moments when the reader experiences familiarity with the characters situation.

The characters seem to inhabit the same world, and it is conceivable that they might cross paths during their stories. Each of the characters is dealing with something in a private manner but seem to be on the edge of breakdown. Often they have been let down by a family member, drifted away from a romantic relationship, or been abandoned.

The stories are self-contained windows into people’s lives, but together they form a cohesive whole. To propel the reader through the stories, they accelerate in urgency and slowly detach from reality. It seems to follow the trajectory of someone on the verge of collapse.

The first stories are sweet and tense. In Earthquake, we meet an eccentric father who is bewildered by cargo pants and names his dog Michael.  Snow on the Mountain brings a 35-year-old woman and her younger neighbour together on a car trip to collect firewood. There is suddenly a real risk of exposure when the woman sprains her ankle and she unable to walk very far in the snow. Even more devastatingly, she is at risk of exposure when she moves to hold her companion’s hand but is quietly rejected.

The later stories begin to feel more surreal. The quiet melancholy is punctuated by vivid and sometimes violent images. A man’s reflection in a television screen starts to have a mind of its own, a son wordlessly keys his father’s car and a woman imagines biting down through her wine glass. The final story is called Drowning Man in which onlookers watch a man drown and a classroom full of children is swept away in a flood.

Somerville is versatile in his ability to create narrators. They range in age group and gender, but always feel familiar and natural. He is able to express the vulnerability of the characters as they attempt to navigate everyday life. Their inability to cope with these ordinary situations is often internalised and potentially dangerous. I would love to see Somerville further explore these themes and style in the future.

Chris Somerville was born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1984 and now lives in Queensland. In 2003 he won the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Awards and in 2009 he was shortlisted for the Queensland Premiers Literary Awards, Emerging Author category. His short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, includingVoiceworks, The Lifted Brow, Paper Radio, Islet and Stilts. He has taught in the creative writing programs at both Griffith University and the University of Queensland.

(Image source)

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Book Review: An Elegant Young Man by Luke Carman

Debut Review is a monthly column that I write for the Emerging Writers’ Festival, looking at the debut books by Australian writers.

At the EWF Writers Conference this year, Luke Carman read an excerpt of An Elegant Young Man as part of his Sweatshop performance. Afterwards, everyone wanted to know who that crazy speed reader was. All of the readers were exceptionally good, and Carman had a particularly strong voice. He reads in a distinctive voice at a frantic pace. The words rush past you and you have to feel the atmosphere and aesthetics of the story rather than try and analyse the details. Throughout the performance, the audience would frequently laugh in surprise when they realise, a beat too late, what Carman had just said. As soon as they understood what he had said, he was already half way through the next sentence.

Later in the day, Carman was on a panel called What We Talk About When We Talk About Voice. Although his earlier performance was startlingly good, he said ‘I got into this writing thing because I don’t like speaking.’ He believes that his writing is the full realisation of his work, but the reading is part of it. He said ‘The performance is a version of it, but there is supposed to be more work on the page.’ Luke says that a strong voice comes from writing, and it comes from a writing about a strong character. At Sweatshop, he says they talk about coming to voice as a revolutionary act. He jokes that the reason he reads so fast is because he wants to get off the stage.

The performance enhanced the reading experience. I was seduced into reading the book at the same speed at which Carman performed it, which was pretty exhausting. It caused me to savour the book over the course of a few days, reading it in bursts on the tram.

The book is semi-autobiographical, and is written in first person as Luke Carman. The chapters form little vignettes and play out as a series of short stories.  You get a distinct sense of atmosphere as the main character negotiates his way through the western suburbs of Sydney. He is a quiet, thoughtful young man who sometimes just wants to stay home and read Whitman and Kerouac. He refers to Dylan Thomas by first name and hangs out with his imaginary friend, Tom. The rest of the time, he is surrounded by the simmering violence of Liverpool. As a narrator, our hero is very sensitive to the dynamics surrounding him. He analyses the people around him with a sort of detachment, which allows the reader to insert the familiar cultural imagery.

Carman carves out a very distinctive personality for Western Sydney. While the protagonist is at home in the west, he ventures to other places. At one point, he finds himself in the inner city and surrounded by yuppies and later, he ventures to the outback with his girlfriend. This allows the reader to make a comparison between the three Australian landscapes from the point of view of the same character.

This is a brilliant introduction of Western Sydney to the literary culture of Australia. It builds an image of a place which is familiar but new, presenting the characters with a restless energy and an intensely strong voice.

Watch the Sweatshop performance at the Writers Conference 2013 here.

Watch the trailer for An Elegant Young Man here.

Luke Carman self-identifies as an anti-folk monologist working in epi-grammatical short fiction. He hails from the Sydney suburb of Liverpool and his work has haunted the journals HEAT, Westside and Cultural Studies Review.

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Interview: Boatfriends on songwriting, 80′s nostalgia and epic ninja fight scenes

How do you bring a song from conception to realisation? Do you work collaboratively or solo?

Shanna and I have a pretty cool songwriting process in which she shall show (or email) me a riff or 2, or some other kind of basic skeletal idea and I’ll then spend a bazillion hours on piecing a song out of it. I like to think this of this process as the Mr Squiggle technique 

 I’ll then send the song back to her for lyrics and critique etc. Followed by more to-ing and fro-ing.

How do the words and music interact in your songwriting?

The lyrical side of Boatfriends is predominantly Shanna’s domain. There’s generally a nice melding of the lyrical content and the music’s “vibe”. It’s exciting, however, to have my own vague idea of a lyrical idea or theme but then to receive something completely different from Shanna that’s thematically and melodically much better than my idea.

What skills should emerging songwriters try and develop?

The discipline to get out of bed at 4am and somehow record the melody you’ve woken up with from that dream where it’s the “best song in the world”. I failed to do that just the other week and it took me a few days to live it down.

What inspires you to create songs? Do you have particular songwriters or books that inspire you creatively?

With Boatfriends in particular, I often try to “summon” some of the earliest memories I possibly can and try to somehow translate that into sound. Perhaps that’s a kind of cliche thing to do as a musician but it’s a nice way to reconnect those neural pathways and remember things you may have otherwise forgot. That’s my excuse for my part in the whole 80′s nostalgia trip that’s been so popular in the last few years anyway.

As far as songwriters or books, I honestly and quite shamefully have barely immersed myself into anything new and inspiring and I 100% blame HBO. I guess my new songs are inevitably going feature a whole lot of references to meth labs and gang warfare.

Do you refresh your songwriting by traveling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

Oh how I would love to be able to afford to travel, even just a drive down to Torquay for the day, but alas, I’m a struggling artist and sometimes I can’t even top up my myki. :/ So, yeah, I guess I stay in one place.

What are you working on writing at the moment?

I feel as though I’ve already spent so much of the past 8 years in a creative mindset and lifestyle and that I’ve accumulated so much work that now is just time to realise that work and get it out to the world. So unfortunately there’s very little writing going on of late, however in saying that, I just spent this morning working on beats for a track from the forthcoming The Book Of Ships album, which I play bass and write the odd beat for.

Are you involved in any other writing projects? We would love to hear about them!

I’m involved with a project with Brett Adrien from Post Paint (Sydney) called Bad Man. It’s probably not really classed as “writing” as such, it’s more a remixing/re-interpreting of a really, really so-bad-but-so-awesome B Grade Ninja/Cop movie made in the 70′s/80′s called Silver Dragon Ninja. We slice up epic ninja fight scenes and make gnarly hip-hop infused audio/visual mash-ups. It’s pretty fun and hilarious most of the time. Some of the tracks are quite dark and brooding, which just adds to the hilarity of the acting. We’re yet to perform this project live but we’re looking forward to it!

Boatfriends are a Melbourne based outfit who feature in our Hobart Roadshow daily wrapup films. Founding members Clinton Edwards and Shanna Watson have already shared the stage with Neon Indian, Chet Faker, An Horse and Collarbones and recently added drummer Sam Peterson to their ranks. They’ve just released their debut EP and their single ‘Hands Up To The Light’ and closing track “Sport Billy” have been lauded by music blogs ‘the Ripe’, ‘Indie Shuffle’ and ‘Who The Hell’ and given high praise by JJJ. A clear indication this dream-wave trio is definitely a band to watch.

EP available at iTunes and Bandcamp

Read this article on the Emerging Writers’ Festival blog.

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Book Review: What Was Left by Eleanor Limprecht

Debut Review is a monthly column on the Emerging Writers’ Festival blog by me, looking at debut books by Australian writers.

Rachel was not prepared for this version of motherhood. Her mothers’ group is a space where mothers can only talk about the positive experiences of motherhood. They constantly proclaim the harms of feeding your baby formula, and the other mothers seem to hold each other to impossibly high standards. The competitive nature of the other mothers intimidates and alienates Rachel. She also feels like she cannot talk to her husband about the mounting pressure and increasing feeling of suffocation. On top of this, she is in constant physical pain caused by a broken tail bone during childbirth. All of these experiences are frightening for Rachel, but nothing compares to the fact that she feels as though she cannot control the violent, intrusive thoughts about her baby girl, Lola.

Feeling trapped, Rachel abruptly leaves her baby and husband to visit India and then seek her estranged father in Germany. Adding to her feelings of being an inadequate mother, she must now deal with the fact that she has just abandoned her baby. The deserting mother is treated as one of society’s greatest moral degenerates, and Rachel struggles with this perceived burden. Rachel simultaneously needs Lola in her life, but is stifled by her. Although she is aware that she is viewed as a villain by many people, there are other people who understand that she is sick and needs help to get better. The novel skilfully deals with the complex relationship a parent can have with their own identity and with their child.

In India, Rachel meets a young man called Eli in a hostel. He says he can help her find what she’s looking for, and steers Rachel towards Germany. Although he is a supporting character, he has a strong personality and serves an important role in the development of Rachel’s character. He provides Rachel with the opportunity to make some very important decisions about her life. The main plot is interwoven with the story of Rachel’s parents, Judy and Gunther. Judy was a strong and intelligent mother who worked towards her PhD while Gunther stayed at home to look after Rachel. Devastatingly, when Rachel was six years old, Gunther left the country and did not return. The two stories mirror each other in many ways, and build a picture of family legacy and individuality. As Rachel learns more about her parents, she unravels a story of secrets and white lies. Here, an interesting dynamic is added to the novel.

The novel looks at the consequences of telling the truth, and trying to develop your identity in the context of family legacy. This is an impressive first novel, dealing with very serious issues of mental health, family and identity. The few characters are all complex and flawed and convincingly human. The novel is written with understanding and empathy for the difficulties of parenthood. Limprecht works towards humanising mothers who struggle with the pressure of bringing a new life into the world while hanging on to their own identity.

Eleanor Limprecht is enrolled in a Doctorate of Creative Arts in Writing at UTS, Sydney. She is in the process of completing her second novel, a work of historical fiction inspired by the story of a woman who was charged with manslaughter in 1909 and convicted to serve three years at the Long Bay Women’s Reformatory.

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EWF Hobart Roadshow Interviews - Susie Greenhill

I spoke to Tasmanian writer Susie Greenhill ahead of the Emerging Writers’ Festival Hobart Roadshow.

What skills do you think emerging writers should try to develop?

I think if you love what you do the most fundamental skills are intuitive – read, write – though it’s possible to forget to do both sometimes, and become pre-occupied with the  idea of just ‘being’ a writer. As well as a source of inspiration, reading for me is about being part of a kind of vast, nebulous conversation. And while there’s no reason to let it restrict or even guide you, it’s helpful to understand the context you’re writing in when you’re creating work which you want to be read, particularly if there’s any kind of political edge to your writing.

The skill I most struggle with is the ability to write freely in stolen moments and less-than-perfect places – trying to conjure the muse in the rare minutes when my little daughter lets go of my leg. I think that writerly ideal of being locked in an attic with a notebook and an unbroken expanse of time is very rare. Even the most successful writers often need to fit their art around the demands of a career, a family, relationships, study – demands which tend to grow rather than dissipate. So developing the discipline to write when you just don’t feel like writing is pretty important. Sometimes (often) it’s hopeless, but you can occasionally be surprised.

Also, be brave and try to tell the stories that need to be told, go to the places you least want to go.

Where was your favourite place growing up?

My parents’ yacht, Moonbird. A 27 ft Eventide smelling of turps and varnish. On the water there was endless time to read – in the cabin by the light of a fish handled lamp, or in a hammock strung between mast and bow. We loved her, and she took us to indescribably beautiful places. I can still remember sitting in the dinghy clinging to her rails on the night she was sold.

Do you refresh your writing by travelling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

I’ve always been quite restless. I’ve lived overseas and interstate and find movement and change do inspire stories, but in a sense they tend to be other people’s stories. For the past few years we’ve travelled very little. We have a small house by the sea and I do think there’s something incomparable about staying still – knowing a place intimately – that can be incredibly valuable to a writer. All those details and that experiential knowledge, accumulated over time, which encourages a kind of fidelity to place and which no amount of research can replicate.

There’s also something about the simplicity of stillness. Not long ago I attended a workshop by Cate Kennedy and she spoke about that desire of new writers’ to write everything – to tell everything you know in one desperately over-crowded story. I think the intensely stimulating experience of travel tends to have that effect on me, and on my writing. But I’ll still always do it, given the chance.

What is happening in the Tasmanian literary scene at the moment?

I had my first short stories published in the month my daughter was born, and we live in quite a remote part of the island, so I’ve only really been on the periphery of the literary community here. There seem to be a handful of enthusiastic and generous emerging writers and editors who are trying to re-invigorate the scene here at present, and bridge some of the gaps that have developed over time, and I look forward to being a part of that.

Can you tell us a bit about your work which was published in the Review of Australian Fiction Volume 7: Issue2?

My most recent short story, ‘This Butterfly,’ was published by RAF as part of the Tasmanian edition, put together by Rachel Edwards. It’s about two young teenagers living in a London squat, and the kinds of hope and refuge they find in the old London Butterfly House.  It was paired with a story of Carmel Bird’s, who gave me some wonderful guidance and encouragement during the process of writing and after. I’ve always admired the RAF as a journal, and read it often, so it was a terrific project to be part of.

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart Roadshow?

I’ll be reading an airy, lyrical piece I’ve written about the song ‘Caterpillar Girl’ by The Cure, for The Lifted Brow’s Mixtape Memoirs. I’m nervous about the reading part as it’s not something I’ve done before, but I guess it’s something writers need to learn to do eventually. The actual writing has been great. Knowing the work will only exist for that one reading and will never be published is very liberating, and probably an experience I can learn from.  It’s also provided an opportunity for some delirious, four-year-old dancing.

Susie Greenhill is a Tasmanian writer who is working her way through a PhD’s worth of short fiction for Edith Cowan University. Her stories have been published by Island, Etchings, Review of Australian Fiction, 40 South,and in the e-book Women’s Work by Overland.

See this interview on the EWF blog.

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EWF Hobart Roadshow Interviews - Caitlin Richardson

I interviewed Caitlin Richardson, who co-runs the Tasmanian young and emerging writers group Twitch, about Twtich’s upcoming appearances at the Emerging Writers’ Festival Hobart Roadshow and how they support young writers. 

What skills do you think emerging writers should try and develop?

It’s such a basic thing, but what I’ve been trying to learn (or re-learn) recently is how to be focused on doing one thing at a time. Reading a book from beginning to end. Sitting down to write something without getting tempted to escape to the internet the second it gets too hard. I’m ashamed to admit this, but with so much going on at the click of a button, sometimes I feel like I’ve forgotten what it feels like to become truly absorbed in one single task. This really saddens me!  I don’t think this ailment is specific to young people, but I do think we’re particularly susceptible to being sucked into a vortex of internet procrastination. There are good things about digital communication don’t get me wrong, but it’s so easy to scan over a millions things without taking anything in.  I think completely switching off sometimes can be really worthwhile.

You spent a semester studying a Bachelor of Creative Writing in East Anglia, which is quite famous for its writing degree, what did you learn there?

I was feeling a bit restless in Hobart, and I thought I may as well take advantage of that and try studying elsewhere for a while. I’d heard that the Creative Writing school at UEA was really good, so I decided to apply there. It was a really bewildering and surprising trip for me. It made me realise that Tasmania isn’t as terribly out of touch with the world as we suspect, for one thing. In the first week I bought my reader and inside it I found a Gwen Harwood poem set in a Hobart park! And then MONA opened a week after I got home which felt like this kind of magnificent, symbolic conclusion to my adventure. At the same time, the intensity of being in a different place made me produce work that I don’t think I would’ve written here. That extra bit of anonymity emboldened me to try some different things. My classmates were a lovely, eclectic bunch- lots were international students too so we were all going through this strange, illuminating experience and had the chance to write about it, which was a pretty special thing. I got goosebumps all the time…from the cold mainly, but also from hearing and reading amazing, inspiring work.

Where was your favourite place growing up?

Probably Nan’s house at Christmas. It’s a little weatherboard place and the walls are green and the roof is red and Nan is an amazingly warm and generous person who always goes to so much effort- so it’s always been a really festive place. Going there for Christmas as a kid always made me shaky and sleepless with excitement.

What projects is the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre working on at the moment?

Twitch, the centre’s group for young writers, has been meeting up at various pubs and cafes around Hobart every second weekend, so we’ll be continuing with that over the next few months. We’ll hopefully have a book swap and some other end of year festivities soon too! As for the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre more generally, there are some collaborations with the TasPride Festival coming up in early November, including a series of readings and a workshop with some really talented people involved in the local arts scene, which should be fantastic.

Do you refresh your writing by travelling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

I feel really lucky to have been able to travelled a bit, and I think travelling can be great for exploring creative stuff- your senses are already sharpened in a way. At the same time, I don’t think travelling reveals everything. I realise now that you still carry your ‘baggage’ with you (as well as your actual bags…unless they got lost), no matter how distant your destination is. And people’s lives are weird and hilarious and confusing and heartbreaking in Dubai or Devonport and I think the heightened meaning we attach to travel experiences means that people can miss opportunities to unearth stories around them more locally. There is a lot of light and shade even within small, sparsely populated places like Tassie- I think writers who stay here have a lot of stories to draw on too.

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart Roadshow?

I’ll be going to the Digital Writers’ conference on Thursday, and the graphic novel event and… everything basically! There’s so much happening, it’s really exciting. Twitch is running an event with the Stilts collective from Melbourne on Saturday at one of my favourite Hobart venues, the Grand Poobah. There’ll be workshops and readings and a pitching session with some really fantastic people involved and it’s going to be really fun, so if you’re reading this, make sure you come along!

Caitlin Richardson finds humans endlessly fascinating and enjoys fuelling her enduring existential crisis by learning more about them. She studied English and Sociology at the University of Tasmania and is a co-convenor of the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre’s group for young writers, Twitch. Last year she wrote some plays as part of her English Honours project and she’s hoping to have them staged sometime in 2014.

Read the rest on the EWF blog.

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Book Review: Midnight Blue and Endlessly Tall by Jane Jervis-Reid

Debut Review is a monthly column on the Emerging Writers' Festival blog by me, looking at debut books by Australian writers.

At this year’s Emerging Writers’ Festival, Midnight Blue and Endlessly Tall by Jane Jervis Reid was announced as the winner of Xoum’s inaugural Viva La Novella Prize. The prize is run through the publishing house’s literary magazine, Seizure. The winning novella is a wonderful and sometimes unsettling study of relationships and leaving things unsaid.

The novella is about a middle-aged carer, Jessica, who is assigned to look after a beautiful and damaged young woman, Eloise. Their relationship takes them to unexpected territory as they discover the maze of events which brought them together. Their entanglement brings up ethical issues and questions of the boundaries of relationships.

Lonely but resilient, Jessica struggles to accept her husband’s departure. She knows the right things to say to her daughter to sound confident and comfortable. She can’t hide the hurt from her sensitive and intelligent daughter. Her daughter shows the same strength of character, and eventually shadows Jessica  in more ways than her mother would have guessed.

Eloise is a former academic, but now too ill to work. She lives at home, makes art and struggles to take care of herself. Although she is still charming, intelligent and argumentative, she lacks the skills to connect with other people and cope with the workings of her own mind. She is uninhibited and sometimes cruel and violent.

The characters of the mother, daughter and lover almost seem to be elements of one person. I felt like I could relate to elements of each of the characters. Perhaps the author was drawing from her experiences, separating them and projecting them onto the three characters.

Midnight Blue seems to be an exercise in leaving things unsaid. When Jessica’s daughter brings news, Jessica’s lips opened but no words came out and tears filled her eyes. The scene ends without further elaboration, and the reader must interpret the complex emotions which lead to Jessica’s tears. Explanations are deliberately withheld in order for the characters’ actions to speak for themselves. We are never told explicitly what Eloise’s mental illness is so the readers is required to experience her moods and behaviour as a part of her character.

It’s easy to see why the judges chose this winner. It is written with restraint and the characters are deep and well-formed. This debut novella is sweet and sad and leaves you wanting more, I look forward to reading more of Jervis’s work.

Jane Jervis-Read’s writing has been published in Overland, Eureka Street and Cordite Poetry Review. She lives on the Yarra River with three housemates, six goldfish and ten thousand flying foxes.

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EWF Hobart Roadshow Interviews - Adam Ouston

The countdown is on! Next Thursday, the Emerging Writers' Festival will be heading to Hobart to present the Hobart Roadshow. To celebrate Tasmanian literature, I have been interviewing writers, editors and comic artists. 

I interviewed Adam Ouston about writers’ festivals, Hobart’s literary collectives and the influence of music on his writing.

What skills should emerging writers try and develop?

I think the two most admirable (and often competing) traits of the best writers are discipline and attitude. Writing anything takes a long time and a great deal of effort: the inner exploration, getting the words down and then rearranging them. I find editing exhausting, like lugging blocks. This requires sustained motivation and commitment to yourself and the story. Nothing gets done without discipline – even, dare I say it, routine. As a kid I raced go-karts in Queensland, and all the old guys had a saying : There’s no substitute for bum in seat. Same goes for writing. (What is it with me and sitting down?) The other thing is attitude, having faith in your own voice and ideas and turning a critical eye on things you’re dissatisfied with. I think a lot of us write from a place of dissatisfaction, and it is important to allow that fire to come through. The writing itself then is an act of hope, even if it is simply the hope that we might be able to express our sense of injustice or inequality. Oh, and one more thing: meet people.

Do you refresh your writing by traveling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

Funny you should ask. I’m just about to head to Europe to ‘research’ my second novel. (Hint: ‘research’ means drinking with friends and staring out train windows.) I find travel important in articulating myself to myself. I mean that literally: actually being on the move. Not that I write then, but the ideas and the feeling of something happening come then. I write when I get back. I’ve just finished a PhD on Robert Dessaix’s travel writing, and his ideas of travel and home are so interwoven that his sense of stability comes from a place of instability. A feeling of home always involves a desire to hit the road. I think I gravitated towards his work because I share this feeling. Travel mirrors the strangeness of home. And the strangeness of home is one of the major imperatives for me to write.

You’ve written somewhat critically about writers’ festivals in the past, what do you think are the benefits of writers’ festivals?

Yes, I have been critical of writers’ festivals. But I am not opposed to them. I am critical of the way they seem to be vetting grounds for the uniformity and conservatism of the publishing industry here in Australia. At the same time they provide an excellent opportunity to meet people and see how and where your ideas fit. This, I think, is the key to attending a writers’ festival as a writer. (Attending as a reader is different, and perhaps far more enjoyable.) I’ve been to festivals and spoken to no one and left feeling a bit deflated and alienated for the experience. I guess this is a common enough scenario, as writers tend to keep to themselves, even the famous ones. But when I’ve got a dialogue going and met a few people, the whole landscape has changed. If nothing else, these exchanges can give you a sense of purpose and orientation. Also, meeting the right person never hurt anyone’s chances at being published!

What music do you listen to when you’re writing? I think I read you’re a musician, how does that influence your work?

I am a musician, though I use the term very loosely and with much self-consciousness. And music is very important to me. But I never listen to music when I write. For two reasons. Firstly, I want to hear the inner rhythms of my own writing – the music of the prose, if you like. As a vocalist and a writer, voice is very important to me because it is, I think, where the originality lies. With music on I can’t hear the voice of the piece I’m writing. I need silence. Secondly, I find music manipulates me into feeling things I wouldn’t otherwise be feeling. This is dangerous when writing, especially when you are feeling your way through a story. It gives me a false sense of what the words are doing.

Being in a band and writing music has had a tremendous influence on my writing. Firstly because being in a band is like being in an intimate relationship with (in my case) three other people. It’s different from other ‘team’ environments because music is based primarily on emotion, unlike sport or work. The insights this has given me in terms of character and the nature of certain ties have been invaluable. Writing lyrics teaches you about economy and rhythm and also about obscurity, about a kind of mystery that comes with strange lyrical turns. Writing prose is inherently grounded in logic, a rational flow of words and events. Music has taught me the effects of breaking with logic, and I’ve tried to weave this into my writing in a way that is still enjoyable and meaningful.

You were recently published in the Review of Australian Fiction in a volume with a number of terrific new Tasmanian writers, what’s happening in the Tasmanian or Hobart writing scene that’s making you excited?

In Hobart there are two great collectives of writers, both keen to create innovative ways of being a writer: Twitch and Under the Fat Man. In the past, the literary landscape in Tasmania has been patronised by older people and dominated by an old guard of wrietrs. Young writers have felt out of place and uninvited. But in the last couple of years this has changed. I think we’re all seeing that you don’t have to be sanctioned by the fraternity in order to consider yourself a writer. These groups are taking things into their own hands, organising events, encouraging each other, doing things, failing. Failing is important. In fact, Under the Fat Man just last week hosted a Failure Dinner where writers brought along rejection letters, failed pieces of writing, anecdotes of failure. This makes me excited.

Rachel Edwards has said that your writing is “energetic, lyrical, not necessarily narrative-based fiction” – what do you think omits the narrative? How do you work around narrative when writing?

As I indicated earlier, voice is very important to my writing. Probably most important. When I discover a writer with a spine-tingling voice, I can inhabit that world almost to the exclusion of all else: plot, character, place etc etc. I practically don’t care what happens in, say, Jeanette Winterson or Elizabeth Smart or Vladimir Nabokov. Their voices are places to be. (Incidentally, to weigh in on the gender/writing debate: women tend to be the best experimenters with voice. Men play around for a bit, find what works and repeat it over and over. Women in general are far bolder experimenters. I think this is the greatest difference between men’s and women’s writing.) This is something I also try to cultivate. I’m much more preoccupied with the how than the what. So although I might begin with an image or an idea, I let the tone of the piece do what it needs to do. It creates itself as it goes because the words become reliant on each other, trigger each other. I see reading as an act of inhabiting rather than as a means of moving from A to B. This is the mindset I take to writing. So while I’m aware of narrative and plot sequence, I’m far more aware of creating an emotional space for the reader (and me) to inhabit.

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart roadshow?

There’s so much! Thank you for bringing it over. I’ll be going along to the Digital Writers’ Conference on the Thursday for ideas on all things cyberspace (a place I’m hopeless at navigating). And one can do much worse than Meet(ing) the Magazines on Friday. Also on Friday, myself and a bunch of other writery types will be taking part in the Lifted Brow’s Mixtape Memoirs at the Grand Poobah, talking about the music that’s shaped us as writers. And on the Saturday I’ll be popping along to the Twitch meets Stilts love-in. Should be fun!

The Emerging Writers’ Festival will bring it’s Roadshow to Tasmania from Thursday 31 October to Saturday 2 November 2013. For more the full program and to book, visit our events page. Adam will be appearing atMixtape Memoirs.

See this interview on the EWF blog.

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EWF Hobart Roadshow Interviews - Rachel Edwards

The countdown is on! Next Thursday, the Emerging Writers' Festival will be heading to Hobart to present the Hobart Roadshow. To celebrate Tasmanian literature, I have been interviewing writers, editors and comic artists. 

I interviewed Rachel Edwards about reading, writing and the voice of Tasmanian writing in the Review of Australian Fiction Volume 7.

What skills should emerging writers develop?

Emerging writers should read, read, read, read, read and read. They should cultivate reading with attention – and paying attention to all parts of their lives so they can crystallise their experiences for their writing – and give it to us the readers, with aplomb, conviction, creativity and strength of voice. Charlotte Wood talks about the kind of attention writers need to pay in a lovely guest blog she did for Damon Young.

Emerging writers should also consider where they submit their work to – find the journal, the publisher that seems tailored to their style, the length of the work, the genre they tend to write in.

What advice would you give to emerging editors?

To emerging editors I would say the same, your greatest foundation is the breadth and depth of your reading. Trust your instincts when you sense a work is fine – make decisions on instinct and then tease out why it is, rationally that you like the work. For me, there is a sensation that creeps up on me when I read a work, a strange rumble that means the work is good. It took a while to trust but now I do I have conviction when that sense arises. It doesn’t matter if the work is universally enjoyed by others (name one piece that is) if you know it is good, you should do what you can to have it shared.

Have respect for the writers sending you work, despite the sludgey sludgey sludge you encounter, every single one of these writers has poured something of themselves into their work.

What did you aim to achieve when curating Volume 7, Issue 5 of the Australian Review of Fiction?

I have flip flopped around the idea of there being a ‘Tasmanian Voice’ for a while now. I wanted to prove it to myself one way or the other – and while I see a keen lyricism running through a lot of the writing of Tasmanian writers of literature – Ben Walter, Adam Ouston and Susie Greenhill in particular, I can see no clear tone or style that is unique to our beautiful island. There are many trite concepts of ‘island’ played out in the notion of Tasmanian literature (isolation, the physical landscape as a character in its own right, introspective communities) work relying on these concepts is naff.

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart Roadshow?

So many wonderful things to choose from! – And such a burble of excitement and engagement happening in our literary community! I will be taking part in the Digital Writers Conference (oh yes, my alter ego Paige Turner writes a blog sometimes!) and the Mixtape Memoirs have picqued my interest (I went to the fab 80s exhibition at the NGV and adored the artists’ mix tapes) – and I have to say that while I still haven’t finished the book ‘How to Read a Comic’ I will be heading the the graphic novel sesh to try and inform myself about these strange stories in pictures.

Rachel blogs at paigelovesbooks.blogspot.com and is former editor of Island, judge of the Tasmanian Literary Prizes and host of the long running Book Show on Edge Radio.

Rachel will be appearing at the Digital Writers Conference on Thursday 31 October at MONA.

See this interview on the EWF blog.

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EWF Hobart Roadshow Interviews - Andrea Hoff

The countdown is on! Next Thursday, the Emerging Writers' Festival will be heading to Hobart to present the Hobart Roadshow. To celebrate Tasmanian literature, I have been interviewing writers, editors and comic artists. 

I spoke to Andrea Hoff, the international guest at the Emerging Writers’ Festival Hobart Roadshow, about comics, the Canadian writing scene and what she’s most looking forward to in Hobart.

What projects are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on my first full length graphic novel. It’s a collection of short nonfiction stories based in memoir, titled “If I See You Here Again: 13 short graphic tales on the little ghosts we carry with us.” I started this project two years ago and plan to have the first draft finished by April 2014. This work will be my thesis project for my MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).

Do you have any advice for emerging writers?

There is a great piece of advice from Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. I illustrated the quote for the Emerging Writer anthology this year and I keep it posted above my workspace. It’s something that helps me keep going when the going gets tough (and oh, it does get tough). Honestly, I read it at least once a day. I think I’ll have to make a dedication to Ira Glass at the front of my first book — simply in gratitude for this quote.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” ― Ira Glass

What music do you listen to when you’re working?

This is is a funny one and one of the reasons I have a hard time sharing studio space with other people. I can only listen to one piece of music while I write/ illustrate — The Cello Suites by Bach. I have an excellent recording by Jian Wang and as soon as I put that on, I know it’s time to work. I’ve tried other kinds of music, even other classical pieces but nothing fits quite like Bach. It’s something about the cadence and tempo of the suites, I can tune it out (in my mind) when I’m writing and then float back into it to bring me back to the present. It’s either that or silence. A total nightmare for a studio-mate.

Where was your favourite place growing up?

For most of my childhood I grew up in a small town near Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada). Those memories are full of favorite places — the wildness of nature in B.C. is extreme and so much of what we experienced as kids had to do with nature: the rain forest, the Pacific ocean, the Coastal mountains. We were pretty free as kids to explore. I remember one island we used to go to when I was young called Quadra Island, one of the Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver. My dad would go fishing every morning and my brothers and sister and I would come along. But I used to get seasick, so after about half an hour my dad would motor up to one of the smaller islands (without people on it) and drop me and my sister off to explore. We could search the shore for hours, looking for shells, rocks, bits of sea glass — always hoping for some treasure that might have washed ashore. Those tiny islands (we never knew their names) have a magical place in my memory.

Do you refresh your work by traveling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

I love to travel. The stories in my graphic novel are all about the years I lived in different places: Germany, South Africa, England, Ireland. And in a sense, the bigger narrative connecting all the stories is about living through those experiences — the hardships, joys, fears, excitement — of foreign lands, new cultures, and changing constructions of self. I come from two different families who immigrated to Canada, so in a way my connection to travel exists on very fundamental level. That said, I do find it hard to work while “on the road.” I have to come home — so I can sort out all the stories for the page.

What is happening for Canadian literature at the moment? Do you have some Canadian reading suggestions?

Where do I start? I’ll focus my answer on graphic novels in Canada because if I talked about all the exciting things happening in Canadian literature (in general) I wouldn’t be able to stop.

In Canada, there is a definite surge in graphic novels — both as an art form and in their literary relevance. A big factor in this has been the support from Canadian publishing houses like: Drawn and Quarterly, House of Anansi, Freehand Press, Conundrum Press, and Simply Read Books (I’m probably missing a few). They are publishing bold work — equally challenging in visual styles and subject matter. Of course, the other part of the equation is the graphic novelists creating the work. Often writer/illustrators, they come from a variety of backgrounds: art, literature, history, journalism, comics, animation… The genre has exploded in a way that is adding to the relevance and to originality of the medium. It’s an exciting time for visual storytelling in Canada — And it’s a very exciting time to be contributing to the conversation.

As I look across my bookshelf at my personal collection of Canadian graphic novels I am amazed at both how vast and inclusive the genre has become.

Among my favorites are:

Harvey by Hervé Bouchard & Janice Nadeau

Unspent Love or, Things I Wish I Told You by Shannon Gerrard

Don’t get lonely, don’t get lost by Elisabeth Belliveau

The Selves by Sonja Ahlers

Tangles: A story about Alzheimer’s, my mother and me by Sarah Leavitt

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton

Jane, the fox and me by Fanny Britt & Isabelle Arsenault

Constructive Abandonment by Michael DuMontier & Neil Farber

Essex County by Jeff Lemire

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart Roadshow?

At the EWF Roadshow, I’ll be giving a short talk and showing excerpts from my new work at the Halloween opening on October 31. Then on November 2, I’ll be hosting a workshop on graphic novels. Other than that, I’ll be spending my time meeting the other writers in attendance and taking part in as much of the festival as I can. My big hope is that a collaborative work could come out of the festival — I’d love to share ideas for a transcontinental project with some of the other writers and graphic novelists at the festival — maybe even a multi-genre or mixed-media project. After the festival, I’ll spend a few days touring around Tasmania with my daughter (she’s 7). This is my first trip to Australia, so I’m especially excited to be able to visit both Melbourne and Hobart. My daughter and I have been reading about the MONA museum and all the amazing places to go in Tasmania. It’s really all we’re talking about lately.

Andrea Hoff will be appearing at Graphic Content: An Evening of Visual Storytelling and the Young Writers Program.

See this interview on the EWF blog.

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EWF Roadshow Interviews - Gary Chaloner

Ahead of the EWF Hobart Roadshow, I spoke to Gary Chaloner, who talked about podcasting and the Tasmanian comic scene.

How did you become a comic artist?

I never really thought I’d be anything else. I was doodling at a very young age. Cutting up Donald Duck comics and rearranging the panels to tell new stories. Later, my older brother brought superhero comics into the house. He had great taste in what to read, so I got turned on to some good stuff very early. Then there was no stopping me. I just started drawing and writing stories and forging ahead as a creator, not ever thinking that it was something I wasn’t going to succeed at.

I started reading a wider range of comics and broadening my knowledge. Comics actually turned me on to book authors in a variety of fields like pulp adventure, crime, science fiction… all genres that seem to overlap with the comics medium. I eventually was old enough and confident enough to start drawing my own comics and eventually ended up publishing.

What skills should emerging comic artists try and develop?

The skill of handling rejection and criticism, plus the ability to willingly develop your own style. Don’t be scared. As far as style goes, its great to learn from the masters and absorb what they can teach you, but no-one ever really got anywhere by ripping off someone else’s style. So be brave and develop a unique voice. In doing that, you’ll invariably have all kinds of people getting in your face. So develop a tough skin. Take the good advice, brush off the bad.

What music do you listen to when you’re working?

Depends on my mood, of course, but Springsteen is never bad to work to. My Morning Jacket, Ben Harper, Pearl Jam and when Im feeling really cool… some David Ruffin or Billy Thorpe. I’ve also been getting into a new band from Perth, Apache, my son’s band.

Can’t listen to music while I’m writing though. Drawing? Yeah, pump it up.

Where was your favourite place growing up?

Old book exchanges and comic shops. I’m from Sydney, so there were a few places that I’d make the train trip in to the city for. Regular haunts that offered old comics, books, magazines about old horror movies and other secret treasures. Besides that, the beaches of Cronulla. In my teens, I’d drive down with my best mate EVERY weekend, no matter what the weather.

Do you refresh your work by traveling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

I’m not a big traveller. I have been around, the States, Canada… but I’m content to stay on the farm down here in Tassie and plug away at my various comics projects. I’m too old for travel. My eight-legged walking frame creates havoc at the airports and my false teeth upset the kiddies when I inadvertently spit them out.

What is happening for Tasmanian comic artists at the moment?

Well, I just noticed Josh Santospirito’s interview, and he covered it pretty well. So maybe we can just link to that and save my beleaguered, ossifying fingers.

Essentially, for me, I’m co-hosting The Comic Spot podcast with John Retallick now. We chat about Australian comics and try to cover as much ground as we possibly can. The whole scene is growing so rapidly, and the various comics and graphic novels coming out are of such high quality, it’s getting harder and harder to keep up with it all. It really is a new Golden Age of Australian Comics.

On the actual production front, I’m doing the art on the Gestalt Comics series Unmasked, by writer Christian Read. I’m also chin deep in writing and drawing The Undertaker Morton Stone, which brings me to…

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart Roadshow?

I’m participating in the Graphic Content event at MONA on the night of October 31. I’ll be reading and projecting the first issue of The Undertaker Morton Stone. The artwork for that issue is by two superstar artists Ben Templesmith and Ashley Wood… dark, moody stuff that’s just right for Halloween. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the other creators have lined up as well. Should be a great night.

Here’s a poem I wrote about The Undertaker…

The Man From Thunderhead

Each stormy night the wind does wail, The crow does scream, the heavens too rail In the moist, cold corridors of the dead, Dwells the Man from Thunderhead.

“My name is Stone,” the skeleton said “Like my heart… cold and unforgiving. “I had a life, a lifetime ago, “Filled with loving warmth and feeling.”

But bliss suddenly turned to curse, When black Noddy came a-callin’. Nip nippy he went, until child and wife were all spent, And to make matters worse, Sow’s ear from silk purse, Stone prefers now the dead to the breathin’.

Now wife and daughter do rot in the old family plot The Undertaker’s pup as well is worth grievin’ All happiness has fled For they are all dead But Stone’s eyes with a purpose are gleanin’.

“I’ll cruise in my hearse of death’s jet black “Down the highway to Hell, past the Crossroads and back. “Swinging my stock in trade, the ol’ shovel and spade… “Until Noddy is found and bloody retribution is paid.”

“I wish I was dead.” “I wish I was dead.” whispered the Man from Thunderhead.

Gary Chaloner is a comic book writer and artist based in the Huon Valley of Tasmania. His works include The Jackaroo, Will Eisner’s John Law, Unmaskedand The Undertaker Morton Stone. He is co-host of the comics podcast The Comics Spot and writes for AustralianComicsJournal.com. For more information visit www.GaryChaloner.com.

Gary will be appearing at Graphic Content: An Evening of Visual Storytellingat MONA on Thursday 31 October from 6pm.

Read this interview on the EWF blog.

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EWF Hobart Roadshow Interviews - Ben Walter

I spoke to short story writer and poet Ben Walter, who also works at Fuller's Bookshop (pictured above). He discussed about the Tasmanian writing scene and what he will be getting up to at Emerging Writers’ Festival Hobart Roadshow. 

What skills do you think emerging writers and poets should try to develop?

I suspect it’s more about habits than skills, like developing a deep and abiding interest in and appreciation for other writers’ work; if you’re not a reader, I don’t see how you can be a successful or even marginally happy writer. Or cultivating a certain ruthlessness in ensuring you set apart regular time to write, even if that means working less and surviving off a couple of dollars and a broken pie. To discover strategies that help you press through anxiety, self-doubt and constant failure. For much of this, I feel that a spirit of generosity towards other writers is a pretty good place to start.

I also think it is a very excellent idea to learn how to keep chickens.

Where was your favourite place growing up?

Probably my bed, where I could slouch the days away reading; or perhaps the couch in front of the television when the cricket was on. I found relating to other people troubling, and for me these were safe, interesting and comfortable places.

I still gravitate to these locations, but I now find that walking in the mountains has mostly overtaken them as a source of peace and contentment.

Do you refresh your writing by travelling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

Apropos of not much, it’s quite interesting to read the biographies on the back of Australian novels from the sixties and see how prominently travel to Europe is highlighted. Anyway, as an adult I’ve only really travelled once, when my wife and I spent six months poking about Europe and Asia a couple of years ago. It was a refreshing time and I was more productive on returning. Later I got  some discordant place stories out of it, one of which was published over at the Griffith Review website for their Tasmanian edition.

But I don’t have any strong interest in travelling further. I don’t even much like going to Melbourne. The stability of the local is very important to me, and I feel that most of my work consists of a strange intersection of my experience of Tasmania with wider, speculative playgrounds of language and meaning. I can get all of that here.

What is happening in the Tasmanian literary scene at the moment?

We have a few established figures, many of whom have little to do with wider literary communities, but are probably generous to those with whom they’re personally involved. We have a small number of stoic organisers who have been publishing the odd poetry book or putting on readings for ages, but these are generally poorly attended and biased towards a much older audience; it’s difficult, for as with any regional area we see a lot of people leaving in their twenties, so there are significant gaps between younger and older writers that are tricky to bridge, as well as a dearth of just those people who are most likely to create exciting and innovative events, publishing ventures and grassroots literary institutions.

We believe that the occasional noisy one-off, like a literary festival or prize, is doing something significant. Perhaps it is. But I’m dubious about what happens during the other fifty-one weeks.

We are beginning to see a little more effort to broaden literary culture among younger and more emerging writers; there’s a regular spoken word night, Island is doing a bit and there’s also Twitch, a group organised by the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre. But these efforts are really in their infancy, and could easily fall over or become irrelevant cliques. If a certain critical mass of writers chose to stay (or return) and work at creating an exciting, welcoming literary culture with links to more established figures locally, as well as to national and international networks, that would be marvellous. But we’re a long way from that just yet. We may well just continue with our present approach, where the odd well-known writer moves down, the occasional solitary local carves a literary niche, and a lot of middle-aged women attend workshops at the writers’ centre.

What would you like to see happen to help Tasmanian writers develop their skills and get published?

My response above begins to answer your question, but further to that, I’d like to see links established between the university’s writing units and these beginning communities of emerging writers. While a lot of people leave Tasmania just when their work is starting to become interesting, there are just as many people who in the absence of encouragement, get swamped with all the mess and give writing away. I think that it’s important for writers to be welcomed into friendships and mentorships where their work can be evaluated, where they can be encouraged to read more widely, mature their writing more quickly, and where they can develop an understanding of the Australian literary landscape and maybe just make a contact or two. And also learn that they will definitely not win the Booker Prize at the age of twenty-eight – they’re from the wrong chilly island.

None of this is to say that all this literary culture is an unequivocally positive thing, and it doesn’t have to be monolithic; perhaps a few people meet at the boring literary event I organise, and then go off and do their own thing. That would be a great result.

I’d love to see a risk-taking university press set up. It’s the closest thing to a commercial publisher we’re ever likely to have, but it isn’t going to happen any time soon, so I think it would be useful if small and independent presses on the mainland took a certain responsibility to seek out work from Tasmanian writers. They should understand that Tasmanian readers do support their own, and it would be no less commercial than most of the stuff they’re putting out; there’s some good work being done here, you’re just not likely to sit next to that aspiring author at some ghastly Melbourne networking event chock-full of booze and embarrassment.

This goes for the literary journals as well, or for anyone seeking to create or continue a literary project. These days, does someone really need to be living in the correct suburb to be a reader for your magazine, or contribute to your arty literary installation?

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart Roadshow?

Mostly I will be trying very hard to be friendly and hospitable rather than scared, melancholic and insular. But I’ll also be reading a poem in connection with Leigh Rigozzi’s comics at the Graphic Content event, and doing a Mixtape Memoir about Augie March for The Lifted Brow’s shindig on the Friday night. And there is a rumour that I may be taking some mainlanders bushwalking.

I think that I’ll be attending all the sessions, though there’s a Hobart Walking Club trip to Mount Mueller on the Saturday, so if the weather is spectacular I am certain to be dithering guiltily over that one.

Ben Walter will be appearing at the Emerging Writers’ Festival Hobart Roadshow at Graphic Content: An Evening of Visual Storytelling andMixtape Memoirs.

See this interview on the EWF blog.

[lovepublishing-blog]

EWF Hobart Roadshow Interviews - Josh Santospirito

Over at the Emerging Writers' Festival Blog, I have been interviewing the writers, editors, musicians and comic artists who will be participating in the EWF Hobart Roadshow. The interviews have all been super insightful and interesting so far. We have covered everything from the Tasmanian literary scene, podcasting, comics, music, and travel. 

Josh Santospirito was up first. I spoke about about making comics in Tasmania.

How did you become a comic artist?

I always wanted to become a comic-artist when I was a kid … so, of course, I became a nurse. Then, one day, I suddenly felt the calling of the brush. Which is a bit like when a person hears the call of God and becomes a man of the cloth, except the cloth is more like an ink-brush, and the priesthood is swapped for the siblinghood of comic-makers … and, in fact, there is no siblinghood, because making comics involves sitting in a room by yourself for years on end. Anyway, I rediscovered drawing as an adult as a way of investigating, hunting, diarising, reinterpreting interesting things. I started drawing The Long Weekend in Alice Springs and it just grew and grew so I had to finish it.

What skills should emerging comic artists try and develop?

I reckon its important to also master concepts from other mediums – particularly graphic design, advertising, poster-design, film, prose. In comics these skills really help with layouts of comics, which helps convey the information and meanings and emotions of the story, and it’ll make you a better person generally. A better person!

What music do you listen to when you’re working?

I actually canNOT have music with words, especially when lettering a comic. I always ALWAYS accidentally lose focus and write a word from the song, which is excruciatingly annoying. I really love listening to the Necks when writing or drawing – their trance-like music is very effective at focusing the mind on the squillions of little decisions that make up the process of writing comics. But if I’m just inking over the pencils, I don’t need to focus quite so much and I can listen to anything, I’m a big fan of all sorts of things ranging from Holly Throsby to experimental screechy noise. I also make improvisational guitar recordings of my own … sometimes that’s nice to listen to.

Where was your favourite place growing up?

My favourite place? Possibly ummmm … not sure … maybe the Rivoli down at Camberwell Junction. It’s an old art-deco cinema not far from where I grew up. I loved going to movies and that old cinema has an amazing ceiling – its just beautiful.

Do you refresh your work by traveling or do you find staying in one place gives you more stability?

I have travelled a lot in my life, but I think I’m changing, and requiring more and more to stay in one place to get things done. The last few times I’ve gone travelling with Nadine, I’ve made a zine of our travels – sketchbook and daily comics and whatnot – it’s been really fun. We recently went to Far North Queensland, so I made a little zine about that.

What is happening for Tasmanian comic artists at the moment?

- Gary Chaloner is launching some stuff at the EWF Roadshow – which is connected to Gestalt (Perth), which is really exciting. He’s got numerous projects on the go, as always.

- I’ve started to curate a series of zine-comics made by Tassie artists called DOWN THERE. I made the first one in July and Tricky Walsh has one coming out in December (very exciting), next year we’ll have Tom O’Hern, Lindsay Arnold and MORE – mega-great.

- Speaking about Tricky Walsh – a few of her recent major projects have involved comics, they’re pretty friggin’ fantastic! One was in the recent Hobart Art Prize exhibition on the walls: they’re kind of wall-based spreads which cross the boundaries of form – somewhere between strangely emotive diagrams and sequential art. They’re really great!

- There is a bimonthly Comic-Book-Group that meets up to talk about a graphic novel that they chose on the previous occasion. It’s got a facebook group that you can join if anyone’s interested. It’s good fun. It’s mostly about eating chips and talking about the book.

- I must say – Christopher Downes, editorial cartoonist for the Mercury Newspaper (he’s also an amazing comic-maker) is making more and more and more EXTRAORDINARY cartoons & comics for the Mercury – the man is ON FIRE! Look him up if you can. He occasionally makes small comics which are really beautifully crafted – so try and nab one if you ever come across ‘em. Of course, Jon Kudelka lives down here and also works for the Mercury – who’s a National treasure.

- My graphic novel The Long Weekend in Alice Springs is now in its second print-run which is rad.

- That grand institution of Aussie comics “The Comic Spot”, hosted by John Retallick and Gary Chaloner has moved from Melbourne to Tasmania and is still putting out great podcasts on a monthly basis which can be listened tohere.

What will you be getting up to at the EWF Hobart Roadshow?

I’ll be doing a comics-reading from The Long Weekend in Alice Springs at the Graphic Content event and hopefully going to see my old friend Jen Mills talk at the Digital Writers Conference immediately beforehand. I’m also involved in the Twitch Meets Stilts event on the Saturday at the Grand Poobah, which oughta be fun I reckon. Are you coming along?

Joshua Santospirito is a comic artist, writer and musician. He grew up in suburban Melbourne, has lived in Sydney, Alice Springs and Hobart. He has worked in mental health as a nurse for a number of years, working in Central Australian Aboriginal communities and in Hobart, Tasmania. In 2013 he started San Kessto Publications with his wife, Nadine Kessler.

Josh will be appearing at Graphic Content: An Evening of Visual Storytellingon Thursday October 31 from 6pm.

Read this interview on the EWF blog.

There will be many more interviews coming up in the next few weeks before we head to Tasmania for Haloween! I will post more snippets when they are published. 

[lovepublishing-blog]

Book Review: Floundering by Romy Ash

I have launched a new series on the Emerging Writers’ Festival blog, called Debut Review looking at the first books of Australian authors. You can read the first review below.

Floundering by Romy Ash tells the story of a mother who loves her two boys, but lacks the skills to care for them. Eleven-year-old Tom and adolescent Jordy live with their grandparents until their mother, Loretta, returns to take them on what she thinks will be a summer holiday. They travel across the Nullarbor to the west coast of Australia with no food and not enough petrol. When they arrive, they spend several days living in a caravan surviving off baked-beans, surrounded by families celebrating Christmas. Loretta is increasingly absent and unwittingly leaves her sons in more danger than she could have expected.

The novel is told from the point of view of a young boy called Tom. He is not a adult-in-a-child’s-body, he is a normal boy who has been forced to take on responsibility for himself. He can’t multiply large numbers in his head like Matilda, but he does pick up his mother’s discarded cigarette butts on more than one occasion. However, he has developed survival skills beyond his years like being cautious around sand dunes and knowing what the symptoms of sunstroke are.

He still has a child-like curiosity which his older brother, Jordy, is self-consciously shrugging off. When Tom wants to play with a tennis ball, Jordy just ‘rolls his eyes and sits down, hunches over his knees’. Jordy doesn’t view life with the same wonder and sincerity as Tom. When Tom tastes some salt from a dry salt-lake, he thinks it tastes like salt and vinegar chips, but Jordy says it tastes like dirt. One of Tom’s most endearing habits/neurosis is saying sorry to nearly everything including a dead fish.

This book felt eerily like my own memories. All of the imagery is clearly rendered and so familiar, but the tragic level of neglect was new. I remember the sticky car seats, drying off sandy feet, salt-stiffened clothes and the sound of the screen door of a caravan. The difference is, on my family holidays, my parents would smother me in sunscreen and carry a backpack full of food, water and first aid. In the novel, Tom and Jordy go for hours without eating and days without brushing their teeth or having a drink of water. Tom is constantly dizzy and has what he calls ‘desert mouth.’ He notices his brother’s sour breath and sun-damaged skin. Later in the novel, he wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of his mother’s car leaving and he doesn’t know if she’ll be back.

The reader understands the reality of what is happening to the children. The tension in the book occurs between what the child sees but doesn’t understand, and what the reader understands is happening. To be able to tell a story with such adult themes through the eyes of an ordinary boy is a huge achievement. The child is so sincere, and the story is so dark. You genuinely care about the two vulnerable boys and all the children who are in a similar position.