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Reading Australian Women Writers

January 8, 2014

awwbadge_2014I participated in The ‘Australian Women Writers Challenge’ in 2013 for the second year. I had another wonderful reading and connecting experience that built on my 2012 experience and many years of enjoying Australian women’s writing.

So what is the challenge? It’s about enjoying, supporting and promoting Australian women’s writing. You can read the background to the challenge here and sign up for 2014 here. Started in 2012 by Elizabeth Lhuede in response to an under-representation of women’s writing in Australian literary prizes being awarded, it has developed into a strong, diverse group of readers and reviewers celebrating and sharing writing by Australian women.

You can choose your level of engagement in the challenge and there’s no pressure to complete, just a target to aim for. In 2013, I aimed to read 6 and review at least 4. I achieved the reading part of the challenge with 7 reads. As in 2012, I haven’t done as well with the reviewing part but will capture the reads in this summary post and aim to review in 2014.

So why am I signing up again and why is it important?

Reflecting on the 2012 experience, I summarised my rationale as below:

I have a great love of Australian women’s writing. My Australian literature bookshelf is about 80% women writers. This love developed naturally during my university literature studies and has endured. It’s my history, lineage and backyard; they are not the only writers I enjoy but they are the writers closest to my experience with all the local references, influences and language especially as it relates to the experience of women.

I am engaging with the challenge again in 2014 to broaden this experience further; in 2012 and 2013, I have learned about so many new and exciting Australian women writers and absolutely loved the diverse reads. Through-out the challenge, I have been deliberately seeking out writers that are new to me and genres that I don’t normally read.

There is still plenty of work to do in promoting Australian women’s writing as this post indicates. As Margo Lanagan commented on twitter about this, it is depressing from a bookseller and it made me sad, sad that a person selling books couldn’t find such strength and beauty in Australian women writers as I do. It would at least help with book sales to people like me having this knowledge even if it’s not a personal love.

Perhaps I expect too much but in any case, as a result of the dialogue since this post, Mr Page has signed up for the challenge again in 2014. I hope this time the real challenge is finding the time to read as much as he wishes to in the rich diversity of Australian Women’s Writing – new and old. That is certainly my experience.

Reflecting on 2013

In 2013, I read 7 books towards my target of 6. Because I didn’t get to the reviews (again) in 2013 and in the spirit of the AWW community, here are my reads with a few brief comments.

  • Fishing for Tigers by Emily Maguire – I loved blogging buddy Liv White’s review and was interested in the Vietnam setting. I’ve never been to Vietnam and the novel created a sense of the steamy beauty of Hanoi. ‘Fishing for Tigers’ focused on relationships played out against a sense of place and dislocation from home.
  • Sea Hearts, by Margo Lanagan – There have been some fabulous reviews on this book, especially Elizabeth Lhuede’s review, and it has won numerous awards. ‘Sea Hearts’ took me to another world and showed the impact of longing, desire and power on a small island community where men can have beautiful women fashioned from seals. I don’t often read speculative fiction and I enjoyed it immensely as a new AWW genre this year.
  • Sydney by Delia Falconer – the non-fiction book about my home town. I struggled with this book more than I wanted to but perhaps that was precisely the point. Sydney is a mass of contradictions; as Falconer writes: “Surely no other city’s pleasures are so bound up with revulsion, or their beauty so dependent on the knowledge of corruption.” ‘Sydney’ is well researched and captures Sydney in all its complexity.
  • The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton – was a great read. I loved her previous books and this one didn’t disappoint. Kate Morton has enjoyed high praise including as top voted Australian writer in the 2013 booktopia poll. I also read ‘The Distant Hours‘ by Kate Morton though this story didn’t engage me as much as The Secret Keeper’s compelling narrative.
  • The Scrivener’s Tale – Fiona McIntosh – was my first read of 2013 and an epic adventure traversing modern and mediaeval times. Again, this was outside my usual reading fare and I enjoyed it for its feistiness, sense of mystery and historical contexts.
  • The Longing – Candice Bruce – was my last and favourite read of 2013. ‘The Longing’ tells the story of a modern day curator researching for an exhibition of an American romantic landscape painter. The lives of two 19th century Australian women that he painted are also told: one a Scottish immigrant and the other her Aboriginal servant. ‘The Longing’ is beautifully written and like a rich landscape itself. Author Bruce is by background an art historian, writer and curator so the detail is delicate and authentic. It’s about love, loss and longing, history, home and family.

What have I learnt from 2012 and 2013?

  • AWW is a great journey; read outside your usual genres, discover some of the Australian Women Writers – recent or past – that you haven’t encountered up till now.
  • You don’t have to review in the order that you read and you don’t have to review at all. That said, I get great value from the reviews of others so I am hoping to contribute more in this regard in 2014 during the year rather than at the end and by learning to write better reviews.
  • The AWW reading and writing community is fantastic. You can connect on the blog, through twitter @AusWomenWriters or hashtag #AWW2014, through Goodreads; there are readers, writers and reviewers from all walks of life reading so diversely and widely. Even though I didn’t review, I tweeted and blogged and contributed in that way and made some valued connections with like-minded readers.
  • The consolidated reviews are excellent and highlight the work of AWW readers and writers across all genres. Check out the review listings here – there’s plenty of inspiration and information.
  • It’s really all about raising awareness of Australian women writers to inform reading choices.

What am I planning to read (and review) in 2014?

My exciting list so far for 2014:

Michelle de Krester – Questions of Travel
Hannah Kent – Burial Rites
Carrie Tiffany – Mateship with Birds
Favel Parrett- Past the Shallows

A special thanks to Elizabeth Lhuede for initiating the challenge in 2012 and for the 2013 team for maintaining the hard work of holding it all together for the benefit of us all.

I hope you’ll join the challenge!

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reading notes writing

Celebrating Australian Women’s Writing

February 24, 2013

awwbadge_2013

The ‘Australian Women Writers Challenge’ is one of my projects for 2013. I undertook this challenge in 2012 and had a wonderful reading and connecting experience and looking forward to extending and enriching that this year.

So what is the challenge? You can read more about it here but basically it’s a reading and reviewing challenge to lift the profile of Australian women’s writing. It was started in 2012 by Elizabeth Lhuede in response to an under-representation of women’s writing in Australian literary prizes being awarded. It has since developed into a strong, diverse group of readers and reviewers celebrating and sharing writing by Australian women.

You can choose your level of engagement in the challenge and there’s no pressure to complete as such, just a target to aim for. Last year, I aimed high (read 10, review 6) and in a busy year managed most of the reading and none of the reviews. This year, I am aiming a little lower (read 6, review at least 4) and hope to over-achieve!

So why am I signing up again and why is it important?

I have a great love of Australian women’s writing. My Australian literature bookshelf is about 80% women writers. This love developed naturally during my university literature studies and has endured. It’s my history, lineage and backyard; they are not the only writers I enjoy but they are the writers closest to my experience with all the local references, influences and language especially as it relates to the experience of women.

I am engaging with the challenge in 2013 again to broaden this experience further; in 2012, I learned about so many new Australian women writers and so many diverse reads. I have been enjoying deliberately seeking out writers that are new to me and genres that I don’t normally read.

It’s important because the profile of Australian women writers has been under-represented in terms of awards and book reviews, as surprising as this is. Read this post on the background to the challenge to get a feel for some of the issues. The AWW Challenge has done much to celebrate and raise awareness about Australian women’s writing and I for one am very grateful for the community and experience, as well as the profile being generated. The challenge has resulted in a powerful ground shift that has attracted national and international attention.

Reflecting on 2012

In 2012, I read 7 books towards my target of 10. Because I didn’t get to the review in 2012 and in case anyone is looking for potential reads for this year, I’ll list my reads and add a few brief comments.

Searching for the Secret River: A Writing Memoir – Kate Grenville‘s account of the research and writing experience of ‘The Secret River’ was always going to be an engaging book for me, being about a number of key interests: writing, family history, genealogical research, fact and fiction and the intersection between them. One branch of my family also settled in the area Kate was researching and writing about so it was all close to home personally and a fascinating read on how fact and family story came to be a work of fiction.

Sarah Thornhill – Kate Grenville followed on from ‘The Secret River’ so a natural next read and it didn’t disappoint as a close study of what is what like for strong willed women in colonial times with all its many challenges, especially in terms of culture and gender.

When We Have Wings – Claire Corbett was thrilling and a read that took me right out of the present to another world where people can grow wings and society is separated into those who can fly and those who can’t. Technically brilliant, especially in its descriptions of the experience of flying, and a well constructed story in a whole new space and time, I enjoyed ‘When We Have Wings’ thoroughly. This review by fellow AWW Challenge participant, Mark Webb provides more detail. Well worth reading – a fantastic debut novel from Blue Mountains based writer, Claire Corbett.

The Light Between Oceans – M L Stedman was one of the books I picked up and bought from reading the back blurb when looking for a new Australian Women Writers read in 2012. It soon emerged that this book was gaining interest all over the world and with good reason. Set against a wild West Australian coastline, featuring a remote lighthouse and with a twist and turn plot and gut-wrenching life decisions, it was a highlight for me in 2012.

Poet’s Cottage – Josephine Pennicott was another book purchased without any prior knowledge as part of AWW2012. Set in Tasmania, with a family history to uncover, a murder mystery, some wonderfully eccentric characters and an inherited cottage with secrets, it’s another atmospheric read.

The Engagement – Chloe Hooper – spooked me completely one night. It’s a suspenseful, intense and mysterious ride, with the engagement as much with the reader as between the two main characters who form a dubious connection that takes on a life of its own on a remote western Victorian property. Read for its sheer intensity.

Disquiet – Julia Leigh is a tight and very disturbing novella about an Australian family returning to family and chateau in France, escaping turmoil but arriving to just as much dislocation. Everything is like a film still, the language sharp and fresh; it’s aptly titled.

What have I learnt from 2012?

  • AWW is a great journey; read outside your usual genres, discover some of the Australian Women Writers – recent or past – that you haven’t encountered up till now
  • You don’t have to review in the order that you read and you don’t have to review everything.
  • Don’t over-complicate the reviewing; I started by researching the background of novels for my reviews and I made it all too complicated for myself. Revisiting all the furore that surrounded fact and fiction in ‘The Secret River’ got me all confused. In the end, I had to remind myself, it’s not an academic treatise for university.
  • The AWW reading and writing community is fantastic. You can connect on the blog, through twitter @AusWomenWriters or hashtag #AWW2013, through Goodreads; there are readers, writers and reviewers from all walks of life reading so diversely and widely, it’s a treat. Even though I didn’t review, I tweeted and blogged and contributed in that way – it was fun, I made some valued connections with like-minded readers, I found a whole host of book bloggers I didn’t know about and I learned a heap.
  • The consolidated reviews are excellent and highlight the work of AWW readers and writers across all genres. Check out the review listings here – with reviews all neatly sorted by genre, there’s plenty of inspiration and information.

What am I planning to read (and review) in 2013?

I’m currently reading ‘The Scrivener’s Tale‘ by Fiona McIntosh, classified by AWW as ‘speculative fiction’, a genre I haven’t engaged with extensively. Other books on the list are:

  • Sea Hearts, by Margo Lanagan – there have been some fabulous reviews on this book, especially Elizabeth Lhuede’s review and want to experience this book for myself
  • Fishing for Tigers by Emily Maguire – loved blogging buddy Liv White’s review and interested in the Vietnam setting
  • Sydney by Delia Falconer – this book is physically exquisite and about my home town; I loved Delia Falconer’s ‘Service of Clouds’ and her celebration of the Blue Mountains in that novel so I am sure ‘Sydney’ will also celebrate its heart
  • Joe Cinque’s Consolation – Helen Garner – because I love Helen Garner’s hard-hitting analysis in her non-fiction works and I haven’t read this one
  • The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton – loved her previous books and Kate is enjoying high praise including as top voted Australian writer in a recent booktopia poll.

Well, that’s my six books, for now anyway – I am sure many more will vie for my attention this year. It’s such a rich field of pleasure, the work of our Australian women writers, so let’s celebrate and document it.

A special thanks to Elizabeth Lhuede for initiating the challenge in 2012 and maintaining the hard work of holding it all together for the benefit of us all.

I hope you’ll join the challenge!

My #AWW2013 reads lined up and ready to go!

My #AWW2013 reads lined up and ready to go!

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reading notes

On writing book reviews

September 12, 2012

Having asked the question about how to progress my writing of book reviews for the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 2012, here are a few gems on writing book reviews, with suggestions on techniques including what to do if you don’t actually like the book (always awkward):

As if immediately answering my question, Annabel Smith pops up on the AWW blog with a post on ‘What makes a good book review?’ I suppose with over 1000 reviews now under its belt, this question was bound to arise in the context of the Australian Women Writers’ Challenge. Annabel’s advice includes remembering that a review is an evaluation not a summary, it’s personal, and however you feel about the book, your argument should be supported by evidence. She includes some great questions to inspire your writing of reviews or just to keep your review on track.

In ‘Ten ways to write a book review and what to do when the book sucks’, Emlyn Chand provides some tips on traversing this genre. She is not afraid of a synopsis, as long as it doesn’t give things away. Most importantly for me, Emlyn talks about hitting your stride and finding your uniqueness with reviewing. I think this is what I was alluding to in my last post: trying to find a unique path between literary criticism and other genres in reviewing. Perhaps it’s not another genre; just a matter of being yourself and finding your place and voice. Perhaps, as with most things, it’s about practice

What to do if you don’t like the book? Emlyn touches on it; in ‘How to write a good bad book review‘, Tori rips right into what to do if you don’t really like the book you are reviewing.  There are lots of excellent practical suggestions for managing this situation including: being specific (similar to being evidence based); keeping it ‘between the pages’ and not being personal about the author; and writing in such a way, that however you feel, you know you can ‘own it’ ie the review and any response.

So some valuable tips and taking my own advice, it’s about practise, and a practice I’d best get on to instead of putting it off. I promise: the book reviews are coming soon!

PS Absolutely loving ‘The Engagement’ by Australian writer, Chloe Hooper – thrilling read!

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reading notes

Book voyeurs unite

September 4, 2012

I have loved the phrase ‘book voyeurs’ since I read about it in the Guardian ages ago. David Barnett writes:

I think it was Sarah Crown who first set me off. “Is it just me?” she asked (while accepting the cliche of that opening phrase), “is it just me, or are the contents of other people’s bookshelves/bedside tables/desks/whatever ALWAYS more interesting than your own?”

Well, is it just me, or … look, does anyone else have an unhealthy obsession not just with what people have on their bookshelves but what they’re actually reading right there and then?

I used the concept to create a couple of posts here and here on what I was reading; ‘Reading Notes for Book Voyeurs‘, an ‘occasional series’, I called it. Very occasional, as it turns out. I do weave my reading in and out of my blog posts, so perhaps this is why it seems more, but there it is, a series of two! Time to pick up the pace here, it seems for all the book voyeurs amongst us.

Reading is one of the great loves of my life. I have toyed with the idea of a separate book and reading blog, but the general advice I have gleaned out there is ‘don’t start a second blog’. I also have trouble with managing the time and content for one, so not keen to try and manage two. So I’m working with the concept that this blog is about my theme of transcending and what helps rise above, cut through, triumph over the negative and overcome, and I include books and reading here.

If anything has had the power to help me move through, overcome, make sense of and negotiate the world, it has been books and reading. A large part of my life has been dedicated to honing my skills in this area, personally and through studying literature, literacy and language; my career path includes being a teacher of reading and writing to adults, so this theme runs strong.

I find it helps to have a theme and focus, a meaningful reading project, to anchor my love of reading in a busy stream of activity. This year’s reading project is the ‘Australian Women Writer’s 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge‘. I have chosen to read 10 books in a range of genres and review 4 of them. I’m loving the AWW 2012 challenge and the community and activity it’s inspiring. Having a long and enduring love of Australian literature and women’s writing, it’s been wonderful to connect with this space again. Designed to refocus and re-engage people with the writing of Australian women, the challenge has been wildly successful with 1000+ review, a great website, twitter feed, Goodreads site and a rich community of readers and writers to engage with.

I’ve so far read 5 of my 10 works by Australian women writers this year and have just started my sixth today. I am sure I would not have become aware of some of these books if not for the challenge and being more generally attuned to the work of Australian women writers. Plus I’ve connected with some fabulous bloggers and writers who share my love of Australian literature and good writing.

So far, I have read:

Searching for the Secret River: A Writing Memoir, Kate Grenville

When we have Wings, Claire Corbett

Sarah Thornhill, Kate Grenville

The Light Between Oceans, M. L. Stedman

Poet’s Cottage, Josephine Pennicott

And I’ve just started the gorgeously suspenseful, ‘The Engagement‘ by Chloe Hooper.

The reviews are yet to come and are in the planning stages and yes, I need to get onto them as the year is marching away. I started to work on my review of ‘Searching for the Secret River’ with some research on the net, and found I had quite forgotten the furore around history and literature that surrounded ‘The Secret River’ in 2006 and must admit that minefield put me off and somewhat stalled my review writing.

In any case, I will work on my planned review mindful of the background issues, but my reading of both ‘The Secret River’ and ‘Searching for the Secret River’ was positive, tapping as both books do into my key interests of family history research, writing about this, trying to gauge what might have happened in the spaces of fact, if imperfectly, and understanding also that writing novels in historical contexts requires some fictionalising.

All this made me reconsider the act of book reviewing in the context of this blog and also AWW2012, and what form the reviews should or could take. I guess this may be part of the challenge of the Australian Women Writers Challenge for me: finding a meaningful way to write about these works that fits with my theme of ‘Transcending’ here and honours the tradition of resilience that these books are borne from, with Miles Franklin, the pioneering Australian women writer as its symbol and inspiration,

I’d best get back to reading the very engaging, ‘The Engagement’ and also working on those book reviews but I welcome your comments on:

  • books and reading as part of ‘Transcending’
  • your experience of books and reading and how they have helped you overcome, move through
  • book reviews and blogging generally – how can they come together?
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blogging music & images reading notes

What I’m loving

June 24, 2012

The orchids outside my front door

Image

The bracelet that attracted me yesterday: simple, cool and calm.

These books that arrived recently that I can’t wait to get more time to dive into.

Race out and buy them too:

This I Know: notes on unraveling the heart – Susannah Conway

Instant Love: how to make magic and memories with polaroids – Susannah Conway, Amanda Gilligan and Jenifer Altman

Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking – Susan Cain

Changing on the Job: developing leaders for a complex world – Jennifer Garvey Berger

‘Blogging from the Heart‘: the e-course, the creator – Susannah Conway, the community that has evolved from the group taking the course, the reading I have engaged in over the past 6 weeks from this brilliant creative tribe, how good we look on feedly when all together like a gorgeous magazine of kindred souls – thanks Susannah for yet another inspiring and perfect learning experience that will impact for a very long time…

The Lominger Leadership Architect tool and how we are using this in my work space to define and develop the leadership skills we need for the challenging times ahead in Australian vocational education and training

‘The Light Between Oceans’ by L.M.Stedman, an expat Australian writer living in London. I finished this novel this morning as part of the Australian Women Writers’ 2012 Challenge. It featured lighthouses, a wild West Australian coastline, a remote island, language that took me there and circumstances that wrenched my heart. And yes, I cried. A beautiful, atmospheric and engaging read.

What are you loving?

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reading notes

Reading Notes for Book Voyeurs #2

September 19, 2010

An occasional series on what I’m reading and why…

Paul Bowles, ‘The Sheltering Sky’, 1949 Penguin (Republished, 2009 with introduction by Paul Theroux)

I talked about the book voyeur phenomenon here. I’m always interested in the randomness and reasons around what others are reading, carrying around with them to read and also now reading on the kindle and internet. I contribute my reading experiences here in this same spirit.

I love a classic, especially one that may not be right out there and that has in any case bypassed me. Paul Bowles’ ‘The Sheltering Sky’ has been such a discovery. It’s the first book of his I have read and I look forward to reading his other writing now. The edition I have is one of the republished Penguin classics; available here in Australia for $9.95 and with a new introduction by Paul Theroux. I loved the introduction, but wisely left it to read till after ‘The Sheltering Sky’ itself as it tells you what happens.

I haven’t come across Paul Bowles in my literature travels and reading journey and I wonder why he has escaped me. His style is dark and hypnotic; beautiful prose describing horrific scenes that repulse and attract you at once. It’s like watching a train wreck, but a compelling and stylish one.

My reading experience was interrupted. Too much reading of blogs and a lot of work in the day job meant ‘The Sheltering Sky’ didn’t get read as well as it deserved; at least for half of it, it was piecemeal and interrupted. Ironically, some time away for work delivered some excellent uninterrupted reading time en route and over dinner at night on my own. Then, finally, I lost myself in the second half of the book and surrendered to its prose and unrelenting entropy. As soon as I finished, I wanted to read it again.

It’s not a happy story; I won’t tell you everything that happens. Husband and wife, Port and Kit Moresby travel to the Northern Africa and into the Sahara to escape something: their marriage, themselves, boredom, society. You wonder why they are making this journey. The landscape and people are haunting and alien, hostile and threatening, and Port and Kit, along with their acquired companion, Tunner, make the journey deeper and deeper. It’s exotic and spell-binding even as you want them to turn back and you also turn away.

As Theroux concludes in the introduction:

…it is obvious that he wanted to give the desert a face and a mood – or moods; he often depicts a landscape in anatomical terms, and he could only do that by describing people somewhat like ourselves crawling around it and becoming its victims.

I loved the quote accompanying Book One ‘Tea in the Sahara’:

Each man’s journey is personal only insofar as it may resemble what is already in his memory. Eduardo Mallea

The book has that same unobtainable quality, like a maze of mirrors or a mirage; hard to pin down and unsure of its destination. Theroux describes the novel as ‘strange, uneven and somewhat hallucinatory…’  A journey, a process, but one full of breath-taking prose, the sheltering sky of the title woven through-out as a recurring image in different forms. Tennessee Williams’ 1949 review in the New York Times, ‘An Allegory of Man and his Sahara’  talks of the layers and depth experienced as a reader:

There is a curiously double level to this novel. The surface is enthralling as narrative. It is impressive as writing. But above that surface is the aura that I spoke of, intangible and powerful, bringing to mind one of those clouds that you have seen in summer, close to the horizon and dark in color and now and then silently pulsing with interior flashes of fire. And that is the surface of the novel that has filled me with such excitement.

I am chasing up the Bertolucci movie of the book which I’m sure is equally hypnotic. I’ll also be chasing up more of Paul Bowles’ books to indulge myself in his beautiful, dark, spare and eloquent prose. And I’ll be reading the work of his wife, Jane Bowles, who I have not had the pleasure of reading yet. If you haven’t experienced the strange pleasure of ‘The Sheltering Sky,’ do surrender to its allure.

I have learnt more about Paul Bowles and his wife Jane Bowles through the following excellent article:

The Forces Within: The Millicent Dillon Interview on Jane Bowles Part 1 on A Victoria Mixon’s Editor’s blog

There are other resources and background here:

The Authorised Paul Bowles website – extensive links and resources including many reviews

The Sheltering Sky – wikipedia Fascinating to see how ‘The Sheltering Sky’ has emerged in so many modern songs and lyrics

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