tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43588745432876520082024-03-04T21:23:42.808-08:00Isletonlineisletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-36706800269448961482012-05-04T00:35:00.000-07:002012-05-04T00:36:20.040-07:00Mini Miles Franklin Reviews<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemRFCWCibVOo-HlIaBg4JEeCqvH_7l5OaOKpRwwymwaVSW42ftRYFumboRfxVMpSvRtlquFUE3B-P3p9ZwlZeTBy1kBzzZhvIhreYbCJjQ7jVWXSdEjz-i5Ep9TH1-ErPCIpWWN7DLTY/s1600/miles-franklin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemRFCWCibVOo-HlIaBg4JEeCqvH_7l5OaOKpRwwymwaVSW42ftRYFumboRfxVMpSvRtlquFUE3B-P3p9ZwlZeTBy1kBzzZhvIhreYbCJjQ7jVWXSdEjz-i5Ep9TH1-ErPCIpWWN7DLTY/s200/miles-franklin.jpg" width="155" /></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Miles Franklin <a href="http://www.milesfranklin.com.au/2012/2012_shortlist" target="_blank">short list</a> was announced
yesterday afternoon at 2 o’clock. The baker’s dozen <a href="http://www.milesfranklin.com.au/2012/2012_longlist" target="_blank">long list</a> was reduced
to five titles of which I have only read (and adored) two as well as a couple from the long list. It
would, of course be lovely to have read them all but that is not to be the case
this year.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>Animal People</i> by Charlotte Wood is noticeably
absent from the short list, it seemed to be a no-brainer for inclusion. It is a sharply drawn and incisive narrative condensed into 24
hours in the life of Stephen who wakes us to a steaming Sydney morning determined to
break up with his girlfriend. The momentum of his decision is the driving force
of his day, but the Dalloway-esque detail fuels it. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> A
delightful inclusion is Favel Parret’s <i>Past the Shallows</i>. First time novelist
Favel’s ties with the ocean are clear in this book, which is set in the deep, cold South of Tasmania and
follows the young sons of a fisherman, Harry and Miles. There is little warmth
in this austere, masculine world and while at times I felt a little emotionally manipulated it is told with clarity and deserves its place on the short list.Here's my</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bookshow/review-past-the-shallows/2917892" target="_blank"> review</a> of <i>Past the Shallows </i>from Radio National's Book Show last year. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>Foal’s Bread</i> by Gillian Mears is also a wise inclusion. This book made me want to sob. It brims with the
intensity of a tempered love story. An extract of this intense and luminous work was published in
<a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=14&langID=1" target="_blank"><i>Island</i> 127</a>, alongside 'For Gillian: feather, fire bracken and vomit,' an essay by Brian Camden about travelling to Venezuela with
Gillian as she sought shamanic insight and healing for the MS she suffers.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Anna Funder's <i>All That I Am</i> and <i>Cold Light</i> by Frank Moorhouse I may or may
not get to in this reading lifetime – but Tony Birch, I will. It’s exciting to
hear about an author when they turn up on an acclaimed shortlist. <i>Blood</i>, was described on as “</span>a novel suffused with the
primal bonds of family, and heart-beating suspense<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">" on ABC Radio National's <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bookshow/blood---a-novel-by-tony-birch/3714706" target="_blank">Book Show</a> last year.<span lang="EN-US"></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Congratulations to all of the authors – and may
the judges’ decision ruffle feathers, be applauded, furrow brows and start conversations.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=6" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Rachel </span></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">PS We launched</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><i> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1529329236">Island</a></i></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1529329236"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i></i>128: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=27" target="_blank">Digitalism</a> this week - and it was a great night!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bookshow/review-past-the-shallows/2917892" target="_blank"><br /></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /><a href="http://paigelovesbooks.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/charlotte-wood-discusses-animal-people.html" target="_blank"></a></span></div>isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-44664425297932726982012-04-12T21:16:00.002-07:002012-04-12T22:35:54.962-07:00The Greens Are Dead. Long Live the Greens.<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Bob Brown resigned as leader of the Australian Greens earlier today.</em></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em> </em></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The recent Green Oration featured a song cycle; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>words and music written by Bob Brown <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that ended in a sing along involving the audience, who had both words and music supplied to them amongst a ream of pamphlets and stickers as they arrived in Hobart’s beautiful colonial town hall. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The song followed a visionary and – some might say ‘out there’ speech from Bob that celebrated the 40<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup> anniversary of the world’s first Green party and discussed how extraterrestrials may view this earth and the rapacious use of its resources. It also showcased the best and worst of this man, the leader of the Australian Greens since 1996 and the Tasmanian Greens before that. It showed his big picture thinking, his intellect, eloquence <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and his compassion – as well as referencing ET.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv06ud-KuFJBKSY9_zhq2I7zJbHRLRti6pVQTIfuq05NAX3ihKUnq4ZhxRfCpXCQM6z-jsqjWsiAsSAr3iuHK7CkGLBxaA40eAnHxh9UkO85EBwUUEoCSIJtrhUBRFISMr6m3-Yf1KCx4/s1600/Bobolder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv06ud-KuFJBKSY9_zhq2I7zJbHRLRti6pVQTIfuq05NAX3ihKUnq4ZhxRfCpXCQM6z-jsqjWsiAsSAr3iuHK7CkGLBxaA40eAnHxh9UkO85EBwUUEoCSIJtrhUBRFISMr6m3-Yf1KCx4/s1600/Bobolder.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Brown has been a visionary leader, though the nuances of his party’s thought and policy is easily lost in the black and white reporting of our 24 hour news cycle. Though he is surrounded by a strong team of staff and senators, it remains to be seen what his resignation will mean for the Greens in the lead up to the 2013 election. He is, after all, the most recognised face and voice in the Green movement in contemporary Australia. In the face of the petty leadership kerfuffles of the other major parties, the Greens have been resolute in their support of Bob. Christine Milne, who will take over the leadership, is similarly respected amongst the Green movement, though she lacks the charisma of the man affectionately known as ‘Sir Bob’ amongst supporters.</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The very reasons that Brown is respected and admired by so many have left him open to criticism from conservatives. He speaks his mind, he questions development, he suggests reform that will not benefit the purses of a few. He is openly gay, he writes poetry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Brown, quoted in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-13/bob-brown-resigns-as-greens-leader/3948496" target="_blank">ABC’s live blog</a> of his resignation, said "I am sad to leave but happy to go. It is good knowing that the Greens have such a depth of talent and experience lined up for leadership - I could only dream about that a decade ago."</span></span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Greens are dead! Long live the Greens!</span></span>isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-71920243466826761632012-03-30T00:15:00.002-07:002012-03-30T03:09:40.063-07:00The Poison Tasters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRk62uBdsuOVqpt3KzPMdJ6Kopu4fRzSweNvW424E91ZJnLwwUoTZhrJr4GIt99yL3sbL3kwvWkl35Vl0t0iO4m4IlSOdZc76l3aToa54cLudZgEUAd10pRP3_VhUJ-zFSq5dZ_7CVeGw/s1600/island+in+the+sun+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRk62uBdsuOVqpt3KzPMdJ6Kopu4fRzSweNvW424E91ZJnLwwUoTZhrJr4GIt99yL3sbL3kwvWkl35Vl0t0iO4m4IlSOdZc76l3aToa54cLudZgEUAd10pRP3_VhUJ-zFSq5dZ_7CVeGw/s320/island+in+the+sun+pic.jpg" width="239" /></a>It’s a common enough thing. Chatting about the weather, waxing lyrical about the changes in our mountain’s colour, texture, mood. From the window of the Island office, set in a leafy Sandy Bay street, I can tell you that the mountain is looking damn fine. It’s Autumn so the air is pretty crisp, the sun is shining for what might be the last time until October, and students are milling around the streets basking and scurrying in equal measure. We have the nod from the mountain, all is sunshine. There is work to do.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And the work for the moment is the slush pile. For every magazine, especially a long-standing one such as Island, there is always the bulging slush pile. The silently lurking reams of submissions sent in from around the world waiting for rejection or acceptance. Friday 2pm the reading begins. It’s #slushhour, so we Tweet and Facebook the commencement and get to work. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Calling it slush is not a comment on the quality of the submission, as One Might Think and as @adam suggested in response to our tweeterature. We are the poison tasters. We gladly open ourselves up to unknown material, hopeful of finding the jewel amongst the chaff (and I’m sorry for the mixed metaphors, it’s been a long and turgid day at the mill. There I go again). </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><o:p> </o:p>The term slush pile has its own <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slush_pile" target="_blank">Wiki entry</a>, and we are not to be blamed for the terminology, though, when first faced with the 726 email submissions (Island can no longer handle hardcopy submissions) calling out for review, the term wading, wallowing seem more than appropriate. Slush is not far off in my mind. My favourite terminology for the day, however, was thanks to <i><a href="http://reviewofaustralianfiction.com/" target="_blank">Review of Australian Fiction</a> </i>@AustFiction calling us the almost adorable name 'slushpuppies'. Awwww.</div><br />
So, it gets into the first half hour of being 'slushpuppies' and Dale, our sturdy young editor, has found a possible ‘yes’. And so early on, too. It gets added to the acceptance list. <br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Have we piqued your interest yet? If you’re reading this, it’s likely you’re either interested in reading other people’s writing, or in having other people read yours. There is <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=61" target="_blank"><i>Islet</i></a> for emerging writers, and its parent, <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/" target="_blank"><i>Island</i></a>, to which you can submit your works. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Recently, Dale made a call-out for submissions through Twitter. This is the way the world now works. It is time to accept it. If you are one of the hopeful please get thee online and <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/dalecampisi" target="_blank">DM Dale</a> (direct message, not deep and meaningful, though the two are not mutually exclusive). If you’re wanting to rise above the slush and stand out, there is a way to do it. This doesn’t make the quality of your writing better, just makes us look at it quicker. Twitter is also the place to go for tips on what <i>Island</i> is looking for in upcoming submissions, and hints on deadlines and other essentials.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">If you read the submission guidelines, which are readily available on the <i>Island</i> <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/" target="_blank">website</a>, you will already be ahead of the game, in our eyes. Also, time was, when writers wanted to get into the writing game they would storm the newspaper stands to get copies of the magazines they wanted to submit to, they would subscribe, they would read, read, read. It’s a age-worn adage, but it’s true. You have to put your money where your mouth is, and support the business. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Here’s another thing. So many pieces are so similar in theme it’s really hard to make them stand out one against the other. Here are the slush hour top five for the day:</div>Communing with nature<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Communing with the weather</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Walking Your Dog</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Death of your ‘insert family member here’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Fishing</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><o:p> </o:p>It’s an invigorating thing, and I feel privileged being the first to read the works of so many writers around the globe. The most exotic one for today was from Kenya, but there were many more ranging from down the street in South Hobart, to Brisbane, to Washington DC.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><o:p> </o:p>It’s a hard old business and we’re hoping to keep supporting writers, particularly Tasmanians, for a long time to come. So please keep reading, keep writing, get in touch with us on <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/IslandMagTas" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Island-Magazine/228269357186170?ref=tn_tnmn" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and let us know what you’ve read recently which touched your world, your mind, or any other body parts you care to mention.</div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Lesley at <i>Islandia</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i>Image courtesy of Dale, named with tongue in cheek 'Island in the Sun'. Guess what it's a picture of.</i></div><br />
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</div>isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-85865459127790803112012-02-09T19:11:00.000-08:002012-02-09T19:24:11.315-08:00Between the Lines: Reading the Italic Font<em>Hannah Schürholz submitted a poem to Islet that caught my editorial eye- though I was initially, unsure/unconvinced about the use of italics in her work. I responded to her submission by asking about these italics. She wrote an erudite and impassioned email in response, poetically endorsing and explaining the use of the italic font. She convinced me, changed my mind and I am glad to publish both her poem and her accompanying essay on Islet. You can read the essay below and her poem '</em>Between<em> the </em>Lines<em>' </em><a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=61" target="_blank"><em>here</em></a>.<br />
<em>Rachel</em><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Between the Lines</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">: Reading the Italic Font</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hannah Schürholz</span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Umberto Eco, in his beautifully evocative terms states that contemporary art “sets out to stimulate the private world of the addressee so that he can draw from the inside himself some deeper response that mirrors the subtler resonances underlying the text” (1989, 9). It is the infinity of the text that resides in the many constituents of our writing. The text is manifest in its inter-, hyper-, meta-, and contextual formations, always changing and developing, conversing with and establishing other stories in the process of reception, interpretation and association. I have always been infatuated with the possibilities a text offers – a fabulous pool of ideas that we, as writers and readers, continuously delve into, re-creating and responding to worlds that unfold behind the tiniest fragments – rainbow-coloured pebbles of the imagination. We all bring our own stories and memories to a text that we read, turning the words into a piece of ourselves. We become painters of our own landscape, inner and outer, exposing and being exposed in delicate acts of wording, phrasing, highlighting, structuring, eclipsing feelings that tell without imposition, incite without obligation and seduce without domination. Often it is not a script itself that stirs our creativity and triggers our memory but certain words, phrases, the format or its punctuation. Every creative text is re-written through the reading process and thus receives its idiosyncratic value for the reader as writer and the writer as reader. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What technique works better to enhance and literally embody this possibility than what we actually see on the page: the form of the letters and the contrast of the ink on the page. I remember the fun I had as a girl in perfecting my handwriting and playing with the spaces on the page, carefully balancing letters and sentences in spontaneous compositions of bright colours, different styles and sizes of individual words and phrases. And even now, having grown out of that phase and entered the widely uninspiring world of computerisation, I still find immense pleasure in playing with the purely visual and combining the materiality of the text with its transcending qualities. It is here where the written and the oral, matter and metaphor, illusion and reality meet and blur that the text is most sensitive to conversations that exceed what is merely obvious. The digital font we use today</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is a powerful device, deriving from callographic artistry – a prominent ancient artform in both Eastern and Western cultures. The cursive or italic font dates as far back as the fifteenth century. It links the word to the voice and thus combines the world of print with the old tradition of orality. Intonation becomes central to the story and the voice holds its power. It makes us aware that there is more to be discovered, more than one meaning to be considered and negotiated. And to me, it is italics that best signify the vocal complexity and subversion inherent to written intonation, the written voice that directs us beyond itself and reveals its own death in the birth of others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What the italicised words in my poem <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=61" target="_blank">Between <em>the</em> Lines</a> signify is the poly-vocality inherent to the written word, which is not static but shifts and floats, offering new stories every time it is looked upon. The highlighted words allude to the many counter stories that may lie hidden behind the official writing propagated to the world – stories of suffering, exploitation, abuse and deceit that are not given the space for open articulation. The words in italics function as stimuli and suggest that we as readers have the imaginative power to look behind the façade of dominant systems and set these other voices free. It is both a personal and a political act of liberation, literally and metaphorically underlining an awareness that is necessary: to hear the whispers of the text and follow them, seeing through the textual face and reading the evocations rooted beneath. From a purely aesthetic point of view, I wanted to introduce a bit of a visual rhythm to the lines and allude to the stories inherent to what is perceived as “different” in cultural contexts but what might not be so different after all. By fixing the reader’s eyes on the italicised words in the poem, I wish to encourage them to see the fluidity of this act of direction and start deconstructing the poem by finding different combinations themselves, hence opening up the poem and maybe retrieving their own voice in its ambiguities.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sources:</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Eco, Umberto. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Open Work</i>. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Hannah Schürholz</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> is completing her PhD in Australian Literature at La Trobe University, Melbourne. </span></span></div></span>isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-51322506662760096402011-10-24T20:44:00.000-07:002011-10-24T20:44:41.229-07:00Guest post from Lyndon Riggall: Get to Robert McKee<div class="Section1"><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="" name="_GoBack"></a><span lang="EN-US">His students have gone on to write stories as diverse as <i>Sex and The City</i>, <i>Toy Story 3 </i>and <i>The Fighter, </i>and include talents that range from William Goldman and Geoffrey Rush to Joan Rivers. John Cleese has attended his course three times. A few years ago, when Australia’s most popular children’s author Andy Griffiths was visiting the bookshop where I was working, I asked him if he had any advice for me, and perhaps I should have guessed what the answer would be.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US">“Get to Robert McKee.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">At the time I had no idea who McKee was, but after thorough research it became pretty clear that, as far as Hollywood was concerned, McKee was where it was at. He is a ‘script doctor’ - he fixes stories and has made a living teaching people the craft of good writing. He tours the world delivering his lectures - before my seminar in Sydney he had presented them in France and later in the year he was planning to head off to Russia.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Writing seminars are an expensive enterprise. For me, the costs exceeded a grand to find accommodation and make it to four days of 9-hour sessions. Luckily, it was worth every cent. My writing has always been about the short-form. If I had written a novel prior to the seminar, I would have, without a doubt, begin with a short story, then written another short story, and then another, attempting to string these smaller chapters together into an overall narrative. McKee has corrected this method out of me. The writing, he says, is the easy part. The hard part is crafting a good story, a meticulous structure that turns up and down in such a way that the audience or the reader never tires of it. To create an entire world of words, to keep ahead of the audience at every step and leave them begging, this is the art of the real writer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">McKee is often criticised for teaching a ‘formula’ for writing. He’s defended his reputation for years, and rightly so. He doesn’t teach ‘formula’, he teaches ‘form;’ the classical design structure that most narratives take. Of course there are exceptions, but these exceptions are always marked by their knowing deviation from the classical design. Regardless of what you wish to write, knowing the telltale signs of a good story is paramount. It was impossible when listening to McKee not to recall my favourite pieces of work and align them with the structure. No surprises - they fit perfectly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">To try and cram four massive days of lecture material in this blog post would be both impossible and an insult to McKee’s remarkable course, which imparted valuable wisdom not only about writing but life itself. Certainly the 36 hours I spent in that lecture hall were among the most engaging I have ever had the pleasure to attend – at no point did I wish it would end sooner, which is no mean achievement in itself. McKee is seventy, and while his energy seems to have no intention of flagging, it is certainly possible that he may retire soon. For those interested, a good substitute to the lecture series would be to purchase a paper copy, and the audiobook of his text <i>Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting.</i> If like me, the concept of the long-form fiction leaves you feeling unprepared, or if you have written a full work but feel that it’s missing something – McKee’s your man. I firmly believe that no-one can teach you how to write - but the features of good writing <i>can</i> be taught, and moreover are a vital lesson to learn if you hope to create wonderful stories that make their mark, and one day prove your worth as a master of the craft.</span><span lang="EN-US"><br />
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</div></div><div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry"><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3735132320938625470"><div></div><div></div><div><i><strong>Lyndon Riggall</strong> is a young writer and student, living in Hobart and studying English and Classical Literature at the University of Tasmania. He tries to divide his time equally between writing works for pure enjoyment, and for rigorous artistic worth, but often can't remember which pile is which. </i></div><div><i>He can be found on <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/lyndonriggall"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Twitter</span></a>, or at his blog <a href="http://lyndonswords.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #5588aa;">A Quick Word</span></a></i></div></div></div></div></div></div>isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-83092181155599238592011-10-17T23:23:00.000-07:002011-10-17T23:28:01.891-07:00Guest post from Lesley Halm: The best things in life are free, but sometimes you have to pay for them.<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">The following blog post tells more of the story of <a href="http://isletonline.blogspot.com/2011/09/iteration-again-podcast.html">Iteration:Again</a> the geographically and creatively wide ranging public art exhibits we spoke to Sarah Jones, project manager and curator about earlier in year. You can listen to that interview <a href="http://www.box.net/shared/gdi0ylbpeasn3xdclk8v">here</a>.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNBiEhZSPtCM3l4Vli092dUfFn7s6CNKIypMqTcpCww3Wsqjs0bVnpEepeJbOAPxPr2knTy_-rQmacquQeWQEZc5RoTFk2KhNC45TmhKvN1aqiCHDeVfuEjhKS0KoUfmS3_wTyDT9uNVA/s1600/itagain1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNBiEhZSPtCM3l4Vli092dUfFn7s6CNKIypMqTcpCww3Wsqjs0bVnpEepeJbOAPxPr2knTy_-rQmacquQeWQEZc5RoTFk2KhNC45TmhKvN1aqiCHDeVfuEjhKS0KoUfmS3_wTyDT9uNVA/s200/itagain1.jpg" width="133" /></a>Going to 146 Elizabeth St in Hobart to speak to artist John Vella and curator Jane Stewart about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Best Practice</i>, their work for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iteration:Again, </i>I didn’t really know what to expect. I’d read the blurb, but what greeted me at the door was a sign that read </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">‘The best things in life are free, but sometimes you have to pay for them’. The room was a mess of art works which appeared to have been strewn around the floor, holes cut out of them, surrounded by workbenches and tools, debris and sad, deflated balloons. This was John and Jane’s slice of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iteration:Again</i>, a work that was curated overall by David Cross. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iteration:Again</i> spanned over four weeks in September and October, with works all around Tasmania in public spaces. The pieces changed (reiterated) each week.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuSJKNbJx3TqLPQ0p9p1nme8JU8326MOPCzNH4XSU4i625yAEZdPYoQXI2JIj1Qb4DNZToT8Z_iIRz96WUBh0tDCrCwRQ4bfl4XXRb_f9yUSYZ7m6iQ2MsK0U7k5q64hZOX2l9xsl7UAc/s1600/iterate2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuSJKNbJx3TqLPQ0p9p1nme8JU8326MOPCzNH4XSU4i625yAEZdPYoQXI2JIj1Qb4DNZToT8Z_iIRz96WUBh0tDCrCwRQ4bfl4XXRb_f9yUSYZ7m6iQ2MsK0U7k5q64hZOX2l9xsl7UAc/s200/iterate2.jpg" width="200" /></a>What follows is the essence of a long conversation I had with Jane Stewart, curator and the artist curated John Vella their thoughts about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Best Practice, </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iteration</i>: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Again</i>. The words are John’s, unless otherwise specified.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The idea?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Getting people to think laterally about art and experiencing it in places that aren’t galleries, essentially. Because the works are changing every week you’re having to think of transformation within the context of the experience. That is particularly unusual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can take a lot of effort to assimilate. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The four iterations, or changes?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">The changes are accumulative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The four iterations of my work: first stage: a market stall where people get a helium balloon which is a voucher for a free piece of my art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The three following iterations involved cutting out circular pieces of my previous artworks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is like reactivating an archive of my practice. Layered into this is the fact you can either purchase them, or get one free each week with a balloon voucher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are these things actually worth? It is seeing what the public response is, whether the message is getting out, whether the balloons are getting picked up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is making it richer. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The space?</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">A big thing about this is that it is halfway between a studio, a workshop, a gallery. Locked between something sophisticated and tacky, something precious and trashed. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">(Jane) That’s where the energy comes from. It’s not just a gallery, it is the foyer for Arts Tasmania, a funding body. So if you want to think about value and art and money, there are layers built into that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the spruikers are here on the Friday and Saturday we get people coming in and looking at the work who have no idea why they’re looking at it and who aren’t familiar with contemporary art. It’s shamelessly commercial. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">(John) Some people came in and bought some pieces knowing full well that it would be free the next day. That $500 means a hell of a lot, but not in a monetary sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The dialogue?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>I am becoming increasingly interested in subjecting artwork to experiences. Whilst some people would say I was damaging them, I am actually adding to them. That really excites me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to keep trying things like this. The ongoing thing is putting people in touch with each other. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone who gets an artwork gets photographed holding the artwork, which has been signed. The photos are then sent to them. It is an official process. The people who are getting the artworks are then being put in contact with each other so they know who has the other pieces of the same artwork.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Conception? </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">This project has evolved as a response to another project which I did for <a href="http://www.castgallery.org/">CAST</a> called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">HANGBANG (nightshift)</i> where all of my works were subjected to a situation where they could be destroyed or chipped, broken. It came about as an idea of reiteration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How would I reiterate works that I had already made? Sure, you could photograph or copy them, but what would it mean to actually send them out and get them to break apart in a very orchestrated way?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I don’t know the answers to those questions I thought it was the right thing to try. For me, the most interesting artworks are the ones where I’m not sure. I was feeling pretty sick in my guts last week to see what would happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It turned out amazing. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Subversion? </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">(Jane)What is subversive about this artwork is the non-subversive aspect of it. So that very promotional aspect – the glossy fliers, the spruiker, and the flaunting – seems to be undermining the subversiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">(John) It is designed subversiveness. It is shifting things in ways that aren’t familiar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a good thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The illogical dimension of art is what makes it rich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is that tension which is at the heart of the project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is that tension between the experience, the performance, the intangible, the ephemeral, the values - whether they are monetary or cultural – that can be placed on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s it really. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdONeZa8ENrFXt046hIWrV_9CgLRBMZYVyC7Hh6RDLPQ4DIlysL2eAUw84anhD3s7QBAB8qP8tTb2Et-TTItXf-og5O2kHDdQQpU9ndmiPnPxOT9cl8Gr9_ZT9ZZb3SwNV1Tddjaau8Xo/s1600/iterate3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdONeZa8ENrFXt046hIWrV_9CgLRBMZYVyC7Hh6RDLPQ4DIlysL2eAUw84anhD3s7QBAB8qP8tTb2Et-TTItXf-og5O2kHDdQQpU9ndmiPnPxOT9cl8Gr9_ZT9ZZb3SwNV1Tddjaau8Xo/s320/iterate3.jpg" width="320" /></a>…But it wasn’t it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After collecting my balloon, I went back and got my art piece and had it signed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I filled in my form. I shook hands with John in an uncomfortably official moment and pondered my choice of artwork.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wondered what I would do with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’m glad I have it, to stare at, to wonder over, to remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who has the other pieces?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is this thing worth to me? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">The experience is far from over.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The beginning of the dialogue?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">Lesley's bio:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">She likes to think she's tough, like Tom Waits rolled in gristle, but she really a big wimp hiding behind a bustle of big words. She also thinks there is such a thing as a 'bustle of words'. Books, poetry, stories, and the occasional article are what she chiefly likes to dabble in. She can be found on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/pistolwhipt">here</a>.</div>isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-37351323209386254702011-10-03T17:44:00.000-07:002011-10-03T17:45:22.970-07:00Guest blog from Lyndon Riggall: Portrait of a Palace<div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN0gvWaOikM3a4D_hPqTla8nERj_dmNLgoFI5VsknsRr5EkwDb1ZFOToTWuy4D0O26zw9EBGjTPyX_MPeQrjZw5qJuZNGGs_2E9_QhyphenhyphenPt00tVC3oo_rgR0PNbBjviDnmJb20R0vEEG0s8/s1600/RatPalace+024%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN0gvWaOikM3a4D_hPqTla8nERj_dmNLgoFI5VsknsRr5EkwDb1ZFOToTWuy4D0O26zw9EBGjTPyX_MPeQrjZw5qJuZNGGs_2E9_QhyphenhyphenPt00tVC3oo_rgR0PNbBjviDnmJb20R0vEEG0s8/s320/RatPalace+024%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">The instructions Scot has given me to reach ‘The Rat Palace’ make me feel a bit like I’m about to enter a secret society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, they’re necessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The building itself is large but quite hidden, and I’m sneaking past church cars and construction signs to reach it.</span></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">It’s five-thirty on a Thursday night, and most of Hobart will be at home, listening to the inane chatter of a background TV and cutting up carrots to get started on dinner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These guys are smoking and creating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A couple of them have been there all day, the others have jobs and they sneak in and out – it’s a clear vibe from all of them though that this isn’t work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a place of experiment. </span></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY4djWu2wXwlFBiFwqlQkDB-Vl-k8E2oBPmpZlaUh70WERB5N5rJBv9iKDXjc7XPzBnHISC1kSDZV3c2aOINWdjDajceS3lXceNtsp_KGc593WAH4HsQvfZV6XCc6hfcfESZEHQhYPVZg/s1600/RatPalace+021%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY4djWu2wXwlFBiFwqlQkDB-Vl-k8E2oBPmpZlaUh70WERB5N5rJBv9iKDXjc7XPzBnHISC1kSDZV3c2aOINWdjDajceS3lXceNtsp_KGc593WAH4HsQvfZV6XCc6hfcfESZEHQhYPVZg/s320/RatPalace+021%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">The Rat Palace has been variously inhabited by a number of Hobart’s artists since at least seven years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can see the layers of paint on every surface of the place, making the room itself an artwork - like a massive scale version of a kindergarten marble painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a history of risk trickling in multi-coloured blood down the walls - and it’s a history that Scot, Matt, Callum, Joel, Rob and Nicola are now part of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t stop at this floor either, and downstairs local bands come in of an evening and practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<em>The Frustrations</em> play some nights,” Rob tells me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Those are good nights to be here.”</span></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">For now, the CD player is playing Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Storm Coming’:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em>I could paint a picture with a pen, but a song will only scratch the skin, and there’s still places I haven’t been, because I know what’s in there is already in the air.</em></span></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_wf6CtqXlwy1-brwhP2VwuwSITZdWYjisLWcqrRizz0BlBxIMTjnajvnBQhJHxr0m26DpkmBtMGBdiDpd8kXGApFZTeb0fnbdNa4RddyK2NVDj807JHcg238A7-EqzLBJ8PA8LUhgnWY/s1600/RatPalace+033%255B2%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_wf6CtqXlwy1-brwhP2VwuwSITZdWYjisLWcqrRizz0BlBxIMTjnajvnBQhJHxr0m26DpkmBtMGBdiDpd8kXGApFZTeb0fnbdNa4RddyK2NVDj807JHcg238A7-EqzLBJ8PA8LUhgnWY/s320/RatPalace+033%255B2%255D.jpg" width="219" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I take a look around the place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the things I love about the environment Scot has set up with these guys is its variety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one corner there are detailed paintings of Victorian-looking gentleman in coats and cravats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In another, a mannequin of Jesus is weeping black tears – the church next door caught through the window behind it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt is working on some collaborative drawings, and is sketching a series of long green tentacles down the page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder as I’m looking around what some of the more aging, antiquarian population of Hobart might say about the place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel like they would probably say it’s ‘angry’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t buy that though - sure, some of the paintings have a brief flash of the middle finger about them, (I catch one out of the corner of my eye subtitled ‘Facebook is God’) but the more I look around the place the more I start to feel that each generation gets the art it deserves, and these guys are capturing beautifully the chaos which we’ve had to learn to accept about modern life, rather than the false sensibility that defined art for so many generations before them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Callum is a great example of this – he is slowly and meticulously drawing a massive pile of auto parts and abandoned junk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m stunned by the detail, and have to remind myself that this is rubbish; it’s the stuff we’re ashamed of - that we discard - turned into something beautiful.</span></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrVu62A3uDLmFRoEGonJW1asGF17Y2mg0ypbo1PdGVV3JS4AQDgL9i6niNMU3otBz6pI2_rbqYM-fPN-UTf2eLsyxKizJjvhJTKNP58yWJ1VHw2gvECuijI8Y422kPET-D4TjlM_eA3Q/s1600/RatPalace+023%255B2%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrVu62A3uDLmFRoEGonJW1asGF17Y2mg0ypbo1PdGVV3JS4AQDgL9i6niNMU3otBz6pI2_rbqYM-fPN-UTf2eLsyxKizJjvhJTKNP58yWJ1VHw2gvECuijI8Y422kPET-D4TjlM_eA3Q/s320/RatPalace+023%255B2%255D.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Scot tells me they’ll be doing a new exhibition downstairs soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’ll be called <em>If I’d had more bullets I would’ve taken Warhol with me</em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt laughs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“That just about sums everything up”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">They promise they’ll fling me an email when they send out the invitations. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">“You’ll know when it’s from us,” Rob tells me, “It’ll be in French.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I wouldn’t have expected anything less.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div></div><div></div><div><i><strong>Lyndon Riggall</strong> is a young writer and student, living in Hobart and studying English and Classical Literature at the University of Tasmania. He tries to divide his time equally between writing works for pure enjoyment, and for rigorous artistic worth, but often can't remember which pile is which. </i></div><div><i>He can be found on <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/lyndonriggall">Twitter</a>, or at his blog <a href="http://lyndonswords.blogspot.com/">A Quick Word</a></i></div><div></div><div><em><strong>Claire Needham</strong>, photographer, can be contacted through her website <a href="http://claireneedham.com/">here</a> and also on <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/clairen_photos">Twitter</a></em></div><div></div><div><em><strong>Scot Cotterell</strong>'s work is inter-disciplinary and concerned with responses to technology and media. His work uses sound, video, image and object to create environments that reflect upon cultural phenomena. His website can be found <a href="http://scotcotterell.com/">here</a>.</em></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_wf6CtqXlwy1-brwhP2VwuwSITZdWYjisLWcqrRizz0BlBxIMTjnajvnBQhJHxr0m26DpkmBtMGBdiDpd8kXGApFZTeb0fnbdNa4RddyK2NVDj807JHcg238A7-EqzLBJ8PA8LUhgnWY/s1600/RatPalace+033%255B2%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a></div>isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-17175788015656230272011-09-18T00:51:00.000-07:002011-09-18T00:51:54.694-07:00They took the money away because we're not onlineAh, hello.....<br />
This is a blog, this is the Islet blog. Islet is the online site for emerging writers and visual artists and it exists through Island Magazine, our 'mainland,' if you like. It is the State Government of Tasmania that we are talking about - and their decision to remove every cent of funding to Island Magazine - and thus Islet.<br />
Island has existed for 32 years in various guises and through various strengths. It has published early work of some of Australia's best known and respected writers and supported Tasmanian arts and letters in a profound way over the last three decades - and Arts Tasmania should be there to ensure that it can continue to do this.<br />
Literary Journals play a hugely important role - not just in providing stimulating and challenging and exciting works for the reader - but also as a gateway drug for new writers.<br />
Sarah Kanowski is the editor of Island. She has been in the role for 8 months and the first edition she edited from scratch has been the first edition of Island to have sold out in its current incarnation (I just went to check the accuracy of that statement and I tell a lie, there are still four copies of the print run of the 125 Mona edition left in the office.<br />
Arts Tasmania, the peak arts body in the state, in their letter stating why they had made this funding decision, questioned why they would fund a Tasmanian magazine when Tasmanians can go online and read the New Yorker. This is, to put it mildly, an embarrassing statement from a body that purports to encourage Tasmanian arts.<br />
The Premier, Lara Giddings, said in the <a href="http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/08/31/257651_tasmania-news.html">Mercury</a> newspaper that "the cutting of funding for <em>Island Magazine</em>, a quarterly magazine featuring contemporary writing, was based on a "trend" towards online rather than hard-copy publications for literature." <br />
Island has just launched their <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/">new website</a> and published their first digital editions (available through Booki.sh - <a href="http://ebooks.readings.com.au/product/9780987147004">here</a>.)<br />
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<strong>What can you do?</strong><br />
<br />
Write to <a href="mailto:katherine.hough@arts.tas.gov.au">Katherine Hough</a>, the head of Arts Tasmania, who signed the letter telling us to go offshore for our literary requirements, write to the Premier, <a href="mailto:lara.giddings@dpac.tas.gov.au">Lara Giddings</a>. It is unlikely that they will reverse their funding decision but oh! so important that we let them know how much government support for the arts, both tangible and intangible is crucial for a healthy and inspired society.<br />
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You can <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=5">subscribe to Island</a> (issue 126 has just gone to the printers - and the magazine is looking forward, not lamenting backwards).<br />
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You can write to the <a href="http://www.themercury.com.au/opinion/letter-to-the-editor-submit.html">Mercury</a>, or your local newspaper and your local politician, wherever you are. It's not too late - our voices must continue to be heard.<br />
<br />
'Like' the Island Magazine: The Future <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Island-Magazine-The-Future/231920450192392">Facebook page</a>.<br />
- and talk about this situation - tell your friends, tell your family, tell your favourite primary school teacher.<br />
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And, - keep reading!<br />
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isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-59326197591353712142011-09-05T23:49:00.000-07:002011-09-05T23:53:06.688-07:00Iteration:Again + podcast<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUk2CNqcG7y1U-oZ83kmgI_s9J7bUgy7wWmsYwFaWM8v_JuJlVmYOPLWdvsLJjlpfkdKE0cQ4Fo6bZMDu_njGgSrY8vzjM61pLV9MCJ5Glnmjqiq5iKdbx1nZL6UPrjnEC7zYUZfqhwas/s1600/Square%252520Logo%2525204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUk2CNqcG7y1U-oZ83kmgI_s9J7bUgy7wWmsYwFaWM8v_JuJlVmYOPLWdvsLJjlpfkdKE0cQ4Fo6bZMDu_njGgSrY8vzjM61pLV9MCJ5Glnmjqiq5iKdbx1nZL6UPrjnEC7zYUZfqhwas/s320/Square%252520Logo%2525204.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
We chatted with Sarah Jones, a curator and the project manager for the public art piece(s) <a href="http://www.castgallery.org/news/2011/iterationagain-press-statement-released-today">Iteration:Again</a> which will take place around the state of Tasmania, in many iterations, involving many artists, throughout September and October. Sarah talks about people's tendency to think of public art as something that is monumental and static - but how this project is far from that. She talks about the iterative process of creation, the role of curators in these works and the role of <a href="http://www.castgallery.org/">CAST</a>.<br />
This work brings together artists from all over the world with curators and will include pieces such as a constructed island where an artist will live for a week, work that brings light to the Wintery dark of Hobart and a Spaniard who will make shot from Taroona's Shot Tower. This is art that responds to the site (various, around the whole state) but is not permanent and is not monumental.<br />
Part of the CAST project is to bring writers in to respond to each work - and we would like to do the same - active blogging about the work, whatever your experience of it may be; light-giving landrovers at dawn in Hobart or semaphore flags from the Mercury building.<br />
If you would like more information - get in touch with us @isletonline.<br />
<br />
PODCAST the interview <a href="http://www.box.net/shared/gdi0ylbpeasn3xdclk8v">here</a> - and see you at the launch on September 15 at CAST.isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-43642163478901134282011-08-29T21:07:00.000-07:002011-08-29T21:08:11.416-07:00Angry Penguins and three new pieces An essay arrived in the inbox from Kym Packer. It was a considered and thought provoking essay about writing terrorist characters in contemporary fiction. It referred to an author called David Goodwillie and this led me to an editorial Ern Malley moment. Yes, it was a childish response to the name Goodwillie, who I had to<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Goodwillie_(author)"> look up</a> - and have now confirmed that he is a critically acclaimed and twice published author and a professional baseball player, though that is another story.<br />
Being new in the role of editor has not only to really forced me to examine what 'works' but also to become a bit paranoid. And reading "Goodwillie" in this thoughtful essay fed that paranoia. <br />
This <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern_Malley">fabled literary hoax</a> occured in the 1940s, when poets James McAuley and Harold Stewart concocted nonsense poetry, constructed the identity of Ern Malley (poet, deceased) and Ethel Malley (sister, discoverer of poetry). They then submitted these poems, with a letter from Ethel, to the new Modernist magazine <em>Angry Penguins</em>, which was edited by Max Harris, who published them. The hoax was then exposed (after a fascinating series of to-and-fro'ing) - thus resulting, in a butterfly's wing flapping in Brazil kind of way, in my Goodwillie/Ern Malley moment.<br />
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Paranoia assuaged, Kym Packer's tightly written essay <em>Conviction Cake Walk</em> is <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=67">published here</a>.<br />
<br />
We have also published a piece by Doctor Vanessa Kirkpatrick, who is, most beautifully, a professor of poetry. This piece, <em>Narrowneck,</em> had been languishing in our 'accepted' folder for some time and it is a relief to finally publish work that was accepted by the inaugural Islet editor, Anica Boulanger-Mashberg. It is published <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=64">here</a>.<br />
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The final piece - and one that is being published today is another poem that had dwelt for too long in the accepted folder. The poem, by Gemma Mahadeo, is called <em>some small certainties </em>and though its lines are (literally) numbered it tells many different stories. You can read it <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=61">here</a>.isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4358874543287652008.post-89326714556360474952011-07-28T06:26:00.000-07:002011-07-28T17:16:23.196-07:00New Islet site<div class="MsoNormal"> We have been months in re-development for a new site with a new publishing schedule and <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=61">here it is</a>. We are now couched inside the new <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=27">Island </a>website. Islet has been described as Island’s little sister, but as little sisters are wont, we feel the need to define ourselves by more than our kinship with something older and more established. While we feel fraternally linked and proud to be related to Island, we offer different content and have a different yet complementary mission to Island. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> We specifically publish micro (or flash) fiction and poetry from emerging writers and new work from emerging visual artists. We will also be publishing new media and commentary in the form of short essays and reviews - again from emerging writers and artists. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> We’ll be publishing regularly – and I’m deliberately not defining what regular means – because part of the purpose of these changes is to reinvest a fluidity into this circular corner of cyberspace. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
First up on our new site are works that have been burning metaphorical holes in Islet’s computer’s files. There is the subtle and intense short fiction from Penny O’Hara <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=61"><i>Goodbye, love</i></a> which is our first featured work on the new Islet site. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> The first published poem on the new site is <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/im/index.php?c=64"><i>Honeycomb of my Soul</i></a> by Michelle Murray – a deceptive, almost saccharine title for a poem that is far from even falsely sweet. This poem is part of a larger work called <i>Black Wedding Dress.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"> Over the next week our first short essay (I'm loath to call it micro or flash essaying) will be published. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
If you would like to be alerted when we post new work subscribe to our <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/Isletonline">RSS feed here.</a><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s early days (all over again) – your feedback and suggestions – and of course messages of love and support are welcome.</div><div class="MsoNormal">with love and a great deal of appreciation for your patience,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Rachel</div>isletonlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751310795306266929noreply@blogger.com1