On My "To Read" Table

Last Saturday I finally got to head to Dymocks in the city to spend my Christmas voucher. What a long time it's been sitting there, waiting, burning a hole in my wallet. Luckily my Clunes friend, who seems to have read most of the books in the world, was on hand to occasionally pull a face or shake his head and very cautiously advise against something I'd picked up to consider buying. He did this with The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared. 'Nah, you wouldn't like it,' he said, and after a brief verbal review, I believed him.

He did try to talk me into This Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, saying it was the most profoundly moving thing he'd ever read but I've heard others say it's slit-your-wrists territory and will give you nightmares for years, so I erred on the side of caution and left it on the shelf, for the time being at least.

So what did I end up with?

• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
• The Green Road by Anne Enright and 
• My Brilliant Friend the first of those Ellena Ferrante books that seem to have divided many people into love it/hate it camps.

So, plenty to go on with. Winter coming, open fires to light and any number of 4-legged friends to share the couch.

Not much room for me....



~*~

The Tell-Tale Heart - How Scary Is It Really?

Last week in my Short Form Fiction class, my lecturer, the amazing Ania Walwicz, brought us copies of The Telltale Heart, a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1843.
When I saw it, my own heart did a little flip as I remembered being scared out of my wits by this tale when I was very young. How young, I now wonder? I said in class that my mother read this tale to me when I was about ten and it frightened the daylights out of me. Now, after having read it and discussed it with others, I can't believe this to be right. I know that there was at least one well-thumbed copy of Edgar Allan Poe stories in the house, but surely no-one would read such a horrible story to a ten-year old? Yet the written tale itself is not really all that frightening.
To summarise, a young man becomes obsessed with the pale, dead eye of the old man he lives with, to such an extent that he finally kills him, chops him up and hides him under the floorboards. (See? Not scary at all.) He denies his own patently obvious madness and when two policemen arrive, summoned by the old man's screams, the young man's own guilt leads him, quite quickly, to confess.

The impetus for his confession, and what scared me witless as a ten year old, is the sound of the old man's heartbeat, pounding away, unstoppable, even after his death.
Many films have been made of this short story - predictably all short, as there's not much of a plot. One, made by Brian Desmond Hurst in 1934, was quickly withdrawn from the cinema and written up in newspapers at the time as the film that was 'too horrible to show'.

My family were all avid movie-goers so I suspect it was one of these short films I got to see so young. And ever since, the sound of a pounding heart, in any movie, has had the capacity to scare me quite terribly. Now that I've re-read The Telltale Heart, combed YouTube for a dozen versions of the short film and watched them all, I think the scare factor has dissipated.

Pity, really. I think I'll kind of miss it....

~*~

Dogs on Twitter?

Here’s something you may not know. Thousands of dogs all over the world have their own Twitter accounts. Can you believe that?

Okay, let me go back. I was one of those people a bit dismissive of Twitter. I chortled disdainfully along with Jon Faine when he relayed the news to radio world that there were rumours of YouTube merging with Twitter and Facebook to form a conglomerate known as YouTwitFace. I applauded the divine Miss Kitty Flanagan when she did an hilarious skit shouting Twitter-type information loudly, from a park bench. 

Who cares, I thought, who in the Twittersphere let another cup of tea get cold, bemoaned their dimpled thighs or caught the cat chewing their toothbrush? (Actually, a good warning in that last one maybe...).

So when a particular course I’m doing decreed that we all must have a ‘presence on the ‘Net’—including on Twitter—I hit upon the amazingly unique idea of hiding behind one of my dogs (thanks Archie) and setting up the account in his name.

And oh, how very unoriginal that turned out to be. A zillion dog owners throughout the world thought of this years ago. Many of them have four and five thousand followers!

And how entertaining it is to join the ranks. (Don't mention the time-wasting...)

There’s the gorgeous golden retriever, Tennyson Tails, who tweeted “Human has left vacuum cleaner in the doorway of lounge (turned off). How can I possibly get round it, I will have to sit in the hallway forever.”
Digger (left) with his exploding bed - honestly!

Or the beautiful Cockerpoo (I think we call them Spoodles), Royston Bradley, with a photo of all his toys pegged on the washing line '........ an old photo, Marvin has no ears now'.

There’s the irresistible West Highland Terrier, Busby Watson, with his message “Me moustache is covered in gravy. Look like Poirot.” 

And countless trails of destruction—dog beds, shoes, videos, tv remotes, fruit from backyard trees—with cute photos offering funny justifications from the doggy perpetrators.

I realise this is a bit like people trying to relate their dreams, isn’t it. Chances are you’re not falling around in helpless laughter as I often am when I waste time in the doggy Twittersphere. You have to be there. And thousands of dog-lovers the world over obviously are. Archie has clocked up 335 followers in his first few months. True! Most are from the UK, some from Canada and the US and a few from Australia and Europe. One devoted Follower is a German Neurophysicist now living in Ohio. Go figure.

So look, I know it’s a time waster. There’s climate change, Donald Trump, Syria, Africa, refugees, shameful governments all over the world, broken promises and self-serving policies that will affect the state of humankind for centuries to come. How calming then, it is, to view a Tweet with accompanying photo of a brown cocker spaniel staring fixedly at a sunny window and the caption – “Looking for a fly.”  It’s a great antidote, I can tell you. Check it out.

~*~

Book Launch - The Light on the Water

Few things can be more inspirational for an aspiring writer than to attend the book launch of someone you admire and respect. Olga Lorenzo is a creative writing teacher at RMIT and her new book - The Light on the Water - was launched at Readings Bookshop in Carlton on Thursday night.
The place was packed to the walls and every face was beaming.  The goodwill in the room was palpable and not just because of the free wine. There were family members, close friends, lecturer/colleagues from RMIT and elsewhere and plenty of students, most of them aspiring writers.
When Olga read from her book there was rapt attention and the excerpt she chose delivered all that we could have hoped.
Most of us left hugging a signed copy of the book (I started to read mine as soon as I got home and can't put it down) and I'm guessing a lot of us were thinking 'Oh please let this be me one day!' - not in envy, but in happiness for someone else's success and inspired by all those years of persistence that culminated in a joyous night like this.
Congratulations Olga and thank you for sharing!

~*~

My ASA Mentorship

My writing space at Varuna

In late 2014, following a nudge from one of my RMIT lecturers, I applied for a Mentorship with the Australian Society of Authors. I submitted excerpts from my manuscript The Year of the Lilyweeds (since renamed) which had won a Varuna fellowship the previous year.
I spent hours perusing the ASA list of all the people available as mentors - everyone who's anyone in the world of writing and publication, it seemed to me - and eventually chose Diana Giese, a Sydney-based writer, literary journalist and editor. One of the many testimonials available said "Diana understands the culture and essence of the publishing world, and what it takes to turn a manuscript into a publishable work. It was her encouragement, unfaltering belief and undying optimism...that kept me going when I was ready to call it a day...."
I also invested time in close examination of Diana's own website - http://www.dianagiese.com.au and concluded that here was a woman who gets things done! And how right that turned out to be.
The mentorship has finished now and I have been the recipient of 12 months of the most wonderful support and insightful comment from Diana throughout. I was invited to join the ASA as an Associate Member and have enjoyed ongoing contact with the ASA administration, who have been prompt, friendly and informative whenever I've had a question. 

There's no 'but' coming here. It has been an amazing privilege throughout. For a start Diana read my entire manuscript, which mentors are not obliged to do. From that point we worked on the manuscript together throughout the year - mostly via email - negotiating changes, deleting parts that didn't seem to go anywhere and adding a lot of material to expand the story and let the characters grow. I deleted about 25,000 words and added another 40,000. 
It was such a thrill and a challenge to hear comments like 'Your readers will want to know more about Jack' or 'I think Bridie and Jacob must get together'. As the story is an historical fiction I found myself researching  things like National Service in Australia, music of the Depression years, what might an isolated woman be reading in 1950, knowing that I had someone to be accountable to and knowing that she wouldn't miss a trick!
I have a very different manuscript now from what it was 12 months ago. The latest hard copy went off with a kiss and a sigh to Diana a week ago. All fingers crossed.
What an honour this experience has been. The What Now? phase isn't nearly so daunting, knowing that this manuscript, thanks to Diana and the ASA, is as good as I can possibly make it.

Postscript:

Oh! The 2015/16 winners have just been announced! Congratulations and the best of luck to every one of them!

https://www.asauthors.org/emerging-writers-and-illustrators-mentorships

~*~

Jane Gardam & The Queen of the Tambourine

What a treat it was, when trawling through the bookshelves one wet weekend down at the beach, to come across a Jane Gardam novel that I hadn't read. This is like discovering an unredeemed book voucher hidden in the back of your wallet.
Jane Gardam is one of those writers who can take you so far into someone else's world that for days after finishing the book you find yourself wondering how the protagonist is going. She is a prolific and highly awarded English writer—think Penelope Lively, Muriel Spark— whose other books I have loved, God on the Rocks and Crusoe's Daughter especially.
There are reams of reviews about Queen of the Tambourine and all other Jane Gardam novels of course and I'm not about to write another one. 
(Go to Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/268104.The_Queen_of_the_Tambourine )

But if you haven't discovered her yet there's a world of delight awaiting you. The Queen of the Tambourine is a tale told entirely in letters written by the apparently disintegrating Eliza Peabody to her mysterious neighbour, Joan, who may or may not be missing. Her other neighbours in the posh South London street provide Eliza's whole context and her preoccupation. She is the ultimate unreliable narrator.

From this sad, hilarious and piercingly perceptive story, written in 1991 remember, I couldn't resist recording some examples of her writing, those bits you come across and want to underline, turning down page corners (tch tch) so you can find them again afterwards. (Elliot Perlman and John Banville inspire the same urge.)
So, a few of the thoughts of dippy but perceptive Eliza Peabody:  "I seriously think Simon is taking drugs. He has that bright look, and there's something about his shoulder blades..."
Of modern London mothers: "...their children get themselves about the world to foreign lands at an age when their grandparents were still being taken for short walks in the park."
Mr Forbes with his "skimmed-milk smile" and the visiting speaker, smoking "a very loose-looking cigarette with tobacco hanging out of it like hairs from a nose."
"...the golfers in their yellow jerseys, like wandering bananas..."
Or later, Eliza's friend stares at "some polystyrene urns and a statue of Pandora, letting all the troubles of the world out of a polystyrene box at her feet. She had a join all down her sides and over her head like an Easter egg that would fall apart if you tapped it."
In the fridge there is "an open tin of anchovies. Fillets of worm. Unwound it could sever an artery."
And of the offspring of a family friend "The great mysteries of puberty are yet to come for these girls... " although "Grizel is getting very thick with her sports mistress." 
Everything so under-stated and original.
The thoughts of Eliza Peabody take us along a sometimes disconcerting pathway that is well worth following, just for the privilege of being inside her head as she tries to make sense of her own unfathomable world.

~*~

Haiku From Sue Canders

My friend, poet and photographer Sue Canders, sometimes makes my day with a new haiku and photo from the beautiful Bass Coast.
This is to-day's gift to me, and now to you!

Neon striped sunrise

A warm wrap for cool morning

Fashionable dawn