Elimy of The Incredible Rambling Elimy penned a clever letter to author Yvette Walker as a review of her book Letters to the End of Love, concluding with an entertaining and moving YouTube video of New Zealand MP Maurice Williamson’s speech on the passing of the gay marriage bill across the Tasman.  WriteReaderly, always pithy and to-the-point, reviewed Car Maintenance, Explosives and Love, and Other Contemporary Lesbian Writings, edited by Susan Hawthorne, Cathie Dunsford and Susan Sayer.  She’d bought it for the cover, and despite not being enamoured of all of its contents, which might be ‘ best considered as a contribution to an ongoing dialogue of lesbian writers’, decided it contained ‘enough smart, witty, well-written pieces among the drama, poetry and short stories compiled here to justify a couple of inches on my shelf.’

Books by Australian women writers that showcased issues of disability were also reviewed.  Nalini from Dark Matter Fanzine posted on A. A. Bell’s Diamond Eyes, the story of Mira, a young woman with extraordinary eyesight who is incarcerated in a mental health facility.  Nalini found the work incorporated realistic elements of vision impairment and gave ‘insight to readers who have not experienced disadvantage and have not had to deal with disability or medical professionals in this kind of relationship.’  She followed this up with a review of the second book in the trilogy, Hindsight, which she highly recommended. In the completely different genre of memoir was Boomer and Me, Jo Case’s story of her son with Asperger’s, reviewed by James Tierney of The Newtown Review of Books. Tierney writes that the work ‘is a book of heightened expression’, that its writer ‘is by turns proud, dismayed, vulnerable, vengeful, kind, dismissive – like us all, but with the boring bits cut out.’

Swinging to contemporary fiction, the popularity of Dawn Barker’s Fractured (covered also by ShelleyRae in the March Contemporary Fiction roundup) gave much-needed air to the mental health issue of postnatal psychosis.  Several reviewers wrote of their empathy for the difficult situation in which new parents Anna and Tony find themselves.  Marcia of Book Muster Down Under wrote that the ‘all too real rawness of Anna’s emotions and state-of-mind had me vacillating between continuing to read or put it down,’ while Monique of Write Note Reviews opens her review with the observation that ‘Nothing can ever prepare you for the reality of having a child’ and that, having read the book, she hoped that ‘the next time I meet someone experiencing post-natal depression that I’m more aware, understanding and supportive.’

Annabel Smith extrapolated this experience to mental health in general, writing that:

one of the best things about this novel was the way other characters responded to Anna’s illness, and her actions while she was affected by post-natal psychosis. Her husband and his parents are conflicted, on one hand wanting to support her, and on the other, blaming her for something she had no control over. It is an insight into how people with mental health issues are often treated. 

Again, the use of ‘insight’ hearkens back to the question of perception and sight raised in Nalini’s review.  It demonstrates how reading helps us to see other worlds, and other ways of perceiving those worlds and the people who inhabit them.

There were only two books reviewed by an Indigenous author this month, with Marilyn Brady reflecting on Anita Heiss’ Am I Black Enough for You?  Marilyn usefully summarises the book as ‘A valuable, informative account by an urbane, educated, highly successful Aboriginal Australian woman about her life and her work to include Aboriginal people in her nation’s conversation.’  She observes that Anita ‘never notes any conflicts between her Indigenous persona and her success in a non-Indigenous world.  Problems come from others who refuse to acknowledge who she is.’  Maree Kimberly’s review of Double Native, a memoir by Fiona Wirrer-George Oochunyung, also illustrates a redoubtable Indigenous woman, one whose story ‘you don’t hear often enough: a strong, determined Aboriginal woman who has a love of country, culture and life and never gives up.’

There was also a book by an Indigenous author which I overlooked last month, Teagan Chilcott’s Rise of the Fallen, reviewed by Tsana.  Tsana found the writing of this young adult novel about demons, angels and elementals ‘a bit rough.’  However, the ‘ending was strong, setting up the next book in the series well’ and she comments that ‘It will be interesting to see how Chilcott’s writing develops in the future.’  Teagan, who identifies with the Kamilaroi (NSW) and Wakka Wakka (QLD) people, was a 2012 recipient of the kuril dhagun Indigenous Writing Fellowship.  This helped her to develop the manuscript with the State Library of Queensland’s black&write! initiative, which aims to nurture an Indigenous writing community.

Quite a few reviews canvassed books with Indigenous issues, including two reviews by Janine Rizzetti of Resident Judge.  One was on Jacqueline Wright’s Red Dirt Talking which won the T.A. Hungerford prize for an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian author, and which was long listed for the Dobbie award for first time women writers.  Despite some frustration with the device of ‘historian-as-protagonist’, Janine found that Wright cut through ‘the visual imagery of outback life- the mess, the flies, the rubbish strewn yards, and the people gathered under trees- and picks up on the humour, the complexities of relationships and histories, and the uneasy coexistence of wariness and generosity in a community where she is an outsider.’  Janine’s other review was of From Moree to Mabo: the Mary Gaudron story by Pamela Burton.  Gaudron was a child of the railway camps in Moree who grew up amongst Aboriginal children in Moree, and she later became a high court judge who was involved in the Mabo decision.  This was an unauthorised biography but, as Janine writes, ‘Despite Guadron’s reluctance to be involved with its production, it presents a fully-rounded view of an engaged, fiercely intelligent woman.’

Meanwhile, Jonathon Shaw wrote a detailed post on Heather Goodall’s Invasion to Embassy and urged his readers to pick it up, for ‘although the stories it tells are grim, often heartbreaking, I found it exhilarating: in these dying days of what W H Stanner called the ‘great Australian silence’ – the relegation of Aboriginal experience to footnotes in our history – books like this, where Aboriginal points of view are front and centre, are like doors opening onto the real world.’

From 7^th-14^th July is NAIDOC week, in which the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples are celebrated by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike.  As part of the AWW Challenge, we’ll be encouraging readers to review books by Indigenous women writers, and I’ll post more information on this early next month.  In the meantime, you can head to our pages on Indigenous women writers and women writing on Indigenous issues to see what else is being read and absorbed.

About Me

I’m Jessica White, a novelist and researcher, and I’ve been deaf since age 4 when I lost most of my hearing from meningitis.  I have a PhD from the University of London and have published two novels with Penguin, A Curious Intimacy (2007), about botany and lesbianism, and Entitlement (2012), about Native Title and grief.  You can find more information about me at my website.  I’m also on Twitter @ladyredjess.

The Reading Room has partnered with  the Australian Women Writers Challenge to organise a series of Hangouts with some of our favourite authors and you are invited to participate!

We are looking for up to 12 people  to participate in three scheduled Hangouts during June, with more opportunities to come through the year. Each Hangout will include 3-5 interviewers along with a representative from The Reading Room and the author, of course!

You will need to be able to access  Google Hangouts and prepare 3-4 questions for the author.

If you would like to join one of the panels below, please nominate the author Hangout you would like to participate in by contacting me at bookd.out@gmail.com with Google Hangout in the Subject Line by Monday 27th May. Interviewers will be allocated on a first come, first served basis so be quick!

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June 18th: Honey Brown, author of Dark Horse, After the Darkness, The Good Daughter and Red Queen

TBA: Kate Belle, author of The Yearning

TBA: Jennifer Scoullar, author of Brumby’s Run and Currawong Creek

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We also invite you to nominate other Australian women authors  you would like to Hangout with in the comments and we will do our best to make it happen!

Even if you can’t join the panel, you can watch the live streaming and submit text questions, or watch the whole interview anytime at The Reading Room.

You can see a recent Hangout with author Jenn J McLeod and AWW participants on YouTube

This evening The Reading Room will be hanging out with Hannah Richell – click HERE for more details

Join the AWW Book Club at The Reading Room

]]> http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013/05/23/who-would-you-like-to-hangout-with/feed/ 0 shelleyraedesigns SNAG-0100 http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013/05/22/april-2013-roundup-historical-fiction/ http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013/05/22/april-2013-roundup-historical-fiction/#comments Wed, 22 May 2013 01:11:43 +0000 Marg http://australianwomenwriters.com/?p=5566 ]]> April was another busy month for Historical Fiction reviews for the challenge with 25 reviews being submitted.

Whenever I sit down to write these round-up posts, I am not necessarily sure of which aspect I am going to focus on. Over the last couple of months I have concentrated on historical fiction for kids, the books which were reviewed multiple times and some older books that were reviewed.

This month though, I decided to go in a slightly different direction but I will just touch on a couple of other books first. Many of the books that I have featured over the last few months continue to have a strong presence in the review list. The book that was reviewed most during April was The Railwayman’s Wife by Ashley Hay with three reviews with The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth being reviewed twice (yet more glowing reviews to go with the ones that were featured last month).

When I looked at the list of reviews for this month it stood out to me that there were a number of books that were published by small presses or, in one case, self published and it is these books that I thought I would spotlight – the books that aren’t published by the big named publishers and so therefore may not get the same degree of attention.

The first of these is Lily’s Leap by Tea Cooper which was published by Lyrical Press and was reviewed by Brenda this month. Part of the attraction for Brenda was that the story was set in her area, but even without that added incentive for the rest of us it sounds like a rollicking good ride – a strong romantic thread, bushrangers, adventure and a spirited main character. Brenda says:

The history aspect of this book was very enjoyable, and so much of it was familiar. I enjoyed Lily’s strong character, and her determination and fighting spirit, plus her love of Nero. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a romantic historical fiction novel.

The second book to be featured is by Western Australian author Michelle Diener who grew up in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa. In Daughter of the Sky, the story Diener tells is of the  outbreak of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, featuring a young woman who has been adopted by a Zulu tribe and finds herself spying for them in the British camp. In my review I said:

With the constantly changing world of digital publishing it is exciting to see small publishers taking chances to publish unusual stories, or when authors can publish the books of their heart themselves. Michelle Diener grew up in the area where the battles portrayed in this book took place, and you can tell that this is history that has come alive to her!

The challenge for readers is to find those small press or self published gems among some not so gem-like books. If you like strong historical fiction with romantic themes and an unusual setting, this could be the book for you. I truly enjoyed it!

Author Narrelle Harris reviewed Cyanide and Poppies by Carolyn Morwood which was published by Pulp Fiction Press. Cyanide and Poppies is a mystery that is set in Melbourne in the early 1920s and is the second book to feature Sister Eleanor Jones. In her review, Narrelle says:

The book is elegantly written, with well-crafted characters and a wonderful capacity to evoke the Melbourne of the era. It’s always a pleasure to recognise parts of my town in a book, and even moreso to get a feel for those places in other times and atmospheres.

Cyanide and Poppies has a slow build to a satisfying finale that cracks open light and air on lives as well as mysteries, and that’s a pretty fine thing.

Paula Grunseit contributed a review to The Newtown Review of Books of The Hanging of Minnie Thwaites by Judith Rodriguez which was published by Arcade Publications. Using a combination of “ traditional ballad form, lyrics and narrative non-fiction” the reader is introduced to Minnie Thwaites, also known as the Brunswick Baby Farmer, a young woman in 1890s Melbourne who is convicted of murdering two children.

This might look like a little book, but don’t be deceived by its size, as it packs quite a punch. In The Hanging of Minnie Thwaites, Rodriguez has successfully captured an important time in Australia’s history. While it’s not a cheerful read, there are moments of wicked humour in the verse, and I was completely drawn into Minnie’s world and felt very emotionally invested in her story. It’s a book for anyone interested in true crime, Australian history and women’s history.

The final book I wanted to spotlight this month is A Rose in No-Man’s Land by Margaret Tanner, published by The Wild Rose Press and reviewed by Louise on Goodreads. The book features a young woman who becomes a nurse during the Great War and her relationship with an English soldier. I do love a strong historical setting with a good romantic thread, especially when that setting is WWI or WWII! In her review, Louise says:

Margaret has truly captured the essence of the suffering and futility of World War 1 in an unexpected fashion, via a romance. Her diverse and imaginative scene-setting and her well-crafted and fast-paced story line kept my interest engaged throughout the book.

I look forward to seeing the wide range of historical fiction books that are reviewed during the month of May and to sharing a selection of them next month.

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Marg has long been an avid reader of all genres but especially historical fiction. She has very strong memories of reading through the entire collection of Jean Plaidy novels in the school library and still loves to read about all different eras and locations. Marg has been blogging about all different genres and other things at Adventures of an Intrepid Reader for more than 7 years, and was a founding member of Historical Tapestry, a group blog that has been focusing only on Historical Fiction for more than 5 years. You can tweet to her either @margreads or @historytapestry.

This month James Tierney and Bree reviewed a memoir that focuses on the issues of autism, Boomer & Me by Jo Case.  It shows the value of one book being reviewed multiple times as their reviews are quite different but both very interesting.  James shared some interesting insights about memoirs in his review:

Memoirs are tricky beasts. They sell, but the strong imperative willing them into existence is too often the subject alone, with seemingly little interest in turning out a finished piece of writing. The number of second-hand memoirs that can be found in second-hand bookstores with an ‘OK – I get it’ bookmark marooned at the halfway mark is evidence enough of that.

We have probably all read that type of memoir.  The author recognises that they have an interesting story to relate and merely seek to inform the reader rather than to make the book sing with beautiful writing.

The flip side of this is the reader.  As a reader of nonfiction I have noticed that I will be attracted to a book firstly by the topic it covers and then by the depth of research shown.  If a book passes those tests I bring it home to read.  However, a truly great nonfiction book must have a third element – excellent writing.  Time and again I slog through a book, fascinated by the topic, impressed by the quality research but ruing the tedious writing style.  For this reason I cheered when I read Kitty’s War by Janet Butler this month.  The high quality of Butler’s writing makes this deeply researched biography of a nurse serving close to the frontline in World War I a riveting read.

James continues, “[i]t is also true that memoirs are excused their less crafted elements by their proximity to veracity. Life is allowed to be lumpy and plain words are seen as closer to the plain truth.

This is always the tease of memoir – it promises us an insight into truth.   We hear directly from the subject themselves; they were there, a witness to their lives unlike the biographer.  The unpolished nature of the writing reinforces the message to the reader that we are not receiving this story third-hand but from one of the participants themselves.

James talks about the “proximity to veracity”, thus recognising that the memories of the person writing are the truth as that person knows it long after the event, but can they be regarded as a reliable account of the past?  The memoir is often written years after the events occurred. Since then the memories of the writer have been revised many times, the edges may have been taken off difficult experiences or hindsight and knowledge of other matters not known at the time may have changed the author’s attitudes to past events.

Historians prefer to use documentary evidence that is recorded around the time an incident occurred rather than relying on sometimes faulty memories of events from years past.  Yet history too is an approximation of the truth.  Some things occur that are never documented.  Even if events were recorded sometimes the documents are lost or damaged.  The person recording the incident may have been clouded by misconceptions or prejudices.

This month Marilyn Brady reviewed a book that is a combination of a memoir and history. “A superb history and memoir written as a dialogue between an Australian Indigenous elder and a prize-winning novelist who share some of the same ancestors” is how Marilyn Brady describes Kayang & Me by Kim Scott and Hazel Brown.  She further states that, “… it is a must-read for all who care about inter-cultural understanding and all who want to explore the changing awareness of historians, professional or personal, with their subjects”.

Historians in the past lived in a different cultural world to historians living today and this affects the histories they write.  An historian writing about nineteenth century Aboriginal history in the 1950s would write about it quite differently to an historian living today.  An historian living fifty years into the future are also likely to write about the same topic differently again.  Historians endeavour to understand the past on its own terms but inevitably the different cultural environment in which the historian lives affects the types of questions they may ask and the interpretation of the evidence.

Earlier Marilyn commented on my blog, “I love memoirs because they so honestly occupy the contested ground between fact and fiction; between memory and history”.  Further, she says:

…individuals… tell not only what happened but how an author experienced and thought about what happened. Some of the best use the experience of writing a memoir to reassess their lives and tell us how they felt about something in the past and how they view it now.

The process of writing a memoir offers the author an opportunity to reflect on their lives, to dig deep and understand themselves.  Yet it is not just a private, personal exercise.  The author is communicating with the reader through the memoir.  The appeal of the memoir is that the subject is talking intimately with us without an intermediary intervening and interpreting what they say.  The intimacy of the memoir is reflected in Kate Belle’s review of Nikki Stern’s memoir, Not your Ordinary Housewife.  Kate developed a close affinity with the author, “[m]ore than once I wanted to reach into the pages, take Nikki by the shoulders and scream ‘NO! JUST SAY NO! He’s too gutless to kill himself’”, says Kate in her review.

The genres of history, biography and memoir all aspire to communicate a truth but using different approaches.  However, these books are not just vehicles for truth; they are an author’s communication device.  For this reason in our reviews we should not only be reflecting on whether the topic is interesting and the research is sufficient.  We need to comment on whether the writing effectively conveys the story.  More than this we should celebrate those books which combine the three – deep analysis, solid evidence and quality writing.

Over to you… what appeals to you about memoirs?

You can read all the reviews of histories, biographies and memoirs written for the Australian Women Writers’ Challenge in 2013 here.

About Me

I’m Yvonne Perkins.  For the last few years I have been working as a research assistant on a variety of historical projects one of which was an investigation of the history of teaching reading in Australia. Currently I am researching the beliefs, religious or otherwise, of soldiers who served in World War I.  In my spare time I enjoy reading history and writing about it on my blog, Stumbling Through the Past.  I can also be found @perkinsy on twitter.

Some April numbers

Thirty-seven book reviews were tagged as Classics and/or Literary in April – about the same number as last month. I must explain, though, that while we generally accept the tags applied by reviewers, we do sometimes edit them. This month I added the Literary sub-category to a few reviews, mostly because some books that had been tagged as Literary in previous months had not been tagged so by this month’s reviewers. However, it is a somewhat subjective category, so please keep this in mind as you read on:

• The 37 reviews were posted by 24 reviewers, with one reviewer, Emily (The Incredible Rambling Elimy) posting 5 reviews, and three reviewers – Janine Rizzetti (the Resident Judge), John (Musings of a Literary Dilettante) and yours truly (Whispering Gums) – posting 3 each.
• 30 authors were reviewed with several receiving two reviews: Emma Chapman, Kate Forsyth, Wendy James, Dorothy Johnston, Cate Kennedy, Annabel Smith and Carrie Tiffany.
• Around one-third of the books have been shortlisted for or have won significant literary fiction awards. It’s great to see these books being read, but great that we are reading other books too.
• 34 of the reviews were classified as Fiction, and 2 as Non-fiction; 23 were tagged as Contemporary Fiction, 9 as Historical, 2 as Classics and 3 as Short Stories.

Classics

Elizabeth Harrower’s The Watch Tower

One of the two classics reviewed was Elizabeth Harrower’s harrowing (ha!) but wonderful The Watch Tower. It was reviewed by this month’s most prolific reviewer, Emily, who said she read it because Ramona Koval called it “scandalously under-read”. Ramona Koval is right, by the way! Emily calls it “a charming, horrifying, captivating novel”. The other classic reviewed was Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, reviewed by Kate W (Books are my Favourite and Best.) She’s read it many times and calls it “one of my favourite stories”. She says that

what truly stands out is Lindsay’s description of the Australian bush – you can feel that summer day and the descriptions of Hanging Rock are intimate.

Award-winning and short-listed books

Carrie Tiffany’s Mateship with Birds

The inaugural Stella Prize winner, Carrie Tiffany’s Mateship with Birds, received two reviews. Bree (1 girl – 2 many books) had mixed feelings about the book, but particularly enjoyed the characterisation, while John (Musings of a Literary Dilettante) calls it “tender and sensual”. It’s not a traditionally structured book but John felt that “the fragmented narration lends the story another layer of tension”.

This month’s readers also reviewed older prize winners. For example, John (of Musings, above) reviewed 2004 Miles Franklin Award winner Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire, and Dani (Dinner at Caphs) reviewed Blanche d’Alpuget‘s 1982 The Age Novel of the Year winner Turtle Diary. She writes a thoughtful review seeing d’Alpuget’s book about refugees and immigration in the 1970s through the prism of today’s challenges. She writes:

I can’t help wondering how many of D’Alpuget’s largely faceless refugee families could still be waiting today in that so-called queue we keep hearing about. The one that people who arrive here by boat were supposed to be sent to the back of.

Books short-listed for 2013 awards reviewed this month include Cate Kennedy’s collection of short stories Like a House on Fire and Jacqueline Wright‘s Red Dirt Talking. Jessica White enjoyed Kennedy’s stories, saying that:

It’s these undertows, the unspoken tensions and thoughts between people, that propel the stories.  You read on to find out whether characters lash out, break away, make a connection, or simply sound out that which is unsaid.

Jacqueline Wright’s Red dirt talking

Janine Rizzetti (Resident Judge) reviewed both these books. While not a keen reader of short stories she thoroughly enjoyed Kennedy’s collection. She had some doubts about Wright’s debut novel, Red Dirt Talking, which explores black-white relationships in outback Australia, feeling it’s a little too long and unclear in parts, but concludes that Wright:

cuts through the visual imagery of outback life – the mess, the flies, the rubbish strewn yards, and the people gathered under trees – and picks up on the humour, the complexities of relationships and histories, and the uneasy coexistence of wariness and generosity in a community where she is an outsider.  I found myself perfectly happy to pick up the book to keep reading, and I was drawn along by wanting to know what happened to Kuj.

And now, I must mention one of my reviews – not to plug my review but to encourage more people to read the novel. It’s for Courtney Collins’ The Burial, which was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. It is a mesmerising historical fiction inspired by the life of Australian female bushranger Jessie Hickman. The narrative voice – the story is told by the bushranger’s dead baby – is unusual, but debut author Collins pulls it off. It’s about survival in a hard world, but it’s not all grim. Read it …

This month’s non-fiction…

Brenda Walker’s Reading by moonlight

Just 2 reviews for non-fiction books were categorised as Literary this month: my review of Helen Trinca’s biography Madeleine about writer Madeleine St John, and Tarla Kramer’s of Brenda Walker’s Reading by Moonlight about how reading helped Walker cope during her treatment of and recovery from breast cancer. Tarla found the book a challenge to read at the start, mainly because of its “flitting” structure and some imagery she didn’t feel worked, but in the end she liked it, for a very important reason:

it made me think differently, it made me use the other parts of my brain.

And this, she says, is what art is really for. I’ll say Amen to that!

I’ve featured only a few of the books reviewed this month but you can check all the reviews by clicking this link.

About Whispering Gums

I read, review and blog about (mostly) literary fiction. It was reading Jane Austen when I was 14 years old that turned me onto literary fiction/classics, which is why I am here today doing this round-up! Little did Jane know what she started!

My love of Aussie literature started with Banjo Paterson’s ballads and Ethel Turner’s Seven Little Australians in my childhood. But, I didn’t really discover Australian women’s writing until the 1980s when I “met” and fell in love with Elizabeth Jolley, Thea Astley, Olga Masters, Helen Garner and Kate Grenville. Ever since then I have made sure to include a good percentage of Australian (and other) women writers in my reading diet.

DARK HORSE is the story of Sarah Barnard who becomes trapped on a mountain after a flash flood. She takes shelter in a hut undergoing restoration but is soon joined by a mysterious bushwalker who may represent danger…but even if he does the two are both trapped in the inhospitable Victorian high country until the weather improves.

AWW Challenge creator Elizabeth Lhuede said of the book

 I would have read it in one sitting, if I hadn’t had to sleep. I curled up in front of a glowing slow combustion stove and, while the weather went crazy outside, was swept into the drama. Brown has a style that I love: it’s immediate, the descriptions are fresh, the action is urgent. I could almost feel the Victorian alpine hills crowding in, felt every bump and jerk of the heroine’s ride up the mountain on her endurance-trained horse, held my breath at the enormity of what she faced going up, when she reached the summit and going down again. It’s that kind of book: suspenseful, urgent, adrenaline-pumping.

Over at the Newton Review of Books Karen Chisolm said

This is a particularly powerful thriller. From the first, the reader is wrong-footed, although it’s hard to know that’s what is actually going on. Bad things continue to happen, and even when something positive does occur, you know that the lull in the tension is just there to make you feel better about the fact that more bad things are just over that next ridge.

While Shelleyrae at Book’d Out was taken by the characters

Sarah’s reason for being on the mountain is seemingly clear while Heath is the enigma. He appears untruthful, giving vague answers to even the simplest of questions and as Sarah’s suspicion of him grows, so does ours. The tension builds as Sarah battles her intense attraction to Heath, who is young, fit and handsome, even though she suspects him to be dangerous. Brown skillfully develops a relationship between Sarah and Heath that is, if not entirely understandable, feasible, despite the obvious contradictions.

Bree at 1girl2many books was captivated by Brown’s setting

The atmosphere in this novel is amazing. Despite it being Christmas Day, it’s raining, the fog is heavy, it’s windy and it’s miserable. Sarah and Heath are almost always soaked to the skin, shivering and trying to warm up using the meager supplies that they have. The weather lends an ominous vibe to this book, it’s definitely the sort of weather where you expect bad things to happen.

and Brenda summed up everyone’s sentiments

Aussie author Honey Brown is a relatively new author to me, but I will definitely be reading everything of hers I can lay my hands on!

Some highlights of the other crime novels we’ve been reading over the past month include

a great, thematic review of Livia Day’s A TRIFLE DEAD from Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader. Marg matches each aspect of the book to an element of great trifle, making readers hungry for both the novel and some dessert, finishing with this observation “Of course, the final element in any trifle is the beautiful glass bowl that enables you to see the various layers once they are all assembled together, without distracting the eye. In this case, I think that the cover is very effective and eye catching.”

I learned that romantic suspense doesn’t have to be mushy and in the process thoroughly enjoyed Bronwyn Parry’s DEAD HEAT where “The authentic and quite enveloping setting provides an excellent backdrop for the cracking yarn which belied my ‘life’s slower in the country’ belief by not letting me stop for breath even once. There’s a rogue cop, international drug cartel links and a quite alarming number of dead bodies for something partially labelled romance but it all hangs together very nicely“.

Kerrie Smith at Mysteries in Paradise included a review of Annie Hauxwell’s debut novel IN HER BLOOD which features a heroine addicted financial investigator as its protagonist. Kerrie enjoyed all the book’s unorthodox aspects “Set in contemporary London it took me into a world I hadn’t visited before and set up some connections I hadn’t thought about before: an agency that investigates financial irregularities and outsources information to London police; a fraud investigator with a drug addiction; a very nasty loan shark with connections to regular finance; a doctor who dispenses heroin under legitimate licence; an anti-drugs campaigner who provides addiction counselling.”

Rochelle Sharpe thought Rebecca James’ SWEET DAMAGE was a rollercoaster of a story with “… plenty of tantalizing twist and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat, but it is the characters in this book that really hooked me and reeled me in. Once you meet the anxiety filled, timid, agoraphobic Anna, you will be reading in a desperate rush to find out what her story is, what was so terrible in her past that she turned into the mess she is“. Interestingly Rochelle thinks the book fits more into the NA (New Adult) category than the YA audience it’s being marketed to.

If you’re after some ideas of more crime/mystery/thriller or true crime books to read then head over to the genre’s reviews page for this year’s challenge to see what else is being discussed.

Previous roundups for this category

• AWW2013 Crime Roundup #1
• AWW2013 Crime Roundup #2
• AWW2013 Crime Roundup #3

About Me
I’m Bernadette Bean. I’ve been reading avidly for as long as I can remember, blogging about reading since late 2008 at Reactions to Reading and co-hosting Fair Dinkum Crime, a site devoted to promoting and discussing Australian crime fiction, for the past couple of years. I read and reviewed 18 books as part of my own participation in the 2012 challenge. Some of them weren’t even crime novels!

This recap will be a combination of both March and April reviews. We had some great new YA released during these months and I’ll be highlighting those as well as some older YA reads.

During March there were three releases reviewed: Girl Defective by Simmone Howell – the story of a teenage girl named Sky and set in St Kilda.  Danielle says “Howell writes such sharp characters and dark edges with a wry humour that’s wholly unique and breathtaking.”

Song in the Dark by Christine Howe takes a look at the life of a teenage addict and his family which Bree reviewed “This is a beautifully written novel, one of the few I’ve read that I feel actually captures the difficulty of addiction and the reality of it, especially here in Australia.”

And New Guinea Moon by Kate Constable – set in Papua New Guinea during the 70s. Reviewed by Lauren “I’m so grateful to have discovered this author and wonder why I haven’t picked up any of her earlier titles previously – must rectify that!

Two older books reviews this month include Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood – Maggie says “This was so witty and heart-warming. I would be surprised that this is a debut novel except that the author is Australian.”

And Louise reviewed Have You Seen Ally Queen by Deb Fitzpatrick, set in W.A. Louise writes  “This is my first reading of Deb Fitzpatrick, I look forward to more of her writing.”

During April there were four new releases featured, three of which I read and loved. The Zigzag Effect by Lili Wilkinson is a fun, unique story of a girl, her job with a magician as well as a haunted theatre.

The Mimosa Tree is the debut novel of Antonella Preto. It tells the story of Mira, her life in W.A during the 80s and her fear of nuclear war.

A really unique writing format (mostly emails) allowed for a compelling story in Cry Blue Murder by Kim Kane and Marion Roberts. The story revolves around two teen girls and the disappearances of local girls.

Sweet Damage by Rebecca James, is the story of Tim and the strange occurrences in the house he moves into. Monique says “James writes well and she is especially good at creating an atmosphere of menace in which the house almost becomes a character in its own right.”

And lastly another older book, Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta, the story of a girl forced to attend a new school that was formally a boy-only high school. Rochelle says “Saving Francesca will make you want to laugh and make you want to cry. It is a book about friendship, family, and first love. It is about finding out who you really are and letting yourself be the real you. It is a must read for all lovers of YA contemporary.”

And I wondered, how soon forgotten we are.

Salon-A-Muse, March 1982-1985, Melbourne
This was a monthly gathering for feminist artists, writers, playwrights, musicians, comedians and others to present their work to women interested in the arts and culture. At the first meeting about half the potential audience had to be turned away with just 80 squeezing into a terrace house living room. The organisers changed venue several times with monthly audiences in the range of 100-200. It was an extraordinary culturally rich period which followed on from the Women’s Theatre and women’s rock bands of the 1970s. In Canberra Tilly’s became a focus for women’s cultural productions and performances.

Sydney, 1982: The Sydney Women Writers Festival, Seymour Centre
This weekend festival was the first writers’ festival I ever went to. It was an eye-opener to me, a budding writer with hardly any published work. There I heard Antigone Kefala, Anna Couani and met Robyn Rowland, Susan Hampton and Lee Cataldi for the first time. There were readings, writing workshops and panel sessions.

Melbourne, 31 August – 8 September 1985: The Language of Difference: Women Writers’ Week, Abbotsford Convent
In 1984 after being unemployed for 15 months, I applied for the job of the Writing, Theatre and Music Co-ordinator for the New Moods Festival. Part of Victoria’s 150^th invasion celebration. I put it that way because from the start I wanted to subvert the idea of Australia’s history of colonisation. On 26 February 1985, we had a one-off session in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria, Doris Lessing Speaks. An event with 800 in the audience, 200 of which were standing-room only tickets.

In September 1985, after many meetings, lots of invitations sent out, the 9-day writers week took place. Opening with keynote addresses from Audre Lorde (USA) and Keri Hulme (NZ/Aotearoa) and session speakers such as Dorothy Hewett, Eva Johnson, Elizabeth Jolley, Hazel Rowley, T. Nappurula Nelson, Diane Bell, Sandra Shotlander and many others. The 9-day festival was filled with sessions on Aboriginal and Islander women’s writing, migration and the mother tongue, class and literature, erotic and lesbian writing as well as sessions on publishing, scriptwriting, experimental writing, the feminist aesthetic and about a dozen book launches. This event occurred a year before the inaugural Melbourne’s Writers’ Festival. An anthology, Difference: Writings by Woman was published and launched at the festival.

Australia wide, 1989 and 1991, Australian Feminist Book Fortnight, 1-17 September 1989, 6-22 September 1991
This national festival of books and writers took two years to organise. On each occasion more than 200 events were held across the country – from Broome to Burnie, Whyalla to Wagga Wagga – as well as multiple events in every capital city. I can’t find the full programs but on one A4 photocopied page there were 31 events in Sydney alone with writers such as Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Marele Day, Ruby Langford, Dale Spender, Maxine Hong Kingston (USA), Luisa Valezuela (Argentina), Janette Turner Hospital, Beth Yahp, Drusilla Modjeska and more. Part of the purpose of the Fortnight was to promote books written by women to booksellers. To this end we produced 15,000 catalogues containing information about approximately 300 books. Of the 300, 20 were chosen as Feminist Fortnight Favourites and had prominence in a coloured insert in the catalogue. We also produced a double A4 poster with those 20 books reproduced in colour. The catalogues and posters were distributed to bookshops around Australia (in the first year by Penguin, in the second by Random House). Booksellers created window displays, some ran events and readings as well. I recall that the regional events were incredibly popular and in Broome 200 people turned up to the event. I have no idea of the total size of the audience, but it was certainly many thousands.

Melbourne, 27-31 July 1994: 6^th International Feminist Book Fair: Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Writing and Publishing, Exhibition Buildings
In 1992 a group of us put together a bid to take to the 5^th International Feminist Book Fair in Amsterdam to hold the next IFBF in Melbourne. I presented the bid and we won it. Previous International Feminist Book Fairs had been run in London (1984), Oslo (1986), Montreal (1988), Barcelona (1990) and Amsterdam (1992). Renate Klein had been involved in the 1^st IFBF in London, and the London event had been an inspiration for the 1985 Women Writers’ Festival. With Renate’s input in Australia and having attended Montreal, Barcelona and Amsterdam, we were in a good position to organise this event. It was held over 5 days. The first two days were industry days to allow publishers to sell rights and share information with one another, followed by three public days. Over 200 writers participated coming from many countries including China, Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Aboriginal Australia, Romania, Vietnam and publishers from New Zealand/Aotearoa, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Egypt, Spain, Germany, Canada, USA, India and more. Our estimate is that 23,000 people attended. There were book launches and panel session, readings and workshops, as well as the book displays of at least 100 exhibitors. Most events were at the Exhibition Buildings but Mietta’s and other venues also became places of feminist writing and performance. Sadly, there were no more IFBFs after Melbourne. The 6^th IFBF produced a sampler booklet of work by around half of the attending writers, 46 international writers and 53 Australian. The anthology, Flying Bookies: International Feminist Writers edited by Sandy Jeffs and Natasha Treloar, was named after Judy Horacek’s cartoon characters which had been produced initially for the AFBF and subsequently on materials for the IFBF.

In addition to these events, I know of a number of small festivals run to highlight the work of women writers. The Lynx Festival in Footscray (late 1982, I think) was one of them. I’m sure there have been others in other parts of Australia.

Story Passions, 3-5 March 2006, North Melbourne Town Hall
The most recent large event I organised was the 15^th birthday celebration for Spinifex Press, Story Passions, which took place from Friday to Sunday with forty writers and performers. It began with a panel session on the future of feminism, followed with sessions by novelists, playwrights and poets, by activists, and writers whose focus is politics and health. On the Saturday night six performers presented Swirl which included theatre, monologue, aerials and opera. Sue Ingleton closed the event on Sunday with her wonderful comedy. All sessions were videoed.

This morning a friend told me she had found in a shop, with a closing down sale, a cup engraved with the words: Women’s Art Fair, 1907.

It is all too easy to forget the amazing events that women have organised. On the whole they (we) are written out of history. The Feminist Book Fortnights began in the UK following the 1^st International Feminist Book Fair in 1984, Australia picked up the baton, New Zealand’s Listener Women’s Book Festival carried on in the 1990s, and in the mid-1990s, US feminist publishers began creating joint catalogues of feminist writing. In India today, there is a thriving feminist publishing scene, and such presses exist in many places we don’t ever get to hear about.

There are many names left out of this brief run-down, my apologies to all, you are not forgotten. It would be fantastic to get women around Australia to write up similar events that occurred in different states.

~

Susan Hawthorne was the Writing, Theatre and Music Co-ordinator for the New Moods Festival in 1985. She was a member of the Management Committee of the AFBF from 1988 to 1991 and Chair of the 6^th IFBF Management Committee from 1992 to 1996. She is the author of seven collections of poetry, a novel and two works of non-fiction. She is currently Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University, Townsville and Publisher at Spinifex Press which she and Renate Klein co-founded in 1991.

Susan was recently interviewed by Rob Kennedy on Guys Read Gals blog here.

© Susan Hawthorne, 2013

* This question was posed to AWW by Michaela Bolzan, Creative Director of the Rose Scott Women Writers’ Festival, which will be held in Sydney on July 20.

More specifically, do we read the fiction first and then the non-fiction titles on our “to-read” lists, our library bags and our “when I have spare time or go on holiday” buckets? 

It’s been interesting to see what exactly within the non-fiction genre we read as well. Out of 22 reviews, seven were about historical subjects, six were either anthologies of writing or writers discussing the writing life or process, four were definitely destined for the self help shelf, two were actually about very specific subjects and I had to classify one as a memoir, one as a spiritual book and one as a story about a place though not quite a travel piece either. I have decided to term it a geographical book for the sake of convenience. 

So then what are we then when we come to being non-fiction readers, the little stable of regular reviewers that dabble in this genre? We seem to be interested in the past, particularly in matters of justice and perhaps we have a desire to set things right for we read voraciously about other writers and devour their work, their thoughts and their advice. Maybe we want to set things right and write wonderful books about the past as well or maybe we just want to dispense advice that we know the world needs or possibly divulge the contents of our head when it comes to that one subject that we seem to be one of the few experts in the world on. These are the books we gravitate to so do they reflect who we are? As the year goes on, will we reveal more about what kind of readers we are when we choose to play in the factual non-fictional end of the literary pool?

Kaz Cooke and Janine Burke tied for the most read non-fiction authors with two books each reviewed, Cooke thereby dominating the self help sub-genre with the ever popular Up The Duff and Mind your Mental Health.  Lara of This Charming Mum informs us that the latter is actually available as a collection of eBooks (the future beckons!) and that: “Cooke describes the symptoms, indicators and outcomes of the major mental health problems likely to be experienced by women – as well as reminding us that some conditions don’t have a clearly defined label, that vague and nebulous symptoms may well be part of a bigger problem (those afflicted are not ‘putting it on’), and that we are still a long way from a cure for social stigma.” Lisa of Lisa’s Life Lately, tells us how Cooke‘s most popular work was for her: “It was like having an ally who knew it all in my corner.” 

Annabelle Brayley‘s book The Bush Nurses was the most popular with two reviews and with good reason. Marcia of Book Muster Down Under stated that: “these stories put together by Annabelle Brayley will sometimes raise the hairs on the back of your neck, some will have you howling with laughter and others will make you cry but the one thing that is almost certain is that they will make you wonder at the dedication shown by these people who choose to work “out there” and ShellyRae of Book’d Out: “Their stories are heartbreaking, amusing, inspiring and incredible.” 

And I wonder, do we skitter away from reading non-fiction because it can be confronting? Because it can deal with hard, cold facts and subject matter that if our historical reviews are anything to go by, to put it rather nicely, a tad bit icky? Want examples? We have Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man which is about an Aboriginal  man’s death in police custody, Robin Bowles’ Rough Justice about Australian murders and the sometimes unsettling results of the court cases (reviewed here by Vicky), and the theme of the justice system failing appallingly continues in Meaner Than Fiction edited by Lindy Cameron. Sally of Books And Musings From Down Under tells us that: “Books like MEANER THAN FICTION make me really angry – not at the editor or any of the contributing authors – but at the justice  system.” 

But lest we continue the myth that a collection of facts is all that makes up non-fiction, Nalini Hayes writing for the Dark Matter online zine points out that what makes Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man a good read and all the more compelling is the actual narrative thread vending its way through the story: “Hooper tells the story in narrative form describing scenes unfolding before her during her investigation interspersed with exposition and narrative from historical records and eye-witness accounts.” 

 But now to the non-fiction we really seem to want to sink our teeth into when we aren’t railing at wrongdoings in the past or the failings of the justice system: writers, what they do, how they live and how, why and what they write. 

I have to admit that it might be my fault entirely this year as my review of Ann-Marie Priest‘s Great Writers, Great Loves was the first of this sort of non-fiction to pop up. But Priest‘s subject matter was too enticing to not delve into – the love lives of writers such as Woolf, Sackville-West, Lawrence, Plath and Mansfield explored and compared to the work they wrote to see how love and work informed and impacted each other. I may have got a trifle carried away: “It’s a book that reminds us that above all else, these writers were human, they were people, struggling to be themselves often in a world that was clinging onto a way of being that didn’t allow for new ideas without an immense fight. That they had flaws and that intentionally or otherwise, their beliefs, ideas and experiences coloured the stories they would write with subtle shading and subtext or with glorious rainbow-like tapestries.”

But the torch once lit, kept going. Tarla of Tarla’s Blog reviewed Kate Llewellyn‘s The Waterlily, an account of her first year writing in the mountains, encompassing all the tragedy that befell her then, the landscape outside her window and how her daily life unfolded, piece by piece, movement by movement: “Her opening lines have way of racketing around in my brain. “When I came to live in the mountains I was determined to be happy. Sparrows were pecking the pale green and white shoots from the tree outside the kitchen as I made the first cup of tea for the day.” Each journal entry contains little observations such as, “The first tulip is out today. It is red with a black heart like a Norse helmsman. If it were a person it would be called Eric.”  An unhappy affair is also woven into the story of her garden.”

Writereaderly then got into the act with not one but two reviews: of Marion Halligan‘s edited anthology Storykeepers and Kate Grenville‘s exposition of her writing process in Searching For The Secret River. Writereaderly casually drops in the fact that the Storykeepers has, of all things, an acrostic poem in it which only makes one even more keen to find a copy of it. 

But from writers, writing and all things connected to it, let’s move onto the point at which it all starts for someone putting pen to paper for the first time. 

This blog exists to promote female Australian authors and their work in an effort to address a perceived gender bias. How exciting is it then to come across this book, the one I placed in the so called “geographical non-fiction” category? 

The book is My Home Broome. It is written by Tamzyne Richardson, who when she wrote it was nine. Nine. My Home Broome as Louise of A Strong Belief In Wicker tells us is a poem Tamzyne wrote when home sick from school about the place she lived in, the place she calls home. Eventually, the poem was added to with factual information and turned into a book. 

When a nine year old schoolgirl can write a poem celebrating all that she holds dear about the specific spot on Earth that she calls home and it can be turned into a book, you know you must be doing something right. As Louise states: “My Home Broome is a great book, and is a fascinating glimpse into life in a special part of the world.”

Right here is the point at which Tamzyne can decide that this, this writing gig, is what she wants to do. Right here, this is where we all start, writing about what we know to be true before we use what we know to extrapolate and examine the bits of the world we don’t fully understand yet. Right here, we can say, we have given a child a voice and a chance to write. 

And as non-fiction readers, this is what we do – listen to those describing and narrating the factual parts of the worlds they inhabit. And this is how we learn, more about ourselves and others. 

About me
Marisa Wikramanayake spends most of her time writing. This was never going to change so she thought she should at least get paid for it. Now she geeks out with scientists, debates journalism practice and if that wasn’t enough she tries to write novels while editing other writers’ work. Occasionally her demanding cat sends her out for caviar. As a journalist she has been in ground zero of a bomb blast twice, had her phones tapped and been freaked out by the Scientologists. Publishing wise, her first book came out at 17 and her natural habitat is either a secondhand bookstore, a library or a literary festival (she’s covered the Galle Literary Festival with Richard Dawkins and has just finished organising IPEd‘s latest national editing conference). She writes for the ABR, contributes her two cents as non-fiction editor at Australian Women Writers and lends her geek goddess expertise to the Guys Read Gals project and the Society of Editors (WA). You can catch her on her blog at marisa.com.au or on Twitter @mwikramanayake

The Australian Shadows Awards are given out by Australian Horror Writers Association and this year Kaaron Warren took out both the Long Fiction (novella) category with “Sky” and the Collected Work category with Through Splintered Walls, the collection in which “Sky” appeared (reviewed by Sean). Kirstyn McDermott took out the Novel category with her creepy Perfections, about two sisters with an unusual relationship (reviewed by me).

The Ditmar Awards and a few others were given out at Conflux, this year’s National Science Fiction Convention, in Canberra this past weekend. The ever popular Margo Lanagan took home the Best Novel Award and the Norma K Hemming Award (for “excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, sexuality, class and disability in the form of science fiction and fantasy or related artwork or media”) for Sea Hearts, reviewed this month by Emma @ My Book Corner and Belinda Hopper. Kaaron Warren again took home the Novella and Collected Work Awards with “Sky” and Through Splintered Walls (also reviewed by me). Thoraiya Dyer, whose new collection Asymmetry, is excellent and was reviewed by Alexandra, took home the Best Short Story award for “The Wisdom of Ants”, which you can read or listen to here. You can read full list of Ditmar Award winners, including art and fan awards, here.

As for the other books AWW participants reviewed this month, I’ll continue with my cycling genre headings, but I want to first mention one book that doesn’t quite fit into only one genre. One Small Step, a new anthology of speculative fiction, edited by Tehani Wessely of FableCroft Publishing, is the first all-female Australian anthology. It’s a great showcase of a broad collection of Australian spec fic authors (my review).

Horror

As well as the award winners mentioned above, this month saw the review of two volumes of shorter works. Ishtar, edited by Amanda Pillar and containing three novellas by Kaaron Warren, Deborah Biancotti and Cat Sparks. The collection tells the story of the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of love and war, Ishtar, in the past, the present and the future (my review). The other was a collection by Joanne Anderton, The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, containing many creepy and macabre stories that deal with death, magic, cats and the meaning of being human (my review).

Fantasy

We had a large haul of reviews in fantasy this month. Ellen Gregory reviewed Lian Hearn’s Across the Nightingale Floor. She writes, “At heart it’s a simple story about revenge, duty, betrayal and forbidden love, exquisitely executed with writing that is both spare and elegant.” Ellen also reviewed Shadow Queen by Deborah Kalin, which she enjoyed a lot, saying:

There’s stuff to think about while reading this book, as Kalin explores the power of psychological manipulation as a key theme — and reader sympathy gets tugged to and fro with Matilde’s. Other themes include trust (and its antithesis), power, friendship, family and self-preservation.

Stephanie Gunn reviewed Prickle Moon, a short story collection by Juliet Marillier. She highly recommends it “if you’re a fan of Marillier in general, if you love fairy tales, if you love myth and truly amazing storytelling.” Mark Webb reviewed The Accidental Sorcerer by K E Mills (a pseudonym of Karen Millar). He writes:

I enjoyed the alternate world aspect, especially examining how society might progress if magic was real and pervasive. The “mother country/colony” dynamic was explored, which has particular resonance for an Australian audience constantly battling with our own cultural cringe. It had that very British sensibility that I always enjoy.

Alexandra reviewed What Night Hides by Kate Smith, a urban fantasy novel she enjoyed reading with “a lot of banter and discussion of shoes in between dealing with vampires, were-creatures, and other, less immediately recognisable, supernatural critters.”

Science Fiction

On the science fiction front, we have a little more variety this month. Nalini Haynes reviewed Diamond Eyes and Hindsight by A A Bell. Of the first in the series, she says:

Diamond Eyes is a riveting read although sometimes it’s frighteningly realistic. The science fiction element is Mira’s ability to see through time and Freddie’s ability to hear through time, while the realism comes from Bell’s experience working in a mental health facility and living in a family with experience of vision loss.

They sound like riveting reads and I’m glad I already have them waiting on my shelf. Lauren @ The Australian Bookshelf reviewed The Portal by S E Gilchrist, a science fiction romance, which she enjoyed but found too short, even for a supposed novella. She says “If you’re after a bite-size scifi story with a quick romp, then The Portal may be for you.” Finally, I reviewed the latter two instalments of Andrea K Höst’s Touchstone Trilogy, Lab Rat One and Caszandra, which rounded out a very enjoyable trilogy.

~~~

About Me

I’m Tsana Dolichva and I’ve been reading and enjoying Australian speculative fiction since I first started reading “grown up” books (back before YA was its own genre). More recently, I’ve been blogging my reviews over at the creatively titled Tsana’s Reads. I irregularly blog about science in science fiction over at the Science Fiction Writers’ Guide to Space. When not reading or writing, I’m probably working towards my PhD in astrophysics.