Starters and Writers

I have never flown first class on Qantas; I’d love to, but somehow I don’t think I ever will. But next time you fly first class on a Qantas 747, take a look at the inflight library and you might be surprised to find copies of George Johnston and Charmian Clift’s Strong Man from Piraeus; Elizabeth Jolley’s Palomino; Evan Green’s Alice to Nowhere; Gerald Murnane’s A Lifetime on Clouds; or Kate Grenville’s Lillian’s Story. Qantas is the only international carrier that provides its first class passengers with an inflight library as well as the other standard services. At the beginning of each flight, along with the booze and the fancy food, a copy of each of the fifteen titles that make up the Qantas library is placed on board. Theoretically, the library is just that, but Qantas staff do not expect their passengers to surrender the books they are in the middle of reading at the end of the flight. According to David Peterson, Qantas’ Inflight Entertainment Manager, this shrinkage means he has to replace the library every two months on average. For administrative reasons, the library is limited to fifteen titles and to service all Qantas flights requires a purchase of 500 copies of each title, or approximately 45,000 books a year. Up until October 1983, Qantas purchased all its books from wholesalers in the US and the selection was based mainly on the current US paperback bestseller lists. In that month Qantas management decided that the books had to be purchased in Australia and that at least twenty-five per cent of the titles had to be by Australian writers. Since that fundamental policy decision was made, usage of the library has gone up by thirty per cent, which is a far greater increase than the number of passengers. The change has been so successful, says David Peterson, that the Australian content minimum has now been raised to thirty-three per cent and this will take effect with his next purchase. Peterson tries to strike a balance between straight popular titles and more serious writing. ‘Generally people want something that is reasonably accessible and not too difficult.’ He considers both fiction and non-fiction that meets his criteria and his selections are based on reviews, publishers’ advice, bestseller lists and his own appraisal. The Australian authors have fared as well as, or better than, books by overseas writers. Illywhacker, for example, lasted barely a month in the system before the 500 copies were exhausted. Peterson is also responsible for the audio programs that are played over the aeroplane’s audio system. A documentary program featuring Australian writers and publishers proved to be one of the most popular in terms of comments and request for copies. Qantas are not tied into buying books from any particular publisher or distributor and so small publishers have a chance of their books being selected. Melbourne-based Pascoe Publishing have had two books chosen – Barry Dickins’s The Crookes of Epping and a new collection of short stories by Graham Shiels called Islands. For a publisher such as Pascoe (or probably any Australian publisher) a sale of 500 copies of one title can make a significant contribution to the viability of that title. But as one Australian author commented, ‘A national airline is supposed to be a flag waver for the country as well as a commercial enterprise; thirty-three per cent Australian content for their library smacks a bit of tokenism. It should be fifty per cent… no, one hundred per cent!’ The falling Australian dollar, the new acceptance of Australian writing by Australian readers and the success of Penguin’s local publishing program probably goes a long way towards explaining the new changes announced or contemplated by subsidiaries of overseas publishers operating in Australia. In June, Heinemann announced the appointment of a full-time publisher to expand and develop its local trade publishing program. The new publisher, Theresa Pitt, has had many years’ experience as an editor with Greenhouse, Pitman and most recently as a commissioning editor with Penguin. Theresa is widely respected in the industry and was recently President of the Society of Editors. Her brief is to produce approximately twenty titles a year for Heinemann Australia. Concentrating on the area of non-fiction, the list should have wide appeal. Transworld Publishers, a subsidiary of the giant German publishing group Bertelsman, which also owns Bantam and Corgi in the US and UK respectively, has also announced that it will be entering the local publishing scene. According to the new publishing director, Judith Curr, they see their publishing program sitting somewhere between that of Penguin and Angus & Robertson. They will concentrate mainly on non-fiction, with some fiction. The decision for Transworld to enter local publishing was made for three reasons; firstly, because the policy of the parent company is that each subsidiary should develop a local publishing program to suit its operating environment; secondly because, in 1985, eight of the ten best-selling books in Australia were Australian; and thirdly because by setting up here Transworld may be able to discover another Colleen McCullough, whom they can feed into their international network. Judith Curr expects that initially they will publish six to twelve books a year. ‘I intend publishing sensible, logical and profitable books; ones that will make money for all the people connected to them.’ For Australian writers the expansion in local publishing should be good for them. But more and more, it concentrates the publishing decisions in the hands of companies that ultimately must answer to owners whose interests do not necessarily coincide with local priorities or needs. These companies, with their resources and the inherent strength afforded them by their ability to draw upon the books produced by their parent companies, must ultimately win out over their Australian counterparts in terms of marketing clout and the ability to attract writers. Sadly, neither the government nor the opposition has any coherent policy or vision that relates to the Australian publishing and writing industry. September and October are real literary months. In Brisbane, the Warana Festival runs from the 19th–23rd of September and features many of our noted writers, including Tom Keneally, Rodney Hall, Judith Rodrigues, Gerard Windsor, Barry Oakley and Tony Maniaty. The Warana Festival has been running for quite a few years, but the literary component has never been on this scale or duration and it will be held at Brisbane’s cultural centre. Enquiries and program requests to the University of Queensland Press. A week later, the inaugural Melbourne Writers Festival begins and coincides with the first Melbourne Spoleto Festival. The festival has taken over the Athenaeum Theatre complex in Collins Street to run an intensive three days of readings and panel sessions. The Festival starts on 27 September and runs up until 5 October. An integral part of the Festival will be the announcement of the second Victorian Premier’s Awards, which at $55,000 in total prize money are Australia's richest literary awards. Over twenty writers have been invited to Melbourne from Victoria, interstate and overseas to participate in the Festival. One of the most interesting guests will be New Zealand writer, Janet Frame, who rarely appears in public. Other writers who have been invited include Salman Rushdie, Elizabeth Jolley (whose new book, The Well, will be launched at the festival), Rosa Cappiello, Angelo Loukakis, Maria Lewitt, Christopher Koch, Frank Moorhouse, John Bryson, Morris Lurie, David Foster, Helen Garner, Janine Burke, John Forbes and quite a few more. Bookings can be made through the Athenaeum and program details can be obtained by ringing (03) 614 5111. If Australia’s two most conservative cities can successfully stage such literary extravaganzas, things can’t be so bad.

Mark Rubbo

From the New Issue

‘Defeat Device’, a new poem by Lachlan Brown

Bad Cop: Peter Dutton’s strongman politics (Quarterly Essay 93) by Lech Blaine

Appreciation by Liam Pieper

2024 Calibre Essay Prize (Winner) | ‘why your hair is long & your stories short’ by Tracey Slaughter

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