Advances - August 2006

Not short of a word All we can say is that ABR readers are not short of a word, and thank goodness for that. The response to our reader survey has been exceptional and most heartening. To date, about four hundred people have filled out the survey. We’re still analysing the results, but ‘Advances’ can report that overall our readers have a deep affinity with ABR – or at least with the idea of ABR – and are thus keen for us to improve the magazine and to maximise its potential. Readers’ annotations, whether critical or positive, have been overwhelmingly helpful and constructive. Already we are adding new features to the magazine in response to your suggestions. Many of you, for instance, cited Film as an area of neglect: next month we launch our film column. Much work remains to be done as we continue assimilating the results. Since the surveys are still coming in, we’ll delay announcing the prize-winners until the September issue. Our new website One thing evidently came as a bit of a shock to many respondents – the existence of ABR’s website. Clearly, we have been hiding our light under a bushel. Well, things have changed. Jo Case, our indefatigable new Deputy Editor, has thoroughly revised and greatly expanded the range of our website. Sensibly, many of you noted that you would be more inclined to use the website if it contained some features not found in the magazine. Accordingly, we will now be posting new poetry, notable writings from the archives, and two key features: Critic and Poet of the Month. We have even persuaded our resident Luddite (the Editor) to launch our blog. ABR also has a new address: www.australianbookreview.com.au. Canberra bound Perhaps Peter Rose will write about the Canberra Readers’ and Writers’ Festival, which will present readings and talks by several dozen Australian authors from August 25 to 27. The theme of this year’s festival, which takes place at the National Library of Australia, is ‘Deserts and Desertions: Landscape and Escape’. More details: (02) 6262 9191 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . The blessed third ‘Advances’ has noted before, wistfully, that few literary magazines last long or even run to a third issue. Well, two fine new journals have passed that test. In this issue, Lisa Bennett reviews the first two issues of Wet Ink, the Adelaide magazine, which is edited by Phillip Edmonds and Dominique Wilson. The third issue, just published, includes an interview with Gail Jones. Wet Ink is available from PO Box 3162, Rundle Mall SA 5000. An annual subscription to the quarterly costs $54 ($48 concession). Meanwhile, the third issue of Space: New Writing, based in Geelong and edited by Anthony Lynch and David McCooey, has just been launched. Contributors include Stephen Edgar, John Kinsella and Dorothy Porter. Space retails at $19.95 and is available from PO Box 833, Geelong Vic. 3220. Electronic windchimes Each time ‘Advances’ spots another bundle of new releases from Pandanus Books, based at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University, it marvels at ANU’s decision earlier this year to cease publishing books and to move to electronic publishing. Ian Templeman has now left Pandanus and ANU, but the fruits of his five years as publisher are still appearing, among them a beautifully produced anthology, Windchimes: Asia in Australian Poetry (which we will review in the September issue). On page 36, Christina Hill reviews Helga Griffin’s memoir Sing Me That Lovely Song Again. In our previous issue, Pandanus advertised coming titles such as John Thompson’s The Patrician and the Bloke: Geoffrey Serle and the Making of Australian History and The Voice of the Thunderer: Journalism of H.G. Kippax, edited by Harry Heseltine. One of Templeman’s last feats at Pandanus was to publish Strike, an unknown novella by the poet David Campbell (just the sort of publishing we need from university presses). That Pandanus should disappear in traditional form at a time when there isn’t exactly an abundance of quality scholarly publishing in this country makes ANU’s decision even more unfortunate. ‘Advances’ is not alone here. Many university folk regard ANU’s withdrawal as incomprehensible. Destructive elements Just to illustrate that the gods of excision are impartial in their malign strokes, Peter Rose suffered at their hands in the previous issue, when the last three lines of his poem ‘Lord Jim’ went missing at the eleventh hour – or at the eleventh set of proofs. If anyone finds them, please return them to us. This is how ‘Lord Jim’ should have ended: ‘I’ll read it to the boys from my old Penguin edition: / 4/-, cracked spine, a boyish script no longer recognisable, / Peter O’Toole indestructible on the front.’ The full version also appears on our revamped website, along with works by other ABR poets, just one of several new features on the website. Rosemary Dobson Miraculously, we also had Rosemary Dobson as a ‘Melbourne-based poet’ in the Contributors’ Notes. She lives in Canberra, of course. But this gives us an opportunity to note that Rosemary Dobson, who began publishing in 1944, won the Special Award in this year’s New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards. As the judges commented: ‘The level of originality and strength of Rosemary’s poetry cannot be underestimated, nor can the contribution she had made to Australian literature. Her literary achievements ... are a testament to her talent and dedication.’ Rosemary Dobson’s most recent collection is Untold Lives and Later Poems (2000).

Not short of a word

Our new website

From the New Issue

Until August by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Anne McLean

Appreciation by Liam Pieper

‘Defeat Device’, a new poem by Lachlan Brown

Message to Subscribers

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