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Hidden Author

An interview with David Musgrave

June 2010, issue no. 322 01 June 2010
David Musgrave is the author of four volumes of poetry, the most recent being Phantom Limb. His first novel is Glissando (reviewed on page thirty-three). He is also the publisher at Puncher & Wattmann. See www.davidmusgrave.com   Why do you write? It’s not really a choice, but a necessity. Usually, it is the pressure of an idea or an emotional state that only seems to be satisfactori ... (read more)

Letters to the Editor - February 2003

February 2003, no. 248 01 February 2003
ABR welcomes concise and pertinent letters. Correspondents should note that letters may be edited. Letters and e-mails must reach us by the middle of the current month, and must include a telephone number for verification.   Pushing ahead Dear Editor, Beverley Kingston has written a rather world-weary review of my book The Commonwealth of' Speech (ABR, December 2002/January 2003). I read ... (read more)

Best Books of 2008 Young adult and children’s books

December 2008–January 2009, no. 307 01 December 2008
William Kostakis Jackie French explores the impact of World War I on both the home- and battlefronts in her extensively researched and earnestly written A Rose for the ANZAC Boys (Harper-Collins), which finds three young girls ditching the irrelevant deportment classes of an English boarding school to start a canteen in France for wounded soldiers. Barry Jonsberg’s Ironbark (Allen & Unwin), ... (read more)

Best Books of the Year 2009

December 2009–January 2010, no. 317 01 December 2009
Patrick Allington Of 2009’s emerging Australian novelists (such a silly term: emerging from what?) Craig Silvey’s second novel, Jasper Jones (Allen & Unwin), stands out. A dark and funny morality tale set in a 1960s Western Australian mining town, it ruminates on death, secrets, racism, dodgy parenting and adolescence. For anybody who once dreamed of sporting greatness, the cricket match ... (read more)

Letters to the Editor - May 2006

May 2006, no. 281 01 May 2006
ADB replies to Paul Brunton Dear Editor, Paul Brunton has written of the quotas used in the selection of subjects for inclusion in the Australian Dictionary of Biography in a review (ABR, February 2006) headed ‘Mysterious quotas’, and in a follow-up letter (ABR, April 2006). The explanation of ‘quotas’ is straightforward. At the beginning of each new period (now a decade), the ADB is co ... (read more)

Letters to the Editor - July-August 2010

July–August 2010, no. 323 01 July 2010
Busted Dear Editor, In his essay ‘Seeing Truganini’ (May 2010), David Hansen focused on the politics around the Benjamin Law busts of Truganini and Woureddy. As an aside, he mentioned that ‘Law’s only other known bust, of Robinson himself, has been lost’. It is ironical that, as Hansen’s essay was going to print, Gareth Knapman (Museum Victoria) and Olga Tsara (State Library of Victo ... (read more)

Letters to the Editor - April 1996

April 1996, no. 179 01 April 1996
Dear Editor, I am flabbergasted at the savage, totally unjustified hatchet job that Richard Hall has done on Hugh Mackay in the National Library Voices Essay (ABR, Feb/March 1996). Is the National Library now paying for character assassination? I know both Hugh Mackay and Richard Hall. I think that the Pot should always think carefully before calling the Pan sooty-arse. If Mr Mackay looks like ... (read more)

Letters to the Editor - March 2004

March 2004, no. 259 01 March 2004
The puzzle of PhDs Dear Editor, It’s pretty clear that historians can’t win, especially if they have the audacity to use a doctoral thesis as the basis for a book. As I read Aviva Tuffield’s puzzling review (ABR, December 2003/January 2004) of Clare Wright’s Beyond the Ladies Lounge, and Wright’s understandably puzzled response (ABR, February 2004), I was reminded of a debate that occu ... (read more)

Letters to the Editor - March 2010

March 2010, no. 319 01 March 2010
Latent violence Dear Editor, In reviewing my biography of Clifton Pugh, Brenda Niall, a distinguished biographer herself, arrives at this puzzling last sentence: ‘Whether or not Morrison intended it … the Clifton Pugh of these pages emerges more as opportunist than true believer’ (ABR, February 2010). She states earlier that it surprises her that a large number of women were attracted to P ... (read more)

Letters to the Editor - November 2001

November 2001, no. 236 01 November 2001
Bauman’s point of departure Dear Editor, Boris Frankel bursts in through open doors. He gives Zygmunt Bauman and me stick for speaking our truths (ABR, October 2001). Viewed in its own terms, what remains of the Left in Australia is in a bad way because it has failed (1) to clarify its ethics, norms and values and (2) to develop alternative visions and policies upon them; because (3) there is ... (read more)