I Am Excited About

5. New York Review of Books: EM Forster, Middle Manager by Zadie Smith

7. Idlewind Press in the Nicholas Building

9. Paper Cuts: The Berserk After Work Club and Perfect

Thanks to Mister Nora: Melbourne hooks the books

Big whoops for all the writers and editors and publishers and readers who will benefit from this decision, and there's plenty of opportunity to celebrate over the next fortnight. I guess the next question is, how will it really affect us all?

20-August-08

David Rakoff is coming to this year's Melbourne Writers' Festival. Look out for him at:

Beyond Your Navel masterclass on Saturday

Don't Get Too Comfortable with Max Barry on Sunday afternoon, and

What's Funny About America? with David Sedaris and Don Watson on Saturday afternoon

19-August-08

1. Jacinta Halloran's excellent Dissection is being launched by Helen Garner tonight at the Avenue Bookshop

2. World Without Books: Indigenous Literacy Day is September 3, thanks to LP

18-August-08

1. New York Times: He Blurbed, She Blurbed by Rachel Donadio

2. The new Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing) at RMIT

3. Guardian blog: What's the point of literary agents?

4. Australia is nowhere on this list of Top 10 literary destinations, which would have to surprise those who participated in Melbourne's bid for Unesco City of Lit. Zoe and I were interviewed about it for Stateline recently. Fingers crossed.

13-August-08

1. A few MWF picks:

Genre Jumper with Kate Atkinson and Catherine Cole – 30 August, 10am

Secrets and Lies with Hannah Tinti, Joan London and David Francis – 30 August, 4pm

Writing Love with Mark Sarvas, Kathryn Lomer and Andrew Riemer – 30 August, 10.15am (for those who can be in two places at the same time)

2. Lit Mob, thanks to KF

3. The Atlantic: My Life in Sales by Ann Patchett

4. And The Perils of Literary Success by Curtis Sittenfeld

5. The Age, from 2003: The Great Escape Artist, Andrew O'Hagan

11- August-08

1. My review of Susan Johnson's Life in Seven Mistakes for the Sydney Morning Herald

2. With John Marsden's release of Hamlet next month, he may get a giggle out of this: Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition) by Sarah Schmelling at McSweeney's

3. One of the books that was shortlisted for the Vic Prem's Unpublished Ms Award in 2006 is now on the Ned Kelly's shortlist: Chris Womersley's The Low Road which I reviewed for The Age

Friday afternoon

The Vic Prem's shortlists have been announced. I had the pleasure of joining Kevin Brophy and Liam Davison in judging the Unpublished Manuscript Award, so beneath the bed are boxes and boxes of bound manuscripts (what to do with them?), some of them with scrawlies all over them.

Our shortlist is strong, and includes one ms, by Daniel Ducrou, that's already been shortlisted for the Vogel:

Daniel Ducrou, Conditions of Return

Mandy Maroney, Going Finish

Robert Power, In Search of the Blue Tiger

7-August-08

1. The New York Times: Mr Darcy Comes Courting by Maureen Dowd

2. Guardian blog: The literary legacy of New York punk

3. Michael Chabon talking about The Yiddish Policemen's Union on The Book Show

4. New Yorker: Personal History – All the Answers by Charles Van Doren, will make you want to hire out Quiz Show all over again

5. The New York Times: review of Doris Lessing's Alfred and Emily

6. Awesome Animal Farm cover

7. The Warwick Review

8. It is pretty astonishing that of the five shortlisted novels for the Age book of the year, two are published by Giramondo. I haven't read the Juchau or the Winton, but the Knox, the Coetzee and the London are all strong in such different ways.

9. Who'd have thought that A Fraction of the Whole would have been shortlisted – alongside another strong debut in The Low Road, which is more obviously a crime novel – for the Ned Kelly awards?

10. Salon: Why won't you blurb me?

11. This clip from Synecdoche, New York (2008) lets me know it's a film that will make me nervous the way Charlie Kaufman can, which I'm already looking forward to.

12. Podularity

13. I'm looking forward to the new Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap, due this November. It sounds quite different to his previous work: "In this remarkable novel, Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century."

14. The Prime Minister's Literary Awards shortlisted authors are Mireille Juchau, Dorothy Porter, Malcolm Knox, Gail Jones, David Malouf, Tom Keneally and Steven Conte. Better start reading...

5-August-08

The Observer: review of James Bradley's The Resurrectionist, showing the UK cover

4-August-08

1. Guardian blog: The great chick-lit cover up

2. The Prime Minister's Literary Awards keep sending out press releases designed to make us excited about the soon-to-be-announced shortlist but with too long a lead-time between press release and announcement, it just frustrates in that kind of 'i've got a secret and i'm not going to tell you' way. Still, I'm looking forward to the announcement this Wednesday: the awards hold such massive promise.

3. Writer-editor fighting over at The Times, leaked to The Guardian: Giles Coren gets heated about the removal of "a", and the sub-editors' reply, thanks to MMW.

1-August-08

Salute: Jo Case

Jo is books editor of the Big Issue, editor of the Readings magazine, the book reviewer at Triple R FM, and a freelance reviewer.

A book Jo has strongly recommended that I still haven't read: Darkmans by Nicola Barker

What amazes me about Jo: her enthusiasm for books. She's a real book lover. She reads numerous books a month but manages to avoid becoming cynical and tired of them. She has energy and passion, not just for books but also for their authors, and enough enthusiasm left over to engage with readers, critics and writers; and she is interested in developing new reviewing talent. Her book passion is infectious.

Sample of her work: review of Emily Perkins' Novel About My Wife – The Age

31-July-08

Along with Aravind Adiga and Michelle de Kretser, Steve Toltz has been longlisted for the Man Booker. The Guardian blogs weigh in: Shock of the new and Let the arguments commence.

It's a pity Toltz isn't coming to next month's Melbourne Writers' Festival. I'll look at more events soon but for now, here are some of the events I'm involved in at this year's festival:

Chekhov's Children – with Hannah Tinti, Emily Perkins and John Clanchy, and me as chair. As you may have surmised from the title, we'll be talking about short stories, in the BMW Edge on the 28th of August from 1pm.

A Reading Life – with Robert Drewe and Anita Heiss, and me as chair. Rob and Anita will be talking about what books created them, what they love to read, in the BMW Edge on the 31st of August at 2.30pm.

Saturday Night Readings: Creative Writers. I'm MC'ing this celebration of creative writing classes at RMIT. Featuring Cathy Cole, Alexis Wright, Jeff Sparrow, Ellie Nielsen and Kevin Rabalais. 5.45pm on the 23rd of August in ACMI 2.

30-July-08

1. The Age: my review of Sofie Laguna's One Foot Wrong

2. The Small Press Underground Networking Community – SPUNC – has received Ozco and CAL funding and is about to hire staff. One of the many events worth watching out for at this year's Melbourne Writers' Festival is the Spunc Cabaret, on the 23rd of August at 6pm in the Festival Club for free. Including, amongst other things, Sleepers Almanac readings by Jo Bowers and Paul Mitchell.

3. The Internet Writing Journal: Alan Alda on Learning to write with a sledgehammer

4. Bret Easton Ellis referred to The Corrections as 'the novel of my generation'. One of my favourites of his is his first: Less Than Zero. I think he's still limbering up, and proving himself important at every turn. Apparently Jay McInerney wasn't too happy with his main character, Alison Poole, from Story of My Life, appearing in Glamorama. I'm a fan of the mixing, the playing, the meshing – other people's characters walking in and out of the wrong novels. For Ellis fans, there is a 22-year-old audio interview here.

29-July-08

1. Writer Mattheu Roth

2. Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park

Teenspeak help

Does anyone know exactly what "d'urg" means and how it's pronounced?

As in:

'Hi,' I say.

'Hey.' D'urg.

28-July-08

1. The Guardian: Nick Laird on merging science with poetry

2. Salon: Now that I've got my Masters in writing... I'm not writing! advice from Cary Tennis

24-July-08

1. Independent publishers Wilkins Farago are bringing out a Janet Frame in September

2. New York Times: I'm YA, and I'm OK

3. The folks at the Byron Bay Writers' Festival are gearing up now, and their programme looks impressive

4. Mark Sarvas is coming to this year's Melbourne Writers' Festival (disclaimer: I am on the programming committee). He blogs at The Elegant Variation. I am currently reading an author's backlist for a review so it's no surprise that I find this blog about book reviewing interesting.

5. If you pray, pray for poet Geoff Goodfellow's speedy recovery. If you have other methods, use them. Whatever it takes. This is Grace Goodfellow at his benefit gig. She is a writer and a singer, and she is very talented.

6. Here is the Australian's Double Take on both Grace and Geoff.

23-July-08

The Dark Knight is brilliant. Has anyone seen or written the definitive personal essay on Heath Ledger?

22-July-08

1. Burned by Love site to promote Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle

2. To celebrate their final issue, the crew at Is Not magazine are throwing a party

3. London Review of Books: Benjamin Kunkel on Joseph O'Neill's Netherland – Men in White

4. The Times: Ten things you need to know about Haruki Murakami

5. At Barnes & Noble, Jonathan Franzen answers questions, including one about Christina Stead. He also talks about Kathryn Chetkovich's Granta essay on envy. Starts here.

6. Transit Lounge independent publishers, continually producing great books

7. The Guardian: review of Malcolm Knox's Jamaica

8. All three of the Winter Sleepers Salons are podcasted now here: Steven Carroll, Sophie Cunningham and Ramona Koval

21-July-08

1. Tiggy Johnson, of Page Seventeen, has a blog: Words in Progress

2. Guardian blog: Let's not reduce the Booker to a popularity contest

3. Found in the wild: one copy of The Sleepers Almanac No.4 unread in the short stories section of Carlton Secondhand Books on Swanston Street near Melbourne Uni, for $8. Coming as it does with its bookmark, chances are it's a review copy freebie which we don't send out many of so I wonder whose it could have been.

17-July-08

1. Song for Night by Chris Abani. It's pre-Aus-pub-release so I won't excerpt it here. Suffice to say, you might cry. For the time-poor, good news: it's a novella.

2. Tonight: Nam Le in conversation with Cate Kennedy for Asialink

16-July-08

1. Nick Hornby blogs

2. Paul LaFarge's 'Bleak College Days', over at Five Chapters

3. My review of Paddy O'Reilly's The End of the World at the New Haven Review

4. Shaun Tan's The Red Tree by the Australian Chamber Orchestra

5. The New Classics: Entertainment Weekly's 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008

6. Curious Expeditions: A Compendium of Beautiful Libraries

7. The Telegraph: Nick Harkaway on being both a writer and John Le Carre's son

8. Guardian blogs: The return of British avant garde fiction

9. BBC News: The longlist for the Dylan Thomas prize for young writers. More about the prize.

10. Susan Hill weighs in on the Frank O'Connor missing shortlist debate – Guardian Books: Prize fight

11. Talking Squid: on parallel imports

12. Gwen Grant: author of Private – Keep Out, Knock and Wait, and One Way Only. My copies are in tatters.

13. The Overland debate at the SWF: Peter Craven v Ken Gelder – podcasted here

14. Spend some time at Improv Everywhere. Brilliant. The suicide stunt is hilarious. The Ben Folds one, and the best game... excellent practical jokes.

14-July-08

Happy Bastille Day

1. Guardian blog: I've got just the thing for you

2. Arts & Letters Dail y fun, thanks to Literary Minded

3. SMH: Judgement call on a new Booker chapter

4. New magazine: Harvest

5. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh: 'Writers don't care what they eat. They just care what you think of them.'

6. A brilliant, thoroughly engrossing yarn: The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

11-July-08

1. A day in the life of a book publicist

2. Guardian blog: Malcolm Knox – Bad people are best (at least in books)

3. Book reviews over at The Book Book blog, the latest review being Ayelet Waldman's Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

4. One Story magazine

5. The Guardian: Adam Thirlwell, John Burnside and Colin Thubron all received Society of Authors prizes

6. The Times: Tim Winton's Breath (JA aka Huge Winton Fan, have you read it yet?) is amongst the 100 best holiday reads, scroll down to see Emily Perkins and Steve Toltz, both great reads, and - weirdly - Two Caravans, not to mention a book called Phallic Frenzy

7. Yahoo News: Authors get rock star treatment at Brazil festival

8. Mark Sarvas over at the Elegant Variation has some interesting things to say about the LA Times Book Review pages

9. The New York Times: Ciao, Papa by Lisa Monroy

10. Helen Thomas

10-July-08

1. Tonight, launch of Dennis McIntosh's Beaten by a Blow at Readings, Carlton, 6.30

2. Author interviews, book reviews: Angela Meyer's Literary Minded blog

3. A Public Space literary magazine

4. Slunch: Publitron's list of the 9 authors you will work with at one time or another

9-July-08

1. Having read this and this within cooeee of each other, I'm feeling slightly unsettled

2. Wyatt Mason addresses this, asking 'how does one best write about horrible things?'

3. The Guardian: Jhumpa Lahiri wins the Frank O'Connor award, no shortlist given

4. And Nicholas Lezard has something to say about it

5. Mandy Ord

6. Salinger's 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish'

7. Maud Newton on Iris Murdoch's The Black Prince. I have adored Iris Murdoch since The Sea, The Sea.

8. James Wood in the New Yorker on Rivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances

9. ABR's Calibre essay prize

10. On Tuesday the 22nd of July, you can catch Russell McGilton's 'Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle' before it goes to the Edinburgh festival. It's cheap at just $12 and it's on here at Glitch in North Fitzroy. Bookings 9486 6965.

11. I've just discovered I've lost, mislaid or lent out Joan Aiken's Black Hearts in Battersea and I can no longer put my hands on it with ease. I'm not excited about that.

12. The New Yorker: 'Animal Tales' by Simon Rich

8-July-08

1. Tonight: Bare Knuckle (Smackdown) playwright wrestling, 7.30, Courthouse Hotel, North Melbourne. Put on by Melbourne Dramatists, of which Ross Mueller is one of the founding members.

2. Guardian blogs: Do we protest too much about where we write? Checkout Paragraph.

3. And the Guardian writers' rooms – the order of Andrew O'Hagan, the sheer redness of AL Kennedy!

4. Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia

5. I'm looking forward to Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle

6. And Joseph O'Neill's Netherland

7. The Oregon Literary Review

7-June-08

1. Open Letters monthly arts and literature review

2. The Age: 'Driven by distraction' by Damon Young – finally some good news for/from writer-parents

4-July-08

1. Wired music-book news: Juliana Hatfield is releasing a memoir, When I Grow Up, in September, and Jonathan Lethem is in a band – I'm Not Jim.

2. Guardian blog: How an independent bookshop can survive

3. 'Compulsory Reading' cartoon by Alison Bechdel at Dykes to watch out for

4. 'For an unoriginal literature' by the Poetic Research Bureau

5. 'The Lady Vanishes' – review of Rivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances at Bookforum: 'The uncanny reigns supreme here'. It passes the cover and title test, and it sounds interesting as well.

6. Radar: Cruel Intentions. Should Juicy Campus be banned?

7. The New York Review of Books: 'Blood Relations' by Claire Messud

8. You're invited to preview the 2008 Melbourne Writers' Festival program, July 16 @ 12.30

9. Washington Post – 'Turning the Page on the Disposable Book' makes a couple of good points: 'Publishers will be forced to invest in works of quality to maintain their niche. These books will be the one product that only they can deliver better than anyone else. Those same corporate executives who dictate annual returns may begin to proclaim the virtues of research and development, the great engine of growth for business. For publishers, R&D means giving authors the resources to write the best books - works that will last, because the lasting books will, ultimately, be where the money is.' Authors do need time to produce works; it's an endless equation, though, made tricky because publishers need to make money to pay for that R&D phase.

10. Washington Post: Bookslut's Jessa Crispin's reply

11. Get yourself to Bernard Caleo's Miracleman

12. Last but not least: two out of the three Winter Sleepers Salons (the Sophie Cunningham one coming soon) are podcasted here for anyone who couldn't make it to hear and see Steven Carroll and Ramona Koval.

2-July-08

Scribe: Small Publishers of the Year winners