Pottermore and the Rise of Author-Publishers.

Last Sunday’s Age contained a story about how J.K. Rowling has retained the digital rights to her work, and plans to start a Pottermore website containing 20,000 words of previously unpublished material from the Harry Potter series and additional information about all the characters:

It will be a combination: part social-networking forum, part computer game in a website containing additional encyclopedic-like details. It will allow fans to continue interacting with their favourite books, but more importantly, it will make the series relevant to a new "digital generation" of readers who may not have been as prepared to read printed books in future.

A very shrewd business move. Having worked in copyright law for about five years (two and a half of them with visual artists), I’m fascinated by Rowling’s foresight in retaining the particular rights she did, and the opportunity she's now created for herself.

Interestingly, a representative of Melbourne University Publishing’s was quoted in the weekend's article as saying that Rowling's move won't start a new trend because 'authors generally want someone between them and their audience so they can focus on their writing'.

Uh...do these sound like the somewhat illogical rantings of a desperate member of a soon-to-be-extinct profession to you?

Writers are, of course, increasingly seeking more direct contact with their audience, not less.

How else to explain the rise of author blogs, twitter accounts and the like? How else to explain the rise of spoken word and performance poetry here in Melbourne, the world's second only UNESCO City of Literature.

How else to explain you, landing here, reading this?

Free Read

Go Back To Where You Came From

go back to where you came from:
that dark prison cell in khartoum
where torture chairs
heat thighs / like

steak on an unoiled barbecue

to where you came from / hey you

to that / two cent per box

twenty-hour-work-day live -in

jean sweat-shop / to the

bare bullet ricochet
suicide bomb/bardment

& midnight raids

the war rape

& war rape

& war rape

& war rape

go back to where

you came from /you came
uninvited / illegal
illiterate / illegitimate

it is all so f*cking illogical

go back to where you came from
you might be a ‘faggot’
& back home they execute gays
the government hz put a price on your head:
your destitute neighbours
wd sell you for a song
& you know you couldn’t
even blame them
you fell in love
with a different man or gender or god
or simply whispered to someone / in passing
tht you thought the government/s
ethnic cleansing campaign
wz wrong

in any case
welcome to Australia
go back
where you

belong

Inspired, of course, by the documentary currently screening in Australia on SBS ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’.

Tomorrow, I’ll be performing as part of Federation Square’s Festival of Light. I’ll be opening a fiery community panel discussion about ‘Multicultural Australia’ organised by Latrobe University's Centre for Dialogue with my poem ‘immigration museum’. See you Friday June 24, from 6pm at the BMW Edge Theatre. All Welcome!Entry free.

In Five Years Time Every Bookstore in Australia Will Be Dead

the minister hz made a declaration:

in five years / or less
every bookstore in the country
will be dead

with all due respect
(which cd even mean none)
the minister is clearly not
very well read

the minister hz never
trailed fingers / alphabetically / along
shiny new fiction spines / walked
in for arundhati & out somehow
with zadie smith & lionel shriver

the minister never speed read first chapters
crouched on rainy day store stools
back when kindle wz a dream
amazon wz still a region
& every dollar went on law school

the minister hz never hid
amongst the shrinking poetry corner
in the company of someone’s plath-buried
black-clad / darkness hearted / emo daughter

never elbowed through red wine
drunk poets & mic’d pre-release words
to see a soft-skinned new writer / born
into the world

the minister says:
in five years time
every bookstore in the country
will be dead / i say
the minister is a fool / i say
f*ck the minister / i say
forget about the books
the minister should
go get his head
read


If you’re an Aussie and you read, then you’ll know that some deranged wally, Senator Nick Sherry, who likes to swan around calling himself the Minister for Small Business declared in a public forum last week that all Australian bookshops will be out of business in five years. Wow. Way to get stabbed to death with biros by starving poets in some dark alley on your way back to your Mercedes after some high-brow champagne-laced tax-payer-funded do.Course, writers, publishers, booksellers and other literary types have gone to town on the fool. The first thing I thought of when I heard about this prediction was my post a few months ago about the death of the bookstore. Yep, you heard it first here folks, and I didn’t even need a ministerial title.The difference though? My post was a musing, not a prediction. I value my life, and my livelihood.

Fiction

How To Pitch Non-Fiction Writing (Masterclass #1)

I missed the Emerging Writers Festival panel on Pitching a few weekend ago. Sources tell me though, that after initial talk about the importance of fostering a good relationship with editors and some practical pitching tips, the audience was warned not to take an ‘entrepreneurial approach’ to their writing because you’re writing for and within a ‘community’. Apparently from there on in it all got touchy feely community -minded.

With all due respect (and some of my fave editors were on the panel, so I mean that), that’s bullsh*t.

We all, most of us, want to make a living from our writing. Sure, we know it’s maybe unlikely but why shouldn’t we try? What is wrong with approaching writing like a business if words are your stock in trade? Community minded smacks of unpaid, short-changed, underpaid, bullied and underappreciated. I’m all for being a socially responsible writer, which includes my long history of blogging for left-leaning literary site Overland for free, mentoring and assisting marginalised writers and donating my writing or performances for worthy causes. All of my non-fiction writing is social justice-based. But really, people turned up to the session for advice on how to pitch. So it’s a fair assumption they want tips on how to make money from their work.

From my experience, pitching protocol is at best a pretence – particularly if you’re an unpublished or under-published writer. You can be pitch-perfect and still not get a reading.

Case in point: when I’d written my first major personal essay/non-fiction article, I sent it to a major national magazine. They sat on it. For months. I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I’d received an acknowledgement by email when I sent it in, but what had happened since then? Had they even read it? It was a bloody good essay, I knew it. I’d researched hard, poured on lots of personal reflection and edited and re-edited until I was sure it was pretty much perfect. And yet I knew if I started hassling the editor, they might think I was one of those deranged no-talent lunatics they’d never get rid of who’d send every sentence they’d ever written to the submissions slushpile and become indignant and nasty if things didn’t go her way.

So I pulled a stunt.

A very dishonest stunt.

I emailed the editor explaining that I submitted an article months ago and hadn’t heard back, but that a national newspaper had emailed me asking for an essay on a similar subject. Of course, they were my preferred place of publication, but since I hadn’t heard I assumed they didn’t want the article. Just checking to make sure it's okay for me to offer the article to someone else...(a publication which I knew was a direct rival).

It was a gamble, but it worked. The editor got back to me that very day. The article became the cover article for the next issue of the magazine and I got paid. Not an awful lot, but enough to cover two weeks rent at the time. Sure, I told a little white lie, but so what, every aspiring writer does sometimes, right?

Oh, I see, you’re a better, bigger and more ethical writer than me and don't need to rely on such trickery. What's that? When prospective editors read this post, they won’t trust me as far as they can publish me?

Yeah.

Sure.

Whatever.

Now here’s some practical advice for pitching:

When you’re pitching non-fiction by email, the email should be no longer than three short paragraphs long. Title the email so the editor can tell it’s a submission and what the article topic is without opening the email. In your pitch:

* Get the editor’s name right and address them by it;
* Introduce yourself with a very short bio (maximum five lines) explaining who you are, which includes your major writing credits to date;
* Give the title of your article and a three sentence description which includes why you’re qualified to write the article (Are you an academic in the area? Is it a parenting article and you’re a mother of ten etc);
* Include fast access contact details (mobile/email)
* Add one full page of the article only in a word attachment – carefully select the
most interesting section or a section which makes the editor want to know more.

If they don’t get back to you after a fortnight, email or call to check your submission arrived.

And if they don’t get back to you at all...well, maybe your work is appallingly bad...or you could tell a little white lie to drag yourself out of the slushpile.

I know, I know. Sure. You'd never do what I did. Good luck with that then.

Poem Warehouse

To Get to Chapter Ten You Must Fight the Demon Poet of Death

congratulations
you have now written 50 000 words brave word warrior:
a new high word count score
bt your invincibility cloak has worn off
& you are susceptible
to mortal procrastinations once more

to get to chapter ten
you must fight the demon poet of death
for entry into Editing Hell:
home to the many syllabled snake
liquid paper lagoon
and weary writer’s well

the only weapons left
in your catche’ are
the apostrophe arrows
& bad grammar grenades
the noun bombs were spent on
the ellipses eel / back at chapter three
when you dared to cross alliteration lake
& the magic spell-check spear snapped
when you mispronounced your way
across the valley of the verbs
in the opening paragraph of your prologue

make haste

strap the remaining sentence chute to your back
& free-fall into the metaphor fields
head south down the page
& whatever you do / do not look behind you
or stop to track changes
the prince of paragraphs is lost
& asking for corrections
write on /without fullstopping
you cd tell him / you are not his page
or use your last pair of square brackets
to try and contain him

head full speed for the unhappy ending
you must ignore the structure tsumani pending
it is just a mirage
it is just a mirage
it is just a mirage
the plot arc is definitely not crumbling

60 000 words
it is time to exit
save to disc
save to desktop
save to usb
email to self
back up the hard drive
you have reached the end of chapter ten alive
& with one more magic goblet of caffeine booster left

up ahead / the blind submissions sewer
is a putrid slush-pile / just waiting
to mess with you

But Osama Lives

you cn feel him now:
a small boy
on the riyadh streets
shifting arabia’s bare
cracked childhood feet / the
stomach gathering
of volatile unease
as US army tanks roll in

the bullet blew the flesh
bt the hate is written in the wind

osama
osama bin
osama bin laden
osama bin laden
osama bin laden lives

Lot's Wife

lot said
don’t look over your shoulder darling
god said don’t look over your shoulder

but lord / she’d left behind
more than bricks & mortar

beneath the backyard olive tree
lay the bones of a baby daughter

keep walking
don/t look over your shoulder
keep walking

in the end / of course
they warned her in vain
& now we all know lot’s wife
we all learn lot’s wife’s tale:
how she disobeyed
glanced back
& turned to salt in god’s wrath

but lord
we don’t even know her name

lot’s wife
don’t look over your shoulder
lot’s wife

she’d walked free
but the smell of burning flesh
was on her tongue
it rained ash / she choked
back smoke & screamed
lot / i can’t run

don’t look over your shoulder
darling

lot / i can’t run

& as she turned
& saw
the melted screams
on the bodies of babes she’d held
while breathing / she said
lot / if this is god
i can’t believe

& lot’s wife was right:
hers was never a question of faith
the truth is always worth the price you pay

when they say
don’t look over your shoulder
keep walking
i turn

when they say
don’t look over your shoulder
lot’s wife
i turn

i will not run
& let my city burn

Gil Scott Heron Tribute Reading

...the revolution wz screamin
lemme outta here gil scott
i swear / progress is bein made
aint it progress: a black man
headin for that white house over yonder
lemme loose godammit gil scott
i wanna witness it the revolution said...

Melbourne poet Viki Mealings will be on Baz Daly's radio show this morning reading my poem Gil Scott Heron is on Parole as part of a tribute on 98.9fm and may also throw in last week's effort from this blog: Gil Scott Heron is Really Dead. I'm always absolutely fascinated when I hear other people reading my work, so I'm very much looking forward to it (don't mind having a plug for my book either, which by the way, is now available here online). The show starts at 10am. Listen up.

Narrative Voice Panel Discussion

Yeller belly cottonmouth,
Possum up a tree,
You can catch the swamp fever
But you can't catch me.

Last Sunday I appeared on a panel at Melbourne Townhall as part of the Emerging Writer’s Festival 2011. The topic was: a different voice – how to deal with voice in writing, and I appeared with Alan Bissett, Simmone Howell and Tony Moore, with Ruby J Murray as chair.

My starting point was actually a previous blogpost from here at slamup on poetry and truth, about how a poet’s audience expect that the voice in a poem is always the voice of the poet, as are any experiences described in the poem. I discussed what ethical obligation a writer/poet might have to declare whether a particular voice is ‘theirs’ or not.

My ending point was a book I had as a child called Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp. It was my favourite book as a child and I’ve even named it in various interviews/discussions as instrumental to my love of language.

The book’s about a plucky little black girl called Liza Lou, who uses her quick wit to escape all manner of monster hiding out in the Yeller Belly Swamp. The book was written by Mercer Mayer, who I’d always somehow assumed to be an African American woman as the voice of the little girl was so powerful and authentic. Turns out Mercer Mayer is a white man (I found this out when the book was ordered online for my son late last year and had a cheesy author pic in the back). Hence the closing of my panel speech with this example of finding a voice other than your own

I have no f*&king idea how I got from poetry and truth to Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp. I have some notion I rambled more than a little, thought I’m assured I really didn’t. So I have been well-relieved to discover Angela Meyer, of LiteraryMinded was present for the panel and has summarised my contribution over at Crikey. Hell, she even makes it sound like I knew what I’m talking about!

I found the other panellists viewpoints, particularly Alan Bissett’s, to be absolutely fascinating. It was a real bonus that I learnt so much from them as well as enjoying the conversation, questions and debate that came after we’d each had time at the mic.

I’d do a crap round-up of explaining what the other panellists so eloquently covered, but Angela’s really captured the essence of each of their talks over at LiteraryMinded. Take a squiz.

What are your thoughts on how to sustain an authentic narrative voice, especially in poetry?

Sit Her Naked

(or Strategies for Buying an Hour and a Half of Writing Time from Your Eight Month Old)*

Turn on the laptop, crank up the gas heater and choose one of the following:

1. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet with a tub of cottage cheese
2. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet with an entire loaf of bread
3. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet with a pot full of lukewarm spaghetti
4. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet with an entire copy of the age newspaper
5. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet with a pot full of lukewarm rice
6. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet with a pot full of lukewarm baked beans
7. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet with a tub of grated cheese
8. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet with a pot full of mashed potato
9. Sit her naked on a plastic sheet
10. Sit her naked

*WARNINGS: Plastic sheets are not suitable for children of any age and contact with infants may result in serious injury or death. The Age newspaper is not suitable for children of any age and contact with infants may result in serious injury, death or prolonged bouts of depression. Sitting naked is not suitable for children of any age and may result in serious injury, death or nudist tendencies in later life. Playing with or consuming their own faeces is not recommended for children of any age and may result in serious illness or death. Actual writing time is estimated at an hour and a half but may vary from baby to baby and may be as little as ten minutes. Actual clean-up time is two hours.