Settling in

I’ve now been at Tenjinyama Art Studio for two weeks. I have a firm handle on which pair of shoes are best for tackling the snow and now, rather quickly it seems, everything is beginning to thaw. Tomorrow night I’m headed south to Kansai to see the cherry blossoms and meet up with Mr K for a week; when I get back I’m sure the park will look quite different.

I’ve got into a fairly regular rhythm of writing in the mornings and venturing out into the world in the afternoon, whether just for groceries or to see a museum or to walk around the city. In the evenings I’m either relaxing with the other artists here, reading or returning to the writing. I feel very lucky to be able to organize my time completely around my writing.

I had also hoped to be plunging in to Japanese film but this is proving challenging logistically without speaking the language. Last night I signed up to the local Netflix but almost nothing there has English subtitles. I may have to wait until I’m home to do this part of the work. My local library has a good selection of Japanese film, and Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) usually has a strong Asian line up, so this will be a good project for the winter months on my return.

Artists’ Residency, Sapporo

A week ago I arrived in a very snowy Sapporo to begin my Asialink residency at Tenjinyama Art Studio. I will be here for twelve weeks in total which will include a little bit of travel in Kansai and Hokkaido. Time seems to be going by very quickly already but so far I have been settling in, feasting on the local food and finding my way around. By now I have a subway pass, some cute sticky notes in the shape of Japanese mountains, a pillow and half a notebook full of notes that I hope will prove to be the start of a new novel. Outside my window it is snowing which is beautiful but I am also using it as an excuse not to venture outside of the studio today except maybe later for a hot sweet potato from the shop at the bottom of the hill here.

Thanks to Tenjinyama, Asialink Arts and the Malcolm Robertson Foundation for this wonderful opportunity.

The Stella Prize

In a few days the Stella Prize shortlist will be announced. A perfect opportunity to boost your reading of books by Australian women surrounded by the excitement and buzz around this prize. I followed the announcement of the longlist, on twitter, from home with a celebratory gin and tonic to hand. I plan to do similarly with the shortlist. Literary prizes are strange things and though I have sometimes been disappointed by the Stella lists (more by what was left off them, than what was on them), I very much admire the amount of interest, and the sense of celebration of books by women, that the team have managed to generate in the few years the prize has been running. Following the Stella is also a great way to encounter new books especially if you, like me, mostly read novels because the prize includes short stories, memoirs and non-fiction in its remit. This year in particular there seem to be a high proportion of non-fiction offerings on the list.

I’m excited to see who makes the shortlist next week. Good luck to everyone on the longlist!

Interview: Katherine Johnson

I recently interviewed Katherine Johnson about her new novel, The Better Son.

Katherine is a Tasmanian author and a fellow PhD student at the University of Tasmania. Her book is a fast-paced, sometimes claustrophobic, read and it brings to life a small corner of Tasmania, which she had a very interesting time researching.

If you are looking for a novel about families that never drops its pace, this is the book for you. I read it in a single day.

The full text of the interview is on the Australian Women Writers Challenge website.

Writers’ Residency in Japan

I’m excited to be headed to Japan next month for a twelve-week writers’ residency with thanks to Asialink, the Malcolm Robertson Foundation and Tenjin-yama Art Studio. I’ll be in Sapporo to start work on a new writing project and, though this feels very nebulous at the moment, I am very much looking forward to meeting the other artists and the team at Tenjin-yama and to starting something brand new.

Congratulations and good luck to all the other 2017 Asialink residents. I had the chance to meet a number of them at the orientation day at Melbourne Uni last week and they are an incredibly diverse group with so many interesting projects. You can see the full list here.

Congratulations, Gail Jones

Last week Gail Jones was announced the winner of the Colin Roderick Award (for which my novella was also shortlisted) for A Guide to Berlin. I recently read A Guide to Berlin as part of the Australian Women Writers challenge. I very much enjoyed spending time with the protagonist in Berlin as she immersed herself in a group of expats who meet up to discuss their shared interest in the words of Nabokov. Congratulations to Ms Jones and to her publishers.

I thought this might be a good opportunity to report on the part of my committment to the Australian Women Writers challenge that involves reading a certain number of books by Australian women (in addition to reviewing a smaller number of these books) and to see if I can complete one of the AWW2016 Bingo challenges so here is a list of the books by Australian women I have read so far this year marked with the categories they fit:

Gail Jones, A Guide to Berlin (Bestseller)

Toni Jordan, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts (A funny book)

Rose Mulready, The Bonobo’s Dream (Published this year)

Aoife Clifford, All These Perfect Strangers (Contains a mystery)

Rochelle Siemienowicz, Fallen (A book I heard about online)

Lucy Treloar, Salt Creek (Set in the outback)

Rebecca Jessen, Gap (Written by someone under 30)
(Not reviewed because I teach this text and prefer not to have my views on it available to find online)

Charlotte Wood, The Submerged Cathedral (Published more than 10 years ago)

Myfanwy Jones, Leap (set in my favourite city – Melbourne!)

Ellen van Neervan, Heat and Light (Short Stories)
(Not reviewed because I teach this text and prefer not to have my views on it available to find online)

Lisa Bellear, Dreaming in Urban Areas (Indigenous author)
(Not reviewed because I teach this text and prefer not to have my views on it available to find online)

As well as stories by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Olga Masters, Elizabeth Jolley, Charlotte Wood, Jennifer Down and Barbara Baynton.

Currently reading: Emma Viskic, Ressurection Bay

By my count I’ve covered the AWW2016 Bingo Card One

I am now packing up a box to send to a friend overseas who finds it hard to find Australian books. The box contains several of the above, and of course a number of offerings from male writers as well as a selection of recent literary magazines. For me it’s been a year of discovering the diversity and richness of our literary landscape, and especially the richness of the books and stories by Aussie women and I look forward to the treasures still languishing in my TBR (to be read) pile.

 

 

Colin Roderick Award shortlisting

It’s coming up to the announcement of the Colin Roderick Award for which The End of Seeing has been shortlisted. The full shortlist is as follows:

Collins, Christy. The End of Seeing.

Harding, Leslie, and Morgan, Kendrah. Modern Love.

Jones, Gail. A Guide to Berlin.

Kinsella, John. Crow’s Breath.

Niall, Brenda. Mannix.

Winton, Tim. Island Home.

I’m thrilled to see my book on this list of books by such accomplished writers in a wide variety of genres (novels, biographies, memoirs and short stories). In particular, Tim Winton’s work has been important to me since I was a teenager and it is a particular thrill to be listed together with him.

More information about the award, including the judges comments on each of the books, can be found here: https://www.jcu.edu.au/foundation-for-australian-literary-studies/colin-roderick-award

 

Film review: Sherpa

When tourists with dreams of summiting Mount Everest finally reach the peak, they have not made it there alone.

For every expedition up Everest a team of Nepalese locals, known as sherpas often cover the same ground several times, carrying supplies, tents, food and emergency equipment through perilous ice falls in order to keep tourists safe and comfortable. The risks the sherpas take are far greater than those the foreigners take and the credit they receive is minimal.

Australian director Jennifer Peedom contrasts the sherpas’ Buddhist religion and their respect for the mountain with the foreigners’ dreams of proving themselves against nature and ‘conquering’ the mountain.

The Buddhist ceremony held to request permission to climb, is more than a taste of local colour for the tourists. It is an acknowledgement and reminder of the peril everyone who climbs Everest takes on, whether they are climbing in order to achieve a life long dream, or to feed their families in the villages below.

When the 2014 climbing season opened with a disaster that claimed the lives of 16 sherpas, Peedom’s team were on hand to record how the power dynamics between the tourists, sherpas, the Nepalese government, and the foreign expedition leaders played out in an arena which had already begun to show signs of tension the previous year.

Peedom shapes her material into a satisfying narrative that opens up the experience of the sherpas who serve the expeditions, and the lives and concerns of their families. The film brings to life the sherpas’ quest for greater respect for the sacredness of the mountain, the lost lives of their peers and for safer conditions and better treatment when, inevitably, people lose their lives in the service of Nepal’s tourism industry and the dreams of tourists from around the world.

Sherpa’s cinematography is unsurprisingly full of grandeur with reminders of the smallness of humans in this treacherous landscape. The Buddhist prayer flags add colour and the warm interiors of the family homes create a welcome contrast to the unforgiving mountain-scapes. Swelling violin music serves to reinforce the massive size of the landscape and the power of the environment.

Sherpa is an eye-opening look at the Everest expeditions from a different and important angle. It is essential viewing for anyone who dreams of one day conquering Everest and a good reminder for all of us who travel to countries less well off than our own to bear in mind the humanity of those who serve us there.

I watched Sherpa as part of the “52 films by women” challenge which you can sign up for here.

Originally published by Togatus http://www.togatus.com.au/review-sherpa/