London History Festival.

If anyone is in Kensington over the next few weeks and would like some literary events to go to one evening, we are running a London History Festival from the 14-24th November. Featuring authors such as Max Hastings, Simon Sebag Montefoire and Claire Tomalin. Tickets are only £3.
You can find out more information at: http://www.londonhistoryfestival.com/index.html

Back!

Back up at Uni and I am finally starting to get on top of everything. The last few months have been a bit crazy with work but it's getting there now.
I've started an internship with Richard Foreman and Chalke Authors. At first it was pretty challenging and I struggled with almost every task I was set. Although it's not become easier, I have more of an idea of what's expected now which is good and I'm starting to build some solid contacts within the publishing world. The events that I have been to are amazing, spending nights in the Tower of London for Nigel Jones' book launch, drinks at Goldboro's Books with various authors, or evening openings of the Imperial War Museum. I think over the last few weeks I've seen far more of London than I ever had before.
I had a brilliant careers talk the other day from Suzanne Collier and it has really helped me to define my CV and sort out what I'm doing after Uni. It was brilliant to hear someone say that you are on the right track and that getting a job should be within my power once I'm out of university. What was far more interesting was her advice on work experience, to which she said as little as possible is best. Here I am trying to line up as much as physically possible after Uni and now I've been told that's not strictly the case. It's also good to hear a range of people's thoughts on MA's in anything, or specifically publishing, and that although they will be interesting to do in terms of helping my career there's very little they can add at the moment. I'm still keeping my options open but at the minute my main objective is to get my dissertation out of the way and finish Uni with the grade that I want.

The road trip from Perth to Darwin

Flying into Perth at 1am, it's always strange trying to orientate yourself in a town at night. Our hostel left very little to be desired; all the bathrooms were wrecked through varying amounts of bodily fluids and who knows what and I awoke at night to find my bed rocking thanks to the inhabitants on the bottom bunk. Leaving early in the morning to go and buy supplies, being the most unprepared person out of the group I had to buy hiking boots, a sleeping bag and some basic first aid bits. Once the man in the hiking shop had truly freaked me out that I was going to die in the bush, convinced me to buy a wooly hat and I had visions of Wolf Creek going through my head we went to collect the car and meet the other girls.

The Pinnacle Desert.

We decided we were going to head towards Cervantes and the Pinnacle Desert. Getting to our first camp site we realised that the tents supplied by Travellers Auto Barn, who we hired the car from, had no outer sheets. We managed to bodge together one tent from the two inners and emptied the car so we could sleep there. Five girls in one Ford Falcon estate is cramped enough, let alone when it's a bedroom as well. Thankfully our tent neighbours took pity on us and gave us their lovely 4 man tent the next day.
The Pinnacle Desert is all these rock structures that look like weird fingers pointing out of the sand, in fact the Aboriginal stories are that they are fingers of the dead trying to drag people down. No-one knows how they are formed; trees that have been fossilised by sand is the most popular answer at the moment.
Heading up to Kalbari National Park afterwards, camped and readied ourselves for the first day of proper hiking. Our first site was the Mushroom Rock loop walk which want right down to the sea, you could climb up the rocks and watch the sea crash about, brilliant. Also got to see the first wild red kangaroo. Then we moved onto the Nature's Window walk, 8km up and down 300m high gorge. It was beautiful, scrambling up the sides of gorges, swimming in the rivers, saw wallabies and kangaroos, trapdoor spiders and amazing sights. 

Nature's Window.

The lost path...

Deciding to head to Billabong for the night, we ran out of petrol half way and again found ourselves being saved by Australian's who take pity on us. Thankfully this guy had enough petrol to siphon us off some so we could get to Billabong for the night. Waking up early to discover we had been eaten by midges in the night, we headed to Shark Bay for some scuba diving and snorkelling. Shark Bay is lovely, the sea comes right up the the main road in the town and there's a lot of natural features, it's one of the few places that has wild dugongs so it was surprising to get there and find a lot had closed down and there was no scuba company there any more. It's a real shame and as a result we decided to go straight over to Canarvon and then on to Coral Bay. 

Coral Bay was packed full of hippies, divers and general travellers. We decided on a manta ray dive and snorkel over the Ningaloo Reef. It was amazing, we saw huge 5-7m manta rays feeding off the bottom doing enormous loop-de-loop's, also saw sea turtles, coral and we had a stalker fish who we named Bob. All manta rays have different markings on their underside, like a fingerprint, so each of the one's we saw we could then search for back on the ship's log. 

Leaving Coral Bay we moved onto Karijini National Park/Tom Price, en route blowing out a tyre that took a lot of muscle to change it. Karijini was the closest I'd come so far to the wild life, camping in the National Park I saw red back spiders, other spiders I couldn't name but ran away from, huge biting ants, all sorts of animals moving around in the night and termite mounds taller than me. Our first walk through the park was the Kalamina Gorge, we had to cling to the rock faces at parts but the contrast of the red rock and the turquoise water was stunning. We went swimming in the Fortescue Falls and Circular Falls to cool down, it's amazing to be able to swim under waterfalls and dry off in the sun. 

Towed...

Staying overnight in Port Hedland, we went onto Broome. In Broome our cars breaks failed thanks to a mixture of problems we later found out. Here is my one major traveller advice: do NOT hire a car from Travellers Auto Barn, they are awful and extremely unhelpful, particularly when your car is broken and you are stuck. Thanks to a lovely customer rights lawyer in Broome, Annetta, she managed to get our car back on the road for us and save our road trip. Broome itself is pretty, but very small. Spending more than the three days we were there and you've run out of things to do really. 

This was our final stretch to Darwin, our car was fixed and things were looking up after a stressful few days. 

Wangi Falls.

Moving on up to Katherine, we watched the last match of the State of Origin, QLD won 34-22 much to Amanda's annoyance and saw lots of snakes, wold hogs and cows on the roads as well as a toppled over road train which was pretty scary, luckily no-one was hurt. In Katherine we went to the hot springs for a morning swim which was lovely, even if the crocodile signs were a bit of-putting! Leaving Alix in Katherine with relatives we headed onto Litchfield National Park for our final hike and camp. Litchfield was possible the best one yet, we walked the Walker Creek path, saw the Wangi Falls and the rainforest walk, Tolmer Falls and Buley Rockholes and Florence Falls. Swimming at Florence Falls was breathtaking, a huge waterfall you could swim straight under and look up. 

Florence Falls.

Getting up early the next day we saw the sun rise over the Magnetic Termite Mounds, looking like huge tombstones all lined up North to South. It was a lovely start to the last real day of our road trip. 

Reaching Darwin in about an hour, camped and headed to Mindil Beach to watch a tinnie boat race and do some shopping round the markets. Meeting up with Alix again we had dinner, watched the sun set on the beach and headed back to camp for Lucie to pack for her flight in the evening. With Lucie leaving in the evening, Victoria the following day and Alix the day after it was back to Amanda and I within two days, it was sad but nice to get some time together before we all left off. I was headed back to Melbourne via some friends in Wollongong and Amanda was going down to Alice Springs and over to Cairns. 

It was an amazing trip, more than I can fill in on here and would recommend it to anyone as a way to see a country outside of the tourist spots. If you're going to do it anywhere you might as well chose Australia, it's so different and varied you can see a completely different place every day. 

I'm off...

I was planning to be off on a jet plane, or at least a Tiger Airways plane to Sydney in order to meet my friend and start working our way up the coast. Thanks to a mixture of fog and volcano ash it was cancelled and I spent a rather strange 12 hours on a coach in a "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" type scramble for a ticket. Now, I know people like and even love Sydney, but personally it's always been Melbourne for me. I just prefer the atmosphere there, particularly after finding myself in Sydney at 7am on a bank holiday morning in dire need for a coffee and warmth. Avoiding the man being arrested by police I found my way into the train station, sat down and prepared to wait for my friend and the world to wake up.
We decided to make our first leg up the coast to Newcastle. The Country Link XPT train is not only cheaper than a Greyhound coach, but far comfier and quieter, all good things in my book! Our hostel in Newcastle was a standard YHA that was apparently an old Gentlemen's Club and as a result was full of leather chairs, fireplaces and rugs. Pretty swanky for a hostel and a nice way to start our journey. We walked along the coast and pier, where I got swept over by a rogue wave that soaked me and ruined my boots. For a first day it was filled with both success and damp laughter.

Newcastle Beach- choppy!

Deciding to move onto Coffs Harbour after a day in Newcastle, we had high hopes for horse riding, white water rafting and kayaking. However, thanks to a huge amount of rain everything was flooded and once we got to Coffs we could not get out. The town itself is small and divided into two, one small part down by the coast and the other inland with the majority of shops and restaurants. We did manage to go canoeing one day which resulted in a lot of splashing, near capsizing and getting rained on as well as watching the second State of Origin match which NSW won, annoyingly. After three days we did get to move on, by which time we had both run out of things to do in Coffs when everything was closed.

Coffs Harbour on a rare unrainy day.

Byron Bay was next on our hit list. Getting the train up we reached the bay early evening and prepared to hit the town. Within minutes of entering the first club there was a man proudly naked and that spelled the tone for the rest of the night. Byron Bay was a strange mix of beauty, hippies, drunks and older residents. Oddly it seems to work well with the majority of the town revolving around the beach which is truly amazing. The rainforest goes right down to the sand and the water is beautiful. We had the chance to go kayaking where we were lucky to see dolphins and manta rays coming to the surface to feed. Byron Bay is also the most easterly point of Australia and one morning we made the painfully early start to watch the sunrise which was worth it in the end, particularly after a mid morning snooze on the beach.

Moving on from Byron to Surfers Paradise was a shock neither of us was expecting. Knowing Surfers was going to be built up we didn't expect what we found. Huge high rises and shopping malls, coming from lots of smaller towns with quirky buildings Surfers was not particularly nice and it only took us an hour to go back to the office and book our coach out of there the next day. However, we had reached Queensland which needed a little celebration so we treated ourselves to an early night! Greyhound coaches leave a lot to be desired, luckily we were only on it for a few hours. One thing this trip has proved to me is that I can fall asleep on pretty much any kind of transport now.
Having heard about the floods in Brisbane I didn't know what to expect, but there were hardly any signs in the city that it had happened. We went about an hour north to Noosa and Eumundi for the day and there were some signs up there of flooding. The markets at Eumundi are beautiful and huge; the food is varied and smells amazing. It's very hard not to want to buy everything, although there are lots of free samples! Another day, just for Amanda, we headed to Steve Irwin's zoo. It was a strange experience. The entire zoo is almost a shrine to Irwin while they are desperately trying to move the empire over to the daughter. It's a very bizarre experience when you can have pictures with his cardboard cut out or transfer his face onto the background of your photograph. The zoo itself was not as big as I was expecting, we saw the croc show and other bits. One thing they do well is having the animals out amongst the crowds, wombats on leads, koalas clinging to trainers and even tigers, all ready for petting and snapshots. Brisbane itself is a good city and there's a lot around it to keep you going. Sadly we'd run out of time and had to get our flight over to Perth to start the road trip.

Noosa- beautiful. 

"The Bingo Palace" by Louise Erdrich. A quick analysis...

The Bingo Palace takes place over the course of roughly a year, from one winter to the next. In relation to events within her previous novels and with regards to the Indian Gaming Act we can place the novel around the late 1980s. There is a strong difference shown between the present actions of the characters, and the past which continues to haunt and affect them now. For example Fleur’s age does not add up, having cheated death three times prior to this novel it would make her at least 100 years of age. It seems that Erdrich creates a present story that is filled with undertones of previous characters, plots and places from earlier novels. The Bingo Palace is also one of the first novels by Erdrich that does not have a date at the start of a chapter, making this novel feel even more ambiguous in terms of time. By having a text that has no definite time frame means that Erdrich’s storytelling will be continuous because there are no grounding factors that force the tale into a certain period or place. We know that everything happens on the reservation, but even the reservation is not clearly defined geographically, instead as a reader we are given hints at towns in the surrounding areas, but nothing more than that. As a result The Bingo Palace places you within a fluctuating time frame on a fictional reservation which causes the reader to have a sense of dislocation with the world Erdrich is attempting to describe.

From the very opening of The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich we get the sense that Lipsha is not a character welcomed back to the reservation. He is recalled as a troublemaker, smart but hopeless, he does not bring anything good back to the tribe. It seems that Lipsha is representing the role of the Native American in a modern American society as a whole, he does not fit with his tribe and their constant surveillance of each other yet he does not fit in with the world outside of the reservation either. From his birth Lipsha has lived in a liminal space, stuck under the mud he does not die, instead Misshepeshu maintains him in a form of limbo between life and death, waiting for Zelda to find him. One of the main reasons that he pursues Shawnee Ray is because she recognizes him; she talks to him and even holds his hands. She brings him out of his liminal position within the tribe, making him a proper member through his connection to her. Although Lipsha’s return can be seen as a homing plot, the reservation itself is stuck in a liminal position within America, with the way its bordered away from the rest of America and the restrictions put upon it, effectively the liminal character is returning to the limbo in which he has grown up.  

"House Made of Dawn" by N. Scott Momaday. A quick analysis...

Both Francisco and Abel are strongly connected to the past in this novel, each paragraph of the present is contrasted against one of the past despite the fact that there is a generational gap between the grandfather and grandson. The past is strongly linked with better times, Francisco recalls “that year he killed seven bucks and seven does” (p.8) reminiscing over better times of his youth, before the problems of the present arise again, haunting him more than any past could. There seems to be a strong disjunction between Francisco and the present world he inhabits; he is supposed to be a respected elder figure, indeed Abel remembers better times with his grandfather on page 10, however with Abel turning up drunk he is forced to “laugh and turn away from the faces” staring. The pervasive flashbacks between both grandfather and grandson unite them and accent the repetition and handing down of events through generations. Contrasting both these men on the reservation is the arrival of Mrs. Martin St. John, new and different, and almost instantly upon hiring Abel she feels she lacks a place “she was aware of some useless agony” (p. 32). It’s interesting that this woman who seems to have no past also watches the skies for “the birds that hied and skittered” (p. 32) and feels the same sense of foreboding as Abel; a sense of being “empty again and eternal beyond all hope” (p. 32). It seems that despite the backgrounds and pasts of these characters, there is an overriding relationship with nature, the past and the present.

The albino at first appears to be a white man to Angela observing the riding contest held for Saint Santiago, riding on a black horse the contrast between the man and his horse is clear. However she soon realises that there is something “unnatural” (p. 43) about the man. Abel’s inability to properly compete in the riding contest is shown through the crowd’s jeers and his wariness. His inability to perform the ritual well and courageously “leaning sharply down on the shoulders of [his] mount” (p. 42) means that the sacrifice to the Saint Santiago is not met, therefore it is not only himself he is letting down, but the village as a whole who relies on the sacrifice to maintain the good will of the Saint. It takes a complete outsider, and one that is uncannily a white man, to successfully snatch the rooster out of the ground, in turn saving the villages crops for that season. In terms of his place within the tribe Abel is an outsider, however in being beaten by an albino, who is far more of an outsider than Abel, means that socially the hierarchy has been upset and symbolically a white man has strived over the Native American again.

"Fools Crow" by James Welch. A quick analysis...

By placing Fools Crow in the late nineteenth century, prior to the invasion of the white colonizers, it is in effect a pre-colonial text. Through the use of language and images Welch shows the reader something which they won’t have encountered before and as a result there is a feeling of dislocation. However, there is a paradox wherein Welch goes back to a pre-colonial time, yet he uses a language that was derived from colonizers. As a result Welch is forced to use a language that is not natural to the pre-colonial time in order to communicate to the modern world. This results in the reader becoming both a translator and reader, because there are still aspects to the text that a western reader cannot easily understand. It confronts the ideas of names, territories and culture so that Welch creates a world that is dually alien and similar, affecting a sense of déjà vu. The reader is forced to re-assess their position in respect to the text as it is presenting to them a foreign world and history that the western reader has not been taught to understand. In this respect Fools Crow then forces the reader to re-assess not just their position towards the text, but towards the world in which the text exists in comparison to the modern day world. Fools Crow therefore presents a pre-colonial world that affects everything the reader knows and accepts as the norm within their western world.

Within James Welch’s novel Fools Crow the names of people, animals and objects is very reflective of their position within the world. Everything is names figuratively: animals are “ears-far-apart”, guns “many-shots” and even people “Rides-at-the-door”. The argument then is whether Welch is creating this language as a way of forcing the reader deeper into Native American culture, or whether it is simply the case that the names for these things just do not translate into English and as a result they are short, descriptive and connected words. Personally, knowing that Welch does not speak the native language it is difficult to believe that all these names are true to the language. At points in the novel there is a sense of disjunction with the naming, it does not seem to totally fit. This shows the most with the “Napikwans” or “white men” who are referred to as both these names. It seems odd that for everything else only the native name applies, however the white man is referred to in both senses. It gives the idea that it is potentially a purposeful authorial slip-up that allows the reader to constantly readdress the issue of names within the text. It represents the people they know in dually a foreign sense and a similar sense. This gives the reader an idea as to where their loyalties lie within the text, it is genetically most likely with the western invaders, yet the native name allows them to distance themselves from their settler ancestors.

George Bird Grinnell wrote in 1892 that Blackfeet’s “are firm believers in dreams” and a powerful dream within Fools Crow by James Welch must be shared with the fellow tribe. From the outset the importance if dreams is shown through Fast Horse’s one on the horse raid, the failing of his dream mission leads to the failure of the horse raid and the loss of Yellow Kidney. Dreams are prophetic, seeing the fate of his people on the dress of Feather Woman; Fools Crow awakes knowing that his tribe is doomed to eventual forced assimilation. However, dreams are not just figurative images, they invade reality. This is shown through the joint dream of Fools Crow and Kill-close-to-the-lake; both are left with a perfect white stone with which to remember their dreams and the consequences had this have happened in the real world. All the events which Fools Crow sees on Feather Woman’s coat come to pass, however this can also be a result of the authors hindsight. It is this hindsight that leads many critics to argue that Fools Crow is magic realism, a text that can be both fiction and fantasy, because Welch presents the dreams as accurate through his storytelling and historical knowledge. However this has been denied on the basis of what Welch is presenting to us is not so much the story, but the insight into Native American, and specifically Blackfeet, culture. Although the story is integral to this insight, it is not what is most prominent within the book. As a result the dreams are as vital to both the story and the culture and this makes the argument of magic realism irrelevant when thinking about what Welch is trying to present to a western readership. 

"Plains of Promise" by Alexis Wright.

Wright's debut novel of 1997 is the story of a mother and daughter who never meet. The first part of the novel deals with Ivy Koopundi, a child who is born to St. Dominic's, a missionary in the Northern Territory that her mother was sent to. Shortly after her birth her mother commits suicide, sparking a range of suicides all over the missionary and causing the tribe to believe that little Ivy is cursed and needs to be returned to her own people. When Ivy herself has a child, the result of an overindulgent priest, the newborn is taken away under the pretense that it is ill. Years later Mary Koopundi, Ivy's daughter, returns to the camp in an attempt to find her place and a home for her daughter which forms the second part of the novel.
Throughout the novel there is this overriding sense that no-one wants Ivy Koopundi or even knows what to do with her. She is haunted by this idea that she is cursed,  bringing tribes, mental hospitals, women, homes, families and goats around about her and she is sent from pillar to post around Australia. Mary, as a victim of the Stolen Generation, is on the hunt for her discovered Aboriginal heritage and joins an organisation trying to bring about a pan-Aboriginal movement. Wright uses these women to show how the treatment of Aboriginal women over the span of the twentieth century has hardly changed.
This book is most certainly not an optimistic novel, when mother and daughter do finally meet it is under such circumstances that they do not know who each other is. Wright seems to be suggesting that this is a situation that needs more than just tracking down a place, people have become so isolated from their ancestry that a mother and daughter can't recognize each other. Throughout the novel there is this overriding sense that people are trying to forget the past, forget what happened and move on, but there doesn't seem to be anything for them to move on to, instead they are trapped in this place of unknown that is reflected through the loss of the mother/daughter relationship.
Although a little book, particularly in comparison to her later novel "Carpentaria", "Plains of Promise" is a beautifully written novel that tackles some huge issues with relation to Australian policies, the Stolen Generation and how the ideas relating to these issues hasn't changed very much. Definitely recommended reading.

Uni

As my time in Australia grows ever shorter I am completely torn between the desire to go home, see all my family, friends etc and to stay here. Logically I know I need to go home in order to get some work experience, a job for when I return to UEA and to try and get my head around my final year at Uni. The only problem is that I hate having to listen to the voice of reason, particularly when it's something I don't want to do.
Last weekend one of my friends from UEA, who's studying at Wollongong Uni in Australia, came down for a visit. Just like me, she is pretty besotted with this country, it's attitudes, culture, lifestyle, everything. It's strange to meet someone you know, who's had a completely different experience of Australia to me, have exactly the same opinion with regards to both Australia and England. It's also quite upsetting, we both realise that the job market back home is hardly going to change during our last years of Uni and that when we finish we are most likely not going to have a job in anything more than retail. It's a very depressing thought to know that you've tried your hardest through Uni with the aim of trying to improve your education, skills and adaptability all with the intention of being able to make something of yourself, so to have that pretty much taken away, and to know about it, it leaves you wondering why you bother sometimes.
I've had a pretty up and down relationship with Uni over the last four years, loving it and hating it, but at no point have I ever really wanted to give up. I might have said it but not with any real conviction. It's the same for this year abroad. I'm not going to lie it's cost a fortune and I would certainly advise anyone thinking of doing it to really consider the costs involved. However, I do feel it's made me a stronger and a far more confident person. I have also made some of the most amazing friends that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do so otherwise. So although I may not have a job at the end of it, I have loved most of my Uni life so far and would not change that for anything.

Rob's Visit to Melbourne (in short)

Rob has gone home and I am back on my own again. Getting back into Uni work and trying to get on top of essays. A few piccys from our two weeks together. We went to Melbourne Aquarium, Sydney, swimming with seals (and dolphins but they didn't turn up), hiking in the Grampians, Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary and pretty much everywhere in Melbourne:

"True Country" by Kim Scott.

This book is one of my pre-dissertation readings, so thought I would review it as a way of getting my ideas together and giving you guys a little idea of what the book is about as well.

Billy is a school teacher posted to a remote Aboriginal community called Kanarma in Australia. He is struggling to find an identity for himself, particularly in light of his ancestral Aboriginality challenging his perceived white Australian heritage. What Billy finds instead through his placement is a society that is slowly breaking down through alcohol, drugs, violence and government handouts. Billy's narration charts the social problems facing the people of Kanarma, to which Billy is effectively placed as a middle man. 

Kim Scott's writing is subtle, placing the narrative of self discovery against the Aboriginal mode of being and knowing. Scott couldn't write this novel as a single person self-discovery narration because that would in effect make it a colonial text, the colonizer discovers their Western selves through the "other". Instead Scott challenges the Western ideas of knowing and being, making the Westerner the "other" against the Aborigines of Kanarma. In this sense then Billy discovers himself through the realization that he is the other, but that through his ancestry he can reject that label to become one of the group. 

Early in the book Billy decides to try and transcribe the history of the people of Kanarma by listening to their tales and writing them down. However, instead of taking what they tell him as a truth, their truth, and leaving it at that, Billy instead has to find a reference within his Western text books. He automatically takes on the condescending role of attempting to categorize the stories he is told in an attempt to assimilate the tribe's truths with his textual truths. Interestingly it is this transcribing that connects Billy with the Aborigines of the area and he becomes implicated in their lives as much as they his. In terms of oral storytelling then, Scott seems to suggest that through the telling of the stories, these united memories, one can access an ancestral past and therefore claim an identity through that. When Fatima retells her life stories to Billy, he becomes part of her stories and as a result creates for himself a place within the group. 

Scott shows through Billy that by transcribing, or attempting to transcribe, Aboriginal history he is in effect trying to answer his own problems with ethical and cultural accountability. "True Country" is a novel about the cultural culpability that is accorded through the writing of histories that go against the colonial Western view and the effect that this has on both the writer and the written tale. 

This book is perhaps one of the best ones I have read in a long time and would recommend it to anyone wanting to get an idea about the issues around white Australia and Aboriginal Australia. 

"Shadow Lines" by Stephen Kinnane

"Shadow Lines" by Stephen Kinnane was a book on my compulsory reading list for Historicising the Colonial Past, so I thought I would give it a quick review.

"Shadow Lines" is a memoir written by Kinnane on his grandparents life. It is part family history, part Aboriginal history, part history of the oppression of Aboriginal people in the early twentieth century. I'll admit it sounds daunting and it is a tome of a book, but his style of writing is very easy to read, small chapters and pictures break up the text as well so you do find yourself half way through without realising you've read quite that much.
Kinnane starts with the government removal of his grandmother; Jessie Argyle. Taken from her family in 1906 as a result of the Aborigines Act of 1905, Jessie is renamed after the area she was taken from; Argyle, and sent away to a mission. His grandfather, Edward Smith, was born in 1891 and emigrated to Australia in 1909 at the age of 18. Kinnane in effect is writing the story of how these two ancestors met, married and lived together under the ever watchful eye of Aborigines Department controller A.O.Neville.
What strikes me with this text is that, although it's based on historical fact and Kinnane is sensible enough to reference all his sources at the end of the book, there is also a lot of imaginative input on his behalf. In the opening lines Kinnane talks about the shadowlines that connect us all; "inflexible boundaries that are laid down by narrow definitions of race, nationalism and religion". It's these shadowlines that inadvertently connect Jessie and Edward, Neville and Jessie (to the point where they are buried in the same graveyard), Neville to Edward and of course all of them to their daughter. These lines "shift and change, break and re-form, swell and divide" across Kinnane's charting of Edward and Jessie's lives, through historical fact or imaginative interpretation.
This book, and I call it book because I genuinely do not know whether to class it biography, fiction or history, brings to life two of Kinnane's ancestors, both of whom are exceptionally brave in their own ways, facing the Aborigines Department's constant opposition. As a reader you learn of the huge oppression of Aboriginal people that was happening right through to the 1950s. Kinnane's story seems to be an attempt at releasing the spirits of his grandparents. In textualising and writing about them however, he is also bringing them back for everyone who reads the novel. This then also works for A.O.Neville and Kinnane's revival of the man shows him as the "dictator carving out his empire". I'm not going to deny that at times this book does make you wonder how this could ever happen, ever be allowed to happen, and it is quite upsetting, but Edward and Jessie are heroic figures of this text and you find yourself inwardly cheering every time they achieve something against the Aborigines Department or Neville.
"Shadow Lines" is not a book that can be summed up or reviewed easily, it's a text that shows a small but perfect part of twentieth century history and it sheds a huge amount of documented light onto the treatment of Aborigines under the "care" of A.O.Neville. It's Kinnane's way of doing justice to his ancestors, a justice that is forceful, elegant and upsetting.

The Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne.

For my Historicising the Colonial Past class today we visited two exhibitions at the Potter Museum. "Trademarks"; a display of the indigenous items collected by Leonhard Adams and "Experimental Gentlemen" chronicling the changing vision and understanding of Australia.
Both exhibits were very impressive collections, particularly "Trademarks" which had a vast collection of Native and South American pieces. However, the talk that accompanied this part of our tour was rather conflicting. In taking these items out of the archives the curator had decided to trace their origins, contacting the museums to find out how Leonhard Adams had got a hold of them in the first place and where they were from. It was revealed that Adams had actually traded many Aboriginal artifacts in return for the artifacts in his collection. The curator then went on to tell us that although she had found the museums where the pieces had been traded or obtained it was not her "priority" to find out who they originally belonged to. It seems quite contradictory to ascertain which museums worldwide these pieces were sourced from without wanting to find out to which tribe, culture or group they belonged. She then went on to inform us on how much the pieces were worth and the standing that they had created for the museum. That's all well and good, but surely the people to which these pieces belong to, these cultural and socially significant pieces of which they may be the only ones in existence, have the right to know where their ancestral artifacts are residing? It seemed particularly condescending that the one tribe she had managed to allocate a shield to, when they visited it and critiqued it for not being the best they had ever heard of, she then produced her texts books and history books to show the tribe to which the shield in question belonged were actually wrong in her opinion. If anything, this shows the contrast between written history and oral history. This tribe stated that they had heard of tales in their past of greater, better and more artistic works, something to which the written, colonial history cannot back up so instead it takes this condescendingly defensive stance, telling the culture they are wrong because they do not have written, identifiable proof. It seemed that for a museum that originally came across as very open and understanding is just as unreceptive towards the idea of acknowledging the true owners and potential repatriation of museum items.
Another disturbing factor was the mention of the artifacts that had been traded out of Australia. There was no mention of trying to get those back or contacting remaining members of Aboriginal tribes in order to tell them where their cultural, historical and social artifacts are. I realise that money, time and effort are big questions in relation to this, but if there are records of how the value of their items has increased over the years, surely there must be one with what pieces went where and what group they may have originally belonged to.

The "Experimental Gentlemen" exhibit was very interesting, it charted the representation of indigenous cultures through books, paintings and etchings from those first settlers in Australia. It was very interesting to note that where the early settlers had, in very detailed ways, depicted Aborigines and their culture, but by the 1880s this had stopped. The reason behind this was that this representation had become undesirable to the colonisers who wanted to draw more people to Australia. It effectively creating an invisibility that some will argue is still continuing today.



"Panoramic View of King George's Sound, part of the Colony of South River" (above- detail) by Robert Havell and Robert Dale in 1834 was one of the major pieces of the exhibit. It was interesting that the detail shown here of the amicable looking hand shake is contrasted by a descriptive booklet that came connected to the image. This booklet charted the tracking down, decapitation and transportation of the head of the indigenous leader, Yagan, back to England with Robert Dale. An image of the decapitated head was inserted as the front-piece of the pamphlet. This certainly went against the Australia Britain was trying to project in an attempt to tempt new settlers. As a result this was one of the last images presenting Aborigines.
Interestingly, Yagan's skull was repatriated to representatives of the Noongar tribe on the 31st August 1997 in Liverpool. He wasn't buried in Australia until 10th July 2010 due to disagreements over his remains. This idea of museum repatriation links back to the first exhibit "Trademarks" and whether the tribes to which those pieces belong should be contacted and whether they have the right to take their pieces out of museums should they want to. I think it's something that's going to become more debated over the next few years, especially now that the British Museum has started repatriating items under the Human Tissue Act in the UK.

Pictures

Here are some pictures I snapped the other weekend, and I struck it lucky with the weather, which is a bit hit and miss here.

Makes a change from England! 

A new April resolution...

From today I am starting the applications for work experience placements at various publishers in both the UK and Australia. 

I can pretty much guess that I am not going to get anything in Australia, not because of visa status or anything like that. Mainly because over here all work experience and two week internships are done when students are ideally in year 13- 15 to 16 year olds. I only decided that I would like to get into publishing, specifically production, about a year and a half ago. Over here there seem to be a lot less students that I have discovered who don't have a plan. Even if it's just to go onto a masters, or another course, it's still a plan. I think perhaps the monetary cost of universities over here, and in America, means that most students don't seem to go unless they have a clear idea of what they are going to do with a degree. In the UK it seems more people go to university at the moment because there is nothing else on offer. In Australian terms I am exceedingly slow off the mark, not only not having done any seriously future applicable work experience/internships, but also to not specifically decided on career options which has resulted in me being given a lot of strange looks. 

Personally I don't feel that there is anything wrong with not knowing your future career. I know ideally in 20 years where I would like to be, but if I don't get there then I'm confident I will have found a different direction/employment that is just as suited. Or, perhaps it's just my loathing to make decisions. The last few months, what with picking my final year UEA modules, forming dissertation proposals and actually having to think about life post-uni I am becoming more and more stubborn when it comes to making potential permanent future decisions. Everyone I know who has finished uni/is finishing this year hates it, they are telling me awful stories of unemployment, dole, indecision and generally warning me against the impending doom that is the end of university. Surely it can't be that bad? 

As a naive first year I vowed never to leave uni, to stay in education as long as physically possible. However, it's come to the point now, that no matter how much I love education, and I'm not going to lie I am a geek and I love learning, I need to get away from university. Even if it is just to unemployment (which is looking the most likely option with the state of the UK at the moment). 

So, with the purposeful launch of work experience and internship applications I am making one of the first delves into a post-uni world. Perhaps it will be my belated New Year's resolution. A new April resolution? 

National Poetry Month

Seeing as today is the start of National Poetry Month I thought I would give you one of my favourite poems, written by Ben Johnson after the death of his son.

On My First Sonne.

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sinne was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy;
Seven yeeres tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I loose all father, now. For why
Will man lament the state he should envie?
To have so soon scap'd worlds of fleshes rage,
And, if no other miserie, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lye
Ben. Johnson his best piece of poetrie.
For whose sake, hence-forth, all his vowes be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

Waterstone's

Today brought the unsurprising news that Waterstone's is up for sale by HMV. Apparently they plan to use the money from the sale to reduce their debt and create a "turnaround plan" for the music stores. If I'm honest I don't think it will matter what or who you sell, sadly HMV is on it's way out as a result of online buying and in store competition. Being forced by the banks to sell in order to pay off debts, HMV seems to be on an ever increasing downward spiral.
Valued at £50m to £70m Waterstone's faces an interesting future. When Borders UK first came up for sale in 2007 it was sole for a mere £20m and struggled in a "declining market", eventually going under. So who knows what's going to happen to Waterstone's. Rumours of Dominic Myers creating a management buyout are rife at the moment, and no doubt Tim Waterstone will try and form some sort of buyout. Personally I love Waterstone's, having worked there on and off for years it's sad to watch it's slow decline. From the closing down of twenty stores to it's sale, hopefully someone will but it out and change it around, however I think they are facing a difficult and rapidly changing market. Whoever buys it needs to realise the potential and instead of wasting time bringing in new agendas, new stock such as DVDs (only to return them six months later because they weren't selling) and overpriced children's toys, they need to focus on what they are about and that is books. They will be taking over a range of staff, the majority of which know their stuff inside and out, and need to realise this potential. Waterstone's needs an ownership that will support staff, accentuate their knowledge and give them credit for it, instead of treating them like imbeciles.
Personally, I don't think that the current management will particularly do that, from my experience of them they seem to struggle to organise the next weeks offers and POS. However, when it's your own company as opposed to someone else's the urge to make in run smoothly, reduce waste and increase profit is probably a lot higher.
I will be reading The Bookseller avidly, waiting for the next installment.

Poetry.

I will have been here exactly a month tonight and I think I can safely say that I am completely settled in now. Well, I still get lost on campus, but it has its own postcode so it’s pretty huge. I think that’s allowed.

One thing I am surprised with is how much I am enjoying the creative writing class that I was dreading. It’s one of my favourites now. I don’t know if it’s because the tutor is really excited about anything you produce and really encouraging, because it’s a good group of classmates. I don’t know. I am still dreading workshopping however. I realise its constructive criticism and all but it still feels a bit mean analysing someone’s first draft in such a critical way.

One thing I have been musing on is whether or not I want to put the poems I am working on on here as a way of slowly getting myself into workshopping. However, the thought of releasing those few things I have written onto the World Wide Web is not really appealing. Also I don’t want this blog to turn into some kind of precocious poetry collection, or to become yet another “poet” releasing their stuff on the internet in the hope that they might get a fan base. It’s a bit too personal for that. So on one hand I have the thought that it might do me good and if I get criticism it’s not like I know the person if they’ve commented on here and criticism, bad or good, is always interesting to hear. On the other hand however, it’s a big step and seeing as I have trouble reading my pieces to the class I don’t know if I’m up to putting them on here. I would be grateful for any thoughts?

Maybe I should just put them on here after they’ve been marked and I’ve obviously got full marks and multiple commendations!

First Week.

Just finished my first week of studies at Melbourne Uni (and yes, I am only on campus three days a week). The only problem now is that I have a little dilemma in that I am enrolled in six subjects, but can only take four. I know I am definitely sticking with the Art/Pornography/Blasphemy/Propaganda class. It's brilliant, studying a range of banned and controversial books along with films and artworks, and throughout this asking the all important question "what is art?" to try and form some sort of definition on what should and should not be censored. After our first tutorial there were already enough arguments to see this class is going to be fun! As for my Creative Writing requirement I attended both the Novels class I was originally enrolled into and a new one called Poetry and Poetics. Although both were good classes, the Poetry one seemed far more accessible, and the Novels tutor put me off when he opened with a gigantic list of things he did not like to read about/irritated him. Now, I realise that everyone has likes and dislikes, but in a university class that's meant to make you write creatively, surely you can't dictate what you do and do not like in order to sway our writing? So, I think that will be one of the classes I will be dropping.
As for the historical side that I've tried to incorporate I attended both Colonising History and Historicising the Colonial Past. Both sound pretty identical right? That's what I thought, but apparently not. Colonising History is a broad look at the entire history of Australia and it's colonisation, the effects on it's citizens up to the modern day. Historicising the Colonial Past is directly studying the Indigenous People of Australia and looking at how colonisation has affected them. It's also using both a historical approach and a fictional one, which should be interesting in terms of the oral traditions in the culture and what it means to have their traditional stories written down for outsiders to read. This class is probably going to be what I am going to take, purely because it covers specifically what I want to look at for my dissertation.
My final class is a comparison of Australia and America. I think this class is going to be the most controversial for me purely because in the first lecture the teacher was both useless and came out with some of the most outlandish generalisations I have heard in a long time. From her inability to work out how to plug in a USB to her statements on how "America is qualified by a dream, that means Australia is the nightmare" without anything to back this up I think it's going to be interesting seeing what she comes up with next.
I also had an interesting meeting with the head lecturer of the postgraduate Publishing courses. This was because I had asked whether there was any chance I could take one. One of the convenient factors of being an international student is that most of the uni's are eager to please you, perhaps more eager than your home uni, purely because you are going to be taking their name back to your home uni and telling people whether or not to go there. As a result this meant in America I got to take a graduate class and I figured it was worth a try whilst I was over here. Sadly, it didn't work, but what you don't ask you don't know and I got to have a brilliant meeting with Bryony who told me all about the Australian publishing market, the job buoyancy as a whole, ebooks and ereaders, book prices and basically similarities and differences between the UK and Australia. She also invited me to a series of guest lectures from various heads of different publishers over here, which is only meant to be open to postgrad students so I'm really chuffed with that. So even though I didn't get the class I wanted I still got to meet a very interesting lady who was kind enough to help me out and encourage what I was doing so far. Can't complain at that!
For a first week I think it was one of the more stressful ones, the campus is a lot bigger than expected and going to six classes certainly takes up a lot of your time, but I am settling in a lot more and am starting to really enjoy my time here, even if I am now going to become a poet as opposed to a bestselling novelist!

The UK vs Australian job market.

One thing I found out today is that no matter what country you are in there are still people trying to take advantage of you. Today I worked at a cafe for a trial, in a beach side town in the next suburb over. From 10am to 12:30pm I made coffees, sandwiches, shakes, smoothies, cleaned tables, dishes, work surfaces and generally made myself useful with the potential hope of getting the job. At the end of all this the manager offers me a wage that I later find out does not even meet minimal wages over here and most likely because he presumes that I do not know. It doesn't leave a nice taste in your mouth.
So, after spending what was left of my afternoon trawling the internet to see what other options I might have. One thing I noticed was the abundance of jobs, anything and everything. Within about an hour I managed to send off about six resumes, not bad when I think about the weeks I would spend searching for jobs, in store and online, and would be lucky enough to hand in a a couple. Doubly not bad when I am a student, looking for part time work, flexible hours and something within retail and/or bar/restaurant work.
This got me musing on post-university jobs and the chances of getting work in the industry I would like back in the UK. With the way into the workplace now being more and more reliant on internships and work experience, and yet less and less companies offering such opportunities it's rapidly become a vicious circle that's only added to with the overall lack of jobs but multitudes of graduates. For example, of the 30 or so friends and relatives I know who graduated in May 2010, only two have found jobs in the workplace related to their degrees. The rest are back to retail, bar and restaurant work and anything else in between. Interestingly from my online searching both the UK and Australian government are reporting the same statistics for graduates going into the workplace, at about 85-90%. However, none of them state what this employment is or whether it is actually related to their degree. With more people being encouraged to go to university and a degree almost vital to getting anywhere, it's hard to understand what the point is if the jobs aren't there once you finish.
Despite the fact that there are problems world wide with finding employment for graduates, for Australia the percentage of people out of work is 5.1, for the UK it's 7.2. On top of this Australia is advertising for immigrants, particularly immigrants with degrees in specific roles, such as teachers and doctors. This poses an interesting problem for the Australian government because as a result of it's advertising it is pulling in graduates from all over the globe desperate to work and in many cases work less hours for a considerably better wage.  Which begs the question, why even bother to try and get work in the UK when Australia wants you? Even if the statistics are skewed, it's a very persuasive case when there's a country that's offering you everything your home country can't.
So, despite my first job experience in this country being a bitter one, it's going to be interesting to see what opportunities present themselves over the next few months.

REDgroup administration and the rise of indie's.

REDgroup has just announced “voluntary administration” here in Australia, quoting among many reasons the rise of internet sales and the price competition. What I did not realise when coming over here is how inflated the cost of books is. The family I live with bought a paperback copy of Conn Iggulden’s Fields of Rome novel, usually priced at £7.99 in the UK. From a Borders store in Melbourne it cost them $25 (about £15). This is due to the fact that the Federal Government in Australia has put a Copyright Act on books which effectively prevents the importation of legally copyrighted books from other countries. Instead it creates a closed market in Australia and although there have been various booksellers, bookshops and readers who have called to change this law (which similarly applied to CD’s in Australia, but was overturned in 1998 causing a dramatic drop in their prices) for books it does not seem to have happened. It is no wonder more people are shopping online here than ever before. Even if they buy a book online at the UK price it’s still cheaper than the Australian price.

Tony Nash, chief executive of Australian online bookseller Booktopia, reckons that the collapse of the REDgroup chain presents an opportunity for the independent bookstores of Australia. Like in England, independents are thriving whereas the chain bookstores are being crippled by costs, a loss of individuality and poor staff. Nash goes on to argue that even the difference in Australian in store book pricing when compared to online deals will be cancelled out by the fact that Australian’s want local, independent stores. The movement of the customer towards individuality, personality and difference is happening worldwide. You only have to look at the Book Hive in Norwich which won the Telegraph’s Best Independent Bookstore in Britain prize, despite having two Waterstone’s branches only down the road, to see how people are fed up with the monotony of chain bookstores. Their cost cutting, stock reductions, uninspiring identical displays and staff who are required to meet certain quotas, ask specific questions and push the customer into extra sales makes people disinclined to visit when they have a local, independent, varied, friendly and vastly knowledgeable store perhaps only next door. What these chain bookstores do not seem to realise is that people want to see individuality, they want to see a different collection, a varied display and a little creativity throughout, and it does not matter how many deals they offer, unless they can catch onto the mindset of the independent bookstore they are not going to survive in such a competitive market.

Aspects of The Books Hive, Norwich.

Effectively this worldwide change is showing that the market must change. Where people were happy to buy from any store, they are now much more conscious of who they are supporting and what that means for their money. When you buy a book from an independent and you see that their next display is even more fantastic than the previous months, or that they have a new event, a new member of staff, or an increased section, you can visibly see the change that your purchase makes. You buy a book from a chain and their display is still just a range of posters and a poor stack of books that is repeated in every store, that the stock has not varied at all and if anything has got smaller and that the staff are just as driven by head office protocol; it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Chains have presumed that because they have the market share they in effect demand your custom, but this is rapidly not becoming the case, customers are now going out of their way to buy from independents, especially in Australia where there is a much vaster range of independents when compared to England.

I do feel sorry for the staff of chain bookstores, and there are many, who try within the confines of their job to provide the personal service that people want and are sadly being made redundant in huge numbers worldwide. However, there are enough staff working at these stores who do not care about their service to put customers off and turn them away. From experience I know how hard it is to meet the requirements that a head office puts on their staff (a head office that is built up of people who have never worked on the shop floor, have no idea what customers actually want and little desire to leave the confines of their office in order to find out). From how they are to approach a customer, creating “yes answer” questions that is meant to inspire a sale, to placing the book in their hands, recreating a “sale effect” and then offering them a range of deals in a last minute attempt to create one extra purchase, it is all thought out for shop floor staff in order to try and make the most money from the customer. You are only expected to create a rapport or a conversation if it leads to a sale, and it is very hard to want to serve people when you know that should the sale not happen, your customer service is called into question because you have not followed the prescribed protocol.

As a result I am in two minds as to the increasing fall of chain bookstores. Witnessing the effects of the multitudes of redundancies it is not a nice scenario; however the rise of independent bookstores cannot be a bad thing. I think that chains will survive as long as they realise now what the customer wants and change accordingly. Let staff chat to customers about books, whether a sale is on the cards or not, and increase the range, as opposed to going into increasingly overpriced gift ideas, DVDs and toys that repeatedly do not sell and are returned in vast quantities. If they allow some freedom within their branches who knows what the results may be, and independents know enough of what their advantages are not to let the chains gain such control over the market share again. 

First Impressions.

I had my induction on Friday, typical scenario of  a general talk followed by a subject specific talk, a cringe worthy "meet your neighbor" request and a free packed lunch. Now, this being my third such talk they do get a bit boring, especially when you know that the next week is still orientation so you are just going to go through all the same things again then. In order to prevent this talk from getting too exciting I pulled out my copy of Sherlock Holmes and waited for it to end so that I could do a little exploring myself.
This was the best part of the day; after all the talks being able to actually look around the campus. Simply put: it's stunning. The old part is like Oxford University, with courtyards, vaulted ceilings and generally beautiful architecture. Very Hogwart's! Then melded into this is a range of modern buildings, with glass and metal frameworks, expressionist art and amazingly futuristic environmentalism. Sounds horrible doesn't it? But it's not, there are so many greens, courtyards, reading corners and hidden coffee shops which work to bring it all together. It is the most well thought out, beautiful and practical campus I have ever seen. Hard to believe that it's a city university and only a 10 minute tram ride from the center of Melbourne.

The photo really do not do it justice. I will get some better ones soon so you can really see how it looks. 

Australia and Jonathan Maberry.

Well, I have finally made it to Australia. After 24 hours of travelling what can I tell you? Thanks to my plane being late leaving Heathrow I had to literally run across Dubai airport in about 30 minutes, going from Arrivals to gate 228. And yes, there are over 300 departure gates. What little of Dubai airport I got to see was amazing, the airport was structurally very well thought out and completely modern. Having heard a few horror stories from people who have been through Dubai I encountered none of this and was very impressed. I wished I could have spent a little longer there but what can you do. As for Emirates, not wholly convinced by their "award winning food", but plenty of leg room and to top it all I got a spare seat next to me so I could spread out that little bit more.
Stupidly I only took one book in my hand luggage, which was "Rot and Ruin" by Jonathan Maberry that I received from the Simon and Schuster event a few weeks ago. If I'm honest I am a bit of a zombie/post apocalypse addict so when I saw this novel I nabbed it straight away. I read Maberry's "Patient Zero" when that first came out and got through it in about a day it was so gripping and personally I think "Rot and Ruin" topped "Patient Zero" by miles. Brilliantly written, in a zombie world, Maberry goes into the problems that can occur when the law that is left encourages the killing of zombies and turns a blind eye to the disappearances of humans, putting it down to being eaten. Narrated by the 15 year old Benny, his view of the world changes around him as those he views as the heroes of the new world rapidly degenerate into something else. This book was such a page turner I read it all on my first 6 hour leg of the journey and found myself itching for more. As a YA book it is exactly as Maberry says in his interview below, that it not what he expected it to be and it definitely won't be what you expect to read.

So now that I am here what's next? I have my enrollment tomorrow, where I will get my timetable, reading lists etc, and then we will get down to the nitty gritty of writing.

Note to self: trying to get over jet lag in one day is not a good idea.

"Pigeon English" by Stephen Kelman.

So I am currently reading "Pigeon English" by Stephen Kelman and I'm hoping to finish it today (whilst keeping an eye on the rugby) but I can't help but notice the rise of fictional works with children as the eyepiece of violence. From Emma Donoghue's "Room" which was nominated for the Booker Prize last year, to earlier works such as "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy. The presentation of violence, anger and rape in some cases seen through the eyes of "innocents" is oddly jarring. What it gives the reader is a view of the violent truth through the eyes of children who do not fully understand what is going on around them.  As a result the reader is having to doubly interpret what these fictional children are seeing. By not always knowing the truth behind what they are narrating they mistake the actions of others, but still inform the reader that there is something happening. This is perhaps most prominently shown through Lenny, the child narrator in "Cracking India" by Bapsi Sidhwa. The reader is constantly told about Lenny's inability to lie, setting her up as a reliable narrator, but one who does not understand what she is really narrating. As a result the reader has to understand what she is saying to us through her imagination and then interpret it into what we readers know as the truth. For the narrator of "Pigeon English", Harrison is acting as an informal interpreter for the reader, explaining all the various wars, signs and words so that we can understand what he is saying to us, but it also seems at times as is he is providing an explanation for himself. As a boy from Ghana, he is having to work at living in England and understanding the ways of the people around him. Not always successful, he provides enough information so that the reader knows enough of what is going on and we discover the murderer through Harrison's eyes. Sometimes a little slow, I find myself willing Harrison to notice what's really going on. A similar feeling I had when reading "Room" where I just wanted to Jack and to realise the truth of his situation, but I think that is what makes child narrator's so special to novels that are dealing with violent topics. They can see, but to a degree not interpret what they are seeing which makes them amazingly resilient to the outside world, particularly shown through Jack who manages to adapt with surprising quickness as a result of his innocent view of the world.
With a few chapters left of "Pigeon English" I am struggling to get along with Harrison as much as I did with Jack in Donoghue's "Room", but I think the effect is very similar. The resilience of these fictional children at such a young age contrasts their innocence with the brutalities they are presented with. I can see why "Pigeon English" is on the Waterstone's Eleven and has already made such a splash. Definitely one to watch when it is released on the 7th March this year.

Simon and Schuster Blogger Event.

On the3^rd February I was lucky enough to get invited to the Simon and Schuster Blogger Event. This was the second event I had been along to in the last year and it was great to see how it had grown, in both the number of bloggers in attendance and the amount of authors, which had increased as well.

First time I attended this event was in June 2010, where we had a panel of staff from all different departments in Simon and Schuster. It was a good insight into the different workloads, but also it was surprising (and affirming) to see how many of the staff members had come from bookshop backgrounds. This time round we were greeted by a panel of S&S authors from a wide range of genres, backgrounds and countries; Kevin J. Anderson, Sophie McKenzie, Michelle Harrison, Justin Somper, Craig Robertson, Milly Johnson and Helen Warner. It was very interesting to hear them answer the questions from such an intense audience, ranging from general questions like “which book do you wish you had written?”, the most popular answer was Bridget Jones’ Diary, to “are you taking part in any of the protests against the closures of the libraries?” to which Justin Somper showed a resounding interest and obvious angst at the thought of libraries closing. A vast number of the authors in attendance still maintained day jobs, and questions of how and when they find the time to write around such an already demanding schedule showed how much of their lives were a juggling act to some degree or another. The life of the isolated artiste living off his/her works does not seem applicable any more. 

After a thorough quizzing from the various bloggers we all moved into the next room to be greeted by a table of beer, wine and all sorts of lovely cakes and cheeses. Surrounding this were tables of the next few months worth of proofs and recommends, some from all the authors in attendance, as well as those S&S were really excited over. Given bags and told to take what we wanted, it amazes me there isn’t more of a frenzy with so many book lovers in one room, surrounded by free books!

So, what you all want to know: what was I lucky enough to get in my goody bag?

Possibly most exciting for me personally was to meet the range of children’s authors in attendance. Having worked in the children’s department at Waterstone’s it was lovely to be able to put faces to the names, just to have a chat about their plans and obviously get those little hints about what was next for their new novels.

As a fledgling solo blogger I can appreciate how valuable this is for bloggers, not only to meet the authors of some of the big hits of the next few months, but also to get the chance to chat to the S&S staff, see what is going on in such a changing environment. As I am off to Australia in less than a week I can’t wait to get an insight into how/if the publishing industry is different over there and whether this offers an interesting and new insight into such a competitive industry.

Here we go...

This is my first ever blog. It’s a bit nerve wracking to be honest! There's a few reasons behind starting one now and not earlier. To try and explain myself I suppose I should give you a little insight into me. My name is Kate Barber, I am a third year student at UEA studying American and English Lit, and am currently on my year abroad. This meant that last semester I was at UMass, America and in little under two weeks I will be heading to Melbourne, Australia to study at Melbourne University.

Although this is an amazing year abroad there is one factor in my Australian semester that is more than a little scary. As part of my required modules I have to take a creative writing course. Now, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t done any “creative” writing since I was 16, and that was only because it was compulsory for my GCSE’s. The concept then that I have to take a creative writing course at a third year level is pretty daunting to say the least! However, if I don’t the Australian government reject my visa and I get shipped back to sunny England, not something I really want to do.

This blog, therefore, is a little mixture of all the things I am passionate about in an attempt to maintain a regular writing pattern and hopefully stimulate all those dormant creativity cells in my brain! It will cover book reviews, novel musings, some creative writing (if it comes to pass) and a little diary of my wanderings around Australia. The places I go, people I see and anything that happens in the meantime.

 Hope you like it, and I will try my hardest not to bore you to death!

Kate.