Quick Digital Publishing Links…

Hi All,

I’d just read two articles from the online magazine Slate and I wanted to point you to them. One was a recent editorial which spoke of how Kindle has paved the way for book-banning’s digital future, while the second was an article from the end of February on how Amazon’s amazing e-book reader is bad news for the publishing industry. Time for some Kindle bashing eh?

Regards,
Steve Grimwade
Associate Director

6 o’clock swill anyone?

Hi all,

I must admit I have so much on my mind that I can’t quite make sense of it all enough to blog, so I’ll be quick.

First off, if you want to catch up on what’s happening with regards to the Productivity Commission’s report (or where the opinions are still at) then you can check out the 7.30 Report’s coverage. We have about a week before the government releases the Productivity Commission’s report. So what will it be … culture, or commerce?

Secondly, let’s get really excited (please try to imagine a Muppet shaking wildly until s/he explodes). For 2009 the Festival has lined up another kicker season in the Festival Club … just to jump the gun on the launch of the program (next Friday 17 July), I thought I’d let you know what each evening’ll provide (for FREE! from 6pm):
– comedy with the Bedroom Philosopher;
– festival talkback … where you can rant about what you saw and dis/liked;
– literary cabaret … with everyone from Overload to Wordplay to SPUNC taking over the reins for one hour of literary madness;
– DJs from that foundation stone of independent, community radio, 3RRR;
– exclusive performances by local, interstate and international guests; and
– APRA presents Songwriter Speaks … featuring some of Australia’s favourite songwriters singing and talking about their songs.

On all but one night the Club will be hosted by the indomitable Michael Nolan (with Stella Glorie stepping every-so-stylishly in for her own cameo) and Club guests include: Urthboy (from The Herd), Stephen Cummings, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Cyril Wong, Tim Rogers, Angela Meyers, Jason Steger, Yana Alana, Angie Hart, Michael Crane, Trish Anderson and many many more! (Gawd, did I write that? Maybe I should offer steak knives as well.)

Steak knives or stirring spoons anyone? Wow. That was kind of random.

Keep well.
Regards,
Steve
Associate Director, MWF

Be brave in the new world…

As you may’ve learned from a previous post I’ve recently been deep in the digital world, trying to get my head around the future of the book. (I’m doing this as the festival is putting together a series of sessions on Digital Publishing, sponsored by our friends at the Australia Council.)

I’ve been in the publishing business (in some form or another) for over 10 years and I’ve always thought of myself as a fast-learner and a wannabe ‘early adopter’. (I fail as an early adopter since I think I’m wary of the object as consumerist fetish.) But surely, given my experience, it couldn’t be hard to put together an industry program on digital publishing? Surely the issues aren’t that hard to work out?

Well, it is and they are. To wrap your head around all the issues is to be able to consider and meld the interests of authors, readers, retailers, publishers and programmers; it’s being able to consider what’s going to possibly happen in e-tailing, digital rights, file formats and across the various hardware options (for e-readers) … Not only are you (as they say in the biz) ‘crystal balling’ (I have no idea which biz) … you need to do consider all this in a relative vacuum (well, without too much oxygen anyway).

[Actually here I’d like to thank those very generous publishing professionals that’ve helped me see the digital light, including Elizabeth Weiss, Kate Eltham, Victoria Nash and Brett Osmond, among others … I’m always pleasantly surprised by the generosity of those in the publishing trade.]

Although there are a few professionals leading the way in both larger and smaller publishing houses Australia has, mostly, been left in limbo when it comes to hailing the digital cab. All the action seems to be happening overseas. While a few e-readers are available thanks to Central Book Services Australians are mostly stuck in a holding pattern as we wait for the outcome of the format/device wars (kind of like the Clone Wars only far less Speilberg-tastic)… Actually many publishers will provide their books in a range of formats to suit a range of e-readers, so formats themselves aren’t holding us back. Is it rather the lack of great e-readers?

Having only seen a few, I’m yet to think the e-readers on offer are ready to meet the expectations of tech-savvy readers. (This is after being wowed by a fellow train-traveller and their Kindle, which looked ever so sexy.) The ones I’ve really played with (ever so briefly) aren’t intuitive to use, are slow to load and have interfaces worthy of the late 1980s. Funnily enough I was most disappointed by the fact that the screens only work in black/white or grayscale. (This seems a little silly given we all read off the page in b/w… And I fully understand why we need to use e-ink rather than having screens that are backlit [so we don’t hurt our eyes, etc.] … But this disappointment re. the screens was an honest, rapid reaction. I expected more.)

So is Australia going at a digital snails pace because we don’t have a trusted e-tailer on our home soil for e-books? (This was raised by more than a few people I’ve spoken with as the pre-eminent problem) Or is the fact that we don’t have enough Australian books available as e-books? I think, if anything, it’s possibly the fact that the debate over digital rights management (DRM) hasn’t settled itself. I.e. should publishers be enforcing such rights and how … can you loan your e-book or just your e-reader? can you save your e-book to your iPhone? can you … can you … Will all this DRM simply alienate customers as with music and MP3s?

As I understand it one of the biggest parts of the DRM problem is the idea of territories. Many publishers in Australia buy (or have) the rights to sell their book in Aus/NZ … how can they sell an e-book then in the US? Well they’ll need world rights won’t they? Or we’ll need websites/e-readers that can determine where you are from and where you’re buying your book… I wonder if the up-coming decision from the Productivity Commission will affect this too?

Is your head swimming yet? (If so — or even if not — if you’re interested you’ll need to get along to our Digital Publishing sessions … there’ll be more info on the e-bulletin on Monday.)

I will have to wrap up now, but I do want to clarify that I have no doubt that portable digital devices will capture much of the reading market in the not-so-distant future. I’m with those people who’ve suggested that mass market paperbacks, trade paperbacks, etc may go the way of the typewriter, but that we’ll then also support a market for beautiful hardbacks against that for our e-books.

But mostly I’m just unsure whether the devices that’ll become common will resemble the e-readers as we know them. I can’t imagine this; they don’t have the functionality that I expected these devices to require. For some reason I can rather see the dominance of devices like the iPhone that have a much greater functionality (across a diversity of media) … But (and there are a continual array of ‘buts’) the big question still remains, will they work for reading. Arrrggghhh. Take a deep breath.

And have a lovely weekend!

Regards,

Steve
Associate Director

2009 MWF Professional Development

The Melbourne Writers Festival celebrates the fact that we’re a city of readers and writers, by offering audiences a fantastic range of workshops and seminars with our visiting guests. When bringing writers from around the world (and around Australia), it seems unwise not to utilise their knowledge and thus our program of Workshops & Seminars has been developed to develop our local talents.

In 2009 the MWF is continuing to run both workshops and masterclasses, a seminar series and The Whole Shebang – our very popular day for those seeking to begin their writing career.

Workshops are for all-comers, no matter what their level of experience, while masterclasses are for those with some record of publishing success.

More details will be found on our website when the program is launched.

This year’s workshops include:

Tom Rob Smith (US) on Commerce & Creativity
Lisa Lutz (US) on Giving Voice to Unique Characters
Kate de Goldi (NZ) on Writing Fiction for Children
Wells Tower (Canada) on Writing Short Stories
Jessa Crispin (US) on Being a Critic During the Death of Print
Wayson Choy (Canada) on The Secrets of Memoir Writing – Truth or Consequences?

Our masterclasses include:

John Boyne (UK) on Historical Fiction
M J Hyland (UK) on How to Write Good Fiction – From First Draft to Last
Philip Hensher (UK) on Building Character

Our seminars include:

Aspects of the Novel, with Philip Hensher (UK) & Wayson Choy (Canada)
Aspects of Fantasy with Margo Lanagan (NSW)
Aspects of History with Glen David Gold (US) & Alexander Waugh (UK)
Aspects of Thrillers & Mysteries with Jewell Rhodes (US) and Tom Rob Smith (US)

Finally, to give an insight into the world of publishing, the festival runs The Whole Shebang, our intensive day-long workshop for emerging writers. This is a very popular day and features conversations on the author–editor relationship, grant writing, ways to get published and how to create you own success, in addition to presentations from all the key organisations. This day is an essential starting point for all those wanting to begin their writing career.

Steve
Associate Director

E-what?

Hey there readers,

I’m going to be (refreshingly?) quick, as we are hard-up against some major deadlines for the festival program and there are 1001 things to do (and somehow, the list just keeps growing). Let it be said though, I’ve been loving my re-ascent into the current thinking around e-publishing, and would like to point you to just a few related items.

First off, I was pretty impressed (in my quick first glance) at Random House’s website. It provides a pretty good example of all the things that publishers (and perhaps all businesses) should be doing to engage with their readers/customers. E-bulletins, various types of content, news, events … it all seems pretty snappily done (which is to be expected I guess from a multinational).

Secondly, I’ve been having a quick read of Kate Eltham’s blog Electric Alphabet: Writing and publishing in the digital near-future. Kate is the Director of the Queensland Writers’ Centre and has been involving herself quite deeply in the concerns of digital publishing and online communities. I’m quite jealous that Kate’s been able to travel the world to extend her learning around all of this (especially to the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference); kudos to her.

Finally, if you’re interested in all this kind of digital ‘stuff’, the Australia Council has recently announced a paper on ‘Arts content for the digital era’.
This is “in response to the current and anticipated future impact of digital technologies on the arts sector, artists and arts audiences.”

Hope you’re all well.

Steve Grimwade
Associate Director

On the go?

Hi again,

I’ll try and make sense, even though I’m sharing a ’12 things on the go’ moment with (pretty much) all my colleagues. The festival is hotting up – authors, events and ideas about the ways these two intersect are moving around us at an ungainly speed. It’s fun, but it’s all becoming a little bit of a blur (in a fun way though, pretty much like doing ‘wizzies’ when you were a kid).

Every time my eyes refocus I turn them to a new book. I’ve just started Philip Hensher’s The Northern Clemency, a Booker nominee and, at this early stage of my reading I can understand why; the language is beautiful, loaded and large, but still light and erudite (if that’s all possible). I’m only 100 pages in and I’ve met almost 20 characters … an ‘epic portrait’ indeed. I already feel like I’d be at home in any of the local pubs (in one of the corners of 1970s Sheffield).

Prior to this I’ve read Ryu Murakami’s Audition, a short book about a middle-aged man who chances upon the most unique way of finding a second wife … by creating a fake film project which a range of women audition for. I was, after much of what I’ve read about this book, expecting something far more violent. This wasn’t really the case. There is a sense of unease that’s sustained through much of the latter part of the book and it only gets a little gruesome at the end. I look forward to seeing the film version (although I’m a little concerned about the affect on me, seeing the ‘Critical response‘ section of the Wiki page).

I also read Steven Amsterdam’s Things We Didn’t See Coming (Sleepers Publishing). I’m not going to be able to do this book justice in this short blog, but I really enjoyed it. I wasn’t expecting spec-fiction and also got something that reminded me of David Mitchell, whose Cloud Atlas I loved. Amsterdam’s book follows one main character through a series of episodes in a post-Y2K world … a world that’s gone totally awry, and a world that could very possibly be ours in the too-soon future (Y2K aside). It’s believable, and there’s room in the spaces to let the reader bring their own thoughts to the table.

I’d better go now, given I’m still in the middle of a ’11 things on the go’ moment.

Regards

Steve
Associate Director

Potato? Potato.

Morning All,

I’ve just returned from three days in Sydney, immersing myself in their writers’ festival, and am exhausted from all the walking, thinking and drinking (coffee).

It’s always wonderful to see how other festivals work and it’s a treat to be able to actually see/hear sessions. It’s one of the key ironies of directing a festival that you rarely get to see any of the events that you curate (and often when you are immersed in one of your own events you’re preoccupied with ‘is the sound ok?’, ‘I wonder if X finally found the Green Room?’ and ‘did they remember Y’s allergic to crayfish?’).

In just over three days I was able to see a great many writers/thinkers, and I left wanting to read (more of) Laura Lippman, Cees Nootebaum, Norman Doidge, Kazuo Ishiguro, Craig Silvey, Evelyn Jurers, Marcus Chown, Fred Watson and Wesley Enoch, among others.

Unfortunately, this year there was less time spent with my legs dangling over the wharf, looking at the harbour bridge, and more time dodging thick sheets of rain, but I still had a terrific time. And funnily, since returning on Saturday, late in the afternoon, three people have asked me — was the SWF better/worse than MWF? And I’m now truthfully able to answer that it’s impossible to compare. Each of the Australian festivals I’ve been to is quite different from the next — you can’t expect (and wouldn’t want) them to be otherwise.

Happy reading.

Regards,
Steve
Associate Director

Is it Friday already?

Hey Everyone,

I feel like I’m peering out from under my desk, seeing daylight for the first time. (Accompanied by a sense is one of déjà vu, I might add.) After sneaking, tweaking and just a little freaking, we are just one author away from finalising the Schools Program. It’s been a mostly smooth process, but there’s nothing like a hard deadline to bring it all into focus. (And there’s nothing like the inevitable last-minute withdrawal by writers to make it all blurry again.)

All that said, it’s a delight (relief?) that the Schools Program is now off with our lovely designers (at JWT); we’ll go to print in a week or so and then our snazzy program will be catching the attention of English teachers, librarians and readers of all ages at every school across Victoria. We have an incredible line-up of 51 guests in over 70 events … that’s a 50% increase in both guests and events … not that we think bigger is necessarily better … it’s just that better is, well, better. If you stay tuned to the e-bulletin, there’ll be a bit more info released next week.

In other news I went to a certain inner-city locale with Helenka (Festival Manager) and Tom (our new Production Manager) to see if a venue with David Lynch’s theatrical stylings could further enhance the festival atmosphere. Ohh, it can and with any luck it will. (Actually luck doesn’t play too much of a role in this game.) But more on this soon.

Finally, I’ve been reading a number of books, but thought I’d like to chat about a few. I thought that Tony Thompson’s Shakespeare: the most famous man in London is one to look out for if you’ve got a younger friend (aged 10-15) with a literary bent. Tony is a teacher at Princes Hill who’s been teaching Shakespeare for decades. In this book he gives an engaged and energised account of Shakespeare and the world in which he lived. (And, actually, you don’t need a literary bent at all; it’s a good read full stop.)

I’m also just half-way through The Red Highway by Nicolas Rothwell. I absolutely loved his book Another Country and thought his essay in the recent issue of the Monthly was pure poetry. (I’ll be very surprised if you didn’t read it in a 2009 ‘Best Essays’ compilation.) I find there’s a similarity of tone and timbre between Rothwell’s work and that of Robert Dessaix, but Rothwell’s is so deeply rooted in the Australian outback (and, more precisely, the north) and I love his almost spiritual connection to the land. If you haven’t read Rothwell’s work, try the essay first, and if you like the language and spirit of that you’ll have a fair idea of the way he writes. Also, you can also check him out at last year’s MWF discussing ‘the essay’ with Gideon Haigh, Chloe Hooper and Sally Warhaft.

I must get going. Nice to chat.

Cheers,

Steve
Associate Director