Good things come in small packages: Big Issue Fiction Edition

I’m somewhat on the short side. And so I grew up hearing ‘good things come in small packages’, over and over. I wonder if this nurtured my love for short stories?

One of the great joys of my working life over the past three years has been co-editing The Big Issue’s annual fiction edition, with the magazine’s associate editor Melissa Cranenburgh.

We decided to time the release of this year’s fiction edition with the Melbourne Writers Festival, so we could bring the two Melbourne institutions of The Big Issue and MWF together. We also thought an event as part of MWF would be the perfect platform to bring attention to the fact that The Big Issue isn’t just a magazine worth buying for the good it does. As you may know, half the $5 cover price goes to keep the magazine running, and half goes to the vendor you buy it from. But it’s also a damn good read.

Did you know that Anna Krien’s Into the Woods – a book shortlisted for almost every literary prize in Australia – began in the pages of The Big Issue, as a 10,000 word essay? Or that when I started as books editor of The Big Issue (a position I recently, reluctantly resigned after five years), the much-loved Benjamin Law (The Family Law) had been writing regular author profiles for the mag?

We wanted to send a message to those occasionally who tell us they buy the magazine to help their local vendor, but don’t read it (why would anyone tell us that?!). To let them know what they’re missing out on. And to encourage others to think of The Big Issue when they’re looking for good writing and an entertaining read.

This is one of the stand-out achievements of the fiction edition – it brings together many of Australia’s most loved writers, with the up-and-coming writers who are destined to join their ranks, in one issue. It is the best example there is for why The Big Issue is a home of excellent writing. And at $5 for 12 new short stories, it’s pretty amazing value.

 

This year’s fiction edition features Frank Moorhouse, Charlotte Wood, Chris Womersley, Amanda Lohrey, Nick Earls, Krissy Kneen, Peggy Frew, Josephine Rowe, Catherine Harris, Emma Schwarcz, Laura Jean and Nic Lowe. (You see what I mean about top-shelf writers, don’t you?)

On Saturday 27 August at 1pm, in a session titled Big Shorts, Melissa and I will be talking about this year’s The Big Issue Fiction Edition – and about short stories more generally.

We’ll be joined by two of this year’s contributors, Nick Earls (who I approached because I read Zigzag Street about five times, but you’ll know him from his latest novel, The Fix) and Peggy Frew, whose terrific debut novel, House of Sticks, is released in September (Peggy also won The Age Short Story Award in 2008).

Nick and Peggy will read from their stories and share their insights into the craft and business of short fiction.

Please join us! And please help spread the word about The Big Issue Fiction Edition – you’ll be doing any fiction lover you know a favour.

The Big Issue Fiction Edition will for be for sale on streets around Australia from Tuesday 30 August (Friday 29 August in Melbourne) to Tuesday 13 September.

Parley with Krissy Kneen

Krissy Kneen

Krissy Kneen has been writing about lovers, friends, sex and intimacy on her blog Furious Vaginas for over a year. And now her book, Affection, is garnering acclaim from all quarters. I asked Krissy to tell me what was what.

Krissy, your book Affection: a memoir of love, sex and intimacy has an intertwining structure of many different timelines and vignettes spanning 30 years. Tell us about how this particular structure came about.
I wrote most of my material on my blog to start with.  Because of this structure my stories were short and focused on particular scenes. When I sat down to write the first draft I took all that and put it into chronological order, but I knew there was something in my life now that I wanted to explore. In fact I got stuck in the writing till I could work out what my central question was. In one of the first scenes, a friend suggests I am a sex addict. This scene came about in real life as a conversation about what my book’s central question would be. She said “Why don’t you just explore what it is like to be a sex addict?” This conversation helped me to really write the book. Turns out that was a red herring. The book ended up having a different central question which might be something like “How do the sexual experiences we have impact on our lives and teach us who we are?” It was the hunt for a central question that made me structure the book by jumping between modern times and the past. There is also a little foray into meeting my husband which was a suggestion from my editor, Mandy Brett, and a damn fine one at that.

You also maintain a blog, Furious Vaginas. How has blogging affected your writing?
I started the blog to help me maintain a regular writing practice, and I posted every day religiously until the last couple of weeks.  The publication of the book distracted me. I have lost a few days to other priorities. I would never have finished the book so quickly without all the blog material. My issue now is how to make the blog work for my next book. Because the next book may not be completely about sex, I may lose some of the readers of my blog as more and more posts become about character exploration and a new storyline. We will see.

Affection is a very emotional book for a reader. Can you describe the experience of writing a memoir about your sexual and emotional life?
I am glad that readers emotionally commit to the book. When I wrote the first complete draft, I locked myself away in a house in the rainforest alone for a week. I wrote 15-20 thousand words a day. It was madness.  I woke up at 5 and sat at the desk and barely moved till midnight. This was complete insanity. But as a result I became completely emotionally caught up in the book.  There were a couple of scenes I knew I had to write and I had been avoiding them because I don’t like to dwell on them in real life. When it came to write them I found myself getting up, pacing, making odd noises. It was a quite physical experience and when I had written them I didn’t want to revisit them to rewrite. Maybe because of this those scenes are kind of raw for a reader too. Either way, I am glad people respond so strongly.

There have been a couple of MWF parties already this year; you mentioned you had a surefire ice-breaker.
I think this year’s MWF recurring theme is autofellatio. I seem to come back to conversations about this amazing act all the time. Ronnie Scott (The Lifted Brow) started it by sending me a link to an apparently famous autofellator’s webpage and we talked about this at the Text Party. Now it seems to come up in conversation all the time. I even had a very long and incredibly intense conversation with the lovely China Mieville that circled around this and related themes. Festival director Rosemary Cameron got into the action (not physically) at the festival bar.  Everyone it seems is fascinated by this quite amazing act.

What are you reading at the moment?
I am reading the amazing This is How by M J Hyland which I started on the plane and my god it is great. I have also started Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned because everyone tells me it is startlingly good and I want to read it so I can be in awe of him when I meet him. Got to have a good literary crush at the festival – so far I am completely besotted with Ethan Canin because of his amazing book America America and now M J Hyland, and maybe Wells Tower will become yet another distraction.  So far so good but we will have to wait and see.

Estelle Tang, 3000 BOOKS
Festival Blogger

Krissy Kneen

On Sunday I finished reading a fabulous book, Affection by Krissy Kneen. Couldn’t wait to get to work on Monday and send her an invitation to take part in the festival and have just had her response, “Hell yes!”  So am very happy. Affection won’t be published until August (Text) – so add it to your must-read list. Its subtitle describes it as a memoir of love, sex and intimacy and it is definitely R-rated. As I read my proof copy on a plane,  the man reading over my shoulder beside me had great trouble concentrating on Top Gear.

Krissy is well known for some excellent docos she wrote and directed for SBS and the ABC – one of which was about her unusual family which features again in Affection. Krissy’s writing is poetic and heartbreaking and I was moved by her painfully true recollections of childhood and, later, that too-wide gap between dream and reality that we all paper over with self-delusion.

I knew Krissy when I lived in Brisbane – she works at Avid Reader, one of Brisbane’s best independent bookshops. She is not the only writer on staff – Avid Reader is an incubator of talent. Everyone who works there is busy writing and being published – I’m surprised they find time to sell books. Watch out for Christopher Currie, another excellent Avid writer.

Rosemary
MWF Festival Director