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Changes
at ABR
This
month we welcome back Aviva Tuffield, who returns as Deputy Editor,
a new position for ABR and one that reflects her seniority
and her long commitment to the magazine. We also farewell, with
many thanks, Anne-Marie Thomas, who filled in while Aviva Tuffield
went on maternity leave. Dianne Schallmeiner remains as Office Manager,
and Alastair Lamont joins our admirable team of volunteers.
National
Biography Award
This year's NBA (worth $12,500, courtesy of its benefactor,
Dr Geoffrey Cains) will be announced on March 12 at the State Library
of New South Wales. Six works of biography and autobiography appear
on the shortlist: Richard Bosworth's Mussolini (Hodder Headline);
Miriam Estensen's The Life of Matthew Flinders (Allen
& Unwin); Barry Hill's Broken Song (Random House); Mara
Moustafine's Secrets and Spies: The Harbin Files (Random
House); Pamela Statham-Drew's James Stirling: Admiral and Founding
Governor of Western Australia (UWA Press); and Zoltan
Torey's Out of Darkness (Picador).
The
Best Australian Poetry
Australians may not be buying slim volumes of poetry in numbers
that would make Don Watson or Nikki Gemmell blush, but the market
for poetry anthologies seems to be strong, after a few years in
the doldrums. In recent months, we have reviewed several new anthologies,
including the first in a new series from UQP: The Best Australian
Poetry, edited by Martin Duwell. David McCooey reviewed the
2003 edition in our December 2003/January 2004 issue, and welcomed
Duwell's 'refreshing lack of angst about the status of poetry' and
his 'catholic' choice of poems. 'Advances' was pleased to come across
several poems that first appeared in ABR. Laudably, Duwell
and his co-editor, Bronwyn Lea, will appoint a new guest editor
each year. This year it will be Anthony Lawrence, who is already
hard at work selecting poems for the 2004 edition. Meanwhile, on
page 39 of this issue, Peter Pierce reviews Lawrence's new collection,
The Sleep of a Learning Man.
ABR
goes to Canberra
The magazine goes on the road this month, with our first ABR
Forum in Canberra. Peter Rose (Editor of ABR) and Morag Fraser
(former Editor of Eureka Street) will be in conversation
about that pullulating genre, life-writing. Pleasingly and fittingly,
this event will be at the National Library of Australia, our national
sponsor since 2002. 'Writing from Life' will take place in the NLA's
Theatre at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 28. Entry is free, but bookings
are essential: (02) 6262 1122.
World
order a big winner
Here's an award that all internationalists would like to carry
off. Professors John Braithwaite and Peter Drahos of the Australian
National University have shared the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving
World Order for their book Global Business Regulation. This
prize, previously won by Mikhail Gorbachev and Gareth Evans, is
currently worth US$200,000.
Creativity
at the SLV
The State Library of Victoria is seeking applications for a
new round of Creative Fellowships, which will allow 'scholars and
creative artists' to use the Library's collections. These are worth
between $12,500 and $50,000 (the fellowships, not the collections),
depending on the duration of the project. Applications close on
March 31. You can download the form from the SLV's website: www.statelibrary.vic.gov.au.
Fun
at Faulconbridge
This year's Norman Lindsay Festival of Children's Literature
is on March 20 and 21 at the Norman Lindsay Gallery in Faulconbridge,
NSW. Some of Australia's best writers and illustrators, including
Terry Denton, James Valentine, Emily Rodda, Nadia Wheatley and Simon
French will be attending. The festival offers a host of workshops
and talks for both adults and children (aged eight to twelve), as
well as guided bushwalks, music and performances. For more information
go to www.nsw.nationaltrust.org.au. For bookings, you should call
(02) 4784 3832.
Sara
Hardy and Edna Walling
The Melbourne writer Sara Hardy reviews for ABR for the
first time this month. It's appropriate that she should review a
new edition of Edna Walling's A Gardener's Log, for
Ms Hardy has just been awarded the inaugural Peter Blazey Fellowship
(worth $5000) in order to complete a biography of Walling, one of
Australia's most influential landscape designers. This new fellowship,
which honours the memory of the late author and gay activist, has
been established by the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne,
and has been made available through donations from Peter Blazey's
brother Clive Blazey and his partner Tim Herbert. It will be offered
annually.
You
can say that again!
'" Blockbuster" (this common designation itself should
give us pause to think again) exhibitions do not in fact serve the
art they expose. What is the reality of, say, viewing an exhibition
in the company of nearly 5000 other people, or even half that number?
One cannot look at, or study, or contemplate the exhibits in such
a press. And is there any indication that a huge exhibition stimulates
increased serious interest in an artist? In the "new religion"
of art, have works of art become the new relics that need merely
to be glimpsed in order to obtain an aesthetic indulgence? Museums
are under political and financial pressure to prove their worth
by numbers, and certainly need the income, but huge numbers driven
up by hype are ultimately self-defeating.'
(From
The Art Newspaper editorial, February 2004)
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