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  transit lounge, transit, independent press, self publishing, self-publishing, publishing, literary publishing, essay, travel, travel narrative, Melbourne, Australia
transit lounge is an independent press dedicated to the publication of exciting new fiction and non-fiction. We have a particular interest in creative literary publishing that explores the relationships between East and West, entertains and promotes insights into diverse cultures and encompasses diverse genres. Winner of Whitcoulls Travcom Travel Book of the Year 2010 Christchurch’s Jane Carswell has won the Whitcoulls Travcom Travel Book of the Year Award for her memoir Under The Huang Jiao Tree: Two Journeys in China. The award was judged by Owen Scott, author, journalist and editor; Karen Goa, an award-winning freelance travel writer, and John McCrystal, the author of twenty non-fiction titles. The judges praised the high quality of the writing describing it as ‘in another league’ and remarked that they found ‘the intelligence and humility of the author captivating.’ The title is currently being adapted for NZ radio. UnderThe Huang Jiao Tree: Two Journeys in China by Jane Carswell has been shortlisted for the prestigious Ashton Wylie Prize for a best book in the mind, body spirit category. The winner will be announced in Auckland at an event to be held on the 20 August. |
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The Mary Smokes Boys Grey’s mother dies giving birth to his sister Irene and the tragedy haunts his life in the small town of Mary Smokes. Grey prays that his mother will be returned to him in some form, so he might protect her from the world as his father did not. This prayer, Grey believes is answered in his sister Irene. He becomes obsessed with protecting her purity and innocence. Also with his mother gone and his father turned to drink, Grey begins running with the wild boys, horse-handlers and fox hunters and part-time timber workers – members of a small, vanishing tribe who find themselves caught between an old relationship with place and a new one that is exemplified by the highway that threatens their town. A rash gamble by Grey and Irene’s broken father means he and the Mary Smokes boys must steal horses to ensure Irene’s safety. The consequences seem set to fall on Greys’ closest friend, ‘Ook’ Eccleston. As Grey’s, Eccleston’s and Irene’s lives are put at stake his allegiances falter and the world of Mary Smokes slips into a heightened state of darkness and threat. With the passion of Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights and the distilled beauty of Ondaatje, Patrick Holland captures the fragility and grace of small town life and how one fateful moment can forever alter the course of our lives.
Patrick Holland grew up in Roma. He has worked as a horseman in Maranoa district and in Oueensland’s far northwest. He has travelled widely throughout Asia and has studied languages at Qingdao University and Beijing Foreign Studies University, and at Ho Chi Minh Social Sciences University in Vietnam. Praise for Patrick Holland’s first novel The Long Road of the Junkmailer (UQP)2006 “Magic realism at its most whimsical … ” The Age “It adds up to a quite brilliant debut.” The Australian Click here to read reviews.
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The Well in the Shadow: A Writer’s Journey through Australian Literature
Award-winning Australian author Chester Eagle journeys through Australian literature offering engaging essays on the works of writers including Miles Franklin, Patrick White, George Johnston, Beverley Farmer, Helen Garner and Alexis Wright. As Eagle says in his introduction: ‘The essays are not introductory. I consider them rather as a sharing of one writer’s reflections with the thoughts of readers who are looking for something new to add to their thinking. What the fellow-writer has to offer is the insight that comes from having also been at the heart of the risky business of creating and imagining. Writers can see what other writers are up to because they face the same problems and use the same tricks.’ These entertaining essays are linked by the essential notion of what it means to be a writer in Australia, and as such offer up valuable insights into our literature and country.
Chester Eagle has written novels (Four Faces Wobbly Mirror, 1974 and Wainwrights' Mountain, 1997), essays (Benedictus 2006), portraits of Australian life (Hail & Farewell: an evocation of Gippsland, 1971; Mapping the Paddocks, 1984; and Play Together, Dark Blue Twenty, 1985), and much more besides, including, recently, several collections of opera librettos (Love in the Age of Wings & other operas, 2003; and The Sun King & other operas, 2007). His earlier books were published by Heinemann, Wren, McPhee Gribble and Harper Collins. More recently he has published privately under the on-line Trojan Press imprint. Now, for his latest collection, a set of essays on Australia's literary tradition, he has joined with Transit Lounge publishing. His writing and publishing career began in 1971 and is still moving forward.
Click here to read reviews. |
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Iran: My Grandfather $29.95 Trade paperback A vanished, tattered black and white photograph, taken in Tehran in 1946. The image of a sombre and inscrutable middle-aged man called Salman Fuladvand, a lieutenant and controversial police chief under Iran’s second last king. It is the memory of this photograph that begins Ali Alizadeh’s story of his grandfather Salman’s life, spanning Salman’s youthful devotion to the advancement of his country and the emancipation of Iranian women, his conflicts with the shahs, his wrongful imprisonment, and his eventual embracing of Sufi mysticism. ‘Iran, My Grandfather is a work of recovery, resistance, and affirmation. I think one can say without risk of hyperbole that it is one of the most remarkable texts ever to have been published in Australia.’ John Kinsella
Ali Alizadeh is a novelist, poet and translator. His first novel The New Angel (Transit Lounge Publishing, 2008) was chosen as The Age newspaper’s Fiction Pick of the Week in July 2008, and was described as a “harrowing but brilliant debut novel” in The Sunday Tasmanian and “an important novel” in The Sydney Morning Herald. Ali’s poetry has been included in anthologies such as The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry (2009), The Best Australian Poetry 2009 and The Best Australian Poems 2008. His most recent collection of poetry, Eyes in Times of War, was published by Salt Publishing in 2006. Ali’s translations of poetry from Persian to English include the classical Sufi odes translated with Kenneth Avery in Fifty Poems of Attar (2007) .
Click here to read reviews.
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New and Rediscovered Edited by Barry Scott with a foreword by Kerry Leves For the first time New and Rediscovered makes available some of Vicki Viidikas’ previously unpublished writing and drawings alongside a comprehensive selection of her previously published poetry and prose. A ravishing collection of short stories and poetry from an iconic and hugely talented writer. Includes an extract from her unpublished novel Kali and the Dung Beetle. ‘Vicki Viidikas’ work enacted what Keats called “soul-making”; allowing her lines to speak straight to the reader’s heart. Her writing contains the peril of experience and yet miraculously her vision is optimistic –sparkling with “the spirit in speech.” This fine edition from a major writer is a gift to Australian literature, a book for all the senses and seasons, its unique writing charges at the core of intimacy, offering an orphic explanation of a complex earth.’ ‘Her writing is strong and honest and she needs no tricks or games.’ ‘Tremendous talent.’ Christina Stead ‘A fiction writer of genius.’ Michael Wilding ‘But if this collection stands as testimony to her themes, it also witnesses her range – from the turbulent passionate broadsides of Four Poems on a Theme to the uproarious street-comedy of Greasy Copper and the Adventure.’ Kerry Leves Vicki Viidikas was born to an Estonian father and an Australian mother on 25 September 1948 in Sydney, New South Wales. She was educated at various schools in Queensland and Sydney until the age of fifteen when she left school to work at a series of casual jobs, including a stint at Abbey’s bookshop in Sydney. At age sixteen she began writing, and never stopped. Writing became her passion and her life. In 1967 ‘At East Balmain’ became her first poem to be published. Four books which comprise both fiction and poetry followed: Condition Red (1973), Wrappings (1974), Knabel (1978) and India Ink (1984). All met with critical acclaim and over time Viidikas has become a much anthologised and influential writer. In 1975, Stephen Wallace directed a twenty-five minute film entitled Break Up from the short story ‘Getting it all Together’ published in Wrappings. Robyn Archer recorded Vicki’s poem ‘O Woman of the Moon’ for her 1977 album The Wild Girl in the Heart. During her writing career Vicki travelled widely and lived in India, on and off, for more than a decade. Her interest in Indian life and culture and the Hindu religion was reflected in her writings, particularly India Ink: a collection of prose poems written in India (1984). She continued to write prolifically through the eighties and nineties up until her untimely death on the 27 November 1998.
Click here to read reviews.
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In-human In-human is a snarling, glittering creation, a funny, yet disturbing story of transformation set in Oatlands, Tasmania. The irrepressible Sally Hunter is turning into a werewolf. As a string of killings takes place we are drawn into her sensual, visceral and highly charged world. The way she embraces her change into a powerful beast challenges us to confront our own lusts and capacities for violence, while the small town setting and the people in Sally’s world ring with a disarming truth. Dusk’s bone-deep understanding of her characters, and the chilling narrative set in motion a complex fugue of memory and confrontation that builds to a shattering climax. Described as a cross between Catcher in the Rye and Buffy, this is a heady mix of horror and reality. Dark, poignant and oddly affecting, In-human is destined to make waves and attract fans. ‘Strangely surreal and nightmarishly real – a powerful new tale for the 21st century.’ ‘Welcome to Oatlands, Tasmania, home of the femme-werewolf apocalypse. Sixteen-year-old Sally Hunter is seriously pissed-off and she’s turning into a powerful ‘monster dog’, a werewolf with one hell of an appetite for flesh –human or animal – and a growing sexual appetite to match. A lot of people are disappearing, gruesomely murdered or eaten, but who is responsible for all the carnage? In what frequently reads like prose poetry, Dusk imagines herself right through every aspect of the anguish of ‘transformation’ and beyond, tackling a number of taboos as she goes: menstruation, sexually violent women, cannibalism, nihilism – to name a few. Her paintings, featured in the book’s cover artwork also depict a disturbing, confronting story of the awakening of what lies within. She’s been inside the guts and psyche of ‘the beast’ and portrays its heightened sensory perceptions, its lust for the kill, its pain, its joys, its dreams. There are moments of distilled beauty and home truths here but this is no simplistic, pretty coming of age story. Horror fans accustomed to dark humour and unrelenting rampages of gore should enjoy but the squeamish, those offended by details of bodily functions, graphic violence, sex or obscenities, probably won’t.’ Anna Dusk lives in Melbourne, Australia. She grew up in the Midlands, Tasmania. More at www.annadusk.com Click here to read reviews.
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Keeping Faith In Keeping Faith the innocence and certainties of childhood are delicately tested against the realities of adult life. Josh and Gracie grow up in a working class world centred on the values of faith and family. Both cherish their father, a lay preacher, and their mother, but for Josh the complex secrets, doubts and subtleties of the world do not allow for certainty. In adulthood he works as a labour ward attendant, his younger sister Gracie as a nurse on a remote mission station in Papua New Guinea. While Josh’s conviction falters, the unfailing faith of his sister leads to tragic consequences. As events move between 1975 and 1994, between a family drama in outer suburban Melbourne and a tribal rebellion in Melanesia, faith and doubt become entwined. In the spirit of the work of Tim Winton, Keeping Faith is a remarkable debut novel about the beauty and disappointments of childhood, family and belief, about losing faith and finding love. ‘Subtle and finely crafted. A novel of intellectual and emotional intensity.’
Roger Averill is the author of the critically acclaimed Boy he Cry: An Island Odyssey.(Transit Lounge 2009). Click here to read reviews.
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Under The Huang Jiao Tree: Two Journeys in China Memoir/Travel/Spirituality ‘This is a wonderful story of mid-life opportunity. Jane Carswell is a courageous woman and a spirited writer. Her book is a warm invitation to us all to risk a deeper kind of journey.’ Michael McGirr, author The Lost Art of Sleep, Things You Get For Free, and Bypass. In mid-life Jane Carswell leaves her seemingly tranquil New Zealand life, her family and friends, to teach English in Chongqing, China. Her journey into the unknown epitomises the ache so many of us feel in our own lives for new challenges and personal understandings. Under the Huang Jiao Tree is a reflective, amusing and absorbing book about living and working in China, and the profound impact the experience has on the author’s search for connection and community. Carswell writes beautifully and entertainingly of China, of its people and her surprises and setbacks, but where her memoir stands alone is in its description of her own search for a spiritual life and practice. On her return to her Western life she becomes drawn to the teachings of St Benedict, and all at once the reader realises where the purity of her writing springs from: a deep well of calm, silence and belief. ‘Jane Carswell’s account of a year teaching in a Chongqing middle school combines an acute eye for detail with a succinct style that transforms ordinary sights into insights, eloquent and sometimes startling, even for those familiar with China. Her empathy with her Chinese colleagues, her enjoyment of encounters with strangers, her patience with difficult situations create a human story few could resist. Courageous interludes of self-revelation turn this book into the double journey of experience plus introspection that makes it delightfully unique.’ Click here to read reviews.
Born in England, Jane Carswell received all her schooling at St Margaret’s College, in Christchurch where she now lives. Other homes were in Dunedin, Perugia (where she studied Italian) Waikari, Leeston and Chongqing (where she taught English). After piano lessons with Jessie Cook until she was 25, Jane began a lifelong career in teaching music. She has also worked with publishers, booksellers, lawyers, accountants, historians, real estate agents and artists. She is a Benedictine oblate, is married, and has a son and daughter, a 1912 straight-strung Bechstein piano, a split-cane fly rod, and small grandchildren who are teaching her ballet. She is a regular visitor to Australia.
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Let Me Tell You Something About That Night: Strange Tales Be warned. Mothers should not read these stories to their children, even though they might contain a lonely elf, a talking moon, a butterfly that wants to be a rabbit, or a boy who was born with a flower as an unfortunate appendage. Hovering within the realm of fables, myths and fairy tales, here are unlikely bedtime stories that are best read on a dark, stormy night, and at the risk of wounding the soul.
Cyril Wong is the author of seven poetry collections, including tilting our plates to catch the light (firstfruits 2007) and Excess Baggage & Claim (Transit Lounge 2007). He has received both the Singapore Literature Prize (2006) and the National Arts Council's Young Artist Award for Literature (2005) in his country. His poems have appeared in Chinese Erotic Poems (Everyman's Library 2007) and Language for a New Century (W. W. Norton 2008), as well as in journals like Atlanta Review and Poetry International. He is presently on a Ph.D. research scholarship for English Literature at the National University of Singapore. www.cyrilwong.org
Jason Wing is an International contemporary artist with Cantonese and Aboriginal heritage. Wing has a visual Arts degree from Sydney College of the Arts Sydney Australia and a Graphic design Degree from Sydney Graphics College, Sydney Australia. Wing is represented by ARC 1 Gallery in Melbourne. For more information please visit www.jasonwing.net Click here to read reviews.
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Jenny’s Coffee House: After Yenni In May 1969 seven assisted migrants stepped out of the plane that had touched down in a strange place called Hobart. Jenny Williams, the author of Yenni, was one of those adults. From this time on little of what Jenny and her family knew was of any use to them. Like newborns they had to learn to exist in a different world. From factory to restaurant work, to new relationships, Jenny’s Coffee House takes the reader into the rich heart of a hard working family searching for their niche in life. Full of the drama and humour of a life fully lived (love, disappointment, separation and triumph), this is an evocative and compelling book. Much like the author herself, Jenny’s Coffee House is inspiring, honest and real. Hobart shimmers and enchants, Europe is never far away, while Jenny welcomes us all like best friends into her world.
Eugenia Jenny Williams is the author of Yenni: A Life Between Worlds (Pluto Press 2002). In 2006 that book was voted one of the fifteen best loved and read books in Tasmania. Born in Kosice, a city now in the Slovak Republic, Jenny and her family illegally escaped Soviet occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968. After living in Vienna they arrived in Tasmania in 1969. During 39 years in Australia Jenny has worked as a washer upper, a factory worker, a laboratory analyst , and the proprietor of three successful businesses including Jenny’s Coffee House. To contact the author email: wbj@bigpond.net.au Click here to read reviews.
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My Life in the Sea of Cars: A Letter from Arnhem Land James Murray recounts nine days walking in the remote and beautiful landscapes of the Northern Territory, yet his Letter from Arnhem Land is much more than a book about bushwalking. A delicate hymn to the wilderness of Northern Australia, My Life in the Sea of Cars is a heartbreaking journey of personal exploration and self discovery, and a passionate argument for a new way of living. The ways in which rampant consumerism, and an obsession with the motor car have become so entrenched in people’s lives is explored through relationships, memory, culture, identity and the meditative act of bushwalking. When Murray candidly reveals his own family secrets and likely ancestry his book takes on yet another dimension. Totally original, and heartbreakingly honest, Murray asks us the difficult, awkward questions that will not go away. Where has our culture gone so wrong? "An original and provocative book, part stream of consciousness, part epiphany, part treatise and part heartfelt lament for a consumerist, car-addicted society which leaves such a trail of devastation in its wake. Murray's unflinching eye takes in the fallout left by the wrecking ball of unquestioning materialism, and his observations are acute, honest and at times uncomfortably spot on. He plumbs these assumptions from the car-less, people-less tranquility of a solitary nine-day bushwalk, and we are there with him every step of the way: across remote gorges and into creeks, on escarpments and past rock drawings, listening to his impassioned arguments, ideas and insights, the recounting of old conversations and new possibilities, breakdowns and breakthroughs. It's a rich, intriguing, candid mix – Murray is one hitchhiker I would definitely pick up." James Murray was born in Melbourne, grew up in Queensland, has travelled widely, and now lives in Darwin with his two children. He plays music, he bushwalks and, if he can find someone to give him a decent game, he enjoys chess. My Life in the Sea of Cars is his first book. Click here to read reviews.  |
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Boy He Cry: An Island Odyssey Two young Australians arrive unannounced on a remote Melanesian island and ask its residents if they can live with them for a year. Granted this request, cut off from the outside world, living without electricity, telephones, running water, two-way radios or even access to an ocean-going boat, Roger Averill and his anthropologist partner adapt to life in a subsistence culture and find themselves overwhelmed by the generosity of their hosts. Treacherous sea voyages, cyclones, a drug-induced psychotic episode and encounters with maverick American missionaries all add to the adventure. As the health of the couple steadily deteriorates from repeated bouts of malaria, their relationships with the islanders intensify to form deep and lasting bonds. In this way, amidst stories of love and detective magic, shape-changing witches, playful tree sprites, dwarf’s hair and a dead merman, the most amazing transformation in Boy He Cry remains the way these people from vastly different cultures start out as total strangers but quickly become friends, even family. Rare, precious and beautiful, Boy He Cry is a spiritual odyssey into the heart of a remote culture. "Roger Averill's book will bring back memories, often amusing ones, for anyone who has had the experience of being suddenly transplanted into the established life of a very alien society. Differences of "custom", and struggles with language, frequently lead to comedy, which in turn can lead to affection." "A lucid, tender tale, a journey that brings our humanity home to us."
Roger Averill lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he works as a freelance researcher, editor and writer. Over the past decade he has been involved in the production of numerous publications. His forthcoming novel, Keeping Faith, was well received in the Vogel Literary Award. In the late 1990s Roger wrote a doctoral thesis about sociological readings of biographies and has since published articles in a number of international journals. Stemming from this work, he has an agreement with the eminent Australian author Randolph Stow to one day write his authorised biography. Boy He Cry: An Island Odyssey is his first full length work of non-fiction. Click here to read reviews.
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'The New Angel' 'You know what this poem means Bahram? It's about love, and loneliness. The reed is cut off from the other reeds. So it wants to return, but it can't. So it cries instead, and every time someone blows into the reed flute, it's the sad song of the reed's loneliness that makes people cry, the sad story of its loneliness and yearning for love.' The New Angel is the moving story of Bahram and Fereshteh (Persian for 'angel') growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. At its centre this is a love story between two adolescents at odds with the society in which they live and of the ways in which our lives can be changed forever by external events over which we have no control. The author lived in Iran until the age of 14 before immigrating to Australia. The result is a novel that is hugely evocative and that indirectly conveys through story the destructive impact of fundamentalism on the individual. Alizadeh writes superbly of the pains and beauties of adolescence and the devastating ways in which catastrophic events can shape out thoughts and actions. Bahram and Fereshteh capture our hearts, and ultimately break them. The New Angel engages and disturbs the reader as it moves with suspense and purpose towards its startling climax. "Alizadeh is a rare writer. He expresses his contemporary thinking in a beautiful, lyrical prose as well as in the poetry of the past. The New Angel is at once provocative and enjoyable, an explosive debut novel that is destined to divide opinion."
Ali Alizadeh is a novelist, poet and translator. His first novel The New Angel (Transit Lounge Publishing, 2008) was chosen as The Age newspaper’s Fiction Pick of the Week in July 2008, and was described as a ‘harrowing but brilliant debut novel’ in The Sunday Tasmanian and ‘an important novel’ in The Sydney Morning Herald. Ali’s poetry has been included in anthologies such as The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry (2009), The Best Australian Poetry 2009 and The Best Australian Poems 2008. His most recent collection of poetry, Eyes in Times of War, was published by Salt Publishing in 2006. Ali’s translations of poetry from Persian to English include the classical Sufi odestranslated with Kenneth Avery in Fifty Poems of Attar (re.press, 2007) and the poems co-written with John Kinsella for a forthcoming anthology. Ali was born in 1976 in Tehran and immigrated to Australia in the early 1990s after experiencing the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. After completing his high school in Brisbane and his BA at Griffith University, Gold Coast, he moved to Melbourne where he received his PhD in writing from Deakin University. He has worked as street performer, researcher, proofreader, and has taught writing and literature at universities in Australia, China, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. He lives with his wife Penelope and son Jasper..
Click here to read reviews.
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'Tarab: Travels with My Guitar' From the Sudan to Northern New South Wales, Tarab is an epic, mesmerizing tale of high adventure and the search for meaning. Carl Cleves escapes national service in Belgium to live in South Africa at the height of the Apartheid era. So begins the adventures and quests, wanderings and narrow escapes, mishaps and illuminations of a guitar-toting troubadour in his roles as young beat poet, law student, single father, ethnomusicologist, relief worker in India and recording star in Brazil. Cleves's page turning memoir is no simple music biography, but rather the story of an artist's quest for Tarab: a place where music and poetry bestow true bliss upon the lucky one. It's by turns philosophical, funny, adventurous and insightful. "Thank heavens for Carl Cleves! As Director of the Byron Bay Writers Festival, my days are long and opportunities for travel rare. Through Tarab, I have been thrust headlong into an extraordinary tour of wild times and wilder places. I have laughed, gasped and loved every startling page, courtesy of this insanely talented man."
Carl Cleves was born in Belgium. After completing his Doctorate of Law, in Belgium, he set out on a life of travel which took him to over fifty countries, eventually leading him to settle in Byron Bay, Australia. In Brazil he released 2 acclaimed albums. In Australia Carl established himself as a notable songwriter, with his compositions appearing on countless CD compilations and winning industry awards. His songs have been applauded for their lyrical and poetical content. In 1991 he founded the musical act The Hottentots with Parissa Bouas. The Hottentots– www.thehottentots.com– have recorded 4 CDs, and have twice won NCEIA Best Album awards. In 2000 their song 'Put your hand in mine' was performed by a 700 voice choir and transmitted, as part of ABC TV's Today program to 60 countries. Their fourth and CD 'Turn Back the Tide' won the Australian Songwriters' Association Award and the 2006 Music Oz Award. The Hottentots have performed at all major Australian festivals, in Europe and Latin America and in 2006 travelled to Madagascar, where Carl made a documentary about Malagasy culture and music to be released in the coming months. In August 2007 Carl was awarded the prize for Best Lyrics 2007 at the Australian Songwriters' Association Awards. His song 'The Rose of Kordofan' appears on his new CD 'All Alone.' Carl has also released a collection of songs that capture in music the spirit of his book, Tarab. Carl holds degrees in African music and contemporary composition and in recent years has been lecturing in song writing and world music at Southern Cross University, Lismore. More at: www.carlcleves.com
Click here to read reviews.
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'India Vik' "Unlike many who write of India, Liz Gallois is not interested in nostalgia, even if some of her characters suffer from that condition. The India she offers us in India Vik speaks in many voices, is acutely observed and deeply felt. This highly evocative collection of interlinked stories is a wonderful introduction to the work of a new writer and the unexpected worlds that await the modern traveller." Travel to India and be changed forever. Delicately spiced with humour this is an intriguing work of fiction, by an exciting new talent, where sexuality, loss and yearning are always simmering just beneath the surface. From Chennai to Sydney Liz Gallois captures both Indians and Westerners in new and unexpected guises, their relationships teetering on the edge, or caught at odds by the allure and the chaos of the subcontinent. In moments of tenderness or lust Jill croons, 'Davood, my little toy boy.' He likes her cool touch on his cheek, smoothing the soft down. He shaves, but so far the desired bristles refuse to sprout.
Liz Gallois is a fiction writer and sessional worker for the Mental Health Review Board who lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her work has been published in Australian literary magazines and was an Age Short Story competition winner in 2004. She has lived in France but has had a longer relationship with India that started with reading E M Forster's A Passage to India. She has made many visits to India and hopes soon to settle for some months or years in the seaside city of Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu. Click here to read reviews.
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'Emails From The Edge: A Journey Through Troubled Times' "Powerful and compelling, an extraordinarily moving account of one man's journey through Asia, Europe and within." He's been expelled from Syria on suspicion of terrorism, encountered ‘Osama bin Laden' in a Tehran bazaar, been dragged from the Hungarian parliament in handcuffs and interviewed with the editor-in-chief of al-Jazeera, all during a remarkable two-year journey by wheelchair across Eurasia. Walkley Award-winning journalist Ken Haley's travels take in 41 countries and, post-September 11, turn him into an eyewitness to the ‘war on terror' from the other side of the frontline. In Emails from the Edge he portrays life in the Middle East as it really is, not as the media portray it, and draws an intriguing parallel with his own life. With great humour, and not a hint of sentimentality, he lays bare his darkest times, when he plunged over the precipice into madness, and reveals the wanderlust that led him to the heart of the world's hot spots. Few have written so well about their own descent into insanity, a world at war and the beauty of travel.
Ken Haley is one of Australia's most widely travelled authors. To date he has visited 109 countries, 57 of these on his own two feet, and 52 in a wheelchair. He became a paraplegic in 1991, but as far as Ken is concerned the only difference this has made is that he now observes the world from a sitting position. A journalist by profession his experiences include stints on the foreign desk of The Times, Sunday Times and The Observer in London, the Gulf Daily News in Bahrain and the Oman Daily Observer. He has also worked at The Age, Melbourne, and as a newspaper sub-editor in Athens, Hong Kong and Johannesburg. He currently lives in Melbourne. Click here to read reviews. |
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'Love in the place of rats' This is poetry that has other poets raving - daring, passionate and quixotic, yet deeply in touch with Australian poetic tradition, Love in the place of rats makes the head spin. The evocative cover photograph by Sam Shmith leads the reader into a reality that is at once global and local; the poet staring down his own ghosts in what is ultimately a hymn to love and Brisbane's West End. "Love in the place of rats is a vital expression of the bond between poetic consciousness and historical reality, the daily quintessences of love, work and death in language that is sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful, always alive. Hardacre's primary question is, are we to love with a ‘treacherous and passionate soul', or are we ‘reduced to cheap music'. His poems are an extraordinary answer." "Love in the place of rats is a fiercely imaginative ride through the tropics of Brisbane and South-East Asia, tanked with picaresque tales of those ‘living the honda dream', and churning with references from Conrad to Luscious Jackson beneath ‘sky like the smiths' and ‘replacement birds'. These rapid-fire poems toppling with abundant observations and often witty asides – ‘religious as anthrax' - breathlessly collide into a constant paean to love, the mysterious centre." "These poems sting with an almost breathless urgency yet retain a fragile lyrical
pulse. Paul Hardacre strings words into phrases and phrases into strange leaps
of association that insist on their own lines of continuity. Fantastic flashes
and everyday references rub fingers and shoulders, and the result haunts and
takes the reader on an intimate journey through feelings, memories, emotional
travels. Nothing is forbidden."
Paul Hardacre was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1974. He is the Managing Editor of papertiger media, publishers of the papertiger: new world poetry CDROM, hutt poetry ezine, anything i like art ezine, and the soi 3 modern poets imprint. Since 2004 Paul has spent time in Myanmar, Singapore, Pakistan, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, China, New Zealand, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States, Italy, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos PDR, and Malaysia. With his long-time partner, artist and graphic designer Marissa Newell, he currently divides his time between Brisbane, Australia, and Chiang Mai, Thailand. Love in the place of rats is his second poetry collection. More at: www.paulhardacre.com |
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'Excess Baggage and Claim' Written in the voices of two gay men—an Australian tourist and a Singaporean local—Excess Baggage and Claim shines with a bright lucidity. What makes this book so startling is not that these poems about difficult self-discovery are sometimes shocking, but that they rise out of darkness, and a sense of dislocation, with such tenderness and courage. This is an extraordinary collection of poetry—a masterful collaboration by Singapore Literature Prize winner Cyril Wong and Australian poet Terry Jaensch. "These poems are odes to longing and desire, sung at 4am from the back bar of an impossible city where the borders have yet to be created and have yet to be dismantled. This is a shimmering, hard and beautiful collaboration." "Jaensch's always-deft phrasing and sense of metaphor twists the reader's expectations and compels us to watch more closely; Wong's candid, conversational style reveals the vagaries of faltering relationships and power plays. These characters take the microphone and sing; the confining world of their subculture setting the parameters for the universal lyrics of love and loss."
Terry Jaensch is a an Australian poet/actor and monologist based in Melbourne. His first book of poetry, Buoy ( Five Islands Press 2001) was highly commended in the Anne Elder Award by the Fellowship of Australian Writers. He has worked as a Writer-in-Community, Artist-in-Residence, Dramaturge and Artistic Director of the 2005 Melbourne Emerging Writers' Festival. He is widely published in journals (hardcopy and on-line), both locally and internationally. His work has been broadcast on radio and in 2004 he was commissioned to write and record 15 monologues based on his childhood in a Ballarat orphanage for “Life Matters” ABC Radio National. This piece has since been reworked and performed for theatre as “Orphan's Own Project.” He has a background in acting, having studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory and Herbert Berghof Studio in New York. In 2004/05 he was the recipient of an Asialink residency in Singapore.
Winner of the Singapore Literature Prize (2006), Cyril Wong is the author of five published collections of poetry, including like a seed with its singular purpose (Firstfruits, 2006). His poems have appeared in journals around the world, including Atlanta Review, Fulcrum 3, Poetry International, Dimsum, Poetry New Zealand, Wascana Review and the W.W. Norton & Co. anthology, Contemporary Voices from the East. He was a featured poet at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (UK), the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Queensland Poetry Festival (Brisbane, Australia) and the Singapore Writers' Festival. His poems have been adapted to dance, drama, film and music. These collaborations have been presented in various countries, including the 27th Bali Arts Festival and the Magdalena International Festival of Women in Contemporary Theatre (USA, 2005). More at: www.cyrilwong.org Click here to read reviews.
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'Sing, and Don't Cry: A Mexican Journal' Sing, and Don't Cry is Cate Kennedy' s sensual and touching evocation of her time spent working as a volunteer in small town Mexico. The people she comes to love in Tequisquiapan, and their gusto for celebration, pilgrimage and family, force her to cast a penetrating light on her own Western values and ways. 'What is truly essential, and who is truly poor?' asks Kennedy in a book that also challenges the reader to care more for his or her world. Described as 'a travel book with a social conscience' this essential memoir, from the award–winning fiction writer and poet, is funny, warm, yet ultimately disarming. "If you're sick of being eaten to death by little stories about interest rates, then Cate Kennedy's big story of working as an Australian volunteer in a credit cooperative in Mexico is the solution. This tale of cross
cultural discovery is wide-eyed and funny, unflinching and alive. It says a lot about Mexico but even more about Australia." "an eloquent portrait of how lived experience can inform and alter a person's intellectual and spiritual alignment ... a profound and evocative document of a particular place."
Cate Kennedy has won many awards for her poetry and short fiction, including The Age short story competition, the HQ Short Story Prize, and the Vincent Buckley Award for her first collection of poetry Signs of Other Fires (Five Islands Press, 2001). Cate is also the author of the internationally acclaimed short story collection Dark Roots (Scribe 2007). She works as a writer and editor and lives in north east Victoria, where in summer the landscape looks a little like Central Mexico, if you blur your eyes. Click here to read reviews.
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In the Hungry Middle of Here From a Montana Dimestore in his native America to Phnom Penh to Victoria Street, Melbourne, MacCarter navigates the world, seeking not just the sounds, textures and tastes that characterise its parts, but the emotional sustenance that we all hunger for. This is highly tuned poetry of words and emotions that has us 'drunk and spinning', or smiling at the thought of the various pleasures life has in store for us. "The poetry of Kent MacCarter maps the city like a drum beating out its
sounds, and an eye that knows both its lights and shadows." "MacCarter is the poet as energetic globe-trotter. Wherever he finds himself he notices and records objects, atmosphere, people. His poems are crammed with such perceptiveness."
A native of the US, Kent MacCarter's adopted home is now Melbourne. Graduating from Melbourne University with a Masters in English Creative Writing in 2006 completed an arc that started with degrees and an early career in Financial Accounting. Having published for some years in Australia and international journals and papers, this collection is his first book.
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Borobudur At the time of the construction of Borobudur in the ninth century, Buddhism had been established in Java for several centuries. Mackenzie’s Borobudur, an exquisite long poem, tells the story of its legendary architect, Gunavarman, and of Indonesia’s mystical monument with cultural understanding, sensitivity and great feeling. Like Gunavarman by the poem’s end, Mackenzie becomes ‘a dot on the horizon’ leaving us stilled in silence. "Like turning a wonderfully textured and beautifully glazed vessel around and around, the chronology of Jennifer Mackenzie's Borobudur, is progressed while eluding linearity. Her legend of Gunavarman, Javanese Buddhism's almost mythical priest-architect, reminds one of Hesse's Siddhartha with the parallel reality she creates for the book's protagonists. Borobudur is a memorable invention, utterly present as it succours both history and imagination. The poem's tropical atmospheres and correspondingly spiced language, the sumptuous detail and layers of story, girdle the poem as it, in its marvellous stead, encircles the monument which time almost forgot."
Jennifer Mackenzie studied at the University of Melbourne in the early 70's and began writing and publishing poetry. She has a long-standing interest in Asia, travelling to India, Indonesia, Cambodia and China. A fascination with Old Asia led to the Borobudur project, and to a Master's degree on the historical fiction of Pramoedya Ananta Toer. She lived and worked in China for several years, and is currently working on an ongoing literary project set in China and Australia. She has two children and lives in North Carlton.
Click here to read reviews. |
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'A History of the Great War: A Novel' It is 1914 and Bairnsdale, Australia, is filled with the news of a war in far off places. Ida Hallam, a young shop assistant, has fallen in love with Ralph Mitton a land surveyor, but Ralph is caught up in the romance and adventure of fighting for his country. Ida envies his freedom, but when he returns wounded and troubled she begins to understand something of the nature of what he has experienced. Years later Ida's sons go off to fight in the Second World War.
Peter McConnell has a sharp understanding of the detail and sweep of history, of Australia's connections with the East and of how world events impact on the daily life of the individual. A History of the Great War is a gentle, strangely haunting novel set in small town Victoria. Imbued with sadness, moments of happiness and quiet courage it is the moving story of one woman's innocent life; of love, family and loss. Like a dream steeped in reality it is not easily forgotten. A truly Australian novel. ‘The pyramids themselves would turn to dust in the end.' "The soul of the book is Ida's tapestry, onto which she stitches every image of importance from the years of her century, gently correcting the madness of "great events" with her own infinitely modest appraisal. World history seems small beside the statement Ida wrings out of huge disasters and tiny joys." "Powerful in its artful simplicity. A History of the Great War gives voice to an 'ordinary' life."
Click here to read reviews.
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'Lemniscate' One woman's adventurous search for love, meaning and connection. In the '70s travel scenes of Afghanistan, India and Thailand, Elsie discovers adventure, friendship and freedom. After three years she returns to her welcoming and loving family in suburban Australia where time seems to have stood still. Disenchanted with the dreary conventions of authoritarian and Catholic Adelaide she becomes a restless spirit torn between the call of family and the world. An ever-searching series of relationships and relocations ultimately takes her as single parent to live on the Greek island of Paros, until tragedy unexpectedly reconnects her with Australia and the complex truth about love and family. This is a deeply affecting, sprawling, beautiful novel about finding one's way in life and the world. Lemniscate: a line that travels continuously outward as it travels continuously inward. "The odyssey of a spirited, brave and curious young woman on the 1970's ''hippie trail'' through Asia and a journey of self-discovery in a changing Australia, Lemniscate is also a tender love story, a vivid and lyrical evocation of place, and a close observation of families and society. Full of colour and character, it is an intriguing, unusual and gripping book which straddles the fertile ground between novel and autobiography with great ease." "Utterly absorbing. It's a long time since I've read a novel that has engaged me so fully. McGrath takes her readers on a journey that is at once deeply personal and global. I not only cared about her characters, but by the final page I cared more for the world."
Gaynor McGrath grew up in Adelaide. She currently lives on the northern tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, where she works in a Rudolf Steiner school, and writes and gardens at very opportunity. Click here to read reviews.
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'Vinyl Inside' You're destined to fall in love with this quirky, bittersweet story of Elsie and Sterling and caravan park life in the ‘80s. What happens when the daughter you thought you would never see again turns up twenty years later? Dania's arrival at Splashes Caravan Park in search of her mother forces the novel's loveable characters to face the reality of their lives and to come to terms with the nature of regret. Brimming with delicious pop-culture references, this a story told with great warmth, humour and respect. Vinyl Inside is by turns hilarious, moving and unforgettable; a novel that allows us to feel affection for our past innocence and to ponder what has been lost and gained.
Rachel Matthews grew up in Shepparton, Victoria. She is a graduate of Deakin University (Bachelor of Arts), the University of Melbourne (Diploma of Education) and RMIT's Professional Writing and Editing diploma course. She teaches VCE English and Media studies at the Distance Education Centre Victoria, a government school that provides flexible learning for students who can't attend mainstream classrooms. She is also a tutor at RMITS’ Creative Media department and is completing a PhD at Victoria University, her second novel. An earlier version of Vinyl Inside was commended in the 2003 Australian Vogel awards. "Rachel Matthews's novel is as warm as a caravan park barbecue grill, with characters that encourage the reader to keep inserting the twenty cent pieces. A terrific, compelling debut." "Vinyl Inside is my kind of book. Genuinely affectionate, authentic and funny." "An earthy tale sprinkled with pathos and humour." "Rachel Matthews has fashioned a book that is full of marvelous characters
and warmth, humor and wisdom. The eighties were a lot of fun after all."
Click here to read reviews.
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'The Asking Game' Sydney, 2020—‘the city of water'. Alice's life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. Alice, or Eve as she was once known, is hired to expose Eternity, the cult that was founded outside the small desert town where she was born. With Drew, the boy from upstairs, who may be spying on her or watching over her, she begins a dream-like road trip into the dead heart of Australia where the past unravels into the future with exhilarating speed. Why did her sister Lucy leave her and what is it that happened between them? Who was her mother? Questions are asked. Their answers haunt and unsettle. At its heart The Asking Game drives us to ask ourselves who we really are. Childhood, sibling rivalry, science and identity are all explored in a bold, tautly woven debut—‘a stylish thriller with literary sensibilities'. If you're addicted to psychological thrillers or speculative fiction, or if you loved The Time Traveller's Wife for its sharp psychological truths and complex emotions, you'll want to read The Asking Game. 'They moved from mirror to mirror as the ground gradually sloped away until, by the time they reached the last mirror, their faces were swimming in the polished surface at nearly the same height. And staring out at them were two sets of identical eyes: blue-grey black-grey steel-grey stone. Both girls paused mid-step. Eve noticed for the first time that her eyes were divided into slices of grey and blue and black. And so were Lucy's. Their eyes were identical. Not just like each other: absolutely identical. They looked into their own eyes, and into each other's, and couldn't tell them apart.'
Rose Michael is a thirty-four-year-old Australian journalist and academic. The Asking Game was a runner-up in the 2002 Allen & Unwin/Vogel award for an unpublished manuscript – where it was described as ‘well-written, well-structured, complex and clever', as a ‘very sophisticated, well-paced thriller with literary sensibilities' and as ‘a compelling, ambitious and ultimately convincing piece of near-future Australian sci-fi' – and edited extracts have been published in Griffith REVIEW 4, Best Australian Stories 2004, Island and Muse. Ex-editor of Australian Bookseller & Publisher and the Weekly Book Newsletter, Rose is currently working on her next novel: The Art of Navigation – an extract of which was runner-up in this year's Ditmar/Conjure awards. Click here to read reviews. |
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'Ma Folie Française (My French Folly)' 'I once lived in a place far, far away. A land where "les folies", were a regular and standard occurrence. Where each day presented new challenges and endless temptations sought to ruin me.' Marisa Raoul has travelled with her European parents, worked as a flight attendant for an international airline and moved house more than once. She isn't one to be perturbed by new challenges or foreign destinations. However, when she falls in love with a Frenchman, Jean, and they decide to take up residence in a quiet, south-western corner of France, life turns out to be an exciting adventure – so bizarre and such a 'folie'. In her delightful memoir she takes us to the heart of her 'medieval' B&B, with incidents full of Gaelic humour and eccentricity. A quiet 'tree-change' turns outs to be a hilarious, surprising and romantic romp, which lasts a decade. Ma Folie Française is a book for anyone who has ever wanted to fall in love with a foreign country. Charming, passionate, and inspired it will make you want to follow your dreams, pack up your life, and shift to France. "Marisa Raoul has written a vivacious contemporary tale of life love and dreaming. It is a sheer joy to read."
Marisa Raoul was born in Sydney to an Italian father and English mother. Her mixed heritage led to her intense passion for travel, foreign languages and diverse cultures. She spent her sixteenth year living in Rome and travelling throughout Europe with her parents. Most of her early professional life was spent working in the Sales department of Qantas Airways, then onto Cabin Crew where she met her husband. She has travelled to 25 countries. Marisa left Australia in 1991 to reside in France for a ten-year period where she ran a successful Bed and Breakfast and worked as an Interpreter and English teacher for the 'Limoges Chamber of Commerce and Industry'. On her return to Australia, she became involved in the field of Indigenous Arts. She moved to Alice Springs where she worked within that field and on her return to the east coast, continued to promote this art as a freelance consultant. She now writes full time from her home in Tasmania. She specialises in the fields of children's novels and non-fictional adult works. She also enjoys writing freelance articles for various magazines and community newspapers. Click here to read reviews.
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'Love and Wigs' Eight quirky b&w photographs accompany the writing. Barry Scott works as a literary awards and events coordinator for the State Library of Victoria. In 2004 he undertook a three-month Asialink residency in New Delhi. In October 2005 he will be a guest of the Ubud Writer's Festival. Click here to read reviews. |
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'A Long Walk in the Himalaya. A Trek from the Ganges to Kashmir.' Weare's finely rendered story of his five-month trek from the sacred source of the Ganges through the Kullu Valley, Zanskar and Ladakh to his houseboat in Kashmir is remarkably entertaining. The people he meets and travels with are fully-fledged characters that the reader comes to know and care about while the Himalaya, captured in all their variety, cast their spell. It is as if the act of walking allows the author to fully understand all the nuances – spiritual, environmental, social and political – of this inspiring region. A Long Walk in the Himalaya is a book to savour, a book that the reader will return to again and again. "Garry Weare is enigmatic, funny and he has an enormous conscience. He brings into the story of his Himalayan traverse a succession of vignettes about people's lives that he meets along the way, relevant history, natural history observations and a delightful sprinkling of his inimitable sense of humour. The warmth of his relationships with his old Kashmiri friends and various people from the trekking fraternity adds a wonderful dimension to this journeyman's tale." Click here to read reviews.
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