Hackpacker

There's been an odd devolution on the web from procrastination to poisonous. For some the Trumps and trolls are all too much so there's been lots of quitting Twitter, sending Facebook dark or adopting a kittens-only policy on Instagram. Artists and writers have to be selective in their intellectual diet so a few years ago I wrote an article called "The Distraction Engine: Digital Detox for Writers" looking at ways to moderate the harmful intake of web and social. Recently while talking about her book The Natural Way of Things at the National Library of Australia (full talk online) , Charlotte Wood talked about her decision to leave social:  So I was on Twitter for ages and I loved it... but I was completely addicted to it then and I was just never off it... when you’re writing a book you do need to be private, you know you need to be quiet or I need to be quiet. So I went off Twitter for nine months when I was writing this book. Wood recently returned t

It's easy for writers to find themselves in ruts. They get known for a particular genre, hit their style or fluke their way into a readership and lose the need to experiment. If there was a verb for this phenomenon it could be: to Grisham. The n00bz: New Adventures in Literature wants to disrupt the writerly rut, the tendency to Grisham, by pushing out of their comfort zone. The challenge was to take-on an experiment with another part of publishing or culture. So we have fictioner and critic James Bradley attempting a comic based on his superhero short story, if:book Australia manager Simon Groth tapping away at retro typewriter and Benjamin Law confessing he has no journalist cred until he can learn old fashioned shorthand.  But not just writers are experimenting with former bookseller Greg Field picking up after his bookstore closes and finding a new life online. His Star Wars analogy of modern publishing makes his opinion clear in casting Darth Bezos but the Force i

Over the last couple of months I've been part of the Hardcopy Professional Development program for writers offered by the ACT Writers Centre. The format broke into two long weekends - editorial and Intro2Industry. The latter wrapped up on Sunday after three intense and well-programmed days that brought agents, experts and literary shaman to the ACT. Okay so there were no actual shaman but the list of svengalis was impressive. Probably the best part was the range: from traditional dead tree publishers to the digital experimentation of IF: Book Australia . Over the entire program opinions varied (fiction books, apparently, must be at least  70,000 words , 60,000 words , okay 50k but that's really as low as publishers will go - unless it's a digital book) but there were a lot of great insights. So the only way to summarise a busy program is with a listicle right? Here's the top five things I got out of the program: 1) The Book is a zombie that refuses to die So t

Photo: Jeff Burton In the dying days of his book tour promoting his latest Imperial Bedrooms , cult author Bret Easton Ellis is so over answering questions about his novels. “I have a completely different relationship with the novel than the reader does,” he sighs. “Which is why it’s very hard to sit here and answer questions about the book, because it’s such a disconnect.” Imperial Bedrooms uses the characters of his 1985 debut, Less Than Zero , 25 years later and looks at how time has scarred both the characters and the once enfant terrible himself. On this tour he’s survived that interview at Byron Bay Writer’s Festival where he repelled questions from Ramona Koval about his role as a satirist by joshing about his newfound crush on Delta Goodrem. Koval in turn scolded him for treating the interview as “a stand-up routine”. But in person Ellis is entertaining yet open – his powerful chin is blunted by a navy Nike cap and his playboy image muted by glasses and an overcoat

On Friday the Melbourne Writers Festival program was a hefty insert in the Age . In the past it came as part of Saturday’s weekend supplements, but it’s all part of the new energy buzzing through the festival. New director Steve Grimwade put his program out on Friday to coincide with online bookings and the program boasting more than 400 events has more in common with Friday’s hip EG than Saturday’s brunchable browser, A2. The big news in the program is Joss Whedon as the second keynote. Tickets have probably already sold out but it does give an excuse to show off Joss Whedon on writing for new media: Mark Scott presenting The Quest for Truth interests me less. We know where the ABC supremo is coming from already and there will be a lot of talking up ABC 24. Cory Doctrow on Copyright Vs Creativity speaks more to the challenges of our time: namely how can we continue to create quality content when it is free? The argument is often made that we should be giving away content, “gett

Reviewing Yann Martel's latest offering got me thinking of a mythical phone conversation Yann should have had with his agent. Yann: So I'm writing a new book about a donkey and a howler monkey... Agent: Keep talking, Yann-baby. This has Booker-bagging written all over it! Yann: ... as a fable of the  Holocaust. [pause] Agent: Yann-sweety, I think we might have a crossed line with Art Spiegelman here... Yann: No, no. It'll be great - because I'll bring together that essay I was writing about the Holocaust and create a way of re-imagining the history the way Camus and Orwell did. Agent: Yann, baby-doll, you know you're not Orwell, don't you? And that essay with fiction flip book idea always seemed kinda crazy... [sounds of faux static] There's something wrong with this line. I'll call you back, lambkin... I stayed away from Martell's Life of Pi as long as I could, because it was always being forced on me - usually by a dreadlocked friend who

In her debut novel In-human Anna Dusk mixes poetry, Aussie vernacular and a gutsy werewolf heroine. Don’t ask Anna Dusk if werewolves are the new vampires. Sure she’s releasing a lycanthrope book just as the zeitgeist howls with The Wolfman and the Twilight franchise has been re-booted by shapeshifting spunk Jacob. But Dusk began In-human over 12 years ago so she’s hardly jumping on the fangwagon. In-human follows Sally, a high school girl who tears out of the humdrum of rural Tasmania as she transforms into a werewolf. Her allegiances are tested between family and the pack, between hunger and herself. Far from Twilight ’s de-fanged fairy tales, In-human is powered by Sally’s anger with buckets of sex and blood. As Dusk sees it, “Growing up in a small town and having people constantly commenting on her all the time really pisses Sally off.” Dusk is no fan of Stephanie Meyers vegetarian vampires. “Where’s the fun in that?” she laughs flashing her prominent canine teeth. “Peop

The new year means resolutions to break or bend. Here's one for travel writers everywhere: no more lazy writing. It's hard with the deadline breathing down on you and the cliche close to hand or the pun headline just screaming at you, but better writing is a stretch away. For cliche junkies, you don't have to go it alone. Courtesy of Cassowary Crossing comes this link to 60 Pun Headlines That Travel Editors Love A Little Too Much . There's some groanworthy material here. I'm certainly guilty of Start to Finnish, but I'd restrain myself from Kenya Dig It and the horrendous Brazilliant. And Czech puns are as fashionable as plaid. If you're still looking to kick the cliche then Chuck Thompson makes an excellent sponsor. His Smile When You're Lying serves up cynicism familiar to anyone who's ever felt like they'vw overdosed on sugar after reading the travel pages. He says that almost any city can be described as a "bewitching blend of the anc

Nocember is the cruellest month - no matter what TS Eliott says. It masquerades as two months but long ago blurred into one which crams in too many events to reasonably attend. Worst of all it forces bloggers to do wap-up blogs as there's not enough time to attend and blog. Here's my pre-Christmas fast forward: This Annoying Opening Kicking off on 19th of November, Paul Oslo Davis ' show This Annoying Life showcases his illustrations particularly his Overheard series in the Sunday Age that joins conversational snippets with his minimalist style. The poster is characteristic of his style - several bitter dancing couples exchanging lines like "Let's play hide the resentment" or "Let's run away in opposite directions". It's humanity at it's best and bleakest. It was a crowded little space with most of the fun in watching people making the connection between text and images. Some of the city's best cartoonists were along to raise

A little while ago I wrote about being inside the mouthful that is the Centre for Books Writing & Ideas . A few other people must have been having trouble with the name because it is now the Wheeler Centre . At a function this morning the curtain slid back to reveal a Lonely Planet founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler. According to the speeches, they're funding top-class or "Melbourne standard" events at the new centre named in their honour. It's all part of their Planet Wheeler foundation . The first program of events was unveiled in a glossy brochure. The big gig is A Gala Night of Storytelling , which boasts some of Melbourne's biggest personalities from Paul Kelly to John Marsden all telling stories passed down through their families. It's an intimate look at the cities literati. Its an exciting start to Melbourne's biblio-hub.

November will see the release of Peter Carey's latest, Olivier and Parrot in America . I was lucky enough to snag an advance of this thumping tome and it's an impressive work. One of the things I like about Carey is that he is very much an Australian abroad so his writing looks at being stretched between two cultures. In his latest Europeans head into the belly of America just as that nation was the hope for democracy. But don't take my word for it. Here's what the man himself has to say: Interview with Peter Carey from Granta magazine on Vimeo . Today another Australian writer kicks off a new project. Under the dubious title of Marieke Hardy in Your Hand , The Age has launched a venture into m-fiction, or stories delivered by text. While it may be a first for Australia, cell fiction is already popular in Japan where keitai shosetsu (cell phone novels) have pulled in millions of dollars from subscriptions of less than two bucks a novel. Fairfax are relying on disco

When I meet the unshaven man in plaid zippered jacket and vintage 70s shirt he looks more like a bass player than the crisp profile image of Big Issue columnist, Mic Looby. “I shaved especially for that,” Looby quips. His eyes are ringed with tiredness characteristic of too much computer time or caring for a young child. And this Mic Looby does both. The Looby I’m here to interview is the author of Paradise Updated . His first novel follows newbie guidebook writer Mithra as she heads to Maganda in search of the legendary Robert Rhind who wrote the first version of the guide revered by travellers as ‘the Bible’. Complications arrive when Mithra realises she has to sack Rhind while researching Maganda. The story flips between exotic locales and corporate machinations as Looby satirises the “bogus authority of the guidebook which is at the heart of a lot of what I wrote”. And Looby should know – he’s penned guidebooks to Burma, the Philippines and Australia as well as working as an editor

Joel Magarey 's Exposure is a unique travel memoir. Joel set out on an around the world odyssey while trying to leave the love of his life and cope with his obsessive compulsive disorder. Joel recently told me about the horror of re-drafting from scratch, avoiding danger and ice selling as good preparation for writing. Hackpacker: According to your bio you've been an ice salesman, juggler and a journalist. Do authors feel obliged to play up the kookier parts of their lives when writing their own bios? How do you think these jobs feed into your writing? Joel Magarey: Ice-selling fed into my writing by... okay. You got me. It didn't. Yeah, you feel that obligation, because you want people to see you as an interesting human not a list of publications. On the other hand developing a financially rewarding comedy juggling act required learning how to make people laugh. And I think journalism demands that you learn to see detail and hones your sense of what interests people. It a

The Big Issue Fiction edition hit the streets on Friday. Already I've gone out and bought a copy for me and my mum. It features a new work by Cate Kennedy that makes for a vivid blackly funny insight into a community centre that reminded me of a few jobs I've done. There's also YA author Penni Russon with her first major piece for adults that I'm keen to read. Plus Andy Griffiths and Terry denton with an illustrated peak at their follow-up to The Bad Book . Plus the talented Jo Bowers , Alice Pung and more. It's only about for a limited time, so track down a vendor this week or next.

Walking around Edinburgh it's easy to see how this atmospheric town would inspire great novels. From spooky castles to backstreet boozers to university lecture rooms, every corner seems to suggest a story or have a history rich enough for a bestseller. Any tour of the city's should start at the Writer's Museum , which covers Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. Downstairs there's a cabinet made by Deacon Brodie, a nefarious character whose life informed Stevenson's work. A mild-mannered cabinetmaker by day, Brodie had a double life that saw him in brothels and gambling dens most nights. To pay off his debts he took on a nocturnal life of crime, robbing around town for two years before being caught plundering the General Excise Office. According to local legend, he ended up being hung on a gallows which ironically he'd designed and built. Stevenson was fascinated with the tale writing a play, Deacon Brodie or the Double Life which was a dr

Between words and images, illustrator/writer Shaun Tan has found a place for himself and scored some serious awards. George Dunford traces his rise. It’s crowded and hot in a small chamber of Newcastle Town Hall for Shaun Tan’s illustration workshop at the National Young Writer’s Festival. The audience spills out the door listening to his thin dry voice: a napping pair of emo kids leaning on each other twitch with dreams fuelled by the writer/illustrator sketch of a Donnie Darko-esque bunny. The two-hour workshop has run an hour over but Tan keeps scratching at the sweet-yet-menacing rabbit on the flipchart. Every eye is still on him and every ear is listening and every face smiling – even as they doze. This crowd has grown up with Tan from studying The Rabbits (his colonisation collaboration with John Marsden) to his recent wordless graphic novel, The Arrival. “That’s the disturbing thing,” Tan chuckles as the small crowd disperses in search of water, “when people come up to me an

By the time I call American memoirist Augusten Burroughs, I’ve already heard nine hours of his measured voice. The iTunes audiobook of A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father is read by the author in his vaguely Southern accent and includes music by alterna-divas Patti Smith and Ingrid Michaelson (known for soundtracking Grey’s Anatomy). “That was an intense experience,” Burroughs admits, “because I realised I can’t read this in my normal speaking voice. People will hear my voice and they’ll think ‘Here comes the joke.’ So I had to speak in the lower register and much slower. I wanted it to be different, for it to feel like a movie for the ears.” Looking at his relationship with a distant and difficult father, A Wolf at the Table is a departure from Burroughs’ trademark black humour. The wisecracking teen trapped in the odd Finch family of Running With Scissors is gone and even the survivor’s humour of his struggle with alcoholism in Dry has evaporated. “I’ve been asked a lot ‘