Overland literary journal

Fiction review: Graffiti Moon

Downtown Yarraville is, in its own right, a great place to be on a sunny winter’s Sunday afternoon – if you haven’t been west for a while, maybe it’s time. It is an especially pleasant destination if you are lucky enough to be attending the book launch of a respected Australian author.

Hosted by the Younger Sun Bookshop and held in the art deco glory of the Sun cinema, the launch of Graffiti Moon, the latest YA novel from local writer, Cath Crowley, was an elegant, modest and warm affair – much like the woman herself. ... read more

Written by Clare Strahan on 26-08-2010, 3 user comments

Unfinished Sympathy*

Several years ago, when I was studying writing at university, a lecturer of mine expressed utter disdain when a student confessed to abandoning James Joyce’s Ulysses mid-way through. The lecturer, who was an author herself (well you’d want to hope so, wouldn’t you?), said that to give up on a book before the end was lazy and disrespectful to the author and Literature itself. This exchange took place in the first week of semester and, like the chap who asked how much a published author can expect to earn in a year, the student concerned did not return the following week. The rest of us sat nodding in agreement with our lecturer in an attempt to demonstrate that we had not only finished Ulysses, but read it several times, along with many fat books by Russian writers. I myself had to put extra effort into appearing smug to cover the fact that, not only had I never finished Ulysses, I had never started it either. (Unlike my grandfather, who started reading it under the false belief it was about motorcycle gangs.) What’s worse, I was guilty of abandoning several books – some of them ‘Classics’ – not two chapters in, but two chapters short of the end. (I tell you what: if you keep reading this post till the end, I’ll reveal what they were.) ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 25-08-2010, 51 user comments

The Library of Forgotten Books

For anyone who is interested, PS Publishing in the UK has recently released my collection, The Library of Forgotten Books. There’s a plain hardcover and a cool jacketed and signed hardcover. The reviews so far have been pretty positive. ... read more

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 19-08-2010, 4 user comments

Journal review – Kill Your Darlings Issue 2

Kill Your Darlings stands accused of new fiction, essays, commentary and reviews and is guilty on all four counts.

I was very pleased when the July edition of Kill Your Darlings fell into my greedy hands. The editorial team have produced a chocolaty artefact of some beauty with superb artwork from Jeremy Ley. A collector’s item, I do believe, and fit for the finest bookshelf. ... read more

Written by Clare Strahan on 18-08-2010, 3 user comments

Poetry review: The Best Australian Poetry 2009 | UQP

The Best Australian Poetry
Alan Wearne (Ed.)
UQP

Some months ago I wrote a brief critical review of Black Inc.’s Best Australian poems. Remember – the post that was met with a surprising amount of confusion, discussion etc? Well I left writing this follow-up review of the rival The Best Australian Poetry 2009, edited by Alan Wearne, published by UQP, so long, the 2010 editions must be due out pretty soon. My main points about the Black Inc. anthology were essentially as follows: ... read more

Written by Tara Mokhtari on 16-08-2010, 8 user comments

Theatre review: Sappho…in 9 fragments

Stepping off the St. Kilda Road tram at Southbank Boulevard for a short walk to the Malthouse Theatre on a sunny Melbourne winter’s afternoon is a very lovely thing to do.

It’s true that Melbourne’s independent arts scene is eclectic, marvellous, under-funded and perpetually under threat. ... read more

Written by Clare Strahan on 12-08-2010, 5 user comments

Fiction review: The Nine Flaws of Affection

The nine flaws of affection
Peter Farrar
Ginninderra Press

Peter Farrar feeds words onto the page like a priest delivers the Eucharist. Each word is selected specifically to add to the arch, and just enough words are used to reach resolution. Peter Farrar, as the medium of the stories, has removed all unnecessary words, including some personal pronouns, leaving us with nine portraits of debilitation delivered with extreme priority. Each story has proven itself among the best literary journals in the country, including Overland, Wet Ink, Etchings and Page Seventeen.

The nine flaws are detailed in the stories of the collection, nine portraits of the seriously disenfranchised, victims of loss either through war, betrayal or simply, life. ... read more

Written by Mark William Jackson on 12-08-2010, 1 user comment

Norman Finklestein and the Holocaust

At the age of 50, Norman Finkelstein is without a job and lives alone with his books and computer in Coney Island, New York. He was hounded out of his job as a professor at De Paul University, New York by the machinations of Professor Alan Dershowitz and his supporters. In Beyond Chutzpah, Finkelstein aroused the ire of this warrior of Zionism by accusing him of plagiarism and being fraudulent in his writings on Israel. He laughingly says in the documentary film, American Radical, he wouldn’t use Dershowitz’s book as a schmatte (Yiddish for cleaning rag). ... read more

Written by Vivienne Porzsolt on 23-07-2010, 4 user comments

A response to harvest

My curiosity piqued by a question beneath a review on our blog of the latest harvest, I hurried home to read its editorial. And read its editorial I did – with a burgeoning sense of unease.

The editorial responded to Ted Genoways’ article in Mother Jones earlier this year, ‘The death of fiction?’ Genoways argued that many factors contributed to the demise of the literary journal, and literature, but that a major cause was the preponderance of writing courses manufacturing writers who write more than they read and care little for the outside world: ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 16-07-2010, 27 user comments

Poetry review – My father’s tools

My father's tools
Tom Petsinis
Arcadia

The relationship between father and son is explored in Tom Petsinis’s sixth poetry collection My father’s tools, published by Arcadia. The poetry, accompanied by the artwork of Jim Pavlidis, is series of poems, each named after a tool in Petsinis’s deceased father’s toolbox. Although each short poem can be enjoyed in isolation, the power lies in reading them together, chronologically. As a whole, the collection paints a portrait of a complex relationship – father and son – beginning at the surface and chiselling deeper to its core. ... read more

Written by Koraly Dimitriadis on 15-07-2010, 4 user comments

Fiction review – Slice of Life

Slice of Life
Paul Haines
The Mayne Press

Genre publishing exists like a hidden enclave in the broader Australian culture, replete with its own publications and personalities, politics and institutions. Hidden away in this world are number of highly talented writers whose work deserves much greater recognition than it receives. At the literary end of this spectrum is the work of Ben Peek or Deborah Biancotti. Closer to the genre side of things stands Paul Haines, whose second collection, Slice of Life, was recently published by The Mayne Press and has been shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards. ... read more

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 14-07-2010, 1 user comment

Non-fiction review – What’s wrong with Anzac?

What’s Wrong With Anzac: The Militarisation of Australian History
Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds with Mark McKenna and Joy Damousi
University of New South Press

When Marilyn Lake, Henry Reynolds and others published this courageous demolition of the Anzac tradition, hostile replies came quickly. The Sunday Age published a critique by senior journalist Tom Hyland, while the Australian featured Geoffrey Blainey’s scathing review, ‘We Weren’t That Dumb’.¹ The book seems to have struck a nerve with its challenge to the war culture permeating society. ... read more

Written by Tom OLincoln on 2-07-2010, 12 user comments

Non-fiction review –
Screw Light Bulbs

Screw Light Bulbs
Donna Green & Liz Minchin
UWA Publishing

Screw Light Bulbs was written when its authors got to the point of having written or read one too many articles suggesting that the best thing individuals could do towards fighting climate change was change their light bulbs. Recognising that this was at best a bandaid solution for an ulcerous wound, the book – and the attitude – was born. ... read more

Written by Georgia Claire on 2-07-2010, 5 user comments

Journal review – harvest, issue 5

‘Mummy, what's this?’
‘Oh, that's a book.’
‘What's a book?’
‘A book is what people once used to keep stories and information in,before they had iPads.’
‘Oh. What's this?’
‘Stone the crows! That's a literary journal! I haven't seen one of those since I was a girl!’

At the recent Sydney Writers’ Festival, Simon & Schuster publisher Carolyn Reidy said, ‘There’s a good chance the physical book market will become more designed and beautiful for people who really love books as an object. But I can’t say that we’ll still have books in 50 years time.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘Carolyn Reidy? As in Read-ee? Great name for a publisher!’ The second thing was, ‘Golly me, in that case – what will happen to journals?’ ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 1-07-2010, 16 user comments