Come and see me!

I'll be at the Coburg Library on Thursday evening, talking about Me and My Books and My Job. I might even read from one of my New Books...

7pm, Thursday 10 April
Coburg Library
Cnr Victoria and Louisa Streets
Coburg.

To book, call 9353 4000

Trust Me

Oh look! It's a new anthology, featuring a creepy story by me!


Trust Me is published by Ford Street Press and edited by Paul Collins, and features such luminaries as Shaun Tan, Gary Crew, James Roy and David Metzenthen. It has an introduction by Isobelle Carmody, and can be found in the normal places where you find books.


The super-keen should come along to the launch, which will be at the State Library of Victoria Theatrette on Thursday April 10, at 4pm.


PS. I'm older! w00t!

Adelaide: City of Horror

My grandparents have guests, so Mum and I are staying in the house next door. It’s empty, because the Italian couple who used to live there died over two years ago. But the house is still full of all their furniture and clothes* and toothbrushes**. And crucifixes. LOTS of crucifixes***. Crucifixes and lots of fancy ornate furniture and a gold satin bedspread****.

Above the ornate bed and the gold satin bedspread, there’s a light-up picture of Jesus looking miserable.

I feel like I’m in the first scene of a horror film. I’m about to go and have a shower, and I know I’m going to come out, wearing a towel, and I’ll walk down the hall and it will be colder than I remembered. And I’ll open the door to the bedroom, and Mum will be lying on the bed, but she’ll be all wrinkled and grey and sunken, like she’s been dead for a hundred years.
I’ll scream (and, depending on what kind of horror film it is, my towel might fall down). Then sunken-dead Mum will open her eyes and draw a ragged, gasping breath...

______________________________________________

*dead-people clothes!

**dead-people toothbrushes!

***crucifixes? Should it be crucifices?

****PLEASE TELL ME somebody washed the sheets after they died.

Friday links

My oldest friend Jellyfish (who is now, thanks to the Powers of Awesome, my next-door neighbour) has requested that I post more entertaining internetty things on this blog so she doesn't have to trawl through all the dancing-hamster guff.

Jelly, this is for you.

(via Meg Cabot)

5 songs that don't work in Australia anymore

I Can't Stand the Rain

Why Does it Always Rain on Me?

Nothing Stops the Rain

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Rainy Days and Mondays

Look out for cyclists

Diamond Wedding Anniversary

INT Thai Restaurant, afternoon. Adelaide.

LILI, MUM and GRANDMA are putting out place-cards at the table. A WAITRESS is doing something with prawn crackers.

GRANDMA

We can’t put Barbara and Ley on that side of the 

table, because they won’t be able to get out with

 their walking-sticks.

MUM

But if we put them there, then Auntie Peg won’t be 

able to talk to Mary.

GRANDMA

But if Peg is there, then she’ll have to sit next to 

Dennis, and she won’t like that.

WAITRESS

I don’t have a grandma.

LILI

If Mum and I are round there, we’ll have to clamber

 over everyone to get out and make our speech 

and run the slideshow.

GRANDMA

But if Kat and Brian are there, they won’t be able 

to go outside to smoke.

LILI

So?

WAITRESS

My grandma is in Cambodia. I never met her.

MUM

Put us on the end.

GRANDMA

Make sure you’re next to your Dad, Carole.

MUM

Wouldn’t it be better if you were next to me?

GRANDMA

Why?

MUM

Because you talk so much, and you’re stuck in the 

corner. Dad never talks to anyone, and he’s in 

the middle.

LILI

So why don’t we move them over there?

WAITRESS

You’re so lucky to have a grandma.

GRANDMA

No, because we can’t move Barbara and Ley. 

It can’t be done.

The WAITRESS starts to cry.

MUM

So let’s just swap you and Dad.

LILI

But then it won’t be gender-balanced! For the love 

of God, it has to be boy-girl!

SILENCE, except for the choking sobs of the WAITRESS.

Poetry

I'm not much of a fan. Oh, I like Aussie YA poets like Steven Herrick, alicia sometimes and Adam Ford. Sharon Creech's Love that Dog is one of my all-time-favourite books. I like e.e. cummings and Lewis Carroll and Walt Whitman and that guy who wrote the poem about eating all the plums. I can even recite all of The Lady of Shalott, and know that it's 'clothe the wold and meet the sky', not 'clothe the world and meet the sky'.

But I don't really like poetry. Mostly because of the way it's abused. In fact, the only way I would ever read a book about poetry, is if I found an audiobook about it read by Stephen Fry. Which I did, and so I am.

Fry points out the problem with poetry, using another highly-structured art form as an example. Music, he says, (and I paraphrase because I was on the train and couldn't write it down) may provoke an intense emotional response in the listener. But an intense emotional response is not enough to make music.

You don't come home from a crappy day when your boyfriend got runover and your cat ran off with a supermodel and think - I'm going to write an emo symphony about how nobody ever really loved me. You need to have some sort of learned skill that involves reading music or playing chords on a guitar or knowing what a 3/4 time signature is.

So it's not that all poetry is crap. It's that most poetry is crap. Your average amateur poet thinks that because poetry is constructed out of language, and language is something they have a grasp on - they can do it. Most of the time they are wrong.

This is the same kind of logic that made Heather Mills say that she thinks she'd be good at writing children's books because she has a daughter.

In other news, I'm planning a new career as an entymologist, because there are moths in my pantry so clearly I'd kick arse.

renovating

things might look a bit weird for the next few days. i'm getting me a website!

Five Awesome Things

Yesterday there was an unpleasant incident involving a very large dead possum, and a picket fence gate. It also involved me, some rubber gloves, a garbage bag, and the knowledge that I will never be the same.

But after having had multiple showers, I'm feeling much better about the whole thing, and am ready to focus on the good things in life, namely:

1. The Baby Formally Known As Figgy.

2. Cool Changes.

3. Long Weekends.

4. Hot Cross Buns.

5. YouTube (thanks, B!)

iPod shame

Today, for the first time ever, I experienced iPod shame.

Now, I'm generally quite proud to have some unusual things on my iPod. I have a large collection of songs from Sesame Street, for instance, that I treasure*. I'm even willing to admit I have a couple of George Michael songs on there.

But recently I've been delving back into the 90s. Why? Good question. It's certainly not because it was an era of musical genius, that's for sure. The reason is because I'm writing a book that contains elements of autobiography, so I'm trying to remember what it was like being 16 year old Lili. This process has also involved reading lots of old diaries and letters (the POETRY! save me from the POETRY!!!), and watching TV shows like this on DVD.

So I managed to get my hands on some Top 40 hits like this one. And this one. And this one. Oh, and this one.

So this morning I was sitting on the bus. Listening to my iPod. And a new song came on. And I looked down at my iPod, and saw this. And I quickly turned it over to hide the screen, because I Had A Shame. Please don't judge me.

Oh, and just to make you feel old: that baby, on the cover of the Nirvana album up there? His name is Spencer Elden. He's 17 now. Doing his final year of high school in LA.

_____________________________
*Who wouldn't want Steve Tyler singing I Love Trash? Come on, people.

The Crafty Wench Strikes Again

A cosy flowery scarf for winter... Pattern here.
A not-turtle* for Not A Turtle's Birthday. Pattern here.

And some elfin boots for baby Figgy. Pattern here.
___________________________
*because it's a tortoise.

Well done, sister suffragette!

Today is International Women's Day.

It's also the Centenary of Women's Suffrage in Victoria.

New Zealand came first with the whole women-voting thing, in 1893, followed by South Australia in 1902.

In Victoria, the issue was kicked off in 1891 when Premier James Munro said that he'd introduce a bill for Women's suffrage if ordinary women demonstrated they wanted the right. They did. They created the Monster Petition, with 30 000 signatures, in six weeks. The petition was 260 metres long, and several attendants were needed to carry it into Parliament. For some strange reason it took 19 bills and 17 years to actually give women the voting stamp of approval, but that's what happens when all the politicians are men.

The UK gave women the vote in 1918, but it had restrictions until 1928.

The US did it in 1920.

Italy gave women the nod in 1948, as did Belgium, Israel, Iraq and South Korea.

Switzerland didn't have women's suffrage until 1971, nor Lichtenstein, until 1984.

The most recent nation to grant their women the right to vote was the United Arab Emirates. There are still restrictions, which will be lifted by 2010.

We've come a long way, but while you're munching on your purple-iced cupcake and admiring your fancy new blue stockings, spare a thought for the women in the world who are still disenfranchised.

A Short Comprehension Test

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling would feel "exploited" if a fan's unofficial encyclopedic companion to the boy wizard series was published, she said in court papers made public on Thursday.

QUESTION:
Who's side is Reuters on, the billionaire, or the fan? Explain your answer. (full article here)

Anniversary

I have worked here for five years. How very un-Gen Y of me.

Garfield minus Garfield

What is reading?

I was listening to the audiobook of Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope this morning on the bus, and I thought Is this reading?

My immediate thought was no. Reading has to have words printed on a page. Then I thought of Shaun Tan's The Arrival, which has no words, but is definitely read.

But you don't read a painting in a gallery. Do you?

You do read:
-sheet music
-tea-leaves
-braille
-moods

Wikipedia says: Reading is the cognitive process of deriving meaning from written or printed text. I am not so sure.

Saturday morning rant (story v language)

I've been thinking a lot about the war that is being fought between story and language.

It shouldn't be a war. Language and story should work together. But people don't seem to want to let them, and so they fight.

I heard someone say recently that they didn't like books they couldn't put down. This person felt manipulated by a gripping plot. I found this astonishing.

It goes hand-in-hand with the snobbery towards mass-market fiction, chicklit (see Maureen Johnson's awesome post for more on that) and, of course, YA.

Nick Hornby has this to say:

“In a way, I think all books should be teen books. I can read them quickly without getting bogged down, and feel I’ve read something that was meant in the way literature’s supposed to be. They’re very digestible, designed not to bore people.”

But if you have a look at the kind of books that win the Miles Franklin and the Booker, it seems pretty clear that the literati don't agree. Literature needs to be dense, beautiful and obfuscating.

I love beautiful language. Writers like Margaret Atwood (pre-Oryx & Crake), Jorge Louis-Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And of course the beautiful-language YA writers Ursula Dubosarsky, Margo Lanagan and David Almond. But as well as having a truly magical control over language, all these writers also know how to tell a cracking good story.

Making stories is an art. It's difficult and complex and there are rules and structures, and if you don't want to stick to those rules and structures, then fine, but you'd better have a damn good reason. In my four years of studying creative writing at Uni, not one class mentioned the importance of structure, except of course, for my screenwriting class.

The story vs language brawl spills over into visual media as well. Film can be loved by our intellectual elite because of its 'language' - the cinematography, metaphor and mood. Television, however, is much more reliant on story. Smaller screens, heavily prescribed time limits, and a need for continuity mean that TV shows have more rules and structures.
But that doesn't mean they can't be art, too. There is often more thought, care, craft, put into an episode of The West Wing, Six Feet Under or Veronica Mars, than into a feature film of the kind that our intellectual elite favour.

I'm not really sure where this rant is heading. I suppose it's a plea. Don't be ashamed to read The Da Vinci Code just because it's mass market fiction. There are plenty of other reasons to be ashamed (ie: it's crap). Embrace your love of chicklit (and its cinematic equivalent, the romcom). Read a fantasy novel. Watch Battlestar Galactica.

Yes. There is bad chicklit. And bad fantasy novels. And books like The Da Vinci Code.

But here's a revalation: there's a lot of bad books, full stop. Some of them have won prestigious literary awards.

You will judge a book by its cover - everyone does. I certainly do. But I try not to judge books by what section of the bookshop they are shelved in*.

Send in the peacekeepers! End the war! Give story a chance.

_______________

*This isn't entirely true. I tend to avoid self-help and true-crime. But in terms of fiction, I'm showing the love for all shelves.

ZOMBIE IDOL

Over at insideadog, Maureen Johnson is putting to the test the theory that all books are made better with a zombie.

And you're invited! Transform a work of existing literature by adding a zombie. You might even win a prize...

Here's examples from Maureen, Justine and Scott. And here's mine, with apologies to Walt Whitman:

O ZOMBIE! my Zombie! our fearful trip is done; 

Our bodies weather'd every whack, the brains we sought are nom nom nom; 

Our lunch is near, the bells I hear, the people all screaming, 

While follow eyes the zombie reel, our onslaught grim and daring: 

But O brains! brains! brains!

O the bleeding drops of red, 

Where on the deck my dinner lies, 

Fallen cold and dead.

Sorry

Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

(the rest is here)