Misrule

I'm just home from the launch of the lovely Susanne Gervay's new YA novel That's Why I Wrote This Song. The launch was held at the iconic Bondi Pavillion. Susanne's daughter Tory wrote the lyrics of the songs on the novel, and has recorded, with her band Not Perfect, two songs from the novel. They've also got a video clip, which I blogged about last week, and it was apparently played on Rage this weekend past, which is pretty incredible.

The book was launched by Byron Williams, a member of musical collective The Herd and a youth worker with WAYS. Byron spoke really well—he talked about the importance of music to young people, the intersection of music and literature and how "the word" is no longer confined to the physical form of the book, but is available online, through music and through technology. He spoke of the importance of literature addressing the issues young people deal with every day, and how important it is for young people to know that those issues are recognised and valued through the literature written for them.

He also spoke about realism in fiction, and in Susanne's book, saying how she got the party scenes exactly right. Byron often goes out on Saturday nights in the WAYS bus, delivering pizza and water and cordial to young partiers in parks and at house parties, and he said that reading the party scenes in the novel made him think he was at work—"Does this kid need water? Those two are OK, I'll just leave them in the corner to hook up". Very funny, and very engaged with the world Susanne has tried to recreate in her novel.

Susanne paid loving tribute to her friends and family—especially Tory, for whom she wrote the book—in her speech. She spoke of the struggle it was to write this book—being the "oldest chick in the audience" at rock concerts as she researched the novel, and the fact that she put her writing career on hold to get it written (this is Susie's first published book in about four years—a long time in publishing).

A highlight was the presentation of a really beautiful portrait of Tory to Tory, painted by Jules Sevelson, the husband of Susanne's great friend Moya Simons. Alas, the portrait was whsked away for safe keeping before I could get a photo of it.

And as always, book launches are a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, and tonight was no different.

Best of luck, Susanne, for you and your book. Cheers!

"Not Perfect" perform.                                                             Susanne and Tory sign their book.

Thanks to everyone who left comments on my entry about voice in fiction. If you haven't read them, do. And if you have something to say, please add a comment!

Oh, and also check out my friend Monica Edinger's own blog post on the topic, inspired (she says, blushing) by my own questions, and exploring her thoughts as a member of the Newbery 2008 committee.

Monica's entry puts me in mind of discussions I've had with my students at the Sydney Writers' Centre. I set two (accessible) books for them to read so we have a couple of common texts to talk about, to reference and to test my "lessons" against: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Looking for Alibrandi. (We also analyse extracts from other texts—Saffy's Angel, Have Courage, Hazel Green, Benny and Omar and others.)

Monica writes about The Tale of Despereaux, observing that that same voice that I adore is equally detested by others; whereas I find the intrusive narrator amusing and witty, they find it annoying and pedantic. (The same could be equally said of Cassandra Golds' Clair de Lune, which was received in equal measures of delight and disdain. I was in the first camp. Disclaimer—Cassandra is a great friend of mine, someone who has taught me much about writing, and I launched C de L a few years ago.)

I chose TLTWATW because I hoped many of my students would already be familiar with it (wrong), and because it provides a good example of the classic heroic plot/journey. Somewhat unexpectedly, what tends to focus our attention in class is the (now) somewhat archaic storyteller's voice. We talk about the direct address of the narrator to the reader, which the students tend to be quite comfortable with—I suspect because it is the voice many remember from their own childhood reading. So then they want to know why it's "old-fashioned", and can you write in that voice any more, and then I have to address the questions of right voice for the needs of the story, how contemporary readers (that totally homogenous bunch, hehe) will receive it, how potential publishers may receive it...

It's a complicated business, the business of writing (for children), of getting published, of explaining complex issues hashed out by people deeply engaged with literature and writing on lists like child_lit to people new to writing and publishing and children's literature generally.

Thanks again to everyone who has participated in the conversation. More, please.

Congratulations to Agnes Nieuwenhuizen, well-deserved recipient of the 2007 Pixie O'Harris award for "distinguished and dedicated service to the development and reputation of Australian children’s books".

I bumped into Agnes and John on the streets of Sydney yesterday, so I knew something was up (die-hard Melbournites as they are, they had to have a reason to be in Sydney).

Oh—and who was Pixie O'Harris? Well, apart from being Rolf's aunt, she is an important figure in the history of Australian children's literature and illustration. Apart from her books, she also painted beautiful murals for the paediatric ward at Canterbury Hospital. And she chose such a perfect name for a children's author!

Good for you, Agnes.

I am preparing to write a feature review of Jenny Downham's debut novel Before I Die (for Viewpoint: On Books for Young Adults), and I'd like to pick your brains.

The defining quality of the novel, for me, is the narrator's voice. Yes, it's classic first person YA, but it's not a same-same, generic YA first person voice, the likes of which we've all read many a time. I know which aspects of the narration interest me, in terms of how it both constructs and reflects the novel's thematic concerns (or "significance" in thesis-speak )

But I've always found "voice" difficult to define and explain, both for myself and for my students. It's like that old saw about p*rn*gr*phy—it's hard to define but I know it when I (read) it.

My question for the good readers of Misrule is this—how do you define "voice" in narrative fiction? For writers—how do you define it, and how do you find it? How do you make a voice distinct from character to character—especially when it comes to first person? (So far in my own dabbles in fiction, my writing seems to have a similar sounding voice—which might mean I basically haven't found one yet, or else I have one voice and one story to get out there before I find other voices. Or else I'm just not much of a fiction writer!)

For teachers of creative writing—how do you explain it to your students, and how do you help them find it in their writing?

Fellow readers and critics—any comments?

And my fellow editors (am I still an editor? Well, I've got four manuscripts to read this weekend, so I guess so!). Accepted wisdom—you hear it all the time—is that editors/publishers are looking for a "fresh voice". What do you mean by that? What exactly do you look for and what rings your bells?

Big questions—maybe too big for the comments function, but let's give it a go. And please, try and be as specific as you can, even technical. Feel free to use jargon—I can cope!

I was deeply saddened to read of the death of the wonderful writer Glenda Adams.

I first came across Adams' work as an undergraduate student at Macquarie University—second year Australian Literature (1983!), taught by Mark Macleod. (This was also the first time I "came across" Mark, who later became a friend and colleague in the children's literature community.) We studied Glenda's novel Games of the Strong, and it was a total revelation to me as a young lit student. From studying this book, I understood for the first time the intersection of character and plot and what we used to call "theme". I understood how literature "works"—looking back, I now see this as my early introduction to narrative theory. It was also my research for my essay on the novel (I got a really good mark, I recall—thanks, Mark!) that introduced me to Meanjin, the long-standing (since 1940), leading Australian literary journal.

Some years later (1989/1990), when I was still a young teacher—given the remarkable opportunity to teach what was then called 3 Unit English in the NSW HSC—I used Games of the Strong to induct my small class of about 12 young women into critical/analytical reading. I was then enrolled for the first time in the MA in Children's Lit at Macquarie, and a keen young thing, absorbing lit theory and wishing to incorporate it into my teaching. (I remember a DISASTROUS lesson with my very bright Year 9 English class, trying to teach them some of the fundamentals of lit theory. "Good lesson, Miss", one of my nicer students said, sarcastically, as he left the room after an incredibly uncomfortable, painful and unsuccessful 40 minutes. Oh—does the pain and embarrassment never recede?!)

A happier memory. I met Glenda in 1986, my first year teaching, at a lecture she gave at, yes Macquarie. (I'm nothing if not loyal to my alma mater. And yes, Mark Macleod had organised the session.) I don't recall the details of the lecture, but I do know that I drove Glenda home from the lecture. Rapture! She must have been one of the first authors I ever met. And I (also—hey, it was 21 years ago!) don't remember what we spoke about, but I know she was lovely, and she left her sunglasses in my car. And so I had the chance to speak to, and to meet her again, to return those sunglasses. I was 22—it was such a thrill!

Glenda was also instrumental in establishing the MA in creative writing at UTS, which has produced some of this country's finest fiction writers.

Alas, my signed first edition of Games of the Strong lies a mouldering somewhere in the storage of my old school mate David Monaghan.

But how fortunate was I to meet the woman whose fiction changed me and irrevocably educated me as a reader.

Travel well, Glenda. And thank you.

I first read Kate Atkinson a few years ago—Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Human Croquet. I know I liked them both, but I don't have a very clear memory of either. (I'd reread them, but my copies seem to have disappeared. Huh.)

I was given Case Histories for either my birthday or Christmas a ages ago. I haven't had a lot of time to read for pleasure for ages—especially adult fiction—but now the thesis has been submitted, and I am commuting again, I can carry a novel with me to read on the train. Yay!

Case Histories is a wonderful and (eventually) satisfying novel. I am a big Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine fan (although not so much of recent books, which have been a tad too predictable), and Case Histories appealed to me in the same way that Rendell/Vine does—interwoven stories, explicable coincidences and the depths of human emotion, but without the delving into the depths of the darkest corners of the human psyche. The crimes recounted in the "case histories" are as grim and tragic as anything Rendell explores, but Atkinson retains a sense of humanity and decency that is sometimes hard to find in modern crime fiction.

I'm not even sure you could fairly classify Case Histories as crime fiction, although murder is at the heart of each the (eventually) interwoven tales of loss and grief. These are stories, and characters, to take to heart—not that you don't with the best of Ms Rendell/Vine (once a fan, always a fan... I'm nothing if not belligerently loyal). Nor do I mean this to be a comparative lit exercise—not by any means.

So, disclaimers aside, may I recommend Case Histories to you. It's a puzzle of a novel. You know, as a reader, that each of the separate case histories/murder mysteries will somehow intersect, as will the binding (third person) narrative of the private detective Jackson. For this reader, the novel offered a completely acceptable blend of explanation and mystery. Enough ends were closed to leave me satisfied—enough were left open to keep me happily wondering. I'm not particularly perturbed by open-ended stories, as long as there's a narratively substantial reason for it (I'm thinking of Tim Winton's The Riders here). Not everything that happens to you can be easily or happily resolved. Perhaps, nor should it be. So as far as fiction goes, a good read, a satisfying novel—narrative truth can lie in unanswered questions. Ain't that life?

Susanne Gervay's long-anticipated novel That's Why I Wrote This Song, which will be published with a cd of music by her daughter Tory, will be launched in a couple of week's time. Here's a taster from YouTube: a video of "Psycho Dad", the song from which the novel's title is taken. Look out for Susanne—she's the Mum in the photos and wearing sunglasses by the swimming pool. (If I were cleverer, I'd embed the video so you could see it here. Really must figure out how to do that... Jonathan???)

Susanne has been excited about this book for ages now, and I'm really thrilled for her—she reckons it's the first YA book to be released with its own soundtrack. (Is that right? I remember that Matt Zurbo's Hot Nights, Cool Dragons had an accompanying cd, althought both remain on my "to be read" and "to be listened to" lists...)

Regardless, I'm looking forward to getting my review copy of the novel. And the soundtrack will be available for download from August 1.

Lily and Marshall just got married on How I Met your Mother, and Lily (aka Willow Rosenberg) kept her own surname! Has the American sitcom dragged itself into the 21st century?

I seem to be mentioning Anita Heiss a lot lately—and why not—she's fabulous! I saw Anita yesterday at DET's first NAIDOC Week luncheon, where she was the guest speaker. It was a very happy event, particularly given this year is NAIDOC's 50th anniversary. The Welcome to Country was given by Aunty Beryl, a Dharawal Elder from La Perouse. She gave a rousing history lesson along with the welcome, talking about the Cadigal people who own the land where the city of Sydney sits, and let us know that Bennelong was still here. "If you're ever down at Circular Quay and you feel a shove in your back and you turn around and no-one's there—that's Bennelong, keeping an eye on things."

We were treated to a lunch catered by Thullii Bush Tucker Catering. I braved the crocodile (yes, it tastes like chicken) but my over-developed sense of anthropomorphism wouldn't let me come at the kangaroo or emu.

Anita spoke after lunch, and she gave us 50 reasons to celebrate NAIDOC week. As she said (as she urged us to create our own), an idiosyncratic list, favouring the arts and her own Wiradjuri people's achievements ("'Cause we're the best!"), but it was also a warm, funny and inspiring list. Her Powerpoint didn't entirely work—some photos not loading—so when she put up the slide of Four Gorgeous Black Men, she got four gorgeous black men from the attendees to take their place. (VERY funny when a rather portly member of the four lifted his shirt in honour of Nicky Winmar's iconic stance.)

Then there was a trivia quiz, and Anita made sure I won a prize "in the spirit of reconciliation" even though I left two words (50 Years) off the beginning of this year's NAIDOC theme, Looking Forward, Looking Blak.

Given the current difficult and controversial situation around the federal government's approach to the crisis in some NT Indigenous communities, it was fantastic to celebrate Aboriginal Australia, 50 years of NAIDOC and 50,000+ years of survival in such genial company and circumstances.

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Further to my entry of a few days ago about David Levithan's comments at Reading Matters about the state of GLBT fiction in Australia, Justine Larbalestier is keeping a list of titles submitted to her at her blog. Let her know if you think of any missing from the list and let's keep the pressure up!

(Do publishers and editors read these blogs, I wonder? Come on, out yourselves!)

Sophie Masson is guest blogger at Good Reading magazine's website. Sophie is covering topics such as "Unjustly Out of Print" and "Why I Write for Children". She's getting some fabulous responses to her entries, from some pretty awesome folk, so do check it out.