New England Writers' Centre announces a major new opportunity for writers living in the New England Federal Electorate

In partnership with Varuna, the National Writers’ House, and with the support of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, the New England Writers’ Centre is delighted to announce a major new opportunity for New England writers.

Applications will open on August 5 for the inaugural Varuna/New England Writers’ Centre Fellowship, which, through a competitive process, will offer the Fellowship winner a week’s inspirational writing residency in the beautiful surroundings of Varuna, in the Blue Mountains. The Fellowship package will offer full board and accommodation at Varuna, funds towards travel, a one-on-one consultation with a Varuna expert and more
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The Fellowship will be open to all writers, at any stage of their career, and working in any literary genre, who are either currently living in the New England region (defined as the federal New England Electorate) or who have previously lived there for at least five years. Assessment of applications will be conducted by a panel of New England-based literary professionals to establish a shortlist of three finalists. From this, Varuna will select the winner, to be announced in early December, with the Fellowship to be taken up in 2020.  For all details of the Fellowship and information on how to apply: see here.

‘We’re so delighted to be partnering with New England Writers’ Centre on this new fellowship,’ said Veechi Stuart, Executive Director of Varuna. ‘Supporting the arts in regional Australia is key to what we do, and we’re keen to be part of the rich tradition of poetry and writing that New England inspires.’ 

We are very grateful for the support of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, whose generous sponsorship has helped to make this inaugural Fellowship possible.  The Copyright Agency is a not-for-profit rights management organisation that ensures artists, writers and publishers are fairly rewarded for the reproduction of their work. Its Cultural Fund provides grants to creative individuals and organisations for a diverse range of projects which aim to enrich Australian cultural life.

New England has indeed many writers. I used to be able to follow them all, but that became impossible a few years ago  with all the growth. I hope that this initiative really pays off.

New England Writers' Centre You Tube Channel - an introduction to publishing and writing at the smaller independent end

Sophie Masson, French Australian writer and chair, New England Writers' Centre

I received an email today from Sophie Masson, writer and chair of the New England Writers' Centre. The heading to the letter email read: "Watch great interviews with fantastic Pitch Independent publishers on the brand-new NEWC You Tube channel!

The email went on:

Dear members, 

A new year, and we have a new and exciting initiative! The brand-new New England Writers' Centre You Tube channel is now up and running, and features 13 fantastic interviews with 12 of the fabulous publishers and editors who visited our region during Pitch Independent in August last year. There's also a video interview with Michael Webster, Chair of the Small Press Network, who also travelled to Armidale specifically for Pitch Independent, from his base in Melbourne. 

The School of Arts in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education(HASSE) at UNE partnered with us in Pitch Independent, with the Small Press Network giving in-kind support. Dr Ariella van Luyn and Dr Beck Wise of UNE, who work within its Writing program, interviewed, recorded and edited the interviews, with the approval of all the interviewees. Many thanks to them for all their hard work, and to all our Pitch Independent for giving so generously of their time and expertise. 

This is an absolutely fantastic resource not only for NEWC and our region's writers and illustrators, but also for anyone interested in the publishing industry in Australia and its thriving small and independent sector. 

So head over to the channel, and have a look and a listen, there is much to enjoy and learn:

I did indeed head.to the new channel and think that it is valuable. I think, too, that it illustrates a little of the variety in modern writing, in part because of the thing the series misses out. We live in a world that has ever more opportunities for writers, but diminished opportunities for actually making a living. Listening to the various pod casts, I did think that we were missing out on some of the things in youngest's world, the world of YA and beyond.

This is a world of the merger of media. Still, at the end you have to get published and a book is the tangible form.    

The rise and rise of the New England Writers' Centre

Under the energetic leadership of writer Sophie Masson, (web site here), the New England Writers' Centre (NEWC) appears to be going from strength to strength.

It's only a few years'ago that the Centre lost its State Government funding.and was forced to let its full time director go. I joined the Board at the time and remember the feeling of gloom that surrounded the Centre's future. It was hard to be positive.

I am no longer a Board member, but I was there during the beginning of the transformation period that has now made the Centre such a force, This was helped by renewed State funding achieved with local member Adam Marshall's support, but this was only possible because the Centre itself was transforming under Sophie's leadership.

Inland Armidale lacks the sex appeal and reach now attached to Byron Bay. With time, economic and social change its prominence has shrunk from the the putative capital of our own New England state to the point that it is sometimes described as just a country town. And yet, somehow, the city survives as a unique university, educational and administrative centre.

Armidale has always been a writers' hub. Relative to its size, the current population is around 23,000, Armidale has more writers than any place in Australia. It has its own tradition, its own writer schools such as the Armidale poets who form part of the broader web of the New England literary tradition. You won't find this tradition referenced in literary writing with its metro focus, but it exists. Armidale is not alone here, of course. The writers of the Northern rivers are also neglected. I think that you would find the same in North Queensland or the Riverina..

The thing that the NEWC does, I think, par excellence, is that it links local writers into the broader networks required to have a chance in the competitive world of literature. There was a period in the dark days when the NEWC focus narrowed to just Armidale. Now the Centre is again extending its reach beyond the city.

Even though I am no longer a Board member, I am just so proud of what the Centre has achieved in recent years.  Well done to all those involved.          

The poetry of Les Murray 1 - introduction

I have been reading Les Murray, The best 100 poems of Les Murray, Black Inc, Collingwood 2004. I have referred to Les Murray before on this blog, but this was is first time that I have taken the time to really taste his poetry. 

Wikipedia records that Leslie Allan "Les" Murray was born on 17 October 1938 at Nabiac on the Wallamba River, 24 kilometres south of Taree and 25 kilometres west of Forster/Tuncurry on the Mid North Coast. 

Today Nabiac has a population of around 600 and services the surrounding communities of Wootton, Failford, Rainbow Flat, Dyers Crossing, Krambach and Coolongolook.

Murray grew up in the neighbouring district of Bunyah. He attended primary and early high school in Nabiac and then attended Taree High School. 

In 1957 he began study at the University of Sydney in the Faculty of Arts and joined the Royal Australian Navy Reserve to obtain a small income. Speaking about this time to Clive James he has said: "I was as soft-headed as you could imagine. I was actually hanging on to childhood because I hadn't had much teenage. My Mum died and my father collapsed. I had to look after him. So I was off the chain at last, I was in Sydney and I didn't quite know how to do adulthood or teenage. I was being coltish and foolish and childlike. I received the least distinguished degree Sydney ever issued. I don't think anyone's ever matched it."

Murray developed an interest in ancient and modern languages, which qualified him to become a professional translator at the Australian National University where he was employed from 1963 to 1967). During his studies he met other poets and writers such as Geoffrey Lehmann, Bob Ellis, Clive James and Lex Banning as well as future political journalists Laurie Oakes andMungo McCallum Jr. Between times, he hitch-hiked around Australia and lived briefly at a Sydney Push household at Milson's Point. He returned to undergraduate studies in the 1960s and became a Roman Catholic when he married Budapest-born fellow-student Valerie Morelli in 1962. They lived in Wales and Scotland and travelled in Europe for over a year in the late 1960s. They now have five children.

In 1971 Murray resigned from his "respectable cover occupations" of translator and public servant in Canberra  to write poetry full-time. The family returned to Sydney, but Murray, planning to return to his home at Bunyah, managed to buy back part of the lost family home in 1975 and to visit there intermittently until 1985 when he and his family returned to live there permanently.

On his poetic inspiration, Wikipedia notes that twelve years after Murray's induced birth, his mother miscarried and died after the doctor failed to call an ambulance. Literary critic Lawrence Bourke writes that "Murray, linking his birth to her death, traces his poetic vocation from these traumatic events, seeing in them the relegation of the rural poor by urban élites. Dispossession, relegation, and independence become major preoccupations of his poetry". The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature writes that:

The continuing themes of much of his poetry are those inherent in that traditional nationalistic identity – respect, even reverence, for the pioneers; the importance of the land and its shaping influence on the Australian character, down-to-earth, laconic ... and based on such Bush-bred qualities as egalitarianism, practicality, straight-forwardness and independence; special respect for that Australian character in action in wartime ... and a brook-no-argument preference for the rural life over the sterile and corrupting urban environment.

I think that description is about right. However, what is perhaps less well recognised is Murray's role as a regional poet. He captures the cadences, the rhythms, of a life departed or now departing or at least threatened. He mourns and celebrates aspects of that life, descriptions that would be instantly recognisable to most people in New England, especially to those of an older generation.   

In my next post in this series, I will introduce you to some of the poems selected by Les Murray for his 100 best poems and link them to aspects of New England life. 

For Deborah Tree - a guided introduction to Judith Wright and the Wright Family

Back in July 2015 Deborah Tree wrote in a comment on a post I had written in January 2007, Poetry's Decline and the Sound of Words:

Hello Jim I have just discovered the poems of Judith Wright - a friend gave me her "Collected Poems" yesterday and already I've learned the first verse of "South of my Days" mainly because it was the favourite of my friend. As I learn the words and say them out loud, the poem changes for me; I become enchanted by the sound of the words (as you said) and the way Judith has woven them like a rose brier hedge, an enduring essence of a distant, simpler life of survival through hardship. There is romance in that, and in her love of country. I have a Wright journey ahead of me. Cheers Deborah

The photo shows Judith Wright in 1946.

I promised to bring up a consolidated post that might assist Deborah in her journey. This is that post. Because of the scale of the task, I am going to have to let the post evolve.

Context

Judith Wright was born on 31 May 1915. From then until her death on 25 June 2000, her life and career went through a number of stages.As she went through those stages, her attitudes and interests changed.  “You ask me to read those poems I wrote in my thirties?” she wrote in Skins when she was sixty-six.. “They dropped off several incarnations back.”

My primary interest in lies in her connection with Northern New South Wales, the broader New England that is the subject of my main historical work. I am interested in her as a New England writer and as a member of a family that played a significant role in New England history.

To my mind, Judith remained a quintessentially New England writer. That was where her views were first formed, although her later experiences and especially her relationship with the older novelist and philosopher Jack McKinney would exercise a powerful influence over her. Judith met Jack McKinney when she moved to Brisbane. He was a much older man, some twenty four years her senior, only two years younger than her father. They fell in love, moving to Mount Tamborine in 1950; daughter Meredith was born in that year. In 1962, Jack and Judith finally married. Four years later Jack died, leaving a hole in Judith’s life.

Jack McKinney was the second of three powerful men in Judith Wright’s life. The first was her father, Phillip Arundell Wright, with whom she shared a middle name. The third was H C “Nugget” Coombs, a noted Australian economist and public servant, with whom she had a twenty five year love affair. Coombs was again an older man, in this case by nine years. Both were major public figures. Judith was a widow, Coombs long separated from his wife. Both shared common interests, including Aboriginal advancement and the environment. Judith moved to Braidwood to be closer to the Canberra based Coombs, but the affair was kept secret, if open to their friends and the Canberra network within which they moved.

Each man had a powerful impact on Judith, but I think that it was the father that formed her core views. It was he that gave her that love of the environment and of the country. It was he that gave her that love, affection and unstinting support that seems to shine through in the letters between them. This image is one of  W E Pidgeon's (WEPs') portrait of Judith's father.

 I knew her father as a much older man. PA, we all spoke of him as PA, was my grandfather’s friend; my grandfather was godfather to his son who bore the same first name; my copy of Generations of Men carries my grandfather’s signature, bought in the year the book first came out. To me, PA was a somewhat remote figure. I saw him at events and at the New England New State Movement Executive meetings that he sometimes chaired. I and my fellow students at the University of New England where he was chancellor poked gentle fun at him for his sometimes mangled English. It would be a number of years before I came to properly understand his contribution to Northern life and the causes he supported. .

Judith loved her father, she loved the Falls country in which she grew up, she loved the life on the family properties. Her earlier works reflect that love, and then the joy she found in her relationship with Jack McKinney. Later, there would come a darkening of spirit, erosion in optimism, a rejection of elements of her past. 

Judith had the misfortune to be born a girl in an age when men inherited. Especially after the death of PA, she became separated from the properties and life she had loved, although the family ties remained close. Towards the end of her life, she saw the end of the Wright family empire that had been carefully built by her grandparents and especially grandmother May Wright. The ABC TV Dynasties program recorded the event in this rather dramatic way:

By December 2000, he (brother David) had lost it all – his properties, his cattle and his wife to cancer. His sister, the poet Judith Wright, watched in despair and died soon after.

That’s dramatic, but the loss was a profound one. Generations of Men is dedicated to the children of May and Albert, to her father and his brothers and sisters. The phrase generations of men comes from Blake’s Milton; the verse is quoted on the book’s title page:

The generations of men run on in the tide of time

But their destn’d lineaments permanent for ever and ever.

If you look at those words, you can get a feel for Judith’s subsequent sense of loss.

Six years after Judith’s death, David died suddenly. It was a shock. On his death, University of New England Professor Bernie Bindon described David as one of the pioneers of the scientific research underpinning today's Australian beef industry. "I can't think of a beef industry person” Professor Bindon said, “who's made a bigger contribution to not only the growth of the beef industry but the science that underpins the beef business," 

The Herefords .that formed the base of the V1V and V2V Wright brands began their life at Dalwood. It was Judith’s grandparents, the core characters in Generations of Men, who began the breeding program that created the Wright cattle. PA, then David and other Wright family members carried it through to the end. There is a whole story there.  

So, Deborah, you have begun a journey that can not only gratify in terms of the poetry, but which can carry you through into many aspects of Australian life.It's also a story that is sufficiently well documented for you to get to know the people and their connections.  

Structure

I will break the remaining post into three parts:

• my posts on Judith and the Wrights.
• the published material, including the locally published material that you might not find unless you know where to look.
• a short guide to on-line sources that I am aware off.

My posts 

The various posts I have written to this point are set out below. They vary considerably in topic and length. I suggest that you scan quickly, that will give you a feel, and then come back to those that interest you. I welcome comments.

• 1 August 2006 New England Wine Regions - Hunter Valley
• 12 August 2006 New England Australia - Writers
• 14 August 2006 In praise of Patrice Newell
• 22 August 2006 Death of David Wright
• 3 December 2006 On Travel Time and Our Sense of Space
• 30 January 2007 The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring
• 30 January 2007 Poetry's Decline and the Sound of Words
• 30 January 2007 Poetry's Decline Revisited
• 2 July 2007 Australia's Regions - are they really different?
• 13 July 2007 Manners and Society in Modern Australia
• 14 August 2007 Judith Wright's The Hawthorn Hedge - Regional Australia writers
• 19 August 2007 Australian Poetry - a few meanderings
• 1 September 2007 The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days
• 7 September 2007 Judith Wright's "For a Pastoral Family" - and "Skins"
• 8 March 2008 Saturday Morning Musings - Australian indigenous poetry
• 26 September 2009 The colours of New England
• 18 November 2009 Train Reading - S H Roberts the Squatting Age in Australia, 1835-1847
• 15 January 2010 New England Granite
• 15 February 2010 Page and Pooaraar's The Great Forgetting
• 27 May 2010 Regional traditions in Australian culture
• 4 December 2010 Social Change in New England 1950-2000 7: Judith Wright
• 17 December 2010 Ogilvies, Wrights, social change
• 26 May 2011 Writing multi-layered history
• 27 May 2011 Two Australian poetry resources
• 28 May 2011 People, biography & the New England tradition
• 23 November 2012 The deracination of New England poetry
• 14 May 2014 History revisited – Hunter Valley historical tour 2: Dalwood
• 29 May 2014 New England Travels – journeys through space and time
• 31 May 2014 Saturday Morning Musings – sidetracking through history
• 18 June 2014 History revisited – the shears stop in Newcastle
• 25 June 2014 History revisited – NENCO, Newcastle & wool sales part 2 
• 17 December 2014 New England writers – Introducing Binks Turnbull Dowling’s For crying out loud
• 20 December 2014 Saturday morning musings - planning for the holiday break
• 10 February 2015 Growing up in New England – four stories
• 18 February 2015 History revisited - vegetable gardens a fading necessity

To be continued

Collating the stories behind New England's writers

The Armidale Express has just featured Janene Carey's latest writing project.

Following publication of her latest book, A Hospital Bed At Home which attracting praise from author Helen Garner, .Janene hopes to take on the enjoyable yet daunting challenge of collating the stories behind the region’s greatest writers.

The new project will be in collaboration with the New England Writer’s Centre, and aims to showcase writers who have portrayed the region and its people, as well as writers nurtured here who have achieved fame elsewhere.

“It’s not going to be a scholarly book, it’s for a general audience,”Janene said. “So there will be anecdotes and snippets of [interviews] and hopefully [it] will be written in a colourful, engaging way.” From my viewpoint that's a good thing, for it will help give us the back story to the writing itself.

One of the people Janene would like to interview is Shirley Walker whose book, The Ghost at the Wedding, won the 2009 Asher Literary Award.

I haven't actually read Shirley's book. I have to say that it sounds interesting from the Penguin blurb.

"Three generations,two world wars,one family

The young men who worked in the canefields of northern New South Wales in 1914 couldn't wait to set off for the adventure of war. The women coped as best they could, raised the children, lived in fear of an official telegram. They grieved for those killed, and learnt of worse things than death in combat. They bore more sons to replace those lost, and these were just the right age to go off to the Second World War.

The Ghost at the Wedding chronicles events from both sides of war: the horror of the battlefields and the women left at home. Shirley Walker's depictions of those battles – Gallipoli, the Western Front, the Kokoda Track – are grittily accurate, their reverberations haunting. Written with the emotional power of a novel, here is a true story whose sorrow is redeemed by astonishing beauty and strength of spirit."

So much to read!

Postscript

This is the way that Janene wrote of her contact with Helen Garner on her blog. I have taken the liberty of quoting the piece in full:

Last week I went to a couple of public events connected with the Association for the Study of Australian Literature conference at the University of New England. Iconic Australian writer Helen Garner was a special guest. I spoke to her after a lecture on Judith Wright, and gave her a copy of A Hospital Bed at Home. As homage, really. I love her writing, especially The Spare Room. 

The next day, I went along to the other public ASAL event, Helen Garner in conversation with literary critic Susan Lever. When I arrived for the pre-talk refreshments, Anne Pender from UNE was chatting to Susan Lever, and she introduced us. Susan’s first words to me were, “Oh, are you the Janene who gave Helen a book? She’s been telling me all about it; she’s been reading it all day!” 

When I spoke to Helen before her talk my head was spinning so much that I can’t even remember exactly what her compliments were. She said something about the clarity and directness of my writing, and the way the emotion was handled. I suggested that she’d had a strong influence on my style and she laughed and said, “That might be why I like it!” 

Anyway, this week I plucked up the courage to contact her through her publisher and ask if she would consider giving me a quote for the cover. I thought it quite likely that she would refuse as she must be asked so often. But she emailed it to me within a couple of hours of receiving the request. Actually, I have two – what she sent would fit on a back cover, but I was keen to have it on the front, so she allowed me to trim it. 

So the front cover now says: “An articulate, practical account of the work of love in the face of death.” – HELEN GARNER.  

The longer version that has gone online is: 

“A quietly articulate, intensely practical account of the work of love in the face of death: a guide for the timid and a challenge for the confident.” – HELEN GARNER (Author of The Spare Room)

You can see why Janene was chuffed. By the way, if you want to buy A Hospital Bed At Home you can find out how here. I haven't bought my copy yet, but will do so next pay.

I want to write a little more about the reasons why I think that Janene's new project is important, why we all hope that she gets grants to complete the work, but that will have to wait to a later post. 

Growing up in the North - child and young adulthood memories

Growing up in New England – four stories is a note on four writers who grew up in or spent part of their early life on the Northern tablelands - Maslyn Williams, Judith Wright, Binks Dowling and Judith Wallace

New England writers – Introducing Binks Turnbull Dowling’s For crying out loud

Binks Turnbull Dowling’s For crying out loud (published by the author, Dorrigo 1997) is another of those autobiographical memoirs of early life and young adulthood that have so enriched our understanding of New England life and history. It’s also a good if sometimes confusing read.

The book is broken into somewhat overlapping chronological segments. In part, these explore and describe Binks’ life up to her marriage. However, For crying out loud is also an examination of her parents, their personalities and the complexities of relationship, seeking to understand. The book is dedicated to the father that she greatly loved, a father she rarely saw after she was sent to Kotupna at the age of five, a father who died when she was fifteen. Finally, the book centres on life on Kotupna itself, a large station in the Fall country to the east of Armidale and the heart of the large extended Turnbull family.

In some ways, the book is a story of loss, one replicated by other New England writers including Judith Wright and Judith Wallace. Loss of family connection, decline and finally loss of Kotupna itself.

There are sad elements in the story that made me uncomfortable, a reminder of the uncertainties and complexities of life. Apart from the story of her parents, I wondered about the inarticulate nature of the Turnbull men, about the break-ups and relationship failures. Sometimes, it seemed to me that Kotupna had become a devouring beast.

I know that members of the Turnbull family would probably not share that perception. When Binks asked her mother years’ later why she stayed at Kotupna, Jean looked at her strangely and said simply “But I was happy”. The love they all had for Koputna, Binks is no exception, shines through.

The book ends with Binks’ marriage to Ian and the establishment of a long and obviously happy relationship. The book was written because their children insisted. I am glad they did.

In the next post in this series I will look in more detail at the book itself. 

          

, 

New England writing - launch of Sophie Masson's Trinity series

Good to see that the first of Sophie Masson's Trinity series has finally found a publisher. I quote from her piece on Writer Unboxed:

This week, my new adult novel, first in a big new series called Trinity, is coming out.

I’m going to be celebrating even more than usual, because this one’s had a long hard road to publication, with nearly four years and several rejections before it was accepted. Even though I’m a well-established author with many books to my name, it looked like this one was fated to remain homeless. ‘Too different’ seemed to be the verdict. A mix of urban fantasy, romance and conspiracy thriller, set in modern Russia, it was outside of my usual genre of YA fiction, and clearly also outside the comfort zone of many publishers.

Follow the link above for more details. 

New England writing - Maynard on Lycett, Clarence Valley Women & Betty Mumbler's The Long Way Home

The AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies library facebook page is
a very good way of keeping in touch with writing connected with Australia's Aboriginal peoples. This post draws from the page to provide an update on writing linked in some ways to New England's Aboriginal peoples.

A new publication is john Maynard's True Light and Shade (National Library of Australia, 2014). Here I quote in part from the linked review.

"True Light and Shade is filled with beautiful images by convict artist Joseph Lycett that powerfully capture in intimate detail Aboriginal life, a rare record of Aboriginal people within the vicinity of Newcastle and how they adapted to European settlement before cultural destruction impacted on these groups.

(Worimi man) John Maynard writes an engaging short biography of Lycett and his life in Australia and follows this with a detailed commentary on each of the 20 images in the album. Each image is reproduced in full on a double page spread and then, on the spreads following, details have been enlarged to accompany John's text as he takes us through exactly what is happening in every picture: ceremony, hunting and fishing, carrying food (carving up whalemeat), land management and burning, interactions with Europeans, family life, dances, funeral rituals, and punishment. When you return again to examine the full image, you see it in a completely different light. John also includes written records from the time that corroborate Lycett's views."

Colleen Hattersley and Robynne Bancroft's Clarence Valley Women ( Clarence Valley Women Inc, 2011) adds to the growing volume of North Coast personal and oral histories.

The book incorporates interviews with nine Clarence Valley women interviewed, three of whom were Indigenous. Most of those interviewed had a very modest view of their contribution and were reluctant to draw attention to their own lives and achievements. "The diverse lives portrayed in this book represent a valuable insight into life in the Clarence Valley for well over a century".

Beryl Joyce (Betty) Mumbler grew up on a large property on the Tingha Road 12 kms from Guyra. The Dhungutti people (Macleay Valley) and her personal heritage fuelled a desire to record many hours of what the elders had to say. The result was The long way home: my Dreaming (2012). 

Betty’s Mumbler passed away before this book was published. She is remembered as a pivotal member of the community who was admired by everybody.  The Long Way Home: My Dreaming highlights the efforts undertaken by Betty as a bridge builder in the community, and the importance of reconciliation to her. 

Local writer Carma Eckersley helped Betty put the book together.The women met at a U3A Aboriginal Studies workshop and Betty asked for Carma’s help in starting the book. 

Like many of these books, The long way home: my Dreaming, had a limited print run. It's a real frustration from my perspective because it makes it so to capture and consolidate all the writing that has been done.

This is where the AIATSIS library is so valuable, for within its scope it does try to collect copies of all publications. Still, I could wish that there was a single point of collection for all the writings connected with the broader New England.  .  

New England writers and writing - the local historians

In aggregate, the local historians probably form the largest group of New England writers, especially if combined with the overlapping group of family historians whose writing often extends beyond the immediate family into broader topics such as station histories.

The first local historical writing seems to have been associated with civic events such as anniversaries. Here local newspaper editors such as E C Sommerlad in Glen Innes seem to have played lead roles. They were used to writing, were committed to their communities and also controlled the printing presses. They also wrote and published on a range of other topics through their papers, pamphlets and books, adding substantially to the total body of New England writing.  

In 1928, the Armidale Teachers' College College was established, followed by the New England University College in 1938. They brought the first trained historians to the North, while the students they educated generally came from the North and were interested in local and regional topics. This combined with a rising interest in local history. leading to the formation of local historical societies. The Richmond River Historical  Society was founded in 1936. Within twenty years, most Northern centres had their own historical societies. These not only provided local historical forums, but also began to collect records and memorabilia and to establish museums and displays.

Even in the 1950s, there were still very full local histories. This was not dissimilar to the position in Australian historical writing in general. An explosion took place over the next thirty years. By the end of the eighties there were hundreds of titles, most with very small print runs. General interest in Australian history was growing, but beyond that the existence of the Teacher's College and University in Armidale had a huge direct and indirect impact at every level in the process.

Not all the local histories were well written. Some were mere compilations of newspaper stories, catalogues of things considered to be locally important written in isolation from broader events. They provide a useful resource, but are boring to read unless you know and are interested in the area in question.  Others, however, are very good indeed. This includes both those books written by professional historians such as John Ferry's Colonial Armidale and those written by amateurs, if often amateurs with some form of study at the University of New England,

Note to readers:  This piece is a work in progress, the start of my attempt to define and describe the various threads in New England writing over time. I have over four hundred separate New England titles on my shelves, and i know that I have barely scratched to surface!                

Round the New England blogging traps 29 - writing and rates

I suddenly realised just how long it had been since my last run around the New England blogging scene, fifteen months! I have been monitoring, but not reporting.

In Clarence Valley Council rating by the numbers, North Coast Voices had an interesting discussion on the rate setting process and especially the use of the index of relative socio-economic disadvantage as one factor in rate setting. The piece includes a link to the council minutes, as well as the ABS statistical series presenting the latest indices.

Reading the Council minutes, I was struck by just how complex the rate setting process can be in largish geographical areas with their variety in local conditions. I was also struck by the apparent decline in land values within the Council area. The latest Valuer General valuations placed a value of $4.2 billion on rateable land, down from $4.8 billion three years before. That's a fall of 12 per cent.

North Coast Voices continues its environmental campaigning, including Screenshot from Metgasco Limited proposed unconventional gas drill site at Bentley, NSW. For those not familiar with the intensity of on-ground feeling, click through the link to the story in the Northern Rivers Echo.

Meanwhile, on Northern Rivers Geology, Rod Holland has put together a consolidated List of Natural Gas Posts. These provide a factual geological analysis of the different types of gas and gas extraction.

Up the mountain road from the Clarence, last year saw the death of one of Denis Wright, one of New England's best known bloggers. The last post on My Unwelcome Stranger carries Denis' final message, as well as the eulogy by friend and colleague David Kent. Denis really was a remarkable man.

Staying in Armidale, Janene Carey's Turkish Delights describes a recent trip to Turkey. Janene is a very good writer and a fellow board member of the New England Writers' Center. On Saturday, I had coffee with her in the Mall before my return to Sydney. We chatted about writing, including the difficulty of actually making a living from the craft. I described the overall trip in a post on my personal blog, A fleeting visit to Armidale.

Still in Armidale, Paul Barratt's On final for Armidale describes his flight into town. Paul has been on something of a nostalgia trip recently (A day trip to Dangar Falls, Those were the days). A bit dangerous from my viewpoint because of our shared links.

Some of my favourite New England photo blogs have gone into extended recess. That's a pity, because they were an invaluable source of ideas and inspiration. However, Julia's Newcastle Photo continues, again with an environmental theme.

Moving back to the Northern Rivers, Jan's A Tapestry of Life continues to give, as she says, "glimpses of an active, contented life in country Australia." That's true! 

Moving to the far west and back to writing, Nicole Alexander (blog here) was born and raised on New England's northwest plains. She calls it NSW, but I don't know that place! Her family property is located north-west of Moree near the Queensland border. Her new book, Sunset Ridge, is now out.

New England has a remarkable number of writers. Of course, the questions of just who is a New England writer or what New England writing is are open questions.

I must stop here. I am out of time!

Tina Sorenson wins Newcastle Herald second short story competition

Tina Sorenson has won the Newcastle Herald's second short story competition. According to the judges, its the missing details that make the story so compelling,

It opens with the unnamed anti-hero reminiscing about summer afternoons - from inside the boot of a car.

How did he get there, who put him there, and why? The story focuses instead on his regrets and remorse, and it works.

Awarding the story first place in the second Herald Summer Short Story Competition, the judges praised In for its sharp imagery and pithy, affecting language.

Second place was awarded to Jessie Ansons for The Deepest of Blues  which tells of a meaningful swim between two friends, while Alexandra Talbot's story of a brother and sister heading out for a night on the town, A Green Volkswagen  took third place.

The quality of the short-listed stories was so high, the judges highly commended three more entries: Smaller by Timothy Edwards, Turning Tide by Holly Bruce and The Swimmer by Mark Stroppiana.

Please read the Newcastle Herald story on the results - it includes links through to all the winning stories.

Establishing the New England literary tradition

Back on August 12 2006 I wrote referring to the writing of Patrice Newell:

This knowledge gap (on Patrice's writing) reminded me of one of my long standing hobby horses, the way in which the absence of any formal structures for New England prevents people recognising the existence of New England writers and other creative people. And there have been a remarkable number of New England writers including both those who were born there, Judith Wright is an example, and those such as Patrice who came to live there.

There are two quite different aspects to this problem.

Can we in any meaningful sense talk about a unique New England literary tradition?

I am not sure that we can. The writers who grew up in New England were certainly influenced by the experience to greater or lesser extent.

The Australian playwright and writer Alex Buzo was born in Sydney in 1944 and came to Armidale as a boy when his dad was appointed by Thiess as engineer on the Oakey Hydro Electric Scheme. His first play, Norm and Ahmed was produced in, I think, 1968. Alex loved Sydney life and escaped back as soon as he could, but his Armidale experience including his time at The Armidale School had an enduring influence on him and he retained his links to New England.

Some writers also tried to create unique literature in the face of what they saw as dominance by narrow Sydney intellectual elites such as the Balmain school.

In 1979 Kardoorair Press was established primarily as an outlet for poets based on the Northern Tablelands region of New England or with an affiliation with the region. Kardoorair's first publication was released in January 1980 and has been followed by sixty more.

Kardoorair along with Fat Possum Press provided an outlet for New England poets and writers such as Michael Sharkey and Julian Croft. Have they been successful in creating a unique tradition? Perhaps they have, although I am not aware of any studies on the issue.

This brings me to the second aspect of the problem I referred to. The absence of formal structures not only impedes the development of literary traditions, but actually makes it hard for people to access the New England experience, keeping it limited and fragmented.

The poet Les Murray was born at Bunyah on the North Coast and has now returned there. His early life and influences have had a significant impact on his poetry. The writer Bob Ellis was born in Lismore. Again, area and family experiences have had a significant impact on his attitudes and writing. The writer and academic Donald Horne was born at Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley. Ditto. Judith Wright was born in Armidale into a wealthy squatting family.

Each of these writers has had a different experience depending upon location and date of birth. Our inability to put them into a context, to see the commonalities and differences with other New Englanders, is a real problem. Indeed, many New England writers who have moved on would probably not see themselves as New Englanders or be able to see things outside a local context. Point local, counterpoint Sydney or national, with nothing really in the middle.

That was over seven years ago. Since then, I have learned more. Was there a New England literary tradition? Yes, I think there was, although it is really broken up into a series of separate regional or local traditions that interacted with each other in varying ways.

Is it correct, to argue, as I did then, that the absence of formal structures not only impedes the development of literary traditions, but actually makes it hard for people to access the New England experience, keeping it limited and fragmented?

My answer to this is absolutely. We have been cut off from our literary past because we don't exist in any formal sense. If you don't exist, how can you have a literary tradition?  In denying us that, they deny our birthright. I think that's sad.

New England Writers - Edwin Wilson

I love the interconnections I find through my various on-line activities. This is a self-portrait by Judy Cassab. A friend is reading her letters at the moment, re-sparking my interest.

I first came across Judy Cassab when I was quite young, twenty two in fact. Oh dear, that seems a long time ago. A friend invited me to a showing by Channy (Chandler) Coventry held in his Sydney motel room.  This included a Cassab. Channy had yet to leave the property outside Armidale to set up his gallery, but he was already addicted to art.

Judy Cassab was not a New England artist. However, in the exchange that followed my first reference to her, Judith Ross Smith pointed out that Judy Cassab had done a portrait of husband Paul Lamb,

I had forgotten that, and decided to search to try to find a copy of the painting, I could not. Instead, I found another New England writer, poet Edwin Wilson. Edwin came up because he went to Armidale Teachers' College and was taught by Paul.

I hadn't heard of Edwin. Now I have! He is a Northern Rivers' poet, one who has retained his links despite the need to move. Here I just want to record the links to two of his books. They are:

• Collected Poems
• The Mullumbimby Kid

I am very much into New England writing at present. I am trying to show both the depth and the way our writers illustrate the different aspects of New England experience. If we don't tell other people about our writing, how do we expect them to realise the unique New England elements? How will we recognise this ourselves? 

I will return to Edwin at a later point. Now, I just want to get the links down.      

Promoting New England writing

Chatting to a friend this week, I mentioned that I had become a board member of The New England Writers' Centre. I also said that one of the two immediate projects that I had taken on was concerned with the promotion of New England writers and writing. Are there many, I was asked?

Feeling slightly stroppy, I asked my friend to name a few Australian writers. As I had hoped, three of the four named had New England connections.

Back in September, I posed the question Should we have a festival of New England writing? My idea then was an annual event that might promote New England writers and writing to a wider audience and that might grow into a major event like Byron Bay. That remains my dream, but there are a few intermediate steps first.

One is to grow the New England Writers' Centre cash flow to support the promotion of New England writing in the broad sense, as well as the capacity to seed fund a major annual event. For reasons implicit in my last post, The forgetting of Newcastle, there is little point in looking for NSW Government funding. It is a little hard to explain to Sydney based officials why they should fund an activity whose key aim is to promote the existence of traditions independent of Sydney or indeed NSW!

This need not be the case, of course, if NSW Government policy was based on a recognition of diversity. However, it is hard to plan and fund in a world where mind sets require centralised uniform, integrating approaches with key performance indicators directly linked to those uniform approaches. What do you do when someone asks for money based on the explicit assumption that those centralised approaches are wrong, that alternative paths should be followed? It all becomes just too hard. This is not a criticism of those involved, simply an observation about the way systems work.

To overcome this problem I have set a target of raising at least $100,000 in donations over the next few months with a key focus on the New England diaspora. Why $100,000? This would give the NEWC the minimum cash required to operate for twelve months without any form of Government subsidies and allow it to promote New England writers and writing in addition to its existing activities.

A number of issues have to be worked through before such a campaign can be launched. At this point, I am simply giving advance notice. Expect more in due course.    

Should we have a festival of New England writing?

What do the following have in common: Thomas Keneally, Geof Page, Les Murray, Judith Wright, Alex Buzo, Patrice Newell, Bob Ellis, Donald Horne, Patrick White, Michael Sharkey, Julian Croft, Bob Herbert, Sophie Masson, Anthony Lawrence, Maslyn Williams, Yve Louis, Eric Rolls, Gwen Kelly, Bronwyn Parry, Sharyn Munro, Ruby Langford Ginibi. Patricia Wrightson and D'Arcy Niland?

They are a small sample of writers who have had some connection with the broader New England. Some were born there and left, some came to visit and wrote about aspects of the place, some came to stay, some were born there and stayed. Disconnected in place and time, there are yet common threads in their writing.

On Saturday, I went to see The Turning, something I wrote about in Sunday Essay - the Turning. Tim Winton is very much a West Australian writer whose stories draw from aspects of life in the West. Watching the seventeen short cameo productions that make up the film, each by a different director, I started thinking again about the New England experience.

One of the difficulties in not having our own state or at least some form of defined structure that people recognise, lies in the ways it affects thinking about the North. New England doesn't exist; consequently, how can you talk about New England writers? And yet, New England writing does exist if largely unrecognised as a body of work.

From time to time I have tried to address this, focusing on particular writers and the links between them and aspects of New England life. While I have made some progress, I find the lack of a focal point, some bigger thing external to my own writing, difficult. There is nothing to draw things together, to present to a broader audience, to encourage interaction between those interested in New England writing as writing.

This got me thinking. Would it be possible to organise an event next year focused on the theme of New England writers and writing, not just Tableland writers but writers from the broader New England. If successful, this might become an annual event.

Thinking this over, I messaged Sophie Masson, Chair of the New England Writers' Centre, with the suggestion. It would need lot's of lead time, some sponsorship and a strong organising committee, but it might be doable. What do you think?     

The deracination of New England poetry

From time to time on this blog I have talked about New England poetry and poets.

There is a common view around about the death of poetry. Newsweek announced it in 2003. Now Newsweek, or at least the printed version, is on its deathbed too.

Is New England poetry dead?

No, not if measured by output. There are more New England poets or poets with New England connections than at any time in our history. And yet much New England poetry has become deracinated, pulled out by the roots from its native environment.

Some of our poets and especially those from the Armidale school are themselves deracinated, bought to Armidale by circumstance, removed from their original homes, rebels against society, not at home in their new environment. Their writing forms one theme in New England’s cultural history, part of that history but also part of the poets’ isolation from their previous world. The isolation was formed then; Armidale accentuated it.

Beyond them, there is a problem not unique to New England but part of a broader malaise in which poetry has become an element in social angst, statements about the poet’s perception of the universals of life. Beyond that still are two further problems: poets have become disconnected from their area, while those living in the area no longer have access to the poetry.

The greatest New England poets, Judith Wright and Les Murray come to mind, have a deep emotional connection to the area’s geography. In a broad sense, their poems survive because they are such good writers that someone without context can still enjoy them. In a narrower sense, their words have continuing power at a much more local level because they resonate in our guts.

One of our challenges, one that has been partly met by people such as Julian Croft and Michael Sharkey, lies in just knowing who our poets are and how they fit in our own literary tradition.

The poets themselves may not see themselves that way. George James Macdonald, the Commissioner of Crown Lands who named Armidale, wrote poetry for his own pleasure and to ease his loneliness. He did not see himself as a New England poet. The concept of New England that I use as a frame did not exist. Yet he is part of our cultural history.

Outside the work of people like Julian or Michael or, to a lesser extent myself, no mechanism exists to describe our poetry to those living in New England. We have become as deracinated as some of the Armidale poets, cut of from our past.

I think that’s a bit sad, for it means that we are cut off from the words and emotions that give context to our own areas and life. Our deeper roots have been removed.

Postscript

Denis Wright pointed out in a comment that Kardoorair Press was still a going concern. They are indeed and long may they continue! Our joint blogging friend Neil Whitfield mentioned one of their recent books in his post Our River Days and the Croker Island kids.

The problem lies not in the content - there are more published writers in the broader New England that at any time in our history. The problems lie in access and the absence of a common frame. Access in that distribution channels for small run publications have decayed. A common frame in that the rising output is simply not seen in any context.

Kadoorair itself is part of the New England cultural and intellectual tradition. Again, who knows?  The Press's web site states:

Kardoorair's first publication, Loose Federation, was released in January 1980 and featured the work of Michael Sharkey and Julian Croft. Croft subsequently was a Commonwealth Poetry Prize winner and Sharkey a much published poet and respected literary critic. Kardoorair now has over 60 publications.

I mentioned Michael and Julian in the post. Living in Armidale, they and the other local poets including Anthony Bennett rebelled against what they saw as the dominance of the Balmain set. This is New England poetry and other writing, the need to assert against the dominance of perceived (and actual) small cliques who control key outlets and funding sources not because of quality, but of location.

Perhaps another post? 

History revisited - literature's window to our past

One of the big challenges faced by any historian is to break through the veil created by the present to that far country of the past.

The present determines the questions we ask of the evidence, but it does more than that. It creates an almost irresistible temptation to force the past to fit the past to present ways of interpretation. Yet the past is always with us, influencing us in sometimes unseen ways.

I referred to this in my last column when I suggested that Armidale’s history with its key interlocking threads of grazing and especially wool, government, education and politics influenced current life in ways not seen by those now living in the city.

As it happens, on Monday 5 November I am coming back to Armidale to talk to the Armidale North Rotary Club. My topic is Northern Images: landscape and literature through Northern eyes. In the promo for my talk, I said that would use a mixture of paintings, photos, film, poetry, literature and political symbols to give Club members a small taste of the changing ways in which those living in Northern NSW, the broader new state New England, have seen their world.

Last week saw the annual Maurice Kelly lecture at UNE.

Maurice, a tall, quiet and gentle man always interested in other people, founded (among other things) the Classics Museum at UNE. The annual lecture celebrates that event.

Wife Gwen who died recently was far more peppery. She was also one of Australia’s better known writers whose book The Middle-Aged Maidens,. a satirical study of life in a private girls' school created a real storm in the Armidale dovecots.

Like many writers, Gwen wrote in multiple forms and mined her own life for material.

I still remember the story that appeared in a women’s magazine about her daughter’s blond haired, blue eyed boyfriend Henry. Now the Henry in question was a particular mate of mine, and I think that she captured him to a T. “Hold this Mrs Kelly, and you will get an electric shock.” Hold it she did, and indeed she got an electric shock!

Both Maurice and Gwen were bought to Armidale through UNE, the education stream in Armidale history. Here Gwen joined a number of people connected in some way to UNE who wrote in one way or another about their Armidale experience.

Crime writer Robert Barnard began his writing career based on his experience as a lecturer in the English Department at UNE.

His first novel, Death of an Old Goat, was set in part in Dummondale University, and included the Drummondale School Head.

One later reviewer, put it:

As Police Inspector Royle (who had never actually had to solve a crime before) probes the possible motives of the motley crew of academics who drink their way through the dreary days at Drummondale and as he investigates the bizarre behaviour of some worthy locals, a hilarious, highly satirical portrait of life down under emerges.

The book is actually quite cruel. One of the funniest scenes is a group of local graziers sprung by the police doing a secret Aboriginal inspired rain dance to try to break the drought!

I have run out of space for this column. I guess that I will have to give you more in a later column on writers, painters, film makers and musicians and the way they saw Armidale and the broader New England.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 31 October 2012. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012.

Round the New England blogging traps 26 - romance with a dash of geology

On Freedom and Flourishing, Winton Bates What is the case for government funding of mitigation research? looks at the justification for government funding of climate change research. Winton was co-editor of Neucleus with me back in those distant days.

Staying with the University of New England, on Northern Rivers Geology Rod has continued his fascinating analysis of New England's geology and geography. To illustrate my point, have a look at Where the river joins the sea. One of the reasons why UNE was so influential in its earlier days lay in its adoption of a broader regional focus. Sadly, it still has to recover that.

Still sticking with UNE, New England blogger and Armidale Express journalist Janene Carey had a fascinating profile of local independent MP and UNE Chancellor Richard Torbay. In a comment on an earlier post, Janene asked me questions for Richard. Personal events intervened. But, Richard, I would be a darn sight happier if you were to come out with a broader New England focus including support for self-government.

If you go to Canberra without that broader base, then you are likely to be ineffective.

Mark's Clarence Valley Today remains a superb photo blog. It helps that I know the areas that he writes about quite well, but he just has some fascinating stuff. 

Published by Penguin, Cathryn Hein's new book is described in this way:      

When a tragic horse float accident leaves young showjumper Brooke Kingston unable to properly manage her family's Hunter Valley property, she believes nothing worse can happen. Until she discovers her well-intentioned family have employed a new farm manager for her beloved Kingston Downs. But stubbornness runs in the family, and Brooke isn't about to leave her home or abandon her darling horse Poddy. Working on the principle possession is nine-tenths of the law, she digs in her spurs and stays put.

You will find her blog here. Now Cathyrn and fellow New England writer Bronwyn Parry are doing a rather effective job in cross-promotion. 

Cathryn describes Bronwyn's latest book in these terms: 

Trapped in rugged country in scorching summer heat, pursued by ruthless gunmen who can’t afford to fail, Jo and Nick will need all their skills and courage to survive.

The national parks where Ranger Jo Lockwood works, on the edge of the NSW outback, are untamed stretches of dry forest cut through with wild rivers. She’s often alone, and she likes it that way until she discovers the body of a man, brutally murdered, in a vandalised campground.

I have yet to read Cathryn, although I intend to do so as soon as I can get to a bookshop. I can tell you that Bronwyn is a bloody good writer. She really is, and her sales attest to that.

I know that I carry on about this, but we New Englanders really don't have access to our own cultural life because we don't exist! I try as best I can, recently not well, to feed back to you some of the depth and texture of our life, but it's hard.

The broader New England is a natural historical entity in the way very few Australian areas are. We exist because geography and history dictate that we do. Yet I would bet you London to a brick, to use a now ancient phrase, that the Armidale Express would classify Bronwyn as an Armidale or, at best, a Northern Tablelands' writer.

The Newcastle Herald would classify  Cathryn as a Hunter Valley writer. And yet they write in a common genre, draw from related geographical experiences, are understandable to each other and cross-promote.

I always knew about the commonalities and links. I did not realise until started writing in detail about the North just how deep and unique our history and cultural life has been. And damn all Australians or even New Englanders know about it.