Simon Groth's Blog, page 11

Recent scribbles

I recently wrote a couple of pieces for The Book Shed and for the Small Press Underground Networking Community (or SPUNC to you and me). I've only just noticed that both of them contain the word 'dead' in their titles. What's interesting about that is that I submitted both pieces untitled. The titles were chosen by the published blog editors.

Does that mean anything? Probably not, except that any mention of dead things in discussion of digital publishing will likely make the headline.

So the first piece was for The Book Shed , which is a UK-based blog so a bit of discussion around what's happening on this side of the English-speaking market world was in order. So in bumbles the Minister for Small Business:

Everyone tells me the book is dead. I'd love to declare the death of premature declarations of death. But, sadly, I cannot.

In this line of work, it is sometimes difficult to avoid grand sweeping pronouncements. I understand that. When someone asks you a question on book futures and the truth takes twenty minutes just to get a sense of the industry's complexity, it's tempting to dismiss them with the equivalent of "Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own", just so you can get to lunch on time.

"Look, the book's dead, alright? Where are those sandwiches?"

Though expedient, such statements are, of course, completely ridiculous (except the bit about the sandwiches). After all, the book has been in its death throes since the nineteenth century. The latest high profile talker to succumb to the ridiculous isAustralian Commonwealth Minister for Small Business, Senator Nick Sherry.

"I think in five years, other than a few specialty bookshops in capital cities, you will not see a book store. They will cease to exist."

Call me cynical (please do), but I thought politicians weren't supposed to say what they think. Independent booksellers account for up to 20% of the Australian trade, a much higher percentage than most other English language markets, and so represent a significant achievement for small business in this country. I guess we should just consider ourselves lucky Mr Sherry is not Minister for Health.

Read the full text here.

Zing! I wanted to continue with an imagined conversation with Nick Sherry, Minister for Health…

Minister: Why are we spending money on these people? It's not like they're still alive.

Aide: But they are alive. They're walking around, working, even paying taxes.

Minister: You can't fool me. I know dead.

But it was starting to turn into a pale mirror image of Monty Python's parrot sketch.

The second piece for SPUNC was on why those lovely scallywags called literary journals should not fear pixels, but instead use them to broaden their audience and influence.

She adjusted her glasses and took a deep breath as silence descended on the room. Her eyes were red, but dry, her chest swelled and her jaw set: bring it on. When she spoke, her voice was cracking but not cracked. She talked about her love of the printed page, of the bound volume. She pointed to many examples of print culture declining in the news world—closure of news rooms, consolidation of mastheads, low revenues. She talked of print being under attack, and of its advocates being proudly out of step with the zeitgeist. She talked of being in the minority and of being right.

'If you're here to convince us to go digital, you can get the hell out.'

She didn't say that directly to me, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't squirm.

The occasion was a gathering of small publishers and the speaker in question published and produced a small literary journal. As a writer with many contributions to small literary journals over the years, I felt strange and uncomfortable to be considered, even briefly, an antagonist to the little magazine. Really, I am heartened to hear that small publishers have no intention of walking away from their print editions, but I hope the speaker in question was kidding with all that digital stuff.

Though tempting, wholesale comparison with other industries are rarely of much use in divining the future of publishing. Even between forms of publishing, such comparisons are awkward and ill fitting.

Newspapers were always in the business of selling advertising. I assume, technically, they still are. They don't compete for eyeballs with books or literary journals. Increasingly, they compete now with news aggregators, friend recommendations, RSS feeds, and user-generated content, all of it fuelled by the free exchange of information established in the world wide web's DNA (and by the news's own cut-and-paste advertising-funded approach to the web for the last fifteen years). Newspapers traditionally had to be both comprehensive and timely, two things the ubiquitous and space-generous world wide web does far more efficiently and often for free. That's not to say newspapers have no place, but they have had to scramble to define what the printed edition brings to the table that a digital edition cannot. I'm still not sure they've solved that particular problem, especially when we see paywalls going up around the world.

And it's not like the advent of digital is anything new for journal publishers. I loved publishers who insisted (in recent years on their web sites no less) that submissions were sent in hard copy only until they realised they actually wanted to publish the piece. Then the writer received a polite email requesting a Word document. Most new journals and a few older ones have now dispensed even with that, preferring email or web uploads for their submissions process. Today's aspiring writers will never know the uniquely pitying smiles of post office workers recognising the signs of a serial submitter.

Read the full text here.

Oh those pitying smiles of the lovely people at Red Hill post office. One of them once wished me luck. Sadly, I can't remember if it made any difference.

Speaking of literary journals, another non-fiction piece of mine is set to be published in the next (Septemeber) edition of Meanjin. More on that soon.

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L'Odeur des Livres

I was recently invited to present a soapbox speech at Melbourne's Wheeler Centre as part of the Emerging Writers' Festival. So I took the opportunity to berate those who espouse the smell of books as a defence of the printed book.

Needless to say, it wasn't an entirely serious speech. But, at its core, it does have a serious message: the radical transformation at the heart of publishing presents an opportunity for everyone involved in bookishness: from writers to publishers to readers. Morose pining for an idealised past (that never existed) is not the way to face the necessary challenges.

At least that's what I think.

I See A Pattern Forming

I've been working on and off on a collaboration with fine art photographer Bronwen Hyde that we have called I See A Pattern Forming.

The premise of the project is simple. Bronwen and I find individual works—visual and text—that work together. Sometimes we will use previously created pieces; sometimes they will be newly minted. Sometimes the link between the two will be obvious; sometimes it won't. It's going to be a lot of fun seeing how things progress.

Though it begins life as a blog, we have an eye on a options to take it into the real world later on.

Bronwen created the cover image for the first series of 'mini-shots', a single-short-story magazine from Vignette Press, which included the gorgeous shot for Coda you can see here.

Click through to I See A Pattern Forming.

Keep checking back with the site regularly for updates. We hope you like it.

Speech at The Reader

I recently spoke at The Reader, an if:book Australia symposium on booky/digitally stuff. Hardly surprising that I spoke when I was the one organising it, but still worth a mention since I squeezed a few good riffs on digital publishing cliches via a drinking game.

Chugalug.

Simon Groth from if:book Australia on Vimeo.

Here Today Character Profile: Leith

This is a series of posts that profile each of the main characters from my first novel Here Today.

Big in heart, foul in mouth. Leith McAuley is Astrid's confidant and friend throughout the story. She provides some critical perspective, offsetting Astrid's hesitancy and doubt with spunk and a slew of profanities. Leith doesn't like therapists or hospitals much, but that doesn't stop her from meeting Astrid for lunch and guiding her progress in this most unusual of placements. But Leith has her own story to tell, most of which she keeps to herself until it's too late.

Just when you think you've got her measure, Leith surprises you again.

 

From the novel

Her hair is a shock of communist-flag red hanging in stiff lengths of straw around her face. It's a stark contrast to yesterday's green though it maintains the dull flatness of hair that has been dyed within an inch of its life.

 

'I was worried it would clash with the tutu, but it works fine.'

 

'Who am I to argue?' The tutu, a plate of pink meringue, may sit neatly over her legs, but it's awkwardly wedged into the back and sides of her wheelchair. Her black t-shirt bears the slogan punk: the ultimate conformity in neat lettering. 'I don't mind the shoes either.' They're a pair of heavily scuffed white high heels, old wedding shoes, no doubt fresh from the Paddington op shops.

 

'By the state of them, I doubt she was a virgin,' she smiles, I assume in reference to the former owner of the shoes. Without the slightest effort, she tips her chair back and pirouettes on the spot before cruising to the end of the counter. Leith coasts around in a PhastChair, light and sleek, painted hot metallic red. Large cambered wheels and rollerblade castors set off a compact titanium frame. It's the Ferrari of wheelchairs and Leith handles it with cool confidence, even though errant folds of the tutu are getting caught in the rims.

Here Today is now available in both print and digital.

Here Today Excerpt: Interview with Martin Finn

The following passage is an excerpt from my first novel, Here Today, an interview with Martin Finn as discovered by Astrid at Martin's own suggestion. It is the first glimpse of the character before his current 'locked-in' condition.

It was with some trepidation that I accepted the offer of a window in Martin Finn's schedule for an interview. The window may have been open for an hour, but twenty minutes was all I would get. It would be a classic of understatement to say that his reputation that precedes him: the writer who has famously used acceptance speech platforms to deride the Australia Council, universities, and a growing litany of real or perceived foes. His television interview with a popular female presenter where he reduced the latter to tears is now the stuff of legend.

 

It's a reputation he does not shy away from. Martin Finn is an imposing presence in the room. He carries with him the baggage of his awards and the quiet arrogance of the truly gifted writer. He folds himself wearily into the lounge chair and orders a doppio. He has positioned himself in front of a large expanse of window, presumably to hide his facial expression in a wash of glare.

 

'The marketing for this book is completely different to anything I've ever done before. Apparently I sell now.'

 

Finn of course is referring to the Black Ink Award for his last novel, the monumental Red Right. Readers of the novel many already consider a modern masterpiece will recognise the same hand behind his new novel The Sparrow's Nest. While Finn has dropped the politics and radicalism of the work that attracted the richest prize in modern literature, underlying themes of love, sex, and death remain entrenched in his work. Finn himself is circumspect on the thematic protractions.

 

'The Sparrow's Nest is a very different novel. It comes from a completely different place. A lot has happened since Red Right.'

 

Finn doesn't make this claim lightly. The day after the London-based Black Ink committee catapulted him into highest echelons of Australia's and the world's literary canon, Finn's mother died in a Brisbane nursing home. From there a series of upheavals rocked the author's professional and personal life.

 

'Let's see,' Finn says, 'there was the death of my mother, the switch to new publishers, the birth of my daughter, the unconscionable banning of Red Right from religious bigots in the Commonwealth Government.' He pauses a moment to sip his coffee. 'I'm sure there are more.'

 

What about the very public falling out between Finn and his long-time friend and agent, Miles Drewe? For six months the pair conducted a bitter argument through open letters, interviews and newspaper articles. Finn claimed his agent had been withholding royalty payments throughout his career. Drewe claimed his client was morally bankrupt, egotistical, and artistically exhausted after the cathartic experience of Red Right. While Finn may have been justified in shaming his former agent, it was Drewe's claims that had the greater impact, damaging Finn's reputation perhaps permanently in the process.

 

'I think I've said enough over the last few years. In the short term he probably scored a few hits, but frankly all I have to do to prevail is be myself. The tragedy is that history will remember poor old Miles Drewe as nothing more than the former agent of Martin Finn.'

 

'This of course assumes that you will continue to find success as a writer.'

 

'I'll keep writing. Whether success finds me now is part history, part luck.'

 

'Part history?'

 

'You know this. Big awards create an inbuilt audience, or so they tell me. I can trade on the success of Red Right for years now, even if I write complete shit. Not that it's shit, but it's all good news for the success of The Sparrow's Nest.'

 

'Are you saying the book would have trouble finding a market without prior success?'

 

'It would find a market, just one that's not so big. It helps to have a name on the cover. Sparrow's is a bit of a return to my earlier stuff. It was almost like puberty again, that fucking awful teenage angst. There's a moment in the book I took from my own experience. My mother died and I carried her body to the hearse. I was struck by a tremendous sense of dread, like a foreboding. I felt like I was going to suffocate. I watched the funeral director go through his solemn motions like he must have done several times a day for years. I wondered about people who surround themselves with death for their entire lives, about what kind of effect that might have on your psychology and how such an environment would impact somebody who is losing control of themselves.'

 

'In steps Elgar.'

 

'Right.'

 

'Would you consider Elgar as something of an alter ego?'

 

Finn seems to consider this for some time before responding. 'I identify a lot with him – I wouldn't have made him a main character otherwise – but alter ego is too strong and too easy. It's the kind of thing lazy journalists cook up then reheat over and over so they don't have to think. Elgar is his own man with his own foibles and, let's be honest, some fairly abhorrent traits that I'd never lay claim to.'

 

'This brings me to the claim by the federal government, following on from their objections to Red Right, that this new book contains graphic descriptions of necrophilia.'

 

'Fucking laughable, isn't it? Apparently they were too busy doing economics to pick up the most basic English skills. A government that can't recognise a simile is not a government capable of representing Australia. So they want to ban another of my books – one they clearly haven't read – from public schools? I say vote them out before they drag everyone down to their level of stupidity.'

 

'I want to come back to that image of Elgar acting as pallbearer and the vision of the sparrows. You open the book with a reference to John Skelton's Phyllyp Sparowe. Why did you choose this bird as the symbol of death for this novel rather than, say, ravens? What do you see as the primary role the sparrows play in Elgar's psyche?'

 

'You make it sound like the sparrows aren't real.'

 

'They are real?'

 

'Hard to say. No one else in the story talks about them, so perhaps you're right. But the reason the birds are sparrows? I mentioned my mother's funeral as one inspiration. The other was not so much Skelton's poem, but the ones it was inspired by.'

 

'Which would be Catullus.'

 

'Right. I think you're the first person to pick up on the Catullus reference. We should do away with journalists altogether and just talk between novelists. Anyway, I came across a dodgy translation of Catullus in an old bookshop and I was struck by how he was able to swing wildly from precision and emotional maturity to childish point scoring and what I can only assume was the filthiest of Latin that never made it anywhere near churches or schools when I was growing up. You've got to love a poem with a first line like: I'm going to fuck you up the arse and make you suck my dick. He was like a Roman gangster rapper, a master of subtlety.'

 

'So why not quote from Catullus directly, rather than Skelton?'

 

'Skelton seemed to have a richer tone to his poem than the translated Catullus. I suspect Catullus works better in his native Latin, but I wasn't going to open my novel with a quote in a dead language. At least you can still understand Skelton, at least if you read it out loud.'

 

At this point I glance down at my notes. I half suspect the kind of reaction I will get, so the next question fills me with dread. A few seconds in and I realise my anxiety is entirely justified. I watch Martin's eyes cool and his body stiffen as I plough on.

 

'A few reviewers have pointed to some of the more explicit scenes in The Sparrow's Nest to make rather salacious claims of a secret extramarital affair you have supposedly been entangled in for the past several years.'

 

Martin stands, quite calmly, and drops his espresso cup onto the coffee table with a tremendous crack.

 

'Fucking hell, at least have the balls to make the claim yourself instead of hiding behind some faceless group of reviewers. I'm sorry we couldn't continue this conversation. I was having fun,' he says simply.

 

I try to salvage the rest of the interview with a quick mea culpa, but the damage was done. Martin turned at the door to his assistant.

 

'Find out who this fucker writes for. I want them blackballed. They don't publish another fucking word from me, get it?'

Here Today is available now in both print and digital.

Here Today Character Profile: Martin

This is a series of posts that profile each of the main characters from my first novel Here Today.

Martin Finn is a successful and highly respected novelist. His credits include the monumental Red Right, which won the Black Ink prize a few years back. His most recent novel is The Sparrow's Nest, a dark, controversial work for its suggestions of incest and necrophilia.

Many would now assume The Sparrow's Nest to be Finn's final work. Following a rare form of stroke, Martin now has the condition called 'locked-in syndrome'. The resulting paralysis has robbed Martin of all voluntary movement save for vertical movement in his eyes. He cannot speak with his wife and he cannot play with his young children. He is reduced to binary communication: up for yes, down for no.

But Martin isn't finished telling stories.

 

From the novel

So this is it. This is what happened to Martin Finn.

 

It wasn't that long ago the weekend arts sections trotted out their tired journalistic clichés around disability: Local writer struck down by a handicap. But past the inches of newsprint, this is the reality. Gone are the fierce intelligent poses on paperback novels, the mainstay of the festival circuit, the creative writing lecturer.

 

For the first time I notice a communication board: mixed up alphabet, numbers and words and phrases. I assume at this early stage the phrases have been chosen for him: STOP, WINDOW, NURSE, DOCTOR, GO, STAY. I notice there are also names: LENA, CONRAD, SHELLEY. And right at the bottom of the board: NEXT PAGE.

 

He watches me smile a little. Blinks. 

Here Today is now available in both print and digital.

Here Today Character Profile: Astrid

This is a series of posts that profile each of the main characters from my first novel Here Today.

Astrid Reinhart is a young therapist taking on a short-term locum position in palliative care, the last place she expected to find herself. Usually, Astrid works in rehab, so how does she approach people with no hope of rehabilitating? Astrid is rootless and restless, never holding jobs down for long, never finding her place.

But things are changing. She has recently reconnected and moved in as flatmate with her old childhood friend, Leith, who fills her head with bravado and fuck-off philosophy. When she is approached by Martin Finn to help him write a new story, her immediate instinct is to say no, but she reconsiders and in the process opens a world of stories.

But Astrid has her own story and to share it means breaking down the professional facade she has spent years building around herself. Astrid has to make herself vulnerable before she can really help the people around her.

From the novel

Everything is so hot in here. My chest struggles to rise against oppressive humidity. Something has gripped my belly and is slowly, relentlessly squeezing.

 

Why is there even an occupational therapist on this ward? It's all very well to forget everything you think you know, but if that's the extent of the orientation, then it must rest on the expectation that a few dead patients will fill in the blanks.

 

The written material offers little more than the location of the fire exits. There's nothing in there about cynical eye-rolling masquerading as a communication strategy. Nothing about relaxation sessions becoming anyone's exit point.

 

Maybe that stodgy old script should include the last rites.

 

And the question remains: why does this ward need an occupational therapist?

 

'Astrid?'

 

(okay stop, think)

 

In therapy we broaden the definition of occupation to become inclusive of any daily activity. Brushing teeth is occupation. Making meals is occupation. Catching a bus is occupation.

 

'Astrid?'

 

Is dying occupation?

Here Today is now available in both print and digital.

Patience and Here Today

My first novel took a long time to write. The original idea occurred to me way back in the last century, but I took a long time to gear myself up for the task. Various needlessly elaborate plans were made, I'm sure, in that time. I began writing in earnest somewhere around 2002. I estimate the time from idea to first words was about five years. I finished (at least I thought I had) in 2006 when the complete novel was shortlisted in the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards for an Emerging Queensland Author.

It wasn't finished. Not by a long shot.

Everyone from editors, agents, readers, and anyone else with a passing interest in it offered advice on how to improve it. Predictably, some of the advice was contradictory, but much of it was beneficial. With the benefit of advancing years I've figured out how to listen to such advice. Usually the best advice is the kind you deep down already knew.

Another two years of tinkering took place with the novel finally completed in 2008. By my calculation that's around eleven years from idea to text.

Here Today began as a series of discrete stories centred around disability and set in Brisbane. Literary types would call the form a 'discontinuous narrative'; to me it was an easy way to break a daunting task like a novel down into manageable size chunks. It also meant that, while I took ages to write the manuscript as a whole, I could polish individual stories and offer them up for publication. With a few, I succeeded, which was encouraging. In 2004, the first story from Here Today, 'Heavens' made it into print in the Australian journal Overland. Leith made it out into the world the following year when 'Blackdrifts' was published in Island. Eventually, I realised I would have to link the individual stories with some kind of overarching narrative. As the novel progressed, the individual short stories became more tightly woven, which meant that a story like 'Frangipani' had to be radically redrafted (and retitled) before it could be published in Meanjin as 'Twelve Years, One Month and Thirteen Days'. Some other stories like 'Battle' or 'Sixpence' now seem far too dependent on the main story to carry them. It would have been nice to see those published alone, but they make far better sense within the novel. One that disappointed me was 'Rosaries'. I would have loved to see that in print and I would rate it as the best short I've every written. But it is kind of long and the really good stuff happens right at the end.

Nevertheless I enjoyed seeing at least a few of the characters entering the world while I still worked on the bulk of the story. It's a great way to keep yourself motivated when you don't know what the hell you're doing.

I was once told by a far more experienced editor that young writers frequently attempt to pour too much into their stories. I think the Grand Structure of my first novel speaks volumes. Is it a flaw? That's up to you, but if it is, it's a flaw I can live with.

Here Today is now available in both print and digital.

Reading at Outspoken

I will be performing a reading from Here Today at 'Outspoken' this Wednesday 13 April at the Maleny Community Centre. I still haven't quite decided which bit to read, but my inclination is towards a passage with vomiting in it.

Technically I guess I'm the support act for AJ McKinnon. I've never done a support slot before.

Tickets are $12 available from the Maleny Bookstore, 2/41 Maple Street Maleny or call 5494 3666.

Head over to the Outspoken web site for more info.