Zena Shapter's Blog, page 47
August 27, 2012
I won! A Knight Answers in Oberon 2012…
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve just won first place in the 2012 Oberon Writing Competition with my short story A Knight Answers. As the premiere adult writing competition of the Blue Mountains, the Oberon Writing Competition is one to aspire to win. So my jaw dropped when Anne Russell, the competition’s organiser, told me that I’d won… because I won the same competition last year too!
Winning two years in a row, I simply had to make the 250km trip from Sydney to Burraga to accept my award at the 53rd Annual Burraga Sheep Show and Country Fair. The atmosphere was electric as cowboys stepped up to receive awards for their sheep shearing skills and dog yard trials, local girls were crowned Miss Show Girl, and artists were acknowledged for their cooking, craftwork, photography, poetry and… writing!
For writing, there were four separate sections: narrative, poetry, junior narrative, and junior poetry.
Here’s me receiving my award in the narrative section (yes, it’s chilly in the mountains!):
Receiving my award from competition organiser Anne Russell
A certificate to some, a validation to me.
The theme for this year’s competition was “Tell Me A Story”, and I was particularly touched to win with A Knight Answers because, as my fans may have noticed, I rarely write short stories from the woman’s perspective and hardly ever write about relationships. Yet this story was both – so a bit of a risk for me. I guess sometimes risks pay off!
Me with the winner of the poetry section,
Celia Ravesi of Hampton, NSW
And here are some more photos of my trip to the 53rd Annual Burraga Sheep Show and Country Fair. It was a traditional country show, full of very real people whose warmth more than made up for the chilly temperature!
Burraga, New South Wales
One clever sheepdog and his sheep…
…another clever sheepdog.
In amongst the sheep.
Image: my six year-old son!
Having a whip-cracking good time!!
Beautiful Burraga.
Warm inside!
Thank you, Oberon and your fantastic 2012 Writing Competition…
I had an inspiring day at your wonderful country fair!
August 9, 2012
Me – on the radio – talking about my writing – Sunday 12th August!
Okay everyone… I know it’s very unlike me to post twice in a day, but this one’s important…
Earlier this week, I was thrilled to be interviewed on the radio about my writing, and I’ve just been told that the interview will now be broadcast this Sunday. Squee!
So if you’re near a radio at 10am (Sydney time) this Sunday 12th August, why not listen to me talking about my writing on Radio Northern Beaches (87.7fm or 90.3fm)? You can also listen LIVE via www.rnb.org.au/stream. How exciting is that!
Here’s some photos of the interview, so you can have a visual as you listen:
Me being interviewed by talk show host, Robert Salisbury.
On the radio – whoa, oh, oh!
Reading from “Trigger”, published in “Winds of Change” (Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, 2011)
Now, I can’t guarantee that I’m particularly eloquent or as fascinating in the interview as I am in real life (he he!) because I was pretty nervous. But we’ve all got to start somewhere, and this is my first ever radio interview. So please bear with me! At the very least, you’ll get to listen to the first of what I hope will be many radio interviews to come!
Fingers crossed it sounds okay – the interview went so fast I can’t even remember what I said!
“Ringside” is a weekly radio show about about the written word, with author interviews, talk and reviews of books, plays, scripts, theatre and all things written. Talk show host, Robert Salisbury, airs the show each Sunday, 10-11am, on Radio Northern Beaches (87.7fm & 90.3fm & www.rnb.org.au/stream).
Debating genre – is it so bad?
So, I suppose some of you are wondering why I’ve been asking writers this week: in how many fiction categories do you write? Well, I had a theory I wanted to explore… about genre.
Now, don’t roll your eyes. Yes, ‘genre’ is a topic that’s so often debated these days there’s hardly anything new to say about it. (If you don’t know what I mean, peruse this post here)
But I was supporting my author buddy Alan Baxter, at a talk he was giving at the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts called “Genre Fiction and the Advancing World”, and he summarised for the audience some of the usual grumbles. You know the ones:
Photo © Zena Shapter.
Inspired by cartoonist Tom Gauld.
In certain publishing circles, ‘genre fiction’ is considered less clever than literary fiction.
Literary fiction writers don’t even think they’re in a genre (ie. category) of their own, despite the fact that their stories share certain characteristics or features.
Two common features literary fiction shares are (a) beautiful writing that (b) questions the human condition.
A fair enough summary – only, after listening to it, I found my pen writing:
But my writing is beautiful
That’s why I write. I love the beauty of weaving words together until they create meaning and story. It’s also why I read. I love the magic others create with their words. And I read everything and anything. To me, it’s all beautiful – just in different ways.
Literary fiction stories do seem to share certain characteristics – not that I have the personal expertise to identify the right ones – but there’s no monopoly on what is or isn’t beautiful writing. Any well-written story is a work of writing art. Strolling through a museum or art gallery will illustrate that sentiment visually. All art is amazing. What’s beautiful to one person just might not be beautiful to another. It’s a question of taste. Taste alone chooses between literary fiction and genre fiction, just as taste alone chooses between romance and horror; sci fi and thriller.
So then if preference, and its interpretation, is all there is between fiction categories, and if no single preference can ever be ‘better’ than another (as that would go against the very nature of preference!), surely no debate wherein one fiction category is set against another can ever be fully resolved?
And yet, that sits fine with me, because I write in multiple fiction categories anyway. To me, discussions about genre fiction, literary fiction, sparkly vegetarian vampires or fifty shades of whip-cracking whatever are good, because they’re a way of keeping alive discussion about books. Yes, stigmas exist. But only because readers are so passionate about their preferences. Yes, fiction classifications can challenge the publication of cross-category writing. But anything that inspires the marketing department into launching something unique has got to be good, right? Because unique sells (when it’s good quality). And anything, anything that stimulates discussion about books, and stokes the fire of passion in readers is to be applauded in my view.
So you love sci fi but hate crime? Yay, let’s talk about it! What are the similarities between those genres, what’s different?
So you hate literary paranormal romances but love high fantasy? Yay, there’s another debate right there!
Am I alone in applauding such debates? Am I even alone in writing in multiple fiction categories?
I figured not but wanted to check, hence my Facebook poll (be a fan of my page here!). As it was, I was amazed at the number of writers who create in multiple fiction categories:
Facebook Poll, as at 10 August 2012
Thank you to the bunch of very clever and very talented writers who responded to my poll: Richard Harland, Pamela Freeman, Ian Andrew Irvine, Michael Pryor, Greg Barron, Mary Victoria, Kirstyn McDermott, Tracey O’Hara, Margo Lanagan, Jason Fischer, Felicity Pulman, Nansi Kunze, Gillian Polack, Alan Baxter, Laura E. Goodin, Jodi Cleghorn, Andrew J McKiernan, Graham Storrs, Kylie Scott, Beatrice Yell, Leigh Blackmore, Elizabeth Ottosson, Martin Livings, Lorraine Clarke, Hannah Raspa, Adrian Bedford, Sarah Bourne, Ashleigh Oldfield, Yvonne Horton, Colin Chadwick, Elaine Hillson, Füzzy Mijmark, Ciara Ballintyne.
From some of the comments made on Facebook, it’s clear that most writers love creating in multiple categories, experimenting across them even (which is why there are so many sub-genres). So I think it’s fairly safe to say that most writers aren’t themselves prejudice against rival fiction categories (otherwise they’d be battling against themselves).
Which leads me now to ask… do you think that genre debating is good for the discussion it provokes? Is it really so bad? Or do you think the disadvantages outweigh that benefit?
Let me know… in the comments below!
