Merc's World - writing & ruminations

January Roundup

2012-02-01T15:36:00.004+01:00

Well, I’m having my ups and downs with acceptances and rejections, with my two micros bombing in Oz, but another being accepted in the UK for Carolin Smailes' charity project. The longer Oz bomb now has been neatly tucked away with artwork by Sharon Ratheiser on my Writings blog.

But I also have some exciting news I can share once the programme of the 12^th International Conference on the Short Story in English is up. And I’m really pleased to see Back Burning featured at Australian Writers Rock! I wonder if I could be considered a mid-list writer, since the book is still modestly selling since its 2007 publication.

On 16 January, I went to a book launch and poetry reading. Julia Latja-Novak launched her prizewinning research as the book, Live Poetry: An Integrated Approach to Poetry in Performance and Irish poets, Siobhan Mac Mahon and Neil McCarthy gave terrific performances.

Fred Leebron’s in town offering free craft talks/workshops Thursday and Friday at the University of Vienna as part of his outreach for a Pan-European Low-Residency MfA due to kick off this year. I’m sorry to miss these, but Thursday I’ll be on the train to Geneva for the 8^th Geneva Writers’ Conference where I’ll be attending workshops and submitting work to the eagle eyes of a critiquing group.

And when I get back I’ll be deep into preparations for my four flash fiction workshops at the Writers Studio here in Vienna.

Oh, and I nearly forgot - AstridL tells me she's been interviewed.

Gotta go pack now. More when I’m back from Geneva.

Hippo New Ear!

2012-01-08T14:57:00.003+01:00

Christmas came and went with a wonderful time spent with dear FrOz friends from Paris and The Possum, my Swedish brother and Dr Gugu. We had the tree, candles and wonderful food – traditional carp on the 24^th when Christkindel comes and duck on Christmas Day all done by hubby. I just had to wash up, which I like. The Possum is still with us and her Soume flew in for some quality time. It’s back to work tomorrow, but here’s a roundup of what’s been happening on the writing front.

On my Facebook page I ran a micro poll on what to charge for a Kindle or does it matter? Comments came from different places and off the internet, so basically what I’ve come up with is: price is not really a big consideration, nor do reviews seem to be. Quality writing and free samples so that readers can judge for themselves is what counts. This actually aligns with two things I like - the process of writing and giving it your best - which may vary depending on the stage you are at - and sharing. Some of this seems to be borne out by M.J. Rose (Huffington Post articles) when she says: "I'm seeing way too much conversation about what to charge for the book instead of how to write the book. My goal is to write a book so good that a reader will talk about the book and recommend it to all their friends. Quality matters more than ever."

In mid-December I was invited by Renaissance man, Marcus Speh, to join Fictionaut, and I think I’ve fallen in love with the place. I posted “The Burka” and am thrilled with the feedback, so also dared to post “Uncle Henri”, a revised version of one of Merc’s shorties from the 2007 Salway/Rees Your Messages project. There are some terrific poems and stories being shared on Fictionaut, and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on Fictionaut poet Bill Yarrow’s Pointed Sentences.

December also saw the last entry of Kaffe in Katmandu, but thankfully the archives will stay online. I’m grateful that my piece, That Day, appears there in the closing days. A new site, Letras Caseras, now follows the Kaffe’s footprints, and I’m happy that “The Burka” can also hang out there.

I had a bit of fun, too, and did a crazy Nutcracker interview and updated my post-Boot Camp information on Alex Keegan’s Boot Camp Graduates News page. His Blog is a great place for writing prompts, among other things.

I also sent of some micro stories to Australia and the UK, applied for a 4-day residency in Berlin (which I discovered via Western Australia!), finished reading Francine Prose’s wonderful Reading Like a Writer, and started revising Ambergris, which I aim to finish in 2012.

That’s about it to date. Thanks for hanging in with me and may 2012 smile on you and be full of bold HOPE.

Catching up!

2011-12-11T17:22:00.001+01:00

November whizzed by faster than a blogpost, so for a roundup I’ll have to consult my page on Facebook where the writing news is almost immediate.

First there’s the 12^th International Conference on the Short Story in English that will be held in Little Rock, Arkansas next June 27. The website is still a work in progress but the initial list of writers is up. It promises to be a great event and I’m also looking forward to hanging out with some writer friends.

Then there were deadlines – all met – and the waiting for news on whether or not I was able to write academically enough on creative writing. An impossible feat to my mind if you do a close reading of those words. Lucky I have some plastic fingers that I can keep crossed for the long haul.

Then there was a great little Schreibnacht I led using freewriting exercises at the Writers’ Studio in Vienna. One of the participants had her birthday and really made my day by saying she wanted to remember each birthday with a special event and so had treated herself to coming along. At the end of the evening it seemed it would be one she wouldn’t easily forget either way. And Writers’ Studio used my story, “Floating”, as an "epiloguelette" for Ana Znider's workshop on Social Media, which I though was a fun thing to do.

I was hanging out a bit on Tumblr, waiting to receive feedback on my NIP, Ambergris, from pro-editor, Debi Alper, and fell in love with Frankie Sachs’s post, An Indie Writer’s Guide to Picking Up Readers*. (Read somewhere in Francine Prose’s fabulous Reading Like a Writer that the correct way to place the apostrophe after an “s” is “s’s” hence the previous “s’s”.) Also got great feedback from Nik Perring on my story, “Anna’s Flags”, now out there in limbo. Which brings me once again to the need to invest in one’s craft. Hey, if Dr Gugu can hire a pro to smoothe out his back swing and help him get out of a bunker, surely my passion deserves to be treated, well, if need be, through my pockets.

Then there was Buch Wien and doing the rounds with my official translator, handing out (hard not Kindle) copies of Back Burning as my calling card for perhaps finding a publisher willing to have the stories in German. Buch Wien isn’t Frankfurt, but I did drop off quite a few calling cards.

Ah, yes, an exciting collaborative project hatched on Skype with a writer in Oz is on the books for next year. More on that next year.

Then there’s an interview up at Spineless Wonders in Oz and I didn’t even get into their anthology, but other great Aussie writers did. So, Escape is now on my wishlist.

And I signed up for the 8^th International Geneva Writers’ Conference in February which will do much to trigger new things and let me meet up with old friends.

And out of the blue, Digital & Literary picked up a couple of lines from my story, “The Wizard of Oz Revisited” and Kaffe in Katmandu reblogged it.

And finally for this November roundup, I’m proud to see my name listed at Occupy Writers.

Publishing news!

2011-10-20T14:46:00.003+02:00

Well, the results are in and I'm really pleased to say that my story, "Culinary Foreplay" was highly commended in Australia in the The Stringybark Erotic Fiction Award 2011 and will appear in the e-book and print anthology, The Heat Wave of ’76, which is available for purchase here.

AstridL might feel that I'm cramping her style, but she needn't worry too much. Her story, "Matilda's Waltz" is now available as a mobile download from Ether Books where several of my stories now live. So happiness all round!

Respooling August and September

2011-10-05T11:57:00.001+02:00

Time to catch up with my blog. August was spent in the wilds of Sweden near Norrtaelje living the simple life with no tv and no internet - just woods and mushrooms and water and collecting seeds for the spring. September was mostly Indian summer which is still continuing. A short stay in hospital which I made into some R&R and even managed to collect a sack of fresh walnuts from the hospital grounds. And a farewell to our lovely dog, Reglisse, adopted black lab/husky who almost made it to 17 years of age. She is missed.

Couldn't make it to Geneva for the Offshoots launch, but my contributer copy arrived and it is a fine anthology with a variety of pieces from international writers, as well as some great photography. And just check out those wonderful kudos on the back cover from Wallis Wilde Menozzi, Robert Stewart, Editor of New Letters, Thomas E. Kennedy, and Geeta Kothari, Fiction Editor of the Kenyon Review.

On the workshop front, a fun day with dental hygienists in Vienna and the secrets of communicating with English-speaking patients about all things teeth - my tooth fairy workshop. A big thanks to all participants for making last Saturday such fun. Last weekend was a blast with dear friends, one of whom I hadn't seen in 25 years, coming to stay and enjoy the warm weather in Vienna. A trip to Schoenbrunn and a visit to the wonderful Christl's in Stammersdorf rounded off a great menu.

On the writing front there were a couple of rejections, but also some good news with stories accepted for mobile publishing at Ether Books. So if you've got thingies like Iphones or Ipads, do download the Ether Books free app and pick up some short stories. Some are even free - one of mine and one of AstridL's. (Her story still tops the free bestseller list - I like the idea of something free being a bestseller ;) - and with all the sad news around, it's good that some sex still continues to sell.) My stories, "A Home is a Home" (free), "Necropix", "An Imaginary Friend", and "The Rules of the Game" (forthcoming) are all in the Ether Books stable. I'm also waiting to hear how another story fared in Australia. Decision will be 14 October. Fingers are crossed.

That's all for now. If I've forgotten something, then it'll have to be for next time. Got deadlines to meet now.

Kaffe in Katmandu calling

2011-07-16T20:00:00.004+02:00

I trod carefully at first, not knowing what I would find in that place called Kaffe in Katmandu. Existentialists, Dada? I've always had an aversion to labels. But then I saw:

"our members believe the world’s large enough to still many creative urges. urge begets expression – we do it daily, we don’t kill nobody, we like it meta and we do it online."

Now that was something I couldn't resist. The stuff there is all over the place. And it all makes you think, dream, float. I'm really pleased that some of my work has found a nook there.

So I started a new blog in the vain of the meta and that has a little back-door outrance from the Kaffe. It's called Merc's World - writings (can't escape the mercury blobs) and that's where I'll gradually be moving the writings from my blogbooks on this blog, the long and the short. I still have a few navigation lessons to learn, but the sea is calm and the barque steady, and I've got all the time in the world. So see you at Kaffe in Katmandu sometime.

Slow down, please! More writing news!

2011-07-07T21:30:00.005+02:00

After all the last ruminations on my hot and cold showers, I´m pleased with a grin from ear to ear that Twimagination has just tweeted my Mozartkugel story on the man´s chocolate balls.

And some more news - three of Merc´s Shorties (First Love, The Itch of Dust and The Frozen Tear - all from the Salway/Rees Your Messages project) have been accepted for inclusion in a charity anthology, Not in the Brochure.

Social Networking - a very personal take

2011-07-07T19:59:00.006+02:00

Firstly, it´s great! The technology is there to get your stuff out there. And you have to be serious about it if your aim is make money.

There are wonderful books about how to go about things and here´s one recommendation, a book already translated into a swag of languages. Jon Reed´s Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing. Why do I recommend Jon Reed? Well, I like to actually meet people I "know" on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn et al . I´d been following Jon´s work even though I´m an apprentice autodidactical nerdlette and was lucky to met him at his TweetUp at the London Book Fair this year. His stuff´s great and he´s really nice.

There´s all sorts of stuff out there that makes my mind boggle (I´m a cliche queen, if you haven´t noticed ;). I´ve been told I can save time if I tweet to Facebook and LinkedIn. Thing is, I´m not in a hurry, and the platforms are so different to my eyes. So different, that maybe they're all the same, just with other members added or subtracted. (Case in point, keeping up with MySpace which I´ve dropped.)

On Facebook I do whatever I like, but that got a bit much for some when I got passionate about how traditional media sat on the fence for so long about Egypt. So I started following Egypt tweets and posted them on Facebook and lost some real-life friends in the process. No worries. I set up a "writer page" where I try and keep the writerly things, but some of them slip over into my "name page". You can peek at the former, though, without even having to be on FB. Good stuff for lurkers. (Oh, and speaking from personal experience, blog "followers" often forget to come back.)

That being said, I get passionate about lots of things and I really am all over the place. Even the DSK stuff had me rooting for the maid. And when word came out that she´d lied, there was a lot of scrambled egg on my face. But do her lies make him less of a ….? (That idea came from an article on Twitter.) Which brings me to something else. Social media and politicians, and politics per se.

Some voices say, don´t trust what´s out there, and maybe they´re right. But it´s a bit like a waterhole gathering of yore – everyone´s got their own take. Up to you to make up your own mind. Traditional press had got to the point of making it up for you, often at the behest of the powers that be, now it´s the media per se with someone still trying to pull the strings, but maybe not your usual suspects; so I guess we´re all on our own now.

But with a difference. The information is out there, but we still have to think. We may make mistakes, as one does in real life when we jump to conclusions. But we have access to all the options, if we are really interested, at least where I am. So my question here is, are we really interested in taking things apart? For the sake of the exercise, or? Just spilling some thoughts now.

Anway, back to me and social media and promotion. I love the former, but am lousy at the latter. So be it. I want to be me. I want to step back and say to hell with it all. Too much like hard work, hard work to which I might be selling my soul. I´m past that, though never got into that t-shirt properly or I´d probably be a millionaire by now. But I am a millionaire. I have access to millions if I want. But, somehow that´s not what it´s about.

I´ve met a whole bunch of people doing their thing in writing – sharing stuff, charity anthologies, collaborative writing, selfpublishing, indie publishing, or simply sharing (although I´m unsharing lately on Scribd so that I can be in other places): people like Greg McQueen, Jodi Cleghorn, Annie Evett, Frankie Sachs, Marcus Speh and their projects, progressive indies like Ether Books, Twimagination, places like Women Writers, Women Books, Australian Writers Rock and Red Room. These I like. But I don´t need to hang out all the time.

So I´m not focussed, Jon, but I still think you´re great; even more so since you let me have your Twitter Cheat Sheet which, although very clear, I still haven´t really worked out. Not your problem, Jon, just my scattiness.

I guess it´s because I don´t have a goal per se except perhaps writing and having my words read – I´m a writer - and I like to do my own thing as I feel, when I feel it. Dear Margaret, still my agent, despairs that I will remain unpublishable. Maybe. But I know that I´ve touched one or two of you out there with my words and my stories. And, hey, that makes me happy!

I love social networking. Maybe, one day when I get myself organised, I´ll be using it as a real promotion tool, but until then I´m just gonna have fun. This is my way of wearing purple as I tip my straw hat to the "Warning" of Jenny Joseph. Onwards!

Father's Day in America

2011-06-26T11:36:00.004+02:00

When I saw a call to Red Room authors for a piece on Father's Day, my first reaction was to slip into my daughter's skin and write a letter to her Dad. But that wasn't what was wanted. Red Room's Gina Misiroglu was offering to shepherd pieces for consideration by Huffington Post's My Daily and they wanted personal essays on the father/daughter relationship, and Gina needed a complete rewrite within 24 hours to make the deadline. Thank heavens for time zones!

My piece, "Bisous Mon Papa", was included in the list of essays that was posted at Red Room on 19 June. Needless to say, I was thrilled that it was included. US Father's Day came and went, so imagine my surprise when the essay, with minor edits, turned up at My Daily on 23 June.

Interestingly, there's been a comment on it. At first I thought it was spam, but the writer added the words "no offence". I don't really know what to reply to the comment, or even if I should. But it raises a question about different ways of thinking, depending on where you're coming from.

As a writer, I couldn't help thinking about reader-response theory and: "Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates his or her own, possibly unique, text-related performance."

I'm grateful to Red Room for an opportunity that helped get my work before a wider audience, but also for making me ponder on the reactions to my work.

Novel in progress - Fremdenstrudel (German)

2011-06-10T15:47:00.004+02:00

My novel , Fremdenstrudel, is now listed under my blogbooks on this blog.

It is written in German and is a work in progress.

The first five chapters are posted. Please start with Chapter 1, the first post. Comments welcome.

Thanks are due to my trusty editors for catching my lingering "der, die, das" and other problems.

More happy writing news!

2011-06-03T23:34:00.003+02:00

I'm really happy that my story, "Riding the Killer Fish" will be included in New Sun Rising - Stories for Japan.

And I've also heard that two of my stories will be included in the anthology, A Long and Winding Road.

And I'm so pleased that my blog post, "My French Connection", is guesting over at Australiana.

And, to top it all off, I'll be guest blogging over at Women Writers, Women Books next week, so do come on by.

Happiness is ...

2011-05-15T08:01:00.008+02:00

Some wonderful things have been happening recently in my writing life.

Firstly, in order of happening, my paper entitled "Warming Up Before Sitting Down: from online to inter-face writing support" which I submitted to the 2nd International Conference on Creativity and Writing, held in Orivesi, Finland, in November 2010, has been included in the conference papers now stored in the digital archive at Jyväskylä University, Finland.

Then, out of the blue, I was asked to lead workshops in English on short fiction at the Writers´Studio in Vienna. Stay tuned for the autumn/spring programme. These will be nurturing events to help sow seeds of stories and watch them grow.

And thirdly, Canadian Darcie Friesen Hossack, author of the story collection, Mennonites Don´t Dance for which she was nominated for the Commonwealth Prize, has interviewed me on her blog with questions that helped me put my writing life into focus.

I have just finished reading Mennonites Don´t Dance, so stay tuned for my thoughts on this already acclaimed collection of stories.

It´s raining outside in Vienna, but that´s great for my garden - my writing flowers are blooming with happiness.

New Sun Rising - Stories for Japan now covered!

2011-05-03T23:38:00.008+02:00

Have a look at the terrific cover for New Sun Rising - stories for Japan.

This promises to be a beautiful book with lots of stories, poems, photos and artwork.

For a taste of what is to come, go and listen to the dedicated podcast by R.B. Wood. There´s an interview with editor, Frankie Sachs, and readings of the works of some of the contributors - a mixture of passion, insight, delicacy and fun.

A book to watch out for. Coming soon.

And while you´re waiting, do check out the New Sun Rising blog.

100 Stories for Queensland - it´s out!

2011-05-03T23:21:00.004+02:00

100 Stories for Queensland is out! The eBook is now available. The paperback will be available as from Friday. There are even pages to have a look at and read for free.

Freely pinching a line from Greg McQueen of 100 Stories for Haiti and 50 Stories for Pakistan - do some good by just buying a book! Hey, people, it´s for Queensland, with love from all over the world.

p.s. from the makers of 100 Stories for Queensland:
"Just a reminder that Queensland Floods coverered over 90% of the State at one time or another (or for the people of towns like Roma - three times in as many months). Let the focus not be on the South East corner but include those in the Far North recovering from Cylcone Yasi and months of flooding, and those in central regions and west."

100 Stories for Queensland - launch date 3 May!

2011-04-06T12:10:00.006+02:00

The anthology, 100 Stories for Queensland, will be launched worldwide on 3 May 2011.
I´m proud that my story, "The Burka", has found a home in it.

Stay tuned for purchase details.

100% of sales profits will go to The Queensland Premier's Flood Appeal.

And what a fabulous cover!

New Sun Rising - stories for Japan

2011-03-19T11:23:00.004+01:00

Submissions are being requested for an anthology, New Sun Rising - stories for Japan.

Deadline is 11 April 2011.

Send stories (max 7.5K), flash fiction (max 3 at 1K), poems (3), artwork, photography.

Here are some more details on what is needed - including manga and haiku (5).

One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to a charity currently working on the relief effort in Japan.

Authors for Japan - Auction

2011-03-15T21:06:00.006+01:00

The auction at Authors for Japan is now under way. Come and bid on a terrific range of works and offers donated by authors around the world to help the people devastated by the earthquake in Japan.

The auction will close at 8pm on Sunday, 20 March 2011.

Authors for Japan - can you help?

2011-03-13T20:02:00.003+01:00

A call for authors to help Japan.

Update 15 March: And also see call for submissions for poets, writers, illustrators, ...

International Women´s Day revisited

2011-03-06T13:25:00.005+01:00

International Women´s Day is coming round again and so I went to revisit what I said about it last year to see if my perceptions have changed since then. Much still holds for me and I don´t really think we need just a "Day" to raise awareness - awareness-raising should be ongoing.

I have become more aware of what people are doing and saying, and have seen that many of them are women. So please read about and listen to some women I consider to be very special people:

Sihem Bensedrine

Birgitta Jonsdottir

Asmaa Mahfouz

Severn Suzuki

Justitia caught in a bind

2011-02-25T00:13:00.001+01:00

Justitia

Lady, are you wearing
L’Air du Temps?

Will you cover the breast
of discord to pay for a peek
from under your blindfold?

The sword is heavier than you thought
when you first took on the job.
Then, the scales almost balanced;
you held them in one hand.

Now you need two.

-----

Published in 2005 in Cadenza, Offshoots VIII and Ex Tempore.

It’s never just out of the blue

2011-02-12T11:29:00.005+01:00

Over the last weeks and the weeks before I’ve been glued to my pc, any pc, and now I’m trying to work out why I have felt so engaged. I didn’t know anyone in Tunisia. I knew two persons in Egypt I consider friends. I had no family there, I had never even visited either country.

But nothing comes just out of the blue. When I started writing fiction in the early nineties much of my unpublished work dealt with events in the GDR, a country I had visited and one in which I had family and friends. At around the same time I had the privilege in my day job of working closely with the late Pekka Tarjanne and being exposed to his ideas about the right to communicate. Shortly before I stepped out of a career and into my present life, I heard the dissident Tunisian journalist, Sihem Bensedrine, speak in Geneva. Her words were powerful, but apart from like minds, no one was listening on that eve of the Tunis World Summit on the Information Society.

Mixed in with all this was an estranging from my own country, Australia. Then came Wikileaks, a trip to the Emirates, the Queensland floods, events in Tunisia, and those in Egypt. On the latter, I felt the traditional press to be slow on the uptake and so I turned to blogs, Facebook and Twitter for news. I watched for a while, and soon I had “news” networks of selected voices, alternative and traditional press. The world was changing: world politicians and international organisations remained silent, individuals and non-profits were filling the void, exercising their right to communicate. Wikileaks, Common Dreams, Salon, Antony Loewenstein, among others, including individual reporters, Al Jazeera and, yes, Anonymous, became trusted sources of information.

I thought for a moment that the world would be a better place without politicians, but this of course is extremely naïve. Could it be then that it’s no longer just within the realm of countries, nor even corporations as such? Could it be a simple matter of certain “clubs” of unseen individuals, with their own international networks, persons and groupings who are desperate to maintain the status quo and who give a whole new meaning to “the buck stops here”?

Wikileaks has exposed, is exposing, the greed and the lies, the wheeling, dealing and puppeteering, but it is the youth of Egypt, in their dignity, courage, determination, and with humour, who have charted our way towards a new inclusive humanity. For this I thank them from the bottom of my heart, on behalf of my own daughter, and on behalf of the child I once was and still am.

100 Stories for Queensland

2011-02-07T11:23:00.006+01:00

My story, "The Burka" will be included in 100 Stories for Queensland, a charity anthology of short stories following in the footsteps of 100 Stories for Haiti and 50 Stories for Pakistan. 100% of sales profits go to The Queensland Premier's Flood Appeal.

"The Burka" was a finalist at Red Room´s Scandalously Short Story Contest in October 2010.

When in January 2010, Greg McQueen called out to writers around the world to submit stories to help Haiti and, in the same year, Pakistan, he proved that passion can indeed make possible.

Jodi Cleghorn and her team keep that passion alive with 100 Stories for Queensland which will be released on 8 March 2011.

I am very proud to be part of this project.

Call for papers - 11th EASA Conference - Crossing the Borders

2011-01-17T10:48:00.005+01:00

Information and call for papers for the 11th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Studies on Australia (EASA), University of Presov, Slovakia, September 12-15, 2011.

Crossing the Borders: Reality, desire and imagination in Australian, New Zealand and the Pacific lives, literatures and cultures.

Deadline for abstracts: 30 March 2011.

100 Stories for Queensland: Writers across the world rally for flood victims

2011-01-17T09:12:00.004+01:00

"Brisbane, Australia 14^th January, 2011, 10:40pm – unprecedented flooding in the Australian state brings the worldwide writing and publishing community together in the charity anthology 100 Stories for Queensland."

Submit stories (500 - 1000 words) by 28 January 2011 to participate in this initiative.

Read the press release for details and see the submission guidelines.

This could be you

2011-01-11T20:15:00.004+01:00

I´m shocked by what´s happening in Queensland and what's in store for Brisbane, Australia´s third largest city. But it´s driving home what people I don´t know in places like New Orleans, Haiti, Pakistan, Poland, Austria, China, and god knows where else must have felt when they lost loved ones and everything they had. And it makes it so clear that we are all in this together.

It is our world and we´re screwing it up. We´re looking the other way, turning on our TV and eating our chips. That´s the news. Change the channel. We don´t want to hear bad news. We want to live in our comfortable world, not make any waves, not see any waves. Oh, yes, argue about the budget and what cuts we might face and gripe about that. But such a lage majority is silent when it comes to speaking up, saying that something is terribly wrong, that climate change talks, for example, are steered by "I´m all right, Jack" and I want stay that way. Après moi le deluge. But the deluge is already here.

They´re rising up in Tunisia, getting killed, and how long does it take for world opinion to react? The list is so long of places where there is strife, where people are suffering, where we aren´t reacting, can´t find the scissors to cut the red tape, don´t even wonder where they are. But there´s always someone around ready to make a buck out of the misery; it´s even in the politics of national security, protecting the status quo.

And when the leaks come, and the floods, what you hear loudest are the cries of the lynch mobs. And the issue is not how many have died, but how not to lose face.

The irony of it all is that the face will always be there and will be staring back at you from the mirror despite all the makeup that you think let´s you say, it wasn´t me.

Respooling December and January

2011-01-08T11:41:00.008+01:00

It´s been a while since I blogged, but that´s probably because I´ve been spending my time back on Facebook - yes, I went back. I also went back to Twitter, but only to follow selected tweets. Yes, I support Wikileaks and am probably driving many of my FB friends mad with my repostings from Anonymous and Wikileak s and Defend Julian Assange. I also discovered the blog of a young Australian journalist, Antony Loewenstein, and I regularly check in to see what he says.

Apart from a terrific online workshop which ended in December, a story submission and my FB writings, not much has happened on the writing front. But a lot has been happening in my head on how to structure my novel in progress, one I´ve been working on for almost ten years. And I´m pleased to say that things are now coming together in my mind. Of course, it won´t attract publishers and my agent will probably be wringing the proverbial hands, but I am becoming convinced that the way to go is to break out of the boxes of genre and bookshop pigeonholing, and as in life, mix the lot, since I feel that´s what is needed. Clear as mud, eh?

The developments around Wikileaks had me thinking about internet governance (is everyone bought?), international organizations (ditto), grass roots movements (can they really?), diplomacy and what it masquerades as (you answer that), fear, courage, showing and telling, and how literature and stories have always shown a way forward - 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, Pride and Prejudice, ....

My dear mother used to say that anything the human mind can envisage will be possible, the good and the bad. What she didn´t tell me was that no envisioning is the worst thing of all. Apathy kills. But I´m also realising that fear masquerades as apathy. Don´t rock the boat. Sure, there are voices warning kids not to post crazy pix on Facebook et al because further down the line they´ll come back to haunt them. But taking this to an extreme of not speaking one´s mind for fear of which future boss might or might not hire you as they trawl the internet for secrets, fosters a paranoia that can brake dissent and condition future attitudes. But then, I´m no longer young with the world´s oyster before me. Crazy expression: the world is your oyster. Specific boundaries, the promise of pearl. No leaks.

People used to talk about information overload, but maybe that was because all the information was coming from the same places. I don´t seem to hear the word "overload" in that sense anymore. The more you pick through it and find that news in one place is not the same as news in another, depending on the mouthpiece, then you start wondering and wanting to know more. Rupert Murdoch certainly tries hard, but he looks like he may be up against those he tried to dumb down to. The US is cranky about all the leaks (I guess that´s halfway between fuming and shoulder shrugging) yet the two extremes and actions that show what the words are really about - not so secret subpoenas, not so secret urgings to toe the line - reveal the chinks in the armour, the see-through clothes.

I like Julian Assange. There´s no going back now. There´ll be leaks all over in some way or another from here on in. These and future leaks, regional, national, in areas of politics, science, art, commerce, will eventually show that "ethics" cannot just be a buzzword to which one pays lip service.

My wish for 2011 and beyond? More transparency and understanding. Less apathy. More courage. Connect the world and stop disconnecting.

These were some of the thoughts buzzing through my head in December and January in Vienna, Sydney, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, all places where I experienced tremendous generosity and am so happy and fortunate to have such good friends.

My smell paper published!

2010-10-21T10:20:00.003+02:00

I am thrilled to announce that my paper, "Olfactory Imagery in the Australian Lives in Selected Short Stories of Janette Turner Hospital" has now been published in Vol. 2 of Australian Studies, the online journal of the British Australian Studies Association (BASA).

The original paper was presented in 2006 in Cornwall at the BASA Conference on Australian Lives and led to the completion of my PhD thesis at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, in 2009.

I am grateful to all those who stood by me and supported me, both personally and academically, during my studies and hope that my insights will give rise to further research by scholars interested in the links between olfaction, literary works, expatriation, belonging and, most importantly for me, just longing to "be".

The Burka in the top ten - Update! October 17th

2010-10-13T08:54:00.006+02:00

I´m thrilled to announce that my story, "The Burka", is a semi-finalist in Red Room´s Scandalously Short Story Contest.

Update!! Update!! October 17th.
"The Burka" made it to the top 5! There were some wonderful stories. Read about the winners and link on to their stories from here.

Vienna elections

2010-10-10T21:17:00.005+02:00

The people have decided.

An ill wind is blowing over Europe, blurring borders and boundaries, but its lines are clear.

Poems & Stories - Reading in Vienna

2010-10-07T14:49:00.004+02:00

INVITATION

Poems and Stories

Readings in English by

Michaela Gabriel, Austria

- her poems have been published internationally and in numerous chapbooks ("apples for adam", "the secret meanings of greek letters", "small confessions & pebbles of regret").

Sylvia Petter, Australia

- her stories have been widely published online and in print, and in her collections,

The Past Present and Back Burning.

Sunday, 17th October 2010 – 17:00 to 20:00

Cafe Fichtl

Schloßhoferstrasse 30,

1210 Wien Floridsdorf (one block from U6)

€pe?

2010-10-06T14:12:00.001+02:00

Ten years ago, the EU imposed sanctions on Austria for inclusion of its right-wing party, FPÖ, in Government. Today, the EU is silent on the swing to the right or right-wing thinking in the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, France, etc.

Maybe we should now write €pean. Or perhaps reflect on some preambular words:

"Conscious of its spiritual and moral heritage, the Union is founded on the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity; ..." EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

50 Stories for Pakistan - a priority

2010-09-26T09:59:00.005+02:00

There´s been lots happening since I last posted, so I´ll have to resort to some respoolings again. But some things take priority, things like Greg McQueen´s latest project, 50 Stories for Pakistan.

Following on from 100 Stories for Haiti, Greg has launched a new project to help the Red Cross Pakistan Floods Appeal. I´m proud to be on board again and this time together with my fellow Aussie from Vienna Writers, Paul Malone. I´m also happy that my story, "Trashion Passion", was chosen. It is an example of online crosspollinating: inspired by Outsapop, a Finnish recycling designer, and triggered by Sarah Salway and Lynne Rees in the Your Messages project.

Greg´s intiatives show that one man can make a difference and that he can help writers make a difference. Look out for the book, buy it and make a difference, too.

The 2nd International Conference on Creativity and Writing, November 19 to 22, 2010

2010-08-13T10:30:00.003+02:00

I´ve just heard that I´ve had a paper accepted for presentation at the 2nd International Conference on Creativity and Writing, November 19 to 22, 2010 in Orivesi, Finland. Back in 1972, I had my first real job in Helsinki, also in November, so I´m looking forward to the winter experience again which I am sure will be very warm.

Topics of the Conference are: ideas, experiences, methods, philosophy, pedagogics, results etc. concerning creativity, or teaching of writing; expected are popularizing (practical), or scientific (theoretical) papers; also papers concerning teaching Inter-Arts, or mixing disciplines will be welcome.

Participants can be anybody who teaches, makes program plans for writer’s schools, or works in another profession in the field of creativity, or writing; scholars, writers, editors, critics, and students are also welcome.

Proposals in English are being accepted until 15 September 2010. See conference and submission details at the website.

Alice Turing - Chutzpah!

2010-08-11T14:04:00.009+02:00

Alice Turing decided to take things into her own hands and published her novel, Dance your Way to Psychic Sex, with a good dose of Chutzpah! So let your fingers dance over her site for the fun of it, or read an inte rview over at Sue Guin ey´s place. But most importantly, go buy the book. Reward Alice's chutzpah! Enjoy!

höfleiner donauweiten poesiefestival - 28/29 August 2010

2010-08-10T11:08:00.008+02:00

3. höfleinerdonauweiten poesiefestival

Literatur und Musik mit Gästen aus vielen Ländern
Ausstellung Visuelle Poesie
Offenes Mikrophon für das Publikum: Lesen Sie Ihre eigenen Texte, alle Sprachen willkommen!
Open Air – bei Schlechtwetter im Presshaus
Eintritt frei!

Samstag/Sonntag
28./29. August 2010
jeweils 12 – 18 Uhr

Bergheuriger Schuecker
3421 Höflein/Donau
Zugang und Auffahrt bei Hauptstraße 83

Veranstalter: LABYRINTH – Association of English-Language Poets in Vienna, gemeinsam mit Berdel-Pusitz-Waugh Productions

Gefördert von: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur

A Pint and a Haircut for Haiti

2010-08-09T10:23:00.005+02:00

I´m really pleased that my story, "The Making of An Imaginary Friend", will be included in the anthology, A Pint and a Haircut, to be published in September by Londubh Books, Ireland.

Garret Pearse was reading Paul Auster´s book True Tales of American Life when news of the Haiti earthquake broke. He felt it would be great to produce an Irish equivalent with as many true Irish stories as possible. All royalties from the sale of the book will go to Concern´s Haiti fund. You can pre-order the book at the publisher´s website.

Here´s another example of someone having an idea and running with it - despite all odds. Passion makes possible, as can be seen from 100 Stories for Haiti. Soon there´ll be true Irish stories for Haiti in the form of A Pint and a Haircut.

Expat, what and who are you?

2010-07-13T10:42:00.005+02:00

Some people say your home is where your heart is, but the heart can be a fickle beast.

When my parents emigrated with me to Australia in the early 50s when I was a toddler, I, with them, became a migrant. They called us „new Australians“ back then, never letting us forget that we were „other“. I grew up with a mother tongue that was not my mother´s and felt as completely „Australian“ as a „new Australian“ could. When I left for a gap year in Europe in the late 60s, I went to see the place of my birth, Vienna. I only lasted a couple of years. The city meant nothing to me, and anyway, I was just another Australian abroad, the gap just having widened. Thirty years with the UN in Geneva didn´t change much in my perception of being an Australian, the nationality of my only passport. My permanent address was still in Sydney, had to be, the bureaucrats said and sent me on regular leaves „home“.

It wasn´t until I started writing fiction in the early nineties and stumbled upon short stories by the Australian expatriate writer, Janette Turner Hospital, that I started thinking that maybe I was an expat. Her stories spoke to me, but none of my friends in Sydney had even heard of her. Years later, at a conference in Cornwall, where I was giving a paper on smell in her work, an Australian academic said: "Oh, she´s just Queensland." "You´re so wrong," I countered. But he couldn´t, or didn´t want to, understand.

During my research on olfactory imagery in the „Australian“ stories of Janette Turner Hospital, an old uni friend, Sophie Elias-Varotsis, now based in Paris, spoke to me of the idea of "recurring superpositioning", that one felt fine in one place, but just as fine in the other, that it wasn´t really about any sort of hybridity. Yes, but ...

Enter the heart. I used to feel homesick for Australia, was convinced that I would one day return. But the country was changing and so was I, and like weary lovers we drifted apart. The paternal in expat, however, still binds me, but not in the sense of the country as patria. Although I now live in the city of my birth, I will not give up my Australian passport. My father gave up all he had so that I might have it. I owe it to him to keep it safe. My heart has decided that „home“ is a fiction. It wants to shrug off the labels, none of which fit. I´ve been called socialist, racist, migrant and artist, intellectual, expat and heaven knows what. I don´t trust labels, they only speak half truths, and they certainly don´t guard against shrinkage when put through the wash.

For more on expatriation, check out the latest issue of Gangway.

What is it about nipples? Or ...

2010-07-05T10:09:00.005+02:00

how self-censoring is Facebook? In the SMH this morning this article caught my attention, not only because The Possum is an upcoming jeweler, but crikey, nipples? Is FB up to its ears in American Prude, or is it all the fault of the automated search engines? Hoogle help us when FBapps get into telepathy. Language police, picpolicia, next up thought patrol? Plus ca change ...

ps wishing the targetted lady and her doll lots of good vibes and publicity!

Update 12 July.
Facebook relents, SMH reports, and Switzerland gives the thumbs up on Polanski, well sort of. The latter makes me feel better about visiting CH next week.

Chocolates and eggs from Toronto - Atwood & Mortimer

2010-06-28T07:06:00.004+02:00

Enjoy some eggs and chocolates from Toronto, compliments of Route Publishing.

Thomas E. Kennedy´s book to be released soon in Oz

2010-06-27T15:11:00.004+02:00

Thomas E. Kennedy´s In The Company of Angels will be released in Australia in August. I´m really pleased for him. He is a great writer, too long neglected as Publisher´s Weekly admits. See the post at Absinthe Minded.

Tom is also a terrific teacher and I´ve had the pleasure of attending workshops he runs at the Geneva Writers´Conferences and have been the recipient of much of his generosity as a writer and a teacher.

Why now the breakthrough and why not before? Maybe it´s the expat thing, doing things your own way, for the love of what you feel is best for you and your writing? Who knows? But when Tom´s essay, "I am Joe´s Prostate", won the 2008 Ellie Award, people looked up. The rest is History. Bloomsbury took on In the Company of Angels and published it simultaneously in the UK and the US. And in August it will be released in Australia.

The lesson I guess is to do what you have to do, write what you need to, honour the craft, do the best you can and keep writing. Bravo, Tom!

The Wizard of Oz Revisited

2010-06-26T17:42:00.003+02:00

Posted at Red Room on October 14, 2009

Oz never really had a wizard, but it did have a couple of tin mines, lions in the zoo and lots of straws through which the children drank milk. Dorothy wore rubber thongs on the yellow hot sand that led to the beach; her dog was a kelpie. She lived near the rainforest and kept her ruby red shoes in a box in her room for fear that a hurricane might whip them away. She never actually wore them, but she´d look at them under her blanket at night and watch them glow, and she would dream.

She would dream that the land of Oz had a real wizard, one who could do Harry Potterish things. He would make gold out of the tin and then prop up the markets so that her daddy would smile again. He would tame the lions and let them loose to play with the kangaroos, and best of all he would put chocolate into her milk drink.

One evening she peeked around the corner of the living room. Her parents were watching a film on tv. It was called Australia. There was lots of desert and cattle and an Aboriginal boy she fell in love with. In the film people were watching another film like old photos. She watched the boy climb up on the roof and lie on his stomach, propping his head in the cups of his hands. He turned to her and waved, motioning that she should watch with him. Dorothy saw a tin man, and a lion and a straw man. She saw a witch and another. She saw a little girl with a puppy. The little girl was wearing sparkly shoes. The film was in black and white but the little girl´s shoes were red.

Just as the little girl was about to pull on a curtain to see who was behind it, bomber planes flew low. There were flames and horrid noises and screaming. Dorothy closed her eyes. Her mother turned and saw her. Go to bed, she said. It´s just the wizard of Oz. He´s got a bald head and was hiding behind the curtain. That was the war.

Dorothy lay in her bed and stroked her ruby red shoes. There was no war in the Land of Oz, she thought. And a wizard with a bald head isn´t really a wizard. Then she saw the face of the Aboriginal boy. He smiled at her and he winked. Dorothy sighed. He´ll be my wizard. He´ll make thinks better and true. She pushed the shoes away and patted her kelpie curled up at her feet. “Sleep well, Toto,” she said.

11th International Conference on the Short Story in English

2010-06-22T19:29:00.023+02:00

I just got back from Toronto and have had the first full night of sleep since I left Vienna on 15 June. The 11th International Conference on the Short Story in English - The Border as Fiction was amazing. All the little cogs in my head, the ones my dear husband often worries about, are still spinning like crazy with impressions and ideas. While I get my thoughts together, do check out what Nuala Ní Chonchúir wrote on her blog about the Conference, and also check out Madeleine D'Arcy´s take.

Where to start? The weather: one day of rain and the rest was hot, hot, hot. Many of us were all together at the Marriott Courtyard on Yonge while others were at the Schulich Business School where sessions, readings and panels took place at York University Campus. So many good things were going on at once and it was impossible to catch everything. I missed the first panel because I needed to prepare for my reading on the morning of the first day. I shared with Jane Rogers and Billie Travalini. Our stories ranged from losing keys and much more deeper insights (Jane) to murdering husbands - hubbies were victims - (Billie and me.) I was thrilled that my "Widow´s Peak" story went over so well, and in high spirits caught the plenary session with Clark Blaise, Alistair MacLeod and William H. New on The Canadian Short Story Today. But it wasn´t just Canadian. Some tidbits: Bill New - a story needs legs (good ones;)); Alistair MacLeod - it needs language and leisure, with a wink at Chesterton that style is the clothing of plot; Clark Blaise - write out of a specific place for the world.

Then followed a reading with Rishma Dunlop on lovers in Paris and all the allusions, literary and cultural, which that brings up, and Australian Paddy O´Reilly with an almost Regency encounter of the third kind in "Speak to Me". I had the great fun of being Paddy´s room mate during the conference, so there were many giggly moments with aliens tucked in the underwear drawer writing in green Braille. But you read the story in The End of The World.

Day 2 started with a session called Sex and Love in the Modern Short Story with Marilyn Abildskov on adultery, Mauricio Aguilera-Linde on Gay Spaceships and Conspiracy (genre meets lit and lit feeds on the former, methinks), and Rishma Dunlop on Amy Bloom. Then I went to a session on Australian Literature and heard Victoria Kuttainen on short fiction in anthologies and Man magazine, Noela McNamara on cultural borders, and the vibrant Selina Samuels on Nam Le and Tim Winton. Then followed a session on Psychology, Ontology, and Formal Design with Robert Luscher on (Re)closure in the Short Story Sequence, Rute Júlia Beirante on reality and fiction in Melville´s "The Encantadas", and Juani Guerra on language and culture in Latino stories, one of which by Sandra Cisneros. (I was to introduce Sandra Cisneros at her reading that evening, so the session was timely. My interest was not wholly innocent since I am playing with writing in "Germglish", encoding experience in English and German as a way of expressing cultural dislocation.) I learned that language does not create culture, but expresses it and that for the Latina stories there was no possible back translation.

Then came the wonderful reading by Sandra Cisneros in the Bloor/Gladstone Library. I was very nervous at the honour of introducing her but remembered when I first heard Sandra speak at my first conference in New Orleans in 2002. Then she spoke of her button boxes and they have stayed with me. Now I could add the way bilingualism operates in her stories and was able to wink at borderlands with a phrase from her novel, Caramelo: "in a country I am homesick for, that doesn´t exist anymore. That never existed. A country I invented. Like all emigrants caught between here and there." Needless to say, the theme of the Conference - The Border as Fiction - was fanning outwards. And to end a wonderful day, I was able to meet up with an old writing mate and had a great evening catching up on the years.

Friday allowed me to chill and catch up with friends old and new: Pat Jourdan, wonderful poetic aficionada from the Cork Conference, Juani Guerra from the Alcala de Henares one, Vijay Lakshmi from as far back as New Orleans, 2002. First there was a session on History, Memory and Nostalgia: nostalgia as a site of exile; the hug comforts and constricts; nostalgia shifting from the spatial to the temporal - memory with the pain removed; remembering the past and walking through melancholy to survival. In all, fascinating explorations by Lee Frew, Coby Stephenson and Cassidy McFadzean.

Then on to The Book Business, where I thought the publishers were not keen to hear that writers might be interested in a more direct route to their readers. Agent, Stuart Bernstein and Publisher/Nurturer Kadija George were refreshingly open to new routes of getting "out there". But the bottom line, as always, was quality. And it was interesting to hear about novella publishing from John Calabro of Quattro Books, Canada and translations published by Ra Page of Comma Press, UK. But I got too wound up in all the discussion and the price I had to pay was missing the reading by Chang Ying-Tai from Taiwan and Billy O´Callaghan from Ireland. (Paddy had shown great generosity in reading Chang Ying-Tai´s work, so I´m sorry I missed this. I was lucky enough to catch up with these delightful writers and John in the extra-curricular over jugs of beer the next evening.) But I didn´t miss a great luncheon reading by Bharati Mukherjee. (Bharati was the first person I knew that I bumped in to when arriving at the hotel and her welcome hug was another high point.)

Then there was a great talk between Clark Blaise and Margaret Atwood and evening readings in the Toronto Public Library by Margaret Atwood, Li Ang, Alistair MacLeod and Robert Olen Butler. In the discussion that followed, Margaret Atwood´s almost deadpan interjections of "on the other hand" reminded of the various ways to see things, or was it the words in the spaces?

Saturday morning began with a reading by Licia Canton and Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Nuala read my favourite story from her collection, Nude: "Cowboy and Nelly" which got me ready for my paper in the session I was also moderating called The Body in Life and Death. The session had a paper on Margaret Atwood´s "Isis in Darkness" by Sharon Wilson. Paddy O´Reilly spoke of the value of the stare when linking Flannery O´Connor and disability theory. Paddy also spoke of a fear or trepidation I feel when moving between "academic" and "creative" writing - will the former harm the so fragile latter? My paper on olfactory imagery in the work of Janette Turner Hospital went over well, and I even managed the power point thanks to coaching from Bernie in Vienna.

The last panel of the day was on Cultural Identity in the Short Story. Writers Fleur Bourgonje, Vijay Lakshmi, Licia Canton, Madeleine D'Arcy, Velma Pollard, Kadija George and Helena Maria Viramontes all saw things from various perspectives - for some, their cultural identity was embraced, for others it seemed to be an impediment, but Vijay summed up with the writer starting off as a writer before a blank page writing and Maurice Lee drove things home: we have to live with our pain, just write.

Then a quick dash up Yonge to find something to wear for the banquet and reading. (I found a glam top at 17 CAD so was saved.) And then to table. And what a table it was with Ana from Portugal, Paddy, Lee and Fi from Australia, Billy from Ireland, Ying-Tai from Taiwan with interpreter, Tony, who sported hairdo and goggles similar to mine, just funkier. We were joined by a young man from Indiana who may not have known what hit him when I asked about Indians and filled up his glass. It was a wonderful borderless table! I don´t know if it was the wine or the sensations going round in my head at this conference of melting borders that made me a bit teary listening to Clark Blaise´s closing speech. So we all carried on till late back at the hotel with jugs of beer as a way around the exorbitant prices and the impending goodbyes.

Sunday morning, a shower, the last breakfast coupon, talking story with Ying-Tai, book swapping with Billy, hugs with great room mate Paddy, and it was off to the airport. Needless to say, I couldn´t sleep on the flight. Would I do it again? You bet! See you all in 2012 wherever you may be.

Thank you Maurice Lee, thank you Susan Lohafer, thank you Allan Weiss, thank you all for a terrific Conference!

ps. and here are some of my photo impressions from the Conference.

My Souk in a book!

2010-06-14T10:42:00.004+02:00

While catching up with the writings at Keeper of the Snails I had the lovely surprise of finding out that Alex Johnson´s book on Shedworking has been published and is now available. Clare Dudman talks about it and also mentions my souk and my stories! The Souk´s in the book! Wow!

Open Mic with Jaan Malin from Estonia

2010-06-13T13:40:00.014+02:00

The open mic at Cafe Kafka on 4 June was a wonderful mix of presentations that ran the gammut from close to Ginsberg to Estonian sound poetry, with English and German in between. 4 June was also Estonia's flag day to commemorate the day in 1884 when Estonia got its first flag, so it was serendipitous that the special guest was Jaan Malin from Estonia, or was it the other way round? MC, Peter Waugh, provided the English translations of Jaan Malin´s (or Luulur, the crazy one) surprisingly moving poems, that is when they were words and not purely terrific word sounds. Listen here for a clip of his words / sounds.

Then there were renderings of poems by Peter Orlovsky, Ginsberg's partner who passed away end May, by CornwAustrian, Evelyn Holloway, and Peter Waugh, Hazel Winter and Paul Malone from Vienna Writers. Dr Paul read H.C. Artmann, and Jean Almeida, Toby Fischer, Dieter Berdel, Janusz Zeitstein, Evelyn Holloway and Felix Mendelssohn read from their own work. There were nursery rhymes on bankers, magnetic genius poems, Viennese dialect and sounds. I couldn´t stay to the end, but it seemed that it went on till very late. What I saw, though was a really great evening.

Vienna Writers kicks off

2010-05-23T18:48:00.002+02:00

Vienna Writers kicked off recently under the guidance of its creator, Aussie Paul Malone. The monthly meetings in Cafe Prueckl, a traditional Viennese cafe with a heart and room for our small Anglophone group, should help get me out more speaking, reading and critiquing English in a stimulating environment. Our members are from, or have lived many years in, the UK, the US and Australia, so I'm sure that lively evenings will ensue and that we may even learn each other's spelling.

Vienna Swoosh: April/May

2010-05-16T15:29:00.012+02:00

This year I'm teaching English Monday evenings till 9pm and before my class I always stop for a breather at the Cafe Fichtl in Floridsdorf and order a Melange and Spezialtoast (they used to call it that in the 70s, but now it's just ham and cheese) with Ketchup. Now this Cafe is an old Viennese Cafe, no internet, no music, almost always almost empty, newspapers galore for free reading and attentive and discreet service by the lady who works there. Sometimes the elderly owner comes by and pitches in.

So of course I was curious about a reading by a local writer, Hermann Bauer. "Krimi" on Saturday, 24 April. The Cafe opened especially and the place was packed. Bauer, a writer with theatre training, read from his latest (of three) book, Verschwoerungsmelange. Now I'm not really a fan of crime stories, but this was different. The protag, Leopold, the old waiter at the Cafe Heller, has a sort of Miss Marple role. And what really grabbed me was the way that I felt I was in the story: thanks to the reader, the place - yes, Floridsdorf, the Cafe and what went on there, the reading was alive and I was fully into the atmosphere of the story.

And there was a different sort of life last Friday night at Soho in Ott akring when I went to see one of my former students from another class perform (unmasked) with her woman duo, Propel la. Standing room only, but I did manage to grab one of the few chairs, and incredible stuff with guest action by Andi Leikauf of Mopedrock on his electric violin to segue into that band's inimitable performance with texts in French, electric guitars, terrific drums and yes, that violin.

Just Lunch at Rubric

2010-05-16T14:19:00.003+02:00

I'm pleased to say that my story "Just Lunch" appears in the latest issue of Rubric. You can read it here.

My Domino Theory on D-L Nelson

2010-04-24T16:21:00.004+02:00

When I was in Geneva I used to meet my writing mate, DL, several times a week to talk plot over lunch. DL had several novels in the works and I had stories "out there". We were reading each other's work, offering suggestions and collecting rejections like nobody's business. Then we started seeing our work in print. Elation! But that didn't stop the flow of rejections. We'd sit in the conference centre, our work spread out on a table and brainstorm about the best way of killing off character X. Needless to say, we got very strange looks from the passing conference delegates.

I used to say to DL that her novels were like flying dominos: one would take off and the others would follow. Now, ten years later, my theory holds. Chickpea Love, Not a Cookbook (2003) was followed by The Card (2005). Then came Running from the Puppetmaster (2008),with that Mr X mentioned above, and Family Value (2010). Murder in Caleb's Landing (A Third Culture Kid Mystery) is due out this autumn, and apart from more novels in the works and nearing completion, others are doing the rounds. But let me raise my glass, now: Good on ya, mate! and keep keeping at it!

Häuserl am Oasch - Bravo!

2010-04-11T16:54:00.004+02:00

I can't get my tongue around the dialect, but I do understand Wienerisch to some extent. Häuserl am Oasch last night at the Rabenhof was more than the sum of its "wienerisch" parts. A rock opera? Yes, if you like your rock indy. Opera? Well, not quite. It wasn't all song. But the music of Ernst Molden's band pervaded it as did the layered texts of Ernst Molden himself. Not just a songwriter, but also a writer, playwright, player with write.

A simple plot: an old miserable innkeeper longing for death in the form of one of the trees of his beloved Vienna Woods needs his daughter to find Mr Right, have a son, so that he can go. But there are socio-political layers served with Viennese black humour at the inn, Häuserl am Oasch. (Any translation would indeed betray the original - with Häuserl - small house, or even outhouse with touches of melancholy; and Oasch - arse, but also broken, at the end of (the world), on the edge of (life) with nowhere to go...?)

And there were shades of Seneca with ghosts, lyrical passages and rhetorical oratory*; Wienerlied melancholy, wine, fear of the bogey man who was to blame for dogs being shot, and anything else, even children possibly being molested, much of all this though more in the mind. There was the upper-class lower-origins widow and her pining for order, served in song and choral-like readings with references to Dr Karl Lueger and the good old days. There was the policeman needing his scapegoat phantom to avoid real police work and justify a small mindset of envy and insularism. And there was love. But it was not sacherin-sweet love, more one with a kick of horseradish in its left-handed humour. Obscure details from local history added to the layers of socio-political satire meted out through the rough velvet of Molden's words. Those words can be heard on the CD of the same name as this fairytale from the Vienna Woods, but this time all rendered by the voice of the master.

An ingenious and simple set design and its lighting brought it all together with an almost palimpsest of time and genres - Molden and his band, spiders and hearts, (dis)appearing silhouettes through a screen.

Even if I didn't undertsand Wienerisch, it would have been an interesting musical adventure. But I'm glad I did, and wish I really might understand better, since I bet there were even more layerlets to explore. Now to listen to the CD, Häuserl am Oasch.

---
* "ghosts, lyrical passages and rhetorical oratory" from wikipedia

My work has been plagiarised!

2010-04-06T22:05:00.008+02:00

I always believed, and I still do, that the web is for sharing. My work can be found in a variety of places, but always with acknowledgements, even when I'm not asked. I used to say I didn't mind if my work got stolen, lifted, reproduced. I used to say I'd be flattered if anyone thought my work good enough to want to steal it. But why should anyone steal with so much free stuff about?

No. What I object to is that a story has been reproduced in toto on a community blog of - get this - a how-to-get-out-of-debt advisor website. Now the person in question has broken the community rules. But the strange thing is that my story has nothing to do with what his/her blog is about. Maybe it's intended as some sort of literary entertainment. Heavens, what if the person is discovered!

Another strange thing is that the mother website has no contact information. Who is the mystery website owner? No go. But I have written to the registrar for contact information. And just in case our thieving blogger is looking over my shoulder, here is a screen shot of the page.

The original resides at Scribd where it was featured, viewed almost 2,500 times, had 13 reviews and is now for sale for one dollar. But if you can make out the plagiarist's url from the screen shot, it is available for free until the naughty person is caught, reprimanded, shamed. Or you can wait for my ebook and get it with a whole lot of other stories through fairer channels.

The Meek are finding a voice ...

2010-04-05T20:25:00.005+02:00

I've just been reading Petina Gappah's powerful Dear Pope letter and it's left me sad. Sad, because I agree with her. Sad because this whole church business is just the tip of the sinking iceberg. Read her post and when you come to the only link in it, one to Martin Kimani, then click on that link and read on.

The meek may not want to inherit the Earth, they just want to live in peace on it. All this takes me back to a Catholic school in Sydney - Loreto Convent Kirribilli which I attended from age 4 to 6 years. I don't remember much from that time except for being hit on my calves with the wood of a feather duster for talking in line. But I wasn't the only one, so I guess I thought it normal. Punishment was when you were naughty. And several of us were naughty. But now, over 60, I still remember the welts on my little leg, the right one, it was. There are no scars. No other memories from that time. I can't even remember if I told my parents. They must have noticed the welts. Or maybe they were just in my imagination. When I was 7, we moved and I went to Loreto Convent Normanhurst. I collected holy cards, read all the books on the saints, even thought for a short while, I might become a nun. But there was the bush, horses and tennis. And then I ran away and never came back. And in between there was Fatima. I must have been about ten. The world was going to end, young nuns gaggled. I had nightmares. Slept clutching my tennis raquet. I never made the sign of the cross again. These memories are nothing compared to what others have suffered. In a way I was lucky. I even think God, whoever, wherever, whatever he/she/it may be, understands.

So why and how do they dare brush people off with the promise of tasteless wafers? How much, Mr Ratzinger have you donated to charity? How much have you done to ease the woes of the world? To whom do you confess, Mr Ratzinger? All the penance in the world can't make up for your silence and inaction. I know it's not him, but the buck has to stop somewhere. The meek are finding their voice.

Spring swoosh .... Wien - Oxford - London

2010-04-05T18:03:00.010+02:00

The last weeks have flown, so I'll try and back pedal, but no guarantees. Just after my copy of 100 Stories for Haiti arrived, work took me to Oxford and I was lucky to catch Nick Harkaway and C.K. Stead in Harry Potter land at the Sunday Times Literary Festival. Nick has a story in 100 Stories for Haiti and wrote the intro; and Nick autographed my copy of his book, The Gone-Away World.
CK Stead, went on to win the ST Short Story Competition the following week, read from his winning story and when talking about writing stories said some things I've always believed - yes, Dorothy, you can break the rules. It just has to work.

Then it was off to London for an inspiring business lunch with the inimitable Mitzi Szereto, plotting books and just plotting and then wandering round the nearby market just down from the Hind, the golden one. We smelled truffles and ate oysters - the chap serving them must have thought we'd clean him out. It was a great swoosh - just a pity that there's no wifi at Gatwick.

Pippa has a cover at last

2010-03-21T14:31:00.002+01:00

The Possum has made a cover for my NIP (novella in progress), so now I really have to write, write, write and finish it.

The Third Man - alive and well in Vienna

2010-03-14T18:28:00.005+01:00

Last Wednesday the British Bookshop in Vienna sent out (maybe too many) invitations to an evening with The Third Man. Despite the SRO, it was an interesting evening listening to details about the making of the film which still plays every week in Vienna's Burg Kino.

Graham Greene wrote the "screenplay" which he first had to write as a story, but Carol Reed, the film's director, changed the ending to make it an open one.

The event covered Graham Greene's post-war Vienna and Brigitte Timmermann (of Walks in Vienna) presented her book The Third Man's Vienna: Celebrating a Film Classic. There were readings from Graham Greene's work, and musical accompaniment provided by zither soloist Cornelia Mayer who played pieces from Anton Karas' original film score.

Outside was a military jeep from the time and soldiers from the "four powers" checked our IDs at the door with a shot of vodka. Close to the door, I had a glimpse of one of the soldiers hoisting a small boy into the jeep and letting him sit behind the wheel, probably unaware that he was not so much in a strange car with flags, but in a moment of history. (My thanks to Josef Ratheiser for the pic of the jeep.)

Caught in a binary? We´re all in it together.

2010-03-04T12:52:00.005+01:00

International Women´s Day on 8 March has got me thinking again. I never really knew how to handle the words, “feminist” and “feminism”. I never consciously felt myself hindered or helped because I was of the female gender. I never could understand why we just couldn´t be people.´ Looking back now, I didn´t burn my bra, but for a while I went without one, at least until I failed the pencil under the breast test. But that wasn´t about feminism, vanity more like it, the start of ageing perhaps. For a long time I didn´t trust women apart from one or two best girlfriends. They just weren´t much fun and they were so competitive.

Men helped me get on in my work life, although I thought I was doing it all by myself. Men helped me, not in the horizontal way, but more in the fatherly one. I guess they never perceived me as a threat. I can´t recall a woman ever helping me in the early days, and no wonder. I wasn´t one of them. I remember when quotas came in and I puzzled at how they could really know if two candidates were equal. No one is equal. When someone said that women and men would be equal when we have incompetent women in high positions, I couldn´t help thinking of the Peter Principle.

That was then. Let me update incompetent to downright scary. We have lots now – there´s the Bulgarian lady who ran for EU commissioner, the lipstick-wielding hockey mum from Alaska, the current Right-wing candidate for the Austrian presidency who´d like to unwrite the history books, and there are the girl gangs, the girl-crims, the girl-killers, all in the name of equality. And where are the men? I guess they´re keeping their heads down trying to find ways to pay themselves bonuses while everyone watches the women. The man has always played the role of the villain. Stop! Is it just me, or is this what this binary thinking is doing?

What about the principle of equal pay for equal work? What about treating all human beings with the same respect? There are men with feminine streaks and women with masculine ones. Not all men want to be hunters and not all women nurturers, and nor do they all want to be the other way round. Let´s not forget that in the background and in everyday life, women and men are getting on with trying to heal the world in their own ways, just trying, and in doing so, making more or less anonymous and sometimes superhuman efforts for a common good. Fiction loves villains, but real life loves the good guys and gals, maybe even the squeaky clean ones as long as they end up with grubby cheeks and a bit of a dent in their halos.

Women´s Day, Men´s Day, People Day. Can´t we just be good to each other?

Writing from the gut and introducing Jake Moss' blog

2010-03-01T07:23:00.004+01:00

I came across an anonymous comment tucked away in Chapter 5 of my Pippa story:
"Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!"

Now I don't know if it was referring to Pippa or to Merc's World, but it got me thinking. I remember when I first started blogging back in July 2006. Three or four times, I was close to deleting my blog, worried no doubt that I couldn't really be as straight as I wanted to be after half a lifetime of having to toe the line of political correctness. Then there were considerations about "career", the writing one and what one should or not do to promote oneself, find a brand, find the right place on the shelf.

Now, almost four years down the line, I'm comfortable with my blog. I don't have to blog every day, I don't have to blog about me and my work, but of course I do, but I'm most comfortable saying what I think, getting news out about people I know who in their very different ways are trying to share their talents.

And so I'd like to introduce the blog of a young man I met in a cafe in Vienna: Jake Moss, writer, journalist, eyes wide open, not shut to the world. Check out his brand new blog, and don't worry about the "brand". Life's too short to spend it stuck in a box. Oh, and my thanks to anonymous for the critical words. Yes, I'll keep working on Pippa.

Don't forget Haiti

2010-02-28T08:32:00.003+01:00

I was scouring the news last night to find out if the tsunami was going to wreak havoc in Sydney, my home town. I was worried about friends in New Zealand and was relieved to hear that friends of my loved ones escaped the earthquake in Chile. It brought things a bit closer, how we are all vulnerable, how some of us are also very lucky. But what about people we don't know? What about those who lost their lives and belongings in Chile, and what about Haiti? I sometimes have a feeling of complete uselessness as one headline overtakes the last. I'm all right, mate. Yes, but lest we forget ...

100 Stories for Haiti - The Stories We Tell Ourselves by Curtis C. Chen

2010-02-28T00:27:00.004+01:00

Thanks for letting me graffiti your blog, Sylvia!

Enjoy more of Curtis C. Chen's work on 512 Words of Fewer.

100 Stories for Haiti comes out on March the 4th, ebook and paperback. You can pre-order your paperback: http://www.100storiesforhaiti.org/buy-the-book/

Bridge House Publishing sent me a photo of the book today! I can't wait to get my hands on the real thing ...

Greg McQueen at Merc's World tomorrow!

2010-02-27T12:49:00.004+01:00

I'm really happy because tomorrow, Greg McQueen will be alighting on my blog. I haven't a clue what he's going to be talking about, but I bet it'll have something to do with the 100 stories for Haiti Book Project. The book now has a cover! You won't find my name there because I'm hiding behind the title and can peek out to see how you're enjoying the book. But to do that, you have to buy it. You can pre-order via here and there are tips on how to save on those necessary P&P costs here.

So, see you tomorrow for a stop on Greg's blog-until-he-drops tour.

cloning?

2010-02-11T17:12:00.003+01:00

Seems I did manage to clone myself, for while I thought I was in Geneva, I was in fact over at Tania's place.

Geneva Writers´ Conference - what a weekend!

2010-02-11T11:27:00.008+01:00

The Geneva Writers´Conference, held every two years at Webster University, gets better and better thanks to the passion and motivation of the volunteer committee and its leader, Susa n Tiberghien. With just over 200 participants from more than 40 countries, I just hope it doesn´t get any bigger.

I took four fiction workshops which gave me new insights in a variety of ways: Martina Evans encouraged us to think like film-makers; Thomas E. Kennedy showed us how to use coincidence in fiction; Geeta Kothari gave us techniques for looking at time management of scene and summary; and Richard Scrimger showed us the truth in our lies while sharing the earnestly passionate while keeping us in stitches.

Then there were Q/As with UK agent, Lorella Belli, and US agent, Jane Dystel, panel discussions, and much more for which I would have had to clone myself to attend. The much more was non-fiction with Annette Kobak, Robert Root and Susan Tiberghien; poetry with Wallis Wilde-Menozzi and John Hartley Williams; and panels with agents, Belli and Dystel, and with David Applefield, Robert Stewart, Catherine Nelson-Pollard, Alistair Scott and John Zimmer.

The bookshop was set up in a large meeting room where we could have coffee and chat and where we were welcomed and registered. It all ran like (Swiss) clockwork.

On the Friday evening we had a yummy dinner with open mic readings of exactly three minutes introduced by committee member, Alistair Scott. There was a great variety of pieces, several from writers with books out after agent contacts at the last GWC. Others read from works in progress. I never can decide on favourite pieces straight away, but now, a couple of days back in Vienna, the one piece that sticks in my mind was a delightful piece about Emmental c heese (the eyes have it) and Tete de moine cheese - you know, that cheese that is scraped into a frilly petticoat by turning a handle round and round. (Maybe I´m just a gourmand trying to wear a gourmet hat.)

Saturday night there were readings by the faculty interspersed with pithy writing comments and banter by MC, John Zimmer, also on the committee. Dinner was again served by the unsurpassable Gilles and his team.

The farewell reception on Sunday afternoon came around far too soon. It was great having such an intense experience, seeing old friends, recharging my writing batteries. A great conference which will be around again in 2012. Meanwhile, check out what this group does between gigs: workshops and Offshoots!

Haiti - 100 stories antholgy

2010-02-03T18:12:00.006+01:00

Greg McQueen, British writer in Copenhagen had the idea for the 100 Stories for Haiti Project and just went along and did it. More than 400 writers heeded the call and the ebook should be out end February followed by the paperback early March. All proceeds will go to the Red Cross for Haiti. No middle(wo)man.

I´m proud to have had two tiny stories accepted. And I´m proud for a number of reasons, so let´s get the ego out of the way first. One story was one of the first I ever wrote and was published on the Internet in 1995 at a labour of love called The Edifice of Writing and Literature. The other was a story penned in one day, one hour actually, in 2007 as part of an online project called Your Messages. The latter donated its proceeds to Kids Company, a charity in the UK. The Edifice disappeared from the web a while ago, but it remains firmly in my grateful memory.

I´m proud because my stories will be between covers with likeminded writers. And this brings me to something I have to comment upon when I googled all the writers to see who my stories were in bed with. There were no heavies. Well, heavies don´t give their work away easily and are often bound by contracts to discourage this. Writers write to be read though, and although we don´t always sell, it´s a thrill, a validation, to have someone like your work enough to want to publish it, and many publications just don´t have the money to pay, especially these days. But this project isn´t about getting paid, it´s about giving.

And here we are at "these days" where big donations are tax deductible so why aren´t more of the biggies donating? They are, you say, but what about all those bank manager bonuses? And on and on...

Of the almost 100 writers with their work in the 100 stories for Haiti anthology each one will be buying at least one copy of the book. Yeah, I like to see my work on my shelf. But many will be buying more copies and their friends will, too, and Greg, proceeds WILL be more than 50 Euros.

And so I say to the person who posted on the blog of one of the writers in anthology, knocking writers for wanting to get exposure through this avenue:

Hey, we write to be read. Someone thought our stories would be fine in a book that could be sold to help the Red Cross help Haiti. More than one someone thought so: volunteer editors worked like crazy behind the scenes so that this book gets out; two publishers took a risk, but turned that risk into their own form of donation. Maybe an audio book publisher will do likewise. Maybe they´ll make a film, a documentary, interviews, maybe it´ll all help to raise more money for Haiti.

They say more quakes are on the way. I say, why do we always have to wait for disaster?

Donating a story that can make a book that can be sold to make money to help is our way. Buying the book is also our way, a way I´m proud of. Why don´t you buy the book, too? It may not be tax deductible, mate, but it will help. Every little bit does in this not so brave, no longer so new, world.

Thank you Greg McQueen for showing that passion makes possible. Onwards!

Piano concert for Haiti - 30 January 2010

2010-01-24T16:57:00.006+01:00

Robert Pobitschka will be giving a piano concert to raise funds for Haiti

on Saturday, 30 January at 19h30
in the Grosser Ehrbarsaal, 1040 Vienna, Muehlgasse 28
(U4 Kettenbrueckengasse).

There'll be pieces from Haydn, Chopin, Wagner, Bruckner, Rachmaninoff and Schubert.

All proceeds will go to "Nachbar im Not - Haiti".
Free seating. Tickets - 15 Euros - will be sold at the entrance.

Burns Night 2010

2010-01-24T16:03:00.004+01:00

Last night we celebrated Robert Burns 251st birthday at the Kulturgasthaus Vorstadt and a moving and fun event it was. The place was packed and there were even a few kilts and tartans. This was the 10th time that Austria's Robert Burns Society staged the event. (Pix of the event will be up on the Societ's website soon.)

First came the bagpipes and a welcome - whisky nips and RB chocolate were handed out at the door. Then Dieter Berdel, who translated Burns' words into Wienerisch, the dialect of Vienna, read a Burns' piece in memory of Bob Hewis, an active participant who passed away almost a year ago now. Then came the music: the jazzy Jim Mullen Organ Trio to get us into the mood for Part 1: romantic and frivolous pieces in Wienerisch brought to life by Mercedes Echerer, Lena Rohstein, Gabriele Schuchter, Ursula Strauss and Alexander Strobele under the direction of Karl Men rad.

After the break we were served the traditional "Address to a Haggis" by Colin Munro in Scottish dialect and plates of the beast were passed around. (I thought it was yummy - a bit like a pale spicy Blunzn - the local black pudding.) More funky jazz led up to the naughtier renderings of the bard's work, but they may have been saucier in the Wienerisch than in the original Scottish. The super evening wound up with us all singing "Auld Lang Syne" in Scots and in Wienerisch. Echt leiwand!

Fasching - so call on the clowns!

2010-01-17T15:23:00.004+01:00

Fasching is here, so what better time to show the latest work by Sharon Ratheiser. The neat thing is, that the paint can hardly be dry as the pictures were done with a paintbrush my daughter no longer needed and which I'd brought from Sydney. I gave it to Sharon, pretty sure she could use it, as an expert in the matter of paintbrushes, she was thrilled with it and promptly set to work. So here are two clowns which are part of a larger clown series.

Recycling to art - the work of CCLord

2010-01-17T15:06:00.005+01:00

I've been meaning to mention Carol Chen Lord and her artwork for a while, but my souk's been too cold to stay at the desk there. Today I got the fires going, so pull up a chair and admire this gallery of collages.

I met Carol years ago as an editor who accepted my work for books in the Reading for Real series. One day she told me that she was starting to recycle printed material from her letter box into pictures. A couple of years down the line, Carol now has a website with her artwork and an online giftshop. So if you're looking for unique cards with a difference, go check it out.

Here's one of my favourite pix aptly called "Once Upon a Time".

Hugh Grant meets Gabriel Byrne -- not?

2010-01-06T14:25:00.009+01:00

And while I'm glowing with nice words from yon and yonder from young people I have come to appreciate, my Merc mind veers back to a 7 year-old holding my hand and that of Dr Gugu under the formidable bust of Karl Marx in the city that then bore the same name.

"This is my city", he said. "And when I'm big, I'll come and see yours."

Events 20 years ago made his dream come true and since then he's been seeing the world, doing what he loves and touring with Titanick. His name is Michael Hain. Check out his videos and you'll see why I'm thinking the title of this post. You've come a long way since Karl Marx glowered down upon us, Michael. Onwards!

---
I hope his agency doesn't mind if I post one of his pix and give him a bit of a plug on my blog. Oops, had to take it off until permissions come in.

A recipe from Goethe's Mum

2010-01-06T14:11:00.003+01:00

After singing praises to the humble handwritten postcard, let me now laud the internet through which medium I received a recipe by Goethe's Mum sent on from photographer incredibile, Ronnie Niedermeyer. A recipe I will surely try.

Rezeptvorschlag für ein ganzes Jahr

Man nehme zwölf Monate,
putze sie ganz sauber von Bitterkeit,
Geiz, Pedanterie und Angst.
Zerlege sie jeden Monat in 30 oder 31 Teile,
so dass der Vorrat genau für ein Jahr reicht.
Es wird jeder Tag einzeln angerichtet,
aus einem Teil Arbeit,
zwei Teile Frohsinn und Humor.
Man füge 3 gehäufte Esslöffel Optimismus hinzu,
1 Teelöffel Toleranz ein Körnchen Ironie,
und eine Prise Takt.
Dann wird die Masse sehr
reichlich mit Liebe übergossen.
Das fertige Gericht schmückt man
mit einem Sträußchen kleiner Aufmerksamkeiten
und serviert es täglich mit Heiterkeit.

Katharina-Elisabeth Goethe
(Mutter von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Jake joins the dots

2010-01-06T14:06:00.002+01:00

No Gluhwein, handsome winter coats and gloves
to canoodle with the snow.
Undress yourself and go barefoot
upon this burning, bare, dusty patch of earth
exotic carols we shall crow!

Apologies for my eyesight in the last post re dots.;)

Hippo New Year or how 2010 can sing

2010-01-02T09:26:00.004+01:00

In this age of greetings via sms, status updates and emails, it was a real delight to receive an original poem from Australia to Vienna in real handwriting and written in ink. So let me share

A Christmas Postcard by and from Jake Moss

Travelling from sunset to velvet sunset
across this rusty land
the wind blows a spirit not of Christmas
yet one we white fellas can't understand.
Here, the white Christmas of European towns,
fantasies only to be found in children's books.
This mystic land Australia whispers,
'Put your ear to my breast
stories here are to be heard
they're not buried in the looks!'

No tree branches tapping at the windows
as the warm cold pushes against the pane.
But the mighty river red gums creak and squeak
as the cockatoos riot in their branches,
protesting for rain.

No Gluhwein, handsome winter coats and gloves
to canoodle with the snow.
Undress yourself and go barefoot
upon the burning ....
... pitch of earth
exotic cards ... crow!

This spirit of Christmas seems only a postcard,
a tale written by a hand other than our own.
We must write and tell them of
the native flora we've grown.

The pine needles on our family Christmas tree are plastic
but there's a reason for this to be:
our living rooms are far too small
to house a eucalyptus gum tree!

----

You'll notice the dots - that's where the snow seeping into my letterbox left waves on he bottom of the card. No worries, Jake - it made it all the more personal and human. Ever heard of a smudged sms? And Jake, if you still have those words, please join the dots for me, will you?

Best wishes for a hippo new year and may 2010 sing!

GrundlSee - Fischkalter

2009-12-21T18:40:00.010+01:00

Driving from St Gilgen to the GrundlSee was a delight. But even more so was the Fischkalter - a tiny restaurant on the water's edge - its pylons in the lake - where Ernst and Vroni Fuchs serve enormous steaks and fish. The steaks are from local beef and the fish is fresh f rom the reserve. Simple, homely, delicious.

Winter Strolling in Graz

2009-12-12T14:45:00.007+01:00

Christmas Reading in Graz

2009-12-12T13:53:00.011+01:00

Hardly back in Vienna time flew like crazy. The Possum arrived and with Dr Gugu we took off for Graz where I'd been invited to read from my work at the Christmas party of the Austro-American Society for Styria.

And what a terrific event it was all jazzed up by The Bingo Boys in the Grand Cafe of the Grand Hotel Wiesler. The Austrian journalist and writer, Werner Kopacka, read excerpts in German from his latest work on the UrSteirer, an original from the Styrian region.

Then it was my turn, so I read from Back Burning and from the anthology, Women against Men, and wound up with my Christmas poem, The Tourist Visa.

We were treated to music and a wonderful buffet in a room full of a welcoming and attentive audience, a writer's delight.

The next day we had sunshine on our stroll through Graz to see some of the sights before taking the train back to Vienna. It was the perfect start to Advent.

Nude hits Sydney and the temperature rises

2009-11-02T21:40:00.004+01:00

The Nude not Naked tour is making its last stop in Sydney today where temperatures are expected to hit 35. I’m so glad that Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s collection of short stories, Nude, has come to Australia and am pleased to be asking Nuala some questions on the tour and her writing. So here goes.

Hi Nuala,
Seamus Heaney was in Vienna this year and so I was hoping to welcome you to Vienna, too. But the universe does strange things and so it is that the Nude Not Naked Tour ends in an antipodal embrace in Sydney. Welcome to the Land of Oz where Toto is a Kelpie and the wizard is just another bloke who needs a heart, a bit of brains and loads of courage. That being said, I’m glad and honoured that your tour stopped by at Merc’s World.

Thanks for having me here, Merc. It’s a thrill to be back in the Antipodes wrapping up the tour where it all kicked off ten long weeks ago.

1. The Nude Not Naked Tour – the words nude and naked have certainly got things buzzing, but the Not has also done its bit. I can’t help thinking that there’s something going on there and I’m drawn back to your stories seeking more beneath the surface. How did you come up with the name of the tour? Did it come in a flash or did you have to work at the words?

It just arrived, Merc. I guess it has layers of meaning: Nude is the collection’s title but it also plays on the quote from John Berger that I used as an epigraph to the book: ‘Nudity is a form of dress.’ He was referring to the nude in Western art and there is much of that in the book. But not all the stories deal with art and the other unclothed bodies in the stories – in the form of lovers – are also nudes, in that they are being observed by someone else.

2. Many of the stories in your super collection, Nude, deal with art and paintings in some way. But I keep going back to the story of “Cowboy and Nelly” where the only artwork is a tattoo, or rather two. For me that story is “naked” and depicts a wonderful vulnerability and yearning and an earthiness where smells and their associations are evoked on more than half of the pages of the story. Were you aware of this? Did you place the smell ‘imagery’ consciously?

I had the motif of the tattoo in my mind and I wanted to write this story in a simple way because the main characters are simple souls who end up in a complex situation. I had absolutely no idea that smells were central to the story so I am going to dash off now and re-read it with that in mind. OK, I’m back. Wow, yes, I see what you mean. There’s Nelly’s ‘sweet-dough smell’, Cowboy’s ‘underarm sweat’, ‘the smell of over-ripe fruit and Daz’ on Thomas Street, the ‘promising and new’ smell in Frawley’s clothes shop. I wasn’t aware of doing that but I always tell my CW students to use their senses when they write, so I seem to be unconsciously following my own advice.

3. Congratulations on your novel, You. Did you workshop it or parts thereof?

Thanks for the congrats – I’m thrilled about it; New Island are a publisher I have long admired No, I never really workshop fiction much and I didn’t with the novel. I did discuss it with one close writer friend – we were both writing novels at the time so we would gripe to each other when it wasn’t going well. Only three people have seen the novel: me, my (former) agent and my editor. I haven’t shown it to my nearest and dearest, or to anyone, because that’s not the way I work. I don’t really want other writers’ input into my fiction when it’s in progress because I’d be afraid they would interfere with the flow. Then, when it’s finished, it’s finished. I can’t wait to get stuck into it with my editor at New Island though!

4. How did you find the tour? Did it help or hinder your new writing? Would you do something like this again with your novel or your next collection?

The tour has been great, if a little exhausting. I do get tired wittering on about me and my book but, at the same time, I have learnt about what I think of the process of writing. I guess it hinders in that I have less time to write, but I’m not writing much anyway because I have a new baby and she takes up most of my time. I would consider doing a virtual tour again – it’s a great promotional tool. I might do less than 10 stops though – it’s hard to keep people’s interest over such a long period. But some stalwarts have followed me from New Zealand all the way around the world and back here to you in Australia. I want to thank them and applaud their stamina.

Thanks again for stopping by on your whiz around the world. Maybe we can meet again. I’ve enjoyed hearing all the questions and your generous and helpful answers. I’m wishing you lots of success with your writing and looking forward to more.

Thanks a million, Merc. Maybe we’ll meet again in June of 2010 in Toronto at the next Short Story Conference?!

I'll try very hard to be there, Nuala. Onwards!

-----

If you’ve missed some of the questions asked on the Nude not Naked tour, check out Nuala’s tour blog stops for some amazing insights.

Nude is available from SALT Publishing and from the amazons. In Sydney, run to your local indie bookshop and place your order. You won’t regret this sensual and moving read.

A "New Australian" history

2009-10-20T22:05:00.005+02:00

I'm back in Sydney to say goodbye to the home I grew up in and to give a wave to Mum and Dad now strolling forever in their beloved bush. I hope the house becomes a hearth of home and creativity to the new owners and I hope it finds people it deserves. There's a lot of history in this house, "new Australian" history.

My Dad, Herbert S. Petter, ran an exclusive catering business in the 60s and 70s when big cats had generous expense accounts. Dad brought his Vienna and London schooling to a Sydney whose palate was strictly lamb and mint sauce with the occasional oyster to stray from old Blighty. Leo Scofield wrote about Dad and I've been going through lots of Dad's fan mail. The time was a boom for Sydney society with "exclusive" being the new catchword. Mum, Frieda Petter, helped Dad and specialised in delicious cold cheesecakes. And then there were stories. I must write them down. Maybe I'll do a book on Dad and his business with recipes and anecdotes of Sydney in the 60s.

And Mum, creative Mum. Waste not, want not was what she always said. Our house was full of wool and material, etched glasses, painted porcelain, patchwork and tapestries, spinning wheels, looms, .... Memories of all that will be in the book on Mum's craft that I promised her. After retirement Mum joined the Pink Ladies and contributed her craft work to supporting the local hospital. Yesterday I heard that the Pink Ladies completed and sold a lot of Mum's unfinished items. I can see her smiling with satisfaction.

Mum and Dad aren't buried anywhere, they've become part of the land they loved and they have left their mark on it. People called them "new Australians". I'm proud that they were. They started a new life here and they gave me a wonderful start to mine.

University rankings of my Alma Mater - Sydney/Vienna

2009-10-11T15:20:00.006+02:00

Although I'm pleased that the two universities I've been and still am associated with both ranked in the top 200, I've been wondering why they've both slipped. 60 year-old UNSW, the University of New South Wales, is now 47th (45th last year) and the University of Vienna, the oldest German-speaking university clocked in at 132nd (115th last year).

Is it because government funding is weak in both places? Is it because research has to assert itself in the marketplace and there is no room to err? Methinks a lot is being lost in not being allowed to make mistakes; mistakes often lead to new ways of thinking, new fresh directions. But mistakes, they say, are costly. Haven't we learned from the FiCri, or the BigFinancialCrisis? (Roald Dahl move over.)

There's also that tricky sword edge of "independence". Why don't all the moguls invest in the future by putting their pennies into a university trust? Me naïve? Everyone wants returns on investments; but those returns don't always have to be measured in lucre, do they?

If governments are sincere in thinking of the future, why do they always want to have their cake now. OK, next time, the other side may be up. So are we in one country, are we in one world? Investment in learning goes beyond one party, beyond one life. And if you keep filling the lecture rooms until they burst, how do you hear, let alone learn?

Short Stories by Patrick Cullen - a review

2009-10-10T16:40:00.010+02:00

Once again I was unable to crack a place in the ABR reviewing competition. My aim wasn't so much a prize, but publication of the review in Australia. No worries. Maybe my blog will reach another audience, so here's my "review"; and if you like short stories, Patrick has a second collection in the works.

Patrick Cullen
WHAT CAME BETWEEN
Scribe Publications, 192pp 9781921372889

In 2008 at the 10th International Short Story Conference in Cork, Ireland, Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler commented in a workshop on an exercise in which one of the students had transformed a panty hose into an instrument of yearning. That was my first encounter with the writing of Patrick Cullen.

I soon discovered that in addition to stories in The Age, Sleepers Almanac, Harvest and The Best Australian Stories 2007 (BAS07) edited by Robert Drewe, three of Cullen´s stories appeared as a ‘triptych’ in The Best Australian Stories 2005 (BAS05) edited by Frank Moorhouse. In a triptych, the left and right panels are subordinate to the centre one and so it also would seem to be with the stories “Mauve”, “Collapsing Under Their Own Weight” and “‘And?’” which all appear in amended forms (as does “The Easy Way Out” from BAS07) in Cullen´s story collection, What Came Between, published by Scribe Publications in August 2009. But in this collection of twelve linked stories, the central story of the triptych from BAS05, has been developed into a more complex one and appears as “Scar Tissue”, which for me represents the epiphany of the book. Although the stories can be read as stand-alones, when read in sequence they take on a hypertextual quality - a burrowing into layers which grounds the almost novelesque collection in the terrace houses of Laman Street, Newcastle, where the lives of neighbours interlink like cogwheels quietly ticking along from the 1989 Newcastle earthquake to the shutdown of the local steelworks a decade later, and beyond.

The first two stories, “Aftershocks” and “The Ground Beneath”, set the tone as the fault lines of the Newcastle earthquake expose the lives and longing of the inhabitants of Laman Street: the childless couple, Sarah and Paul, their neighbours, Ray and Pam, and the elderly Elsie. In “The Long Drive Home”, Elsie, learns to drive her grandson, Lucas´, car and, as in a relay, hands over her house to him. Then we segue into “And?” and the secrets Paul never divulged to his wife.

The next story, “The Comet”, describes how Lucas and Cate, a girl fleetingly mentioned in “The Long Drive Home”, get to know each other through the interweaving of Halley´s Comet, Huckleberry Finn and Mark Twain, before we are drawn on to “Mauve” in which Paul struggles with his career perceptions and the need to write as a way to express his feelings to Sarah. Although there are allusions to books and authors—Love in the Time of Cholera in “Scar Tissue” and Huckleberry Finn in “The Comet”—in “Mauve” the references to Paul, the writer of stories and poems, seem to fit better with the stand-alone “Mauve” than the “Mauve” of the story collection perhaps simply because there is no record of Paul ever writing again. Or will that be a part of the future?

In the middle of the collection the story “Dust” forms a natural marker for the following decade with the death of Geoffrey, a friend of Pam and Ray from their time before Laman Street: Pam and Ray are now parents, but Geoffrey´s death takes Pam back twenty years to when Geoffrey's then pregnant wife, Judy, confessed to Pam her infidelity. It is as though room for thought is provided to the reader before the next story, “The Easy Way Out” in which Pam encourages Ray to reconnect with their estranged son, Michael. At the same time, it would seem, in the story “Where Things Belong”, Lucas and Cate face impending parenthood and the enigmatic discovery of a child´s shoe in the ceiling. Then comes the brave and sensitive “Scar Tissue” where Sarah, standing naked in the surf displays her absent breast to the gaze of a passing stranger: “She hesitated for a moment then let her arms fall to her sides. … ‘Good morning,’ she said and laughed.” This sets the bitter-sweet tone for the last two stories: “Short of Breath, Full of Ache” where Michael discovers a new facet of his father Ray, and “The Birth of Unknowing” in which the birth of Cate and Lucas´ child indicates a certain hope for the future.

In simple prose Cullen describes the failings and victories of ordinary people with sensitivity and knowing that make the stories of this collection resonate. Robert Olen Butler, who on the back cover of the book speaks of the collection´s “vision of how we seek our deepest selves in the crush of the quotidian” also no doubt perceived in these stories a narrator who “yearns to face the dark things honestly.”

Needless to say, I enjoyed this collection and am curious as to the fate of the panty hose.

Blue - the new energy for the future

2009-10-04T12:49:00.012+02:00

This year I lost Mum and a dear friend and since then I haven't been able to write. But I've just come out of a wonderful adventure helping to organise a conference at Vienna University.
The conference on educational research with more than 2,000 attendees was serviced by about 170 student volunteers in their blue t-shirts and I'm proud to say the blues stole the show. They did more than that - I think the participants learned a lot from the students who showed "Yes, we can." And a word to Tanja, my boss: "Honey, we did it!" We also put on a lovely evening with Schrammel Musik by the Soyka-Stirner Duo.
I've worked at a lot of international conferences, big and small, in my time, but never with such an army of volunteers. The adrenaline flowed and the buzz was amazing. The students, I'm sure learned a lot, but I'd like them to know that I learned a lot, too, for which I am grateful. And I know that it won't be too long before I'm writing again.

And here are some Flickrpix before Monday's registration tsunami.

Ballistics reviewed by Jake Moss

2009-09-22T20:49:00.002+02:00

About a year ago I met a young Aussie in Vienna at an Aussie pub. I usually don't go to Aussie pubs, but the place I wanted to go was closed. It was a warm evening and I'd just enjoyed an outdoor concert with a couple of friends. My accent must have given me away and that's how I met Jake Moss. When I said I was a writer, he asked my name. I told him and added, "You wouldn't know me." But he did. He'd read an article in Ether Magazine which he wrote for and asked if I'd look at his stories. I said I wasn't a teacher, but I could share what I knew. It was up to him to make something of it. I also told him about a teacher I'd had, Alex Keegan. After working on a story with Jake, a story that had a strange nugget in it that begged to be found, I gave him a copy of Alex Keegan's short-story collection, Ballistics and asked him to write a review. Here's the review and I look forward to more of Jake's stories. The first is now out in the wild. Write, write, write; submit, submit, submit, as Alex would say.

Ballistics by Alex Keegan, reviewed by Jake Moss

"Ballistics, a collection of stellar short stories, put together like a photo album, snapshots of the ordinary life and its changing beauty and disarranged intensity. Captured, Succinctly - Situations where ordinary people who are living relatively ordinary lives are faced with the extraordinary complexities of it all.

"Keegan’s appeal lies in how he balances the emotional depth and engaging length of difficult situations- broken families, broken hearts, growing up, uncontrollable disasters, death and life- with humour, a dry philosophy, redemption and, ultimately the imperfect resolutions. He resuscitates the depth of these ‘every day’ lives while exposing the mucky mess of truth and the failures of being human which are habitually ignored.

"We see in many of his stories such as ‘Ballistics’ and ‘An old man watching football’, situations in which an individual’s past has conspired with their future to produce an outcome that can be sourced all the way back to childhood. I found myself more than once twisting around to face my estranged childhood and unravelling tangled memories. He provokes something real. ‘It’s as real as a tree’ he writes in ‘The smell of almond polish’ and this can be said about his stories. They are organic and pure- I can smell the almond polish as his characters make love upon it.

"His past talent as a Crimi writer also infuses something special into the stories. The rueful sentimentalism in ‘Spectacles and Testicles’ is enriched by the suspense he is able to conjure. The themes of innocence, the old, the young and death are often placed together. ‘The Quarry’, is one of those in which such themes are played with, causing a dark curtain of thoughts to descend after you’ve finished reading. In others, ‘Postcards from balloon Land’, your emotions are made to do laps and climb mountains. A strong narrative pulse is inherent throughout. Written in a blunt, quirky and bold language these stories carry a strong pulse.

"As an aspiring writer myself, a student of the pen, I say that he gives me something to look forward to and a target at which to aim. A purchase essential for the real amongst us. "

Good on ya, mate!

Vienna Lit Marathon and my midnight sandwich

2009-09-19T17:36:00.011+02:00

Around this time every year Vienna stages a 24-hour reading marathon, Rund um die Burg, held in tents next to the Burgtheater. There’s a kid’s tent Friday and Saturday and the main tent starts Friday at 4pm and ends Saturday at 5pm. Local published authors, big and smaller, get a 30-minute slot. Crime lit is on after midnight and erotica in the wee hours. And it’s all free! (I was privileged to participate in the Schule for Dichtung (Vienna Poetry Academy) class slot on the Saturday back in 2006. Our teacher then was the Viennese songwriter and author, Ernst Molden.)

The day job’s been taking a toll on my time these days, but I couldn’t resist swinging by at 9pm to secure a seat before what turned out to be a full house for Ernst Molden and Michael Niavarani.

Things were running 30 minutes behind schedule so I was in for a pumpkin time. Uschi Fellner, founder of Austria's Woman magazine and a big name in Austrian publishing introduced Barbara Pachl-Eberhart who read from her diaries. Pachl-Eberhart, a teacher who also volunteered as a clown at children’s hospitals, tragically lost her husband and children in 2008. She received a Leading Lady Award for her strength and optimism. People were very moved by her experience, but as she read from her diaries, with photos of her husband and children, the award ceremony, all on the big screen, I couldn’t help wonder about the need for people to know that stories are “true” and how mediatic presentations of such seemed to make it impossible to see nothing but the message. Is it the “message” we crave in our troubled times as our own form of therapy? “Sadness comes in waves,” she said. Many in the audience nodded. Call me cynical, but I couldn’t join in with clapping.

Then came prize-winning author, Antonio Fian with dream stories, Im Schlaf. I kept wondering who the narrator was as many of the stories talked of writers and publishers. The most humourous were the self-deprecating ones with allusions to bungled situations, some with sexual overtones; the author was definitely not dead as he seemed to insinuate himself into nearly all of the stories. I wondered whether a German-speaking audience had a different take on what I saw as humour. But we were already in that twilight between real life and fiction, the place of dreams, so who was I to scratch my head? The next slot was long fiction, with prize-winning Peter Rosei reading from his novel, Das Grosse Toeten. It’s hard to engage with a 30-minute chunk of a novel, but I did notice the detail used to sketch his believable characters. Then followed prize-winning novelist and poet, Bettina Balaka who read a number of poems from her collection, Schaumschluchten and an excerpt from her novel, Eisfluestern . This was lyrical and serious stuff that did not deserve a thinning of the crowd.

But then the room began to fill up as Ernst Molden took the stage, not with a book, but with his guitar, to sing from his latest CD and LP (yes, LP), Ohne Di . “I don’t write books anymore,” he said. (I hope he will write another one though, if only a collation of his weekly column, "Wien Mitte", in the Saturday Freizeit Kurier.) The man has a way with words in both his written and performed texts. Sit back and relax and dip into a Vienna much earthier and greener than the tourist brochures. 30 minutes were too short as the applause demonstrated, and it was already midnight.

Call on the clowns. Enter cabaretist and author, Michael Niavarani, Vienna’s own Persian son. A performer, Niavarani, read a series of excerpts from his book, Vater Morgana: eine Persische Familiengeschichte (story of a Persian family). The audience was in stitches as he recounted the strengths and weaknesses of the members of Martin’s (not Michael’s – he could get away with more by saying it was maybe not really all true, erhem) family. When noise from outside got a bit loud, Michael, the performer said, “Hey, I’m nearly finished,” and that was near the beginning. A great performance. Would I read the book? Yes. But I’d miss his spoken voice, his pauses, his grin, everything that covers up an inherent sadness of the “other”.

Both Molden and Niavarani, in their very different ways, for me held up a true mirror to the human condition, my human condition, that the ‘Truth”, craft, creative non-fiction and lyricism of previous presenters lacked. So I wonder if by stepping outside of ourselves and risking the unexpected we are then able to touch an audience in a manner that resonates beyond just one hearing or reading.

Sharon Ratheiser Exhibition in Carinthia

2009-09-05T08:51:00.004+02:00

After exhibitions in Vienna, Sharon Ratheiser is now having her first exhibition in Carinthia. Befittingly, it will be in a castle and is part of a series on contemporary artists. The vernissage is today, 5 September from 17:00 to 19:00. Sharon works in a variety of media. She did the covers of my two story collections, The Past Present and Back Burning and has done some lovely nudes over at AstridL's blog.

2. höfleiner donauweiten poesiefestival - the gig

2009-09-03T08:28:00.010+02:00

It was overcast, damp and cool on Saturday, so we moved inside to a full house under the guidance of Dieter Berdel and Heinz Pusitz. The rehearsal paid off, judging by the reception of our group work. The range of work was amazing: from pieces accompanied by music, to group pieces and presentations by prize-winning KrimiAutorin, Edith Kneifl and Bachmann Prize nominee, Caterina Satanik. The open-mic sessions allowed new talent on the stage. I particularly liked a story about a schoolboy losing and finding himself during swimming classes in Vienna's Amalienbad. A reading in Serbian brought laughter with well-timed sound effects of breaking cups - the serendipity of a foreign language which we were able to rehear in the German translation. Some of the Labyrinth regulars presented poems and pieces some together with Sandro Miori's sax. Janus Zeitstein read in Tyrolian lingo a wonderful piece about how we all started out with four arms, four legs and no worries and that the jealousy of the gods chopped us down to size. But somehow, though we humans managed to have the last words. The show went on in the sunshine on Sunday, and oh, the event got a good write up in the local press (in German with 2 pix). There'll be a CD of the weekend and possibly a book of the contributions ... one way to capture the fun fleeting moments.

2. höfleiner donauweiten poesiefestival - rehearsal

2009-08-28T09:05:00.003+02:00

Yikes! Getting ready for the 2. höfleiner donauweiten poesiefestival which will be held on Saturday and Sunday in the hills just beyond the Vienna Woods. Rehearsing tonight with a group piece based on a poem by Evelyn Holloway. On the weekend, there´ll be words in English and German and other languages, too. There´ll be music and performance by well- and lesser-known poets, writers and musicians from all around the area. Now to take on my stage fright ...
Bon weekend!

Geheimtipp!

2009-08-23T11:46:00.005+02:00

Here's some great reading for a leisurely Sunday. Savour the blog words of Thomas E. Kennedy. Read interviews at Blog U - Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 - with thanks to Okla Elliott and Oronte.

Nude, glorious Nude(s)

2009-08-22T08:53:00.003+02:00

I've just finished reading Nude and loved it. I'm going to try writing a review, for the discipline of articulating why I enjoyed Nuala's story collection and in preparation for the upcoming book tour. Over in Kiwiland, Rachel at Snow like Thought has been inspired to write a whole batch of stories and post pastels of nudes. I'm still blocked, hence another attempt at a review, but AstridL has been kind enough to share pastels and drawings of nudes by Sharon Ratheiser. There are more drawings that she'll let me have later as a reward for finishing the review.

Elevate the Ordinary

2009-08-22T06:05:00.004+02:00

Welcome to Brad who blogs at Elevate the Ordinary. His latest post addresses short fiction and flash. Good to see that the shorties are getting attention. Have just gone back to read some earlier posts - and to pinch from Maccas, I'm likin' it! Heaven knows how Brad found Merc's World, but hey, pull up the odd chair!

Following Nude - Nuala Ní Chonchúir

2009-08-18T15:44:00.005+02:00

Tis proud I am to have Nuala Ní Chonchúir now following this blog. Even prouder though am I to have Merc's World be the last blog stop (November) on Nuala's Virtual Book Tour which kicks off next month at Snow like Thought in the Land of the Long White Cloud. What's this all about? It's about nude, Nuala's collection of stories published by SALT which I'm now reading.

ps I've had to amend the spelling of one word in the title of this post. It seems that Nude all caps has an EU trademark on it and I really don't want to be sued by Mrs Bono! Thanks to Rachel for the info link in her latest post at Snow like Thought.

Out of the closet - my second follower! JR

2009-08-15T07:42:00.004+02:00

I'm really pleased to see that after the enigmatic Doris, I now have a second follower - and none other than the inimitable JR of short story (and other writing) and musik fame. Welcome, John Ravenscroft. This piggy is looking forward to the pearls he may cast.

ps. and I see that he's brought the missus along. Hi, Rose. Welcome aboard!

Patrick Cullen Review - What Came Between

2009-08-05T17:20:00.005+02:00

What with the PhD, the new day job, Mum's death and my back and forth to Oz for most of the preceding, I've not had a mind for reading or writing. So I'm proud to say that today I just mailed off an 800-word review of Patrick Cullen's debut work (which I refuse to call a novel) entitled What Came Between as an entry in the Australian Book Review's reviewing comp which has a deadline of 31 August. Results should be known by November when I can then post my review on my blog whichever way things go.

I entered this comp last year with a review of Lewis Croft's novel, The Pornographer of Vienna.

Guess it's my way of keeping up with the land of Oz when I run out of Vegemite. I won't cross my fingers though cos I need them to type.

And now for some real pros .... Mitzi Szereto & Ted Tedaloo

2009-07-25T08:48:00.008+02:00

Mitzi Szereto and her S.O., Ted Tedaloo, breezed into town on Thursday, 17th to heat up Vienna for the weekend. Now here are a couple of real professionals. Straight off the plane and into the chauffer-driven Panda to make a radio interview at ORF. Mitzi spoke for FM4's Reality Check while Ted kept quiet and gave her moral support. Then over the Danube to chill out.

Friday? Well Ted was up first to get Mitzi moving. She was special guest on the Mutzenbacher Tour and Ted opted to stay back in the Souk and catch up on some sleep before the evening reading at Shakespeare's. During the reading in Vienna's old town, Ted did what he does so well, being Ted. (Eat your heart out John Malkovich.) The evening ended with sausage and a tram ride through the hottest night of the year, or almost.

Saturday it rained and stormed, so we all went to the Hundertwasserhaus and then Sushi and on to Demel for cake followed by Mozart's chamber music and local fare in the Bierklinik before being spirited back over the Danube in the mysterious red Panda sporting a koala in red/white/red togs.

Sunday was hot, so Ted took us on the tram and the bus to the Leopoldberg via the Kahlenberg. The former had no place to refresh and the latter was too squeaky clean so we opted for the delightful Huette am Weg at Elisabethwiese where we had frankfurts and strudel. Then on to Schoenbrunn where we took the train twice around. They asked Ted for a ticket but let him through as a minor which he didn't like one bit. Dinner in town at Steak Point in the Walfischgasse (watch out for the whales, Ted) and then back home to get ready for the trip back to London.

A whizz of a weekend with Ted Tedaloo and Mitzi Szereto, writer, anthologist, queen of literary erotica, queen of Facebook poke, of social networking tout court and who now has her own TV show, Mitzi TV - also, a lovely guest and such fun to hang out with, as a pro and as a person. Oh, yes, and Ted is such a gentleman!

Letter to Grayson, Aussie in Europe

2009-07-25T05:37:00.005+02:00

"Hello. I am Australian musician grayson. ... I will have another Australian who will open my shows for me. I would love to launch my new cd in your beautiful part of the world. Late july would be great. I noticed that you have attended cafe kafka. The venue looks perfect as i will just be voice and guitar.If you could help me orgainse something I would be very greatful and happy to pay you for your help. ..."

"... Kafka looks cool- if you could organise it and help me promote it i will be more than happy to pay you a cut of what ever i make ..."

"Thankyou so much for your hard work and efforts- it wont be forgotten!!!"

"... you will get amazing karma!!!"

Remember this, Mick? So this silly old duck booked you in at Kafka - I did say that it wasn't really a place for a music gig, but you were adamant. Then I had to dash back to Oz and so asked an Aussie mate in Vienna to look after getting things ready for you. And he asked an Austrian mate to organise speakers, etc. I'd said that there was no need to pay me, but that you should pay those helping you out. You sent me Karma. I'd never received any of that so was ill prepared for the effects of your brand.

When I got back from Oz, your gig was over. I emailed you to ask how it went. Radio silence. So I asked around. Seems you never paid the 30 Euros for the cards and posters you asked to have printed in Vienna; seems you didn't want to pay anything for the loan of the speakers and my friends had to insist before you coughed up. Seems you asked if they didn't know that Australians never pay. Did you really say that? Seems you thought Cafe Kafka was not good for your gig. You'd been warned. Cafe Kafka is a wonderful intimate place used by poets and anyone else who enjoys the aura of generosity that reigns there. Maybe that aura put you off. Didn't fit with your brand of karma?

So now this old duck would like to apologise - to Hamid at Cafe Kafka for the cuckoo I dropped in his nest; to Jake and his Austrian mate who spontaneously jumped in to help with posters and speakers, to help not you Mick, but me; to the audience on the night - but they did like the "other Australian", Tyler Gibbs. And I have learned my lesson - really check out anyone who asks for help - something I usually do. Guess I went soft on the Aussie card.

Grayson, you have to be really good to get away with being a bludger and treating badly strangers who help you, and even then it's not the way to go. Oh, and go easy on the karma, that stuff has a way of biting you in the tail.

That being said, let's move forward now with a ps in honour of a rabbit-0h - Grayson reviewed at Ether Magazine, July issue.

Dear Mum ...

2009-07-14T03:16:00.001+02:00

PETTER, Frieda (1917-2009), widow of Herbert S. Petter (1918-2002), left us suddenly on Monday, June 29. She was farewelled quietly and privately by her daughter, Sylvia, and her granddaughter, Maarit. She will be missed. Normanhurst, July 12, 2009.

The Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Busy weeks passed and more ahead

2009-06-27T12:46:00.012+02:00

What's been happening? Well, Doris, there was my workshop which knocked me out but was great fun. I was thinking of doing one a month, but have now opted for one a year. We got immersed in lots of words and I'm now tempted to have a go at screenwriting.

I also met up with Lisa and Nick (Lisa from LinkedIn) who were over from California, and discovered that they, too, were doing the screenwriting thing. Must be something in the air, or is it all those Austrian awards?

Now I'm preparing for Mitzi's visit and her reading at Shakespeare & Company and our Mutzenbacher tour. But before that, on 11 July, Grayson from Oz via Eire will be launching his CD at Cafe Kafka. And before that, on 3 July, our all-night Open Mic at Kafka. OK, I'm spooling backwards, but will catch up next time.

Small is beautiful, and bigger than you think

2009-06-11T15:25:00.005+02:00

These last 4-day weeks have just whizzed with a great atmosphere in the (short) day job and two compact extremes of Viennese culture on the weekend.

Friday night saw the performance of porno.lyrix in the Reading Room in Margareten. It was a bilingual performance by Franz Mayr, Carina Nekolny and Sylvia Petter, with tongues very much into cheeky cheeks. Based on original texts in Viennese dialect by Carina Nekolny and translated into English by yours truly, the performance was accompanied by the exhibition of artwork by Jakob Nekolny and craft work by Carina. Here's my rendering of the official Reading Room Summer Programme:
"An artificial porno performance, bilingual in word, image and sound by and with the "Kunstkolchose ahoj". A peep n' byte form of the performance was part of the Margaretener Kunst und Kulturmesse. For reasons beyond our understanding it was excluded (censored?) from the programme of the Wiener Bezirksfestwochen." The original texts were part of the Vienna Poetry Academy's contribution to the Vienna Festwochen in 2006. So much for censorship.

At the other end of the cultural scale was Chamber Music in the Mozart Haus on Saturday night with works by Mozar t, Haydn and Mendelsson. (On the Thursday night, Barenboim gave a free concert at Schoenbrunn where he tried to symphonise the little night music, probably forgetting that small can be so beautiful.)

Now off to prepare for my workshop on Saturday...

I'm not racist, but ... try and advance, Australia Fair

2009-06-01T16:25:00.006+02:00

Just back in Vienna after a month in Sydney, and watching French TV coverage of the way Australians treated Indian students in Melbourne - "curry bashing" they called it. I'm with Bollywood star, Amitabh Bachchan, who may turn down an honorary degree from Brisbane University. Whichever way he goes, I'm with him.

I'm sorry, Australia, but you've got to do something about what you grow your kids up on. Not all of you mind, but those trapped in a corner, who only know violence as the way out. Or maybe more of the others, too, that you might want to admit. The silent majority. My God, how it sucks. That is the legacy of a government weaned on a policy of "white", of a fading minority loath to admit its failings despite the word "Sorry".

I'm sorry, Australia. As an immigrant child in the 50s, one of yours at Loreto Convent called me a Nazi just because I was different. Back home in Sydney in the 70s, a cab driver with a European Strine accent railed at Vietnamese taking the jobs. All they were doing was working bloody hard.

Australians abroad, at least in Geneva, are known to be bloody hard workers, the women at least. I'm sorry, Australia. But, I wasn't the only UN expat ashamed of our Human Rights record when JH was at the helm. Oz radio was full of tirades at the "bleeding hearts" then. I was home to vote and when I found myself off the electoral roll in my local community, a chap with a South African accent told me that I had no right t vote if I didn't live in the country. And what about expats? They miss their Australia.

I remember in the days of JH, I was on home leave and homesick. I applied for a job in the PM's Office. Rang the Honcho in charge of the Cabinet, had a long discussion (I had great international credentials). Said I didn't agree with all of JH's policies. Why do you want to work in his Cabinet, Honcho asked. I'm Australian. I believe it's important to not hear the yes-men all the time. Hearing another POV is good for forming an opinion. Doesn't mean you have to change. At least you know. I never heard anything more. Guess I may be on file. I was already considered pink around the gills during the Cold War.

I've hit 60 now, Australia. I'm wondering if I should maybe come home one day soon while I can still get around. No worries, I don't need your Centrelink, have never taken from you. But I grew up in a country I still dream of as wonderful and can remember the country whose passport I once was proud to carry. Now I just carry that passport. Australia. And line up for the visas I happen to need wherever I go. Dislocated? You bet!

Mate, you should have stuck with "Waltzing Matilda".

Maybe Anita Heiss' book, I'm not racist, but ... will knock some sense into me.

Sydney-Wien

2009-05-28T10:04:00.007+02:00

It's been over a month since I've blogged. For some reason I like to be at my desk and don't like blogging on the run. This saves me from having to upgrade and buy the latest tech stuff I can't afford, and anyway, I don't want to put my trusty hamster out of a job. He's so good at keeping that wheel turning, specially while I'm blocked.

When I planned my trip to Sydney for graduation and the first family reunion in ages, I did what they tell you to do on a plane - put your own mask on first before attending to others. This may seem a little selfish, but ... So instead of starting my Sydney stay with my 60th birthday and ending it with my PhD graduation, I booked the tickets for hubby and me to begin with graduation and culminate with my very selfish choice of the Sydney Writers' Festiva l. I rang Newcastle writing mate, Patrick Cullen, whom I'd met in Cork at last year's International Conference on the Short Story in English to hang out with me at the SWF. (Patrick's story collection, What Came Between, will be out soon.) Interesting title - as something did come between and had to take priority over the SWF.

My Mum had had a fall at Easter and was in hospital and the rest of my time in Sydney was spent on the mission impossible of settling her into a nice and safe place. Mission accomplished. The moral is - had I not had the selfish SWF plan, my timing would have been awry - karma? You bet.

The SWF has not left my thoughts. Nor has the wonderful world of the short story. How often had I heard that in Australia and elsewhere, no way can the short story fly. And now - just look at it go. Tania Hershman of The Short Review gets an Orange mention; Alex Keegan, venerable writing Boot Camp sergeant goes Ballistics; Petina Gappah from Switzerland shows the way to change; Nam Le beats novels to rake in Oz prizes and Alice Munro nudges Carey out of the running. The short story is back - it was never absent.

Now to get more Aussie short-story writers and critics to the next International Conference on the Study of the Short Story in English to be held in Toronto. And after that, why not have the Conference take place in Australia and demonstrate not only the universality of the genre, but that you can't keep a good story down? And maybe the SWF can swing such a conference in on her coattails ... Just maybe and what if?

The Bridesmaid Stories

2009-04-24T15:10:00.004+02:00

Dear Doris,
Have I told you about the bridesmaid stories? Well, you know the saying: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. I mean, every bride needs a bridesmaid, at least in her dreams. The bride, in the best of all possible worlds only lives once though, albeit in glory. The bridesmaid can go for repeats. Well, there are stories like that and I've got lots. I'm actually quite fond of them and others are too. They've all been through some sort of editing process, been commended or shortlisted, but never heavyweight enough to have had anyone popping the question. But hey, they touched people, brought a smile to their faces, a little aha. So what I've done in these Fi-Cri times of gloom and recession is to put them out there over at Scribd for readers to spend a few moments getting away from the serious stuff. So Doris, you're welcome to swing on by. And, yes, I'll be adding lots more.

Avoiding rules with double standards

2009-04-21T18:37:00.004+02:00

In the early 90s I wrote a story called The Rules of the Game. It was about kids coexisting in the backyard bush and I tried to model it on the UN and the various agencies, I guess according to how I perceived that organisation to have been intended. It was the time when the PLO wanted to sit in UN meetings. I thought at the time that it would be better to let those who thought differently in to the club rather than shut them out. Once in, everyone would have to abide by the rules. Naive?

Today, reading in the SMH that Western countries walked out of the UN Conference I'm rethinking those thoughts, but I still come to the same conclusion. You set up an organisation for a better world, your members have different viewpoints - some of which you align with under other circumstances depending on political stakes - so all you need to do is get your members to thrash things out at the conference table. Naive?

So you try and get everyone inside. What happens? I don't want to go. I might get trapped. I might lose face. I might lose money. I might lose my job. OK, I'll go. Childish?

So a lot of one side turn up and some of the other. The ones in the smaller group have been calling the shots for a long while so they know the ropes. But they seem to be finding the kitchen too hot and so walk out. I don't want to stay. I don't want to play. Not with you. I might lose. I might lose face. I might lose money. I might lose my job. Childish?

And offstage behind the scenes are men, women and children who just want to get on with their lives, want their children to have a life, to have a world; want their politicians and puppetmasters to stop playing dangerous games in which we all are the pawns; want them to grow up. Naive?

In My Bed By the Skin of the Nose

2009-04-21T16:32:00.005+02:00

I'm pleased to report that my story, "By the Skin of the Nose", appears in Skin, Issue #5 and anniversary issue of bright and classy In My Bed Magazine. I'd better tell AstridL.

Southsea revisited

2009-04-18T15:38:00.004+02:00

The book of performance texts of the South Pacific Yearning project is now out and you can get a copy for 5 Euro from the OSPG. It's a multilingual work with texts in German and Wienerisch, kindly integrating my reactions in English to the same.