It was Thursday night and I passed up the highly-publicised Trent Jamieson event at Avid to attend a small talk at
the Queensland Writers Centre
headquarters in the State Library.
It was an intimate talk with the editor of the Australian Book Review, Peter Rose, and something told me it was going to be a gold mine of juicy
advice and information. That hunch proved correct, and the words that follow
are an attempt to reproduce some of the brilliance that eloquently spilled out of Mr Rose
that evening. The event was also Kate Eltham’s last as Chief Executive Officer of QWC, and she was wished a
warm farewell.
Mr Rose is a poet, and has also written a memoir and two
novels. He’s been the editor of the ABR since 2001 and was at Oxford University
Press Australia before that. He’s written a total of 5 poetry collections, the
most recent of which is ‘Crimson Crop’
released earlier this year. You can listen to him talking on 4ZzzFM here.
ABR turned 50 last year, and Mr Rose began the evening with
a brief introduction to the magazine and its content. He said its core mission
is still the same as it has been for decades - “to cover Australian literary
culture”. Reviews featured in the magazine are approximately 1200 words (which really
is quite large) and, rather impressively, only about 20% of the content isn’t
either Australian-written or Australian-published. There have been some priority shifts in the
recent years, however, and Mr Rose highlighted the development of their
competitions and prizes focus. The ninth annual Peter Porter Poetry Prize, for example, is currently open
for entry and has a first prize of $4000. There were 1300 short stories
submitted for the 2012 Elizabeth Jolley short story prize which carries a total
prize pool of $8000. There’s also the Calibre prize for an outstanding essay
with a totally prize pool of $10’000. It’s an intense and exciting list, and spectacularly funded, too.
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| Mr Rose himself. |
A query by Ms Eltham into the financial situation of the
magazine gave Mr Rose an opportunity to express something he seemed to be
itching to say, which is that “actually, the magazine is in robust health.” I
want to end this sentence with an exclamation mark to indicate his satisfaction
and my surprise simultaneously, but for some reason I feel like he wouldn’t
appreciate that. Later on, though, he did mention that “it’s not Shangri-La,”
and that “there are realities here.” There was a nod and assenting murmur from
our Brisbane audience, all too aware of the abysmal cut of funding to the
Premier’s Literary Awards.
So how is ABR funded? “Through philanthropy we’ve been able
to fund a lot.” Mr Rose explained that “anyone who works in literature is aware
of the purpose of private patronage.” Later on he came back to the topic of
financial support, and expressed a kind of mild exasperation that “our
literature is amazingly sophisticated for a country of 20 [or so] million
people,” and yet “literature cops it in the neck regularly,” as compared to,
for example, the film industry. Apparently the film industry in Australia receives
considerable government funding, and yet something like 1% of films consumed in
Australia are actually Australian films. There appears to be a stupid disparity
between what the respective industries bring in and what they create, and how
much funding they receive.
Moving on from the accounting talk, though, and Mr Rose
began singing into the ears of the nervous children (read: emerging writers)
surrounding him. In other words, we moved on to the part of the talk where he
got super encouraging and cuddly. Well, as cuddly as a tweed-wearing literary
critic can be. “It’s been a particular pre-occupation of mine… to help improve
and cultivate the next generation of critics.” Well thank you, Mr
Rose, thank you very much. He even acknowledged the stigma surrounding literary
criticism, but insists that ABR “is not a cliquey organisation... we are not
terrifying.” It seems a humble thing for such an established publisher of such a
prestigious publication to be saying, but he made it abundantly clear that ”ABR
can be a very useful launching pad for reviewers and also poets and short story
writers.”
I also found out that this QWC event was just one part of Mr
Rose’s sweep of Brisbane. He spoke earlier at UQ that day and had a talk at QUT
scheduled for Friday. He even mentioned that at UQ he met with 4 to 5 writers
whom he will “certainly commission in the coming months.” I mean, come on, how
goddamn encouraging can one dude be! For the trip, he even prepared a lovely
checklist for those newbies considering writing for ABR and other publications
in general, which is now available here.
Many things on the list just gave me déjà vu from the So You Want to be a Writer session I went to a few weeks
back. The first thing he emphasised was that “If you want to write for ABR, or
indeed any magazine, get to know it.” Specifically, he encouraged people to just send
him a succinct email (with emphasis on the word ‘succinct’ definitely clear). “By
and large, if the person can spell, use correct grammar, and they don’t address
the email with ‘Hi Pete’, then usually I’ll email back.”
Some considerable discussion also covered the editing
process. When a review or piece of writing is submitted for ABR it is, of
course, edited – “no hissy fits” Peter adds. The group chuckles. Here’s the great
thing about ABR too, they show the writer all the proofing and editing as it
goes along. As an emerging writer this process has a very particular and intense appeal. It allows
me to glimpse the editor’s thought process, it allows me to learn from my
mistakes with a precision that equates to real growth. It’s awesome. “If you
want to be a reviewer, you have to be prepared to be edited. It’s an artistic
process.” Yessir. Oh – and don’t be afraid to call a spade. Mr Rose said “I don’t
think we see enough decidedly stinging reviews…” and he blames this on
Australia’s literary culture being so very “polite”. I always imagined that a
scathing review from a newbie writer was just too presumptuous and borderline
arrogant, but it seems that sinking your teeth in, no matter how sharp, is fine.
So long as it is justified, spelled correctly, and contains no grammatical
errors.
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| Something else mentioned on the evening which I haven't covered properly in this post, is the paid internship position that ABR offers to a young graduate each year. This is Milly Main, the Ian Potter Foundation intern for 2012. Read more about how awesome this programs is here. This position is the perfect example of Mr Rose putting his money where his mouth is in terms of supporting emerging writers and publishers. |
Another topic of conversation was the virtual side of things.
Mr Rose got a little bit negative here. He doesn’t seem impressed with the
whole online/blogosphere phenomenon, which initially made my fur prickle, but
he went on to explain his opinion that online content is responsible for the
suffering of artists, and I ended up agreeing with a lot of what he had to say.
He expressed genuine concern that the lack of money involved in online content usually
means that “someone is getting screwed.” I can relate to this on so many
levels. I blog, and I blog a lot about books and writing, and I don’t make a
cent from it. I do it because I love it and I do it because each post makes me
better at what I do here, and one day I’m going to get paid for working in the
industry. In the meantime though, I have a job with absolutely no correlation to
what I want to do with my life, and the hours I spend on poiseonarrows are
always rushed because of pressing university deadlines. I’m certainly not
unique in this lifestyle either. Blogging is a tough mistress, and it can feel
unthanking when you can’t see the faces of the people you’re writing to. I keep
doing it though, because I’m writing for myself more than anything, and I think
I would have gone insane if I didn’t have this platform for unloading my
thoughts all through 2011. Anyways, enough about me. I think Mr Rose is sweet
in his concern for people whose content is online when he asks “you do wonder
sometimes, how is the writer going to survive?” but it’s also a little
dismissive. The literary world is moving to the virtual plane in swift paces,
and whilst I admire people like Mr Rose sticking to their guns and continuing
to publish their magazines in print and support printed works, I would have
really liked him to be a bit more positive on this front. I don’t think
constructive adaptation to support emerging artists online as well as in hard
copy is too much to ask from our industry.
One of the last things Mr Rose spoke about was the freedom
of ABR to follow its own vision because it wasn’t tied to profit-making
requirements. In fact, he seemed to trash talk the idea of similar
organisations which work for profit, saying they suffer from a “relentless
compromising of [their] standards”. Conversely, he says that “working for a
not-for-profit organisation is so liberating.” I mean, his argument makes
complete sense, but for some reason I still found it a little too high-brown
and impractical. I’m no expert on the industrial side of things, but I cannot
imagine it would be practical for all literary criticism magazines in Australia to offer tens
of thousands of dollars in prizes, and not have to make some kind of gross
income at the end of each July. I’m not saying I like it this way, but I think ABR is in
a very unique and privileged position, and it’s not really fair to judge other
magazines too harshly for their basic profit-based decisions. Perhaps this is a
cynical Brisbane opinion, but in our current socio-political climate, I think
all literary magazines that still function and support the industry in any way
should be encouraged.
I think that’s about it! Mr Rose said he went on this
Queensland trip to “encourage people to cut their teeth” with ABR, and
repeatedly assured us that “there is a lot of work around for reviewers,” so I
think most of us left the night on a truly positive note. With his focus on
young and emerging writers, I think Mr Rose has made a bold and excellent decision
to really dig ABR’s roots into the future of Australia’s literary industry. His
passion as a poet and writer as well as a critic has clearly established the
organisation as a supportive and encouraging yet prestigious and impressive
publication. It’s a balance he himself seems to strike as well – walking the
fantastic line between warm and professional. I came away from the evening with
an excellent impression of Mr Rose (if you have the time, I highly suggest reading his regularly updated blog on the ABR website), and an itch to write for ABR which I might
just slave and sweat to scratch.
