Caroline Lurie

'Literary Agents – Who Needs Them?' by Caroline Lurie

May 1986, no. 80 • 01 May 1986

When the Writers’ Week organisers asked me to come and talk on a panel of literary agents, I naturally asked what they wanted me to talk about. (I knew that jokey anecdotes about publishers, writers, and agents would be just the thing; I also knew that my delivery would fall horribly flat, even if I could remember any.) It was suggested that I might talk about pitfalls for writers – a subject ... (read more)

Canberra stages a good festival

May 1985, no. 70 • 01 May 1985

I saw an elderly, quite famous poet sitting all forlorn on a large boulder, neither quite inside a lecture room nor quite outside on the leafy lawn. Her location, and the droop of her shoulders said, See, I am alone. I knew her, I had taken her once on a short publicity round in Sydney, years ago: should I stop and say, Remember me? Remember that book you wrote, how we thought it might change thi ... (read more)

'On Being a Literary Agent' by Caroline Lurie

July 1988, no. 102 • 26 August 2022

Have I talked on this topic before? Do I hear the echo of my own voice? ‘What we do’, I say so many times a week, ‘is read your manuscript. If we think there is a market for it, we’ll try to place it with the most appropriate publisher, negotiate the best possible terms for you, exploit such subsidiary rights as are applicable, and take 10 per cent of whatever we can get for you.’ That ... (read more)

'Letter to Elizabeth Jolley' by Caroline Lurie

April 2007, no. 290 • 01 April 2007

Dear Elizabeth, Well, it seems our long correspondence is over. Actually it ended some years ago, didn’t it? Your last letter to me is dated Christmas Eve 2001. I continued writing to you into the following year, not immediately realising you were unable to reply, even though your later letters spoke of confusion and of unaccountably getting lost in familiar streets. It’s been a long goodbye ... (read more)

Caroline Lurie reviews 'Lambs of God' by Marele Day

August 1997, no. 193 • 01 August 1997

Nuns supply the world with a wonderful source of all-singing, all-dancing, laughing or weeping material, from The Abbess of Crewe to A Nun’s Story, from The Sound of Music to Nunsense. Where would novelists and filmmakers be without the sisterhood? Catholic girls have strong feelings about nuns, often bitter but sometimes affectionate. The rest of us find nuns to be fairly remote figures, eccent ... (read more)