ASAL

Much has been written and muttered about the difficulty of turning scholarship into commercially viable manuscripts and of interesting publishers in academic writing – some of it, indeed, by Tom Griffiths in the March issue of ABR. In his Commentary, Professor Griffiths defended the role of universities in fostering cogent, rigorous writing. (He also produced one of our favourite quotes of the year: ‘Scholarly writers tend to be pathetically grateful to be published.’) Now Picador Australia and the University of Sydney have taken it one step further. In what is claimed to be a ‘world-first commercial non-fiction publishing project’, costing more than $660,000, six writing residencies will be offered for recent doctoral graduates to turn their research dissertations into commercial non-fiction to be published by Picador Australia. The graduates will be mentored by ‘established literary non-fiction writers of the highest calibre’. Drusilla Modjeska, currently an ARC Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, will lead the project, which will also fund an Australian Postgraduate Award, a scholarship for doctoral research into aspects of Australian non-fiction publishing.

Travelling to the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference on the morning tram, I marvel at Melbourne’s sophistication and self-regard. In Swanston Street, new sculptures honour John Brack’s satire of Melbourne’s regimented workers, while in front of the State Library there’s a classical portal half buried in the pavement, as if the ancient world lies below. At the Trades Hall in Carlton, the framed wall directory is ‘Heritage Only’, so I follow the photocopied paper arrows to the conference venue. There’s more historical self-consciousness here than in the new National Museum in Canberra. Banners assert the importance of eight hours’ work, recreation and rest, and there is a massive socialist realist representation of good Australian workers toiling to keep the country alive. We’re in the sacred place of the Left: Frank Hardy, Stephen Murray-Smith, Judah Waten surely haunt us here.