300 and all that!

Next month marks the 300^th issue of ABR. We’re feeling very generous as we approach this milestone. We invite current subscribers to give away a free six-month subscription to ABR when they renew. This is your chance to introduce a friend or colleague to ABR (recipients of these gifts must not be current or recently lapsed subscribers). All you have to do is to complete the cover sheet accompanying the March issue or contact the Office Manager on (03) 9429 6700 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Any current subscriber can take up this special offer if they renew now: your subscription doesn’t have to lapse this month for you to be eligible.

Annual beat-up

By an accident of the calendar, the long list for this year’s Miles Franklin Award will not be announced on the ides of March. This would have been fittingly portentous. Instead, we will learn which books have been longlisted on March 13. The shortlist will follow on April 17, and the winner will be announced on June 19, when he or she will receive $42,000. The judges this year are Robert Dixon, Morag Fraser, Ian Hicks, Regina Sutton and Lesley McKay. The latter replaces fellow bookseller Eve Abbey.

Each year Advances looks forward to a new round of bleatings about the terms of Miles Franklin’s will and the restriction of the award to those works containing Australian characters, settings or references. Last year, to celebrate this phenomenon, we created a new prize: the Miles Franklin Beat-up Award (sadly not awarded in a rather tame year). This splendid award will go to the first reader who draws our attention to an article about the perfidy of Miles Franklin. He or she will receive an excellent bottle of red (Australian, naturally).

Richard Holmes – the duo

Some visitors to Adelaide Writers’ Week may be unsure which Richard Holmes will be speaking: the distinguished biographer (a former, memorable guest at WW) or the military historian and television presenter. It is in fact the latter, whose most recent publication is The World at War: The Landmark Oral History from the Previously Unpublished Archives (2007).

Happily, the other Richard Holmes – author of works including Shelley: The Pursuit (1974), Coleridge: Early Visions (1989) and Dr Johnson and Mr Savage (1993) – will be visiting Australia later in the year, and ABR will be much involved in his visit. Currently the Professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia, Richard Holmes will present the 2008 HRC Seymour Lecture in Biography in Canberra on Wednesday, September 10, and in Melbourne on September 17. Further details will appear in future issues of ABR.

More rest, please

Barry Humphries – indefatigable stage performer – has been ordered to rest for six months following an appendectomy. Humphries, who turned seventy-four in February, is reported to have cancelled a tour of North America. So he should have plenty of time to answer questions from Anne Pender, who is working on a full biographical study of Humphries, funded by an ARC Discovery Grant (the sort of detail that Sir Les Patterson would relish). The book, as yet untitled, will be published in 2009 by ABC Books. John Lahr of the New Yorker wrote the previous (brilliant) study, Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization: Backstage with Barry Humphries (1991). Humphries himself has written two notable autobiographies, most recently My Life As Me: A Memoir (2002), which Peter Rose reviewed for ABR in December 2002–January 2003. Anne Pender is busy. With Susan Lever she is co-editing a book of essays on the late and similarly multi-talented Nick Enright, for publication in the Netherlands later this year.

Testing the waters

Gerald Murnane’s Tamarisk Row (1974) is the first title in the Giramondo Classic Reprint Series. It is the first step in a project managed by the Writing & Society Reach Group at the University of Western Sydney. Ivor Indyk tells us that the project includes an initial hit-list of fifteen other titles, according to Dr Indyk, going back one hundred years. ‘To be successful, such a series will depend upon the collaboration of different publishers, and the support of academic institutions and funding organisations,’ Ivor Indyk told Advances. ‘In the meantime, we are testing the waters.’

It’s been a good month for Gerald Murnane. He and Christopher Koch have just received emeritus awards worth $50,000 each for their contributions to Australian literature. One such award is presented each year by the Australia Council: this year the judges were so impressed they made it two.

Calling all reviewers

It’s on again: the ABR Reviewing Competition, and this year the first prize is worth $1000, plus publication of the winning review and (at least) two future commission from ABR. The second prize is worth $250; the third prize-winner will receive a set of Black Inc. Titles. We are seeking reviews of 800 words, of any English-language books published since January 2006 (no reissues please). More details appear on page 17. Guidelines and the application form are available on the ABR website, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..