Hidden Author
Fairfax Central
Dear Editor,
We, the undersigned, wish to draw to national attention the implication of the upcoming Fairfax consolidation of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, and the Canberra Times book sections. This has the potential to reduce significantly the content of the three separate sections in terms of both the number of books covered and reviewers. The same review would appear ... (read more)
ABR moves to Southbank
While this issue is printing, we’ll be moving to our new office in Boyd, a wonderful extension of the City of Melbourne’s Creative Spaces program. Advances has already written about the many benefits of our new home in the old Boyd High School in Southbank. Now we look forward to settling in, getting to know our artist-neighbours in the other studios, and welcom ... (read more)
Overlooking Max Harris
Dear Editor,
David Marr, in his article about the premières of three of Patrick White’s plays in Adelaide (ABR, May 2012), presents Geoffrey Dutton as the principal player in this story. However, any essay about White’s Adelaide performances should acknowledge the roles of Max Harris and Harry Medlin.
... (read more)
Miles and the mindset
How refreshing it was to read – on the announcement of the 2012 Miles Franklin Literary Award’s shortlist – that The Trust Company, which administers the Miles, has written to the judges ‘authorising them to use their discretions to modernise the interpretation of “Australianess” (sic) beyond geographical boundaries to include mindset, language, history a ... (read more)
Why do you write?
When I was young I tried different things: drawing, painting, music, poetry, short stories, journalism, reviewing, but poetry turned out to be what I was best at.
Are you a vivid dreamer?
Oh, yes. I always dream in colour, and I can remember how things are oriented in my dreams — which way is north, I mean, and where the coast is. I think I developed that talent as a ch ... (read more)
New home for ABR
Happily, ABR has a new home, well away from the egregious fashions of Bridge Road, Richmond. Soon we will be moving to a new community hub in Melbourne’s Southbank precinct. The City of Melbourne has renovated the nineteenth-century J.H. Boyd Girls’ High School on City Road, and our new office (not finished when we took this photograph!) will be infinitely superior ... (read more)
Muddying the waters
Dear Editor,
A substantial part of Peter Hill’s review of my book Permanent Revolution: Mike Brown and the Australian Avant-Garde 1953–1997 recounts the artist’s prosecution for obscenity following the visit of the head of the Darlinghurst vice squad to Brown’s exhibition Paintin’ A Go-Go at Sydney’s Gallery A in November 1965 (March 2012). As I pointed out ... (read more)
Peter Porter Poetry Prize
Michael Farrell is the winner of the 2012 Peter Porter Poetry Prize, worth $4000. Our judges, Judith Beveridge and David McCooey, selected his poem, ‘Beautiful Mother’, from almost 800 entries. On learning of his success, Mr Farrell told Advances:
It’s exciting to have won the Peter Porter Poetry Prize, especially from such a large field. It’s an honour ... (read more)
Kerr the contextualist
Dear Editor,
Andrew Sayers’s thoughtful review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Art (February 2012) encourages one to read this book that marks ‘the maturity of a new orthodoxy for Australian art’. However, it was his last two paragraphs that really caught my attention. Sayers refers to the omission of Joan Kerr and to her work in melding Australian art ... (read more)