Anna Lanyon and the Mexican Inquisition

  Years ago I read Anna Lanyon's book Malinche's Conquest. It tells the story of Malinche, a Mexica (Aztec) woman who was Cortes' lover and mistress and - as much as a fifteenth century indigenous mistress could be, his cultural attache. At the time I was also reading the likes of Hugh Thomas' epic 811 page The Conquest of Mexico, and The Penguin History of Latin America as well various academic texts about the translation of Mayan glyphs. To read the unique historical voice of Malinche, told in accessible narrative form was a welcome break from the weighty and sometimes dry, historical accounting that can be found in books with very specific subject matter.
   In Fire and Song The Story of Luis de Carvajal and the Mexican Inquisition it's the voice of Luis de Carvajal, a sixteenth century Sephardim, a Jew who was born on the Iberian Peninsula, and his family as they journey from persecution in Spain and Portugal to persecution in New Spain, the enigmatic and vast land we now know as Mexico.
   Luis' voice has been stored throughout history in the form of not only the detailed records that were kept by Inquisitors but also in his 'Book of Miracles', where he recorded, in minute writing and unpunctuated detail, the story of his family, their belief in the Law of Moses, the daily trials of keeping their religious beliefs secret as well as day to day life for their family.
   This book is a historically accurate, detailed yet straightforward read that tells a story of a man persecuted for his beliefs that stills resonates today.
   In the podcasted interview Anna also talks about what it is like researching the Mexico of the 16th Century and the experience of using the archives in Mexico City, which are housed in an old gaol. She recounts myths about how the Jews arrived in Spain and Portugal, and she talks affectionately about the three generations of the Carvajal family she came to know through her research.

Fire and Song
by Anna Lanyon
Allen and Unwin, 2011
9781741147087

The interview featured in the podcast will also be broadcast on The Book Show on Edge Radio

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Paris and tiddas with Anita Heiss

I chatted with Anita Heiss today, before she arrives in Hobart this weekend to launch her new book. Admittedly, as I dialled her number for the interview - which you can listen to in full here - I felt a little in awe of everything this high achieving, high profile, intelligent lecturer in Indigenous literature and Wiradjuri woman could bring to the interview - and she was gorgeous, down to earth, garrulous (in a good way) and generous with her thoughts and opinions. Ostensibly we were to talk about her new book - a Koori chick-lit novel called Paris Dreaming.
  In reality our conversation roved from writing methods - she is a method writer - "I had to go to Paris, I had to stroll along the Champs Elysses and I had to eat a lot of macaroons," to Aunty Patsy Cameron, whose new book Grease and Ochre (Fullers Publishing) she will launch in a double celebration this Sunday at Fullers Bookshop at 1pm -as Patsy launches Paris Dreaming. "Grease and Ochre will contribute to a growing core of Indigenous literature coming out of Tasmania," Anita said as we chatted about the Indigenous Literacy Project, for which she is an ambassador.
  Paris Dreaming is published by Bantam and tells the story of Libby, who has a high powered job at the National Aboriginal Gallery in Canberra and who is on a "man-fast," only to  find herself working at the Musee du Quai Branly en Paris (excuse my accent) and faced with the vissicitudes of flirtatious baristas and smooth-tongued lotharios. Yep, it's chick-lit through and through - it's a tested and proved formula and it's good fun to read. Chick-lit attracts the vast majority of female readers between the ages of 18-45, and, as Anita says "32% of indigenous people live in urban centres, but there is no one that looks like me on the page."
  We also talked about tiddas, which is an Aboriginal word that crosses state and in some cases language lines and it's my favourite new word. It's used in Victoria and NSW and it means friends, and in Paris Dreaming, it's Libby's tiddas who are there for her. It made me think of my tiddas with appreciation
- and it was also was the name of this gorgeous group of female singers who came out of Victoria in the nineties.

Old news and new

Dear blog,
    it has been so long since I last wrote in you. A lot has been going on and I'm not really sure where to start, but you are not a diary and I will be methodical. I had a gorgeous, gorgeous Summer with my adorable friends and (mostly) adorable family. I have read some good, some bad and some downright ugly books (a paradox of working with one of the things I love most in the world).

Christmas was crazy (job numero uno involves selling books - and pre-Christmas retail from the 'other' side of the counter is not the most desirous of pastimes). My sister was here from the UK - she works in a museum which sounds amazing. She also, I have discovered, does some guest blogging at the London Happiness Project usng the name Pippalippa, which is not her real name but it is very close.
  I have a new job as Emerging Editor of Islet an online journal of micro fiction and visual art which is part of Island magazine. I'm enthused, excited and inspired - and will blog about the process here.

  In Hobart, my (non possessive) amazing city perched on the edge of the earth, a grand and curatorially mindblowing museum opened -it's MONA and I'm embarrassed to say that the closest I've got to it so far was the cattleclass shenanigans of the opening party and while I may have accidentally crashed the VIP area I am yet to wade through the bowels of the museum proper. MONAFOMA rocked my mid January world - seeing and hearing Neil Gaiman reading a story was the highlight.

I sat, entranced, as if I were on the mat in grade two being read to by the teacher- though this time it was in a huge shed, with a beer in my hand and surrounded by grown ups - and he was accompanied by Four Play, a sexy string quartet and there were large images from Eddie Campbell projected as a captivating backdrop.

    I have conversed with some gorgeous, informed and inspiring people on The Book Show on Edge Radio - last year the show ended up with a grand turntabley bang - when Dale and Michael from Arcade Publications interviewed me. Others who I've chatted with on the radio so far this year include Anjum Hasan, Maris Morton, Posie Graeme-Evans, Ivy Alvarez and Danielle Wood . Accordingly, I am way behind with podcast uploads. Stay tantalised crew, the podcasts will cyber-fest (like manifest though in cyberspace) any day now.
Over Summer I also read the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote - though that's a whole 'nother post. I also did a digital publishing course and learnt some new things. 

  It was a fantastic summer. I even got the flu and scored three whole days in bed (I rarely get sick and even more rarely afford myself the opportunity to stay in bed for three whole days - watching DVDs and drinking orange juice, better still).

Excellent things are still going on - and here is what is coming up over the next week alone -
We are full-flight into Ten Days On the Island - Tasmania's biennial arts festival Next weekend, as part of Ten Days, is the Home Truths Literary festival - lots of discussions about books, about writing and about ideas - something that I hope will make all of our heads hurt just a little bit and in a good way as we have our minds stretched and entertained.
  In the lead up to the announcement of the weirdly organised Tasmanian Book Prizes, Fullers Bookshop is hosting all of the nominated authors and publishers reading over three nights later this week - here's a link to the full details. Also at Fullers on Sunday, April 3 at 1pm is the launch of both Patsy Cameron's Grease and Ochre  and Anita Heiss' new Koori Chck-lit Paris Dreaming. Next Sunday is also the day of the launch of the latest edition of Islet and I will be there celebrating with the incumbent Emerging Editor, the capable Anica Boulanger-Mashberg, whose patience and wit is making the job handover entertaining AND informative. That's at the Town Hall at midday and will also be the launch of the latest edition of Island
  Next Friday, April 1 at 5.30 at the Hobart Bookshop is the launch of David Owen's latest Detective Pufferfish novels How The Dead See. One of my earliest ever blog posts was a review of an earlier Pufferfish No Weather For a Burial.
Phew. I hope to see you round the traps- and I'd love to hear what you're reading or if you know of any other exciting book or word related events.

Kate Holden podcast - click here

I had to apologise to Kate Holden when I met her, I'd been flagrantly stating that I was interviewing a former prostitute and heroin addict - 'sexy' and glib catch phrases. The apology was simply about that - that she, as an intelligent, informed, reflective and reconciled woman in the 21st Century had become reduced to that for promotional purposes.
Kate is a professional writer with a regular column for the Saturday Age newspaper, she is a voracious reader and thinker with a tendency to overshare. The thing that struck me most, though, while interviewing this sweet, gently witty woman, was the simple fact that she has reconciled her time as a pariah (try and tell me that being a heroin addict is not the paedophilia of drug addictions) with her day to day existence - and that has made her appear more whole than a lot of the sanctimonious bores we encounter day to day.
  Simply put, there is no apparent hypocrisy about her being.
Kate has written two books, both memoirs, covering different times in her life. In My Skin (2005) began as a project while she was studying and eventually ending up in a bidding war between publishing houses - with Text Publishing winning out. The Romantic was published by Text earlier this year. In My Skin tells the story of Kate's time as a junky and as a prostitute. She was writing a diary when she was using, and while she says that the diary, on re-reading, is boring 'got to get clean, going to get clean, getting clean starting after this taste,' - it helped bring back snippets of her life then that allowed her to flesh out the memoirs. And, there is a fair bit of flesh in it.
The Romantic, a slightly sarcastic title, tells of Kate's time in Italy, and the process of reconciliation - life as junky and hooker merging with a drug free and free sex life. How do you tell a lover of your past - and should you even tell them at all? Recounted through the story of a series of lovers, saunters past Byron's house, reading Casanova in a hotel alone, ferocious sexy fucking and an eventual fiance in the form of an Italian Stallion it is a gorgeous conclusion to In My Skin.
There is a wordsmith at play here - and at least a couple of hearty tales - have a listen to Kate describe some of these things in her own words.

For further information, check out Kate's website

The Romantic
by Kate Holden
Text Publishing 2010
9781921656743

The recorded interview was first played on Edge Radio on Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Final events 2010 and the odd opportunity -

As the Christmas drag race begins - the one where we paradoxically forget that we cross the finish line at the same time and all as exhausted as each other - here are some events happening around Hobart and some opportunities that may interest you.
   The Tasmanian Writers' Centre has a great connection with other island based writers and those on Prince Edward Island in Canada in particular. Established Tasmanian writers are invited to apply now for a four week exchange on the island. This is offered in partnership with the Hobart City Council and more details can be found on the Tasmanian Writers' Centre website.
  The Writers' Centre are also hosting an evening called 'The Underbelly of Hobart' with Geoff Dean and John Tully on December 15th at the Lark Distillery -sure to be a good evening as it coincides with their end of year celebrations.  This is also the launch of John Tully's book Dark Clouds on the Mountain, organised by the gorgeous Hobart Bookshop.

     

   Fullers Bookshop is hosting one more event for the year - and it's a celebration of Christmas and cooking with cookbook author, quiet acheiver and purveyor of recipes that work, Belinda Jeffery. Judith Sweet, the respected former cooking show host and Mercury Columnist is hosting the evening (with canapes and sparkling) -  and there is an excessive lucky door prize of a mountain of cook books. PS Mountain is the official collective noun for cookbooks. Tickets for this are available now at Fullers Bookshop 
  Australian Poetry (supported by the Pratt foundation) are offering a Poet In Residence grant of $20 000. Details are available, again, from the Tasmanian Writers' Centre's website.
     Australian Poetry is also looking for a selection panel of industry leaders and established poets. If you are an established poet, publisher or representatieve of a poetry organisation. To express your interest, email Paul at Australian Poetry.
    And that, my friend, is not the end. It is just a winding down of things as everyone becomes mercenary- and then in January in Hobart we have MoFo. Phew, no doubt there will be some book and word related events humming around thatglorious hub. Stay tuned.

Salley Vickers interview

Recently in Australia as a guest of Melbourne's Wheeler Centre, Salley, who had been invited to speak on the theme of life and death in her work, found the time to speak to me for Edge Radio's Book Show.
    Jungian Psycholanalyst, former Booker Prize judge and of course loved and lauded author of Miss Garnet's Angel, and most recently Dancing Backwards, Salley spoke about how she wrote her first novel at age nine, when "at a rather ordinary primary school," a teacher recognised her boredom and set her the task of writing a book. With this exercise, she created the blueprint for her further work and, as with most of her books, death was an inportant theme.
     Through her training in pyschoanalysis and her (alluded to) signifigant spiritual experiences, Salley talks about how myth colours her writing, her envy that David Malouf beat her to the story of Hector, Priam and Achilles in 'Ransom' and how, she says "Freud has got it wrong."
    Salley talks about translation and the mystical experience that occurs with this process. "how two people can suddenly manifest themselves in a third reality... the invisible that stands between the author and the reader.

There's more too - listen here - she's truly captivating.