Publishing

‘When we talk about the woman writer in 2015, how then do we situate the vital insights of intersectional and trans feminism at the centre of our discussions? This, to me, is the most pressing challenge posed by the Stella Count.’ SRB editor Catriona Menzies-Pike on gender, critical culture and the Stella Count

‘I think Indigenous writers kind of need each other. I feel that more and more, that sense of camaraderie and community. We challenge each other to write better. It is sometimes hard when you’re perhaps the only black writer on a festival or you’re put into a situation where you have to represent a whole community. That’s why we take strength from each other.’ SRB editor Catriona Menzies-Pike speaks with Ellen van Neerven.

In the last decade, the forces of resurgent fundamentalism and divisive communalism have made life increasingly difficult for many Indian writers, especially those working in regional languages. A growing cohort of writers are returning their awards to the prestigious Sahitya Akademy, the National Academy of Letters, in the face of its silence on sustained assaults on freedom of literary expression. Mridula Nath Chakraborty on culture wars in India.

Whether or not little magazines are idealistic enterprises, they are essential to contemporary literary culture: they showcase new and emerging writers; provide a training ground for editors and administrators; offer more extended literary debates and discussions than the broadsheets; comprise a venue for journalism that contains views outside of the liberal mainstream; serve as rallying points for different communities of readers and coteries of authors; and present a steady stream of readings, events, panel discussions, and online conversations through social media.

‘Any author who’s been in the business longer than five years can tell you that we’ve had to change our professional practices in response to the transformed circumstances in the industry.’ This week the results of an extensive survey of over 1000 Australian authors assessing the impact on authorship of changing circumstances in the book industry were published by Macquarie University’s Faculty of Business and Economics. Sophie Masson considers the findings.

‘It is the subtle duty of literary festivals and their variations to assure writers, with a vague but potent authority, that they are – despite their knowing self-doubts and anxieties – “writers”.’ Novelist Luke Carman on the festival circuit.’

‘It’s a truth well understood, though perhaps not much regarded these days, that literary quality stands in an often hostile relation to popular appeal.’ Ivor Indyk on prizes, literary quality, and the marketplace.

‘I don’t understand the West and the Western reader’s reading tastes. What I write, is what makes my blood bubble and boil. As the years advance and one’s exposure to readers increases, a writer’s vision and consideration inevitably undergo changes. I came to the world, but not to pander to the world. I write, but not to pander to the reader.’

It’s always interesting, when you have a big investment in the performance of literary titles in the marketplace, to see how completely, and constantly, the marketplace disappoints your expectations. The current craze for adult colouring books is a good example. Books for adults to colour in! Books without words! What a relief!

The 48-year-old Tamil language writer from India, Perumal Murugan, could never have imagined that he would have to draw an end to his literary career with a public announcement to the effect that the writer in him had died… Murugan wrote six novels, four collections of short stories, and four of poetry, before abruptly declaring himself dead as a writer.