Monday 29 August 2011

“It’s been pretty pathetic all the way through,” said Tasmanian writer Geoffrey Dean, who passed away last week at the age of 80 after half a century of writing short stories. Dean was describing how unrewarding his literary career has proven to be in an ABC television interview promoting the release of a selection of his best short stories, Mysteries, Myths & Miracles by Gininderra Press. As an Australian short story specialist, making ends meet was always going to be a challenge for Dean, who worked in a variety of jobs as a result, including farmer, news cameraman, circus employee and used furniture salesman among them. He claimed these experiences enriched his writing.

Here’s a review of his short story collection, The Literary Lunch.

On his blog, Dean introduced himself to readers in this way: “I’ve published heaps of stories and won heaps of prizes and had heaps of acclaim throughout the fifty or so years that I’ve been writing short stories. I would like to say that I’ve also earned heaps of money and gained heaps of readers outside of my home state of Tasmania. But no, the strait is too wide to send across the message that good things happen in the quiet backwaters of this wonderful country. The little poem I wrote to myself last year sums it up quite well I think: In this long drought, a few drops of rain here and there, but never enough to moisten the soil and grow my literary garden.

“But then my main motivation wasn’t to be famous, or get rich. Both fame and money frighten me somewhat. I write short stories because I like them. I like reading a good short story and I enjoy above all other literary pursuits to write them. They suit my temperament. I like to get in and get out before the story looses [sic] its excitement. If I can’t write a story with a sense of excitement, then how can I expect a reader to be excited when reading it. The fact is I have a need to tell stories. I’ve been writing stories ever since I learnt to write. It’s probably a deep-seated neurosis, but hell, who cares, it keeps me happy.

“I find now it takes too long to publish a story in the conventional way today. It can take up to four or five years to battle your way through the heaps of pink slips that say: The editor regrets … and blah, blah, blah … It’s all too much hassle for someone at my age. I haven’t got the time or the patience to persist in the hard-copy world so I pass them into cyberspace, in the hope that they will be read immediately by someone somewhere who appreciates them before the virtual ink dries and the paper curls at the corners.”

Read more at a tribute page published by Roaring Forties Press.

Today we’re cross-posting a blog post written by Stephanie Honor Convery and published on the Melbourne Writers Festival blog. Stephanie takes a look at two Festival events looking at gender and feminism, and in this excerpt focuses on last night’s address by Sophie Cunningham on why feminism still has a long way to go.

Sophie Cunningham’s ‘A Long, Long Way To Go: Why We Still Need Feminism’ would have left you with the conviction that sexual inequality is indeed very real, and evident in statistic after sobering statistic.

In Australia, Cunningham explained, only 58% of women are in the workforce, compared to 78% of men. Only 54% of ASX200 companies have women in management roles, and only 10.7% of executive managers are women. 56% of law graduates are women, but only 25% of practicing lawyers over 40 are women, and those women in law suffer a 62% pay gap. The arts are nowhere near exempt from these kind of telling numbers. When the May issue of Esquire listed 75 books every man should read, only one woman made the cut. The 2009 and 2011 Miles Franklin shortlists were all male. Since the award began in 1957, it has been awarded 51 times. Out of those 51 awards, only 13 recipients have been women. In theatre, visual and fine arts, these trends are mirrored, if not worse. And one set of numbers Cunningham didn’t give: in the 16 years since the MWF instituted an opening night keynote address, that headlining festival role has been occupied only twice by a woman – by the same woman: Germaine Greer.

Read more.