A huge donation to the Stella Prize inspires us all

Paula McLean explains why she wanted to give such an astonishing gift; Adler goes to Adelaide; and we look again at our troubled past

Sydney-based philanthropist Paula McLean. Picture: John Feder

It was an absolute pleasure to announce the astonishing $1m donation by Sydney-based philanthropist Paula McLean to the Stella Prize earlier this week.

What a wonderful woman.

What a stonking donation!

The “mega-gift” was designed to get your attention, and I hope it has.

The introduction of the Stella Prize a touch under a decade ago has encouraged a brighter, more animated literary landscape in Australia.

It has emboldened female writers, and their publishers. Some readers will remember how it started: a group of female editors, writers, publishers and readers met at Readings Bookstore in Carlton in 2011 to talk about the shameful under-representation of women in the literary pages of major newspapers and journals. According to data they had collected, 70 per cent of books reviewed in The Weekend Australian were written by men, and most were also reviewed by men. Apparently it was also then possible for a boy to go his entire school life without being required to read a book by an Australian woman.

Only ten women in 54 years had won Australia’s most prestigious writing prize, the Miles Franklin, despite it being named for Australia’s most famous female author, Stella Miles Franklin, who wrote My Brilliant Career. Australia has always had wonderful female writers. They were still doing excellent work but being overlooked for prizes, and only rarely got reviewed.

The group decided to make what amounted to a bold incursion, establishing a literary prize for “the best book, fiction or nonfiction, by an Australian woman”. They attached a big cheque and, in another audacious move, they snatched back Miles Franklin’s Christian name, and called it The Stella.

Paula McLean worked in publishing and she is passionate about women’s literature. In donating an astonishing $1m, she is making one of the largest ever donations to a writing prize. It should secure the future of the Stella Prize – but, please don’t forget this bit: it’s a matching donation, meaning McLean will match every donation up to a million dollars.

Meaning, you have to put your hand in your pocket, and do your bit to ensure that female voices will continue to be heard.

Think about the wonderful books that have won the Stella: Professor Clare Wright’s engaging study of women on the goldfields; and Charlotte Wood’s fierce book about the women who get thrown under the bus whenever there’s a so-called “sex scandal”.

Here’s the link. Please, make a donation: stella.org.au/support-stella/stella-forever

 

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Also in the way of brilliant news; the Adelaide Festival Board was delighted on Friday to announce the appointment of Louise Adler as director of Adelaide Writers’ Week for 2023-25. Adler, who is currently publisher-at-large for Hachette Australia and vice chancellor’s professorial fellow at Monash University, will take up the position early in 2022.

It’s wonderful news for them. They get passion, intelligence, drive and imagination. The equally wonderful Jo Dyer announced her decision to stand down earlier this year.

Louise Adler. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

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I hope you enjoy Richard King’s review of Harlem Nights (MUP) today. It is about touring American bands, and I was particularly drawn, because pretty much every morning when I’m in Sydney, I pass, on my way to Bronte pool, a lovely tall gravestone engraved with the name Orpheus McAdoo.

He was born in North Carolina in January 1858, a child of slave parents. The first time I saw it, I just thought: no. Because how did a son of African-American slaves end up buried in the Waverley Cemetery before the turn of the 20th century?

Apparently his mother was one of few on the plantation who could read. She sent McAdoo to school and he became a teacher, and he started a minstrel quartet. And they were good. And so they toured South Africa and Australia, and it must have been such a hoot: McAdoo also signed a vaudeville act, a female impersonator and a juggler. They played Sydney’s Palace Theatre in 1897 and were so successful, they came back in 1899 with members of the Georgia Minstrels and Alabama Cakewalkers.

A review of the Brisbane Opera House show in January 1900 has the audience in “fits of laughter throughout the evening” but it seems that McAdoo soon after travelled to Sydney, where he died in July 1900. He was only in his 40s. His young wife decided to bury him locally and I often think about the mourners, standing there in their finery on the day of his funeral, raising hands and voices to the heavens, an all-black company beneath a brilliant Sydney sky.

It must have been something to see.

Orpheous McAdoo, a child of American slaves, is buried in Sydney

 

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Also today you’ll find a review of a campus novel, and a reflection by a young writer, remembering Nan Hunt, who wrote some Australian children’s classics. We’ve got some sport, some crime, some Australian literary fiction; some poetry reviews; a poem; some Zadie Smith and more. Enjoy.

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But before you go: did you know that most Australian books ever written are now out-of-print? It means that important local histories, beloved children’s titles and even some of the books that won big literary prizes can’t be purchased.

Which brings me to “Untapped: The Australian Literary Heritage Project” – a collaboration between authors, libraries and researchers who have been working to identify Australia’s lost books, and find ways to bring them to readers. They aren’t commercially viable anymore but does that mean you shouldn’t be able to read them?

Untapped decided to digitise some of the culturally important, out-of-print books, and from Monday, they will be licencing them into public libraries, to promote to readers.

It is part of a University of Melbourne research project, led by associate professor of law Rebecca Giblin, who frankly couldn’t believe how hard it can be to get your hands on an old Australian classic. And so decided to do something about it.

Good for her. Good for all of us.