Wait … who dat?!
That, my friends, is Caroline Kennedy and her husband, Edwin Schlossberg with one of their favourite writers, Trent Dalton.
The trio caught up at Adelaide Writers Week, and the US Embassy posted the picture, with a caption that said: “Between them, Ambassador Kennedy and Dr Schlossberg have read Boy Swallows Universe, Lola in the Mirror, All Our Shimmering Skies, and By Sea and Stars – all providing a fascinating window into the place we’re lucky to call “home” for now.”
Trent said: “Unspeakably honoured to spend time with the US Ambassador to Australia – the incomparable Caroline Kennedy – and her truly beautiful husband/writer/artist/designer/cool dad Ed Schlossberg. They are both deeply passionate about Australian literature and culture and their deep-cut knowledge of my books was profoundly moving to me. Ed told me my stories were all about “regeneration” and I wanted to crash-tackle him with joyous gratitude and understanding.
“Caroline then told us about the international poetry exchange program she’s been championing for years, connecting high schoolers across the world through the power of poetry. There might have also been some brief talk about the time Caroline met her musical heroes, Rolling Stones, in the 1980s but it’s all a bit of a blur. You could never find a more committed and accomplished woman so naturally and relentlessly down to earth.”
If that sounds like he was about to self-combust with happiness, it’s because he was. How good are books? The best.
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Chair of the 2024 Stella Prize judging panel Beejay Silcox unveiled the longlist for this year’s prize at the Adelaide Writers’ Festival this week. They received 227 entries, which is huge. Good on the judges; it can’t have been easy, deciding on 12 for the longlist. Further discussion will reduce the list to six, and the prize – $60,000 – will be awarded to one winner on May 2. The longlist is:
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright
(Giramondo Publishing)
She is the Earth by Ali Cobby Eckermann
(Magabala Books)
Feast by Emily O’Grady (Allen & Unwin)
Abandon Every Hope: Essays for the Dead
by Hayley Singer (Upswell Publishing)
The Hummingbird Effect
by Kate Mildenhall (Scribner Australia)
Body Friend by Katherine Brabon (Ultimo Press)
The Swift Dark Tide by Katia Ariel (Gazebo Books)
West Girls by Laura Elizabeth Woollett (Scribe Publications)
Graft: Motherhood, Family and a Year on the Land
by Maggie MacKellar (Penguin Random House)
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko (University of Queensland Press)
Hospital by Sanya Rushdi (Giramondo Publishing)
The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop (Hachette Australia)
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Swoon everyone: 36 Ways of Writing A Vietnamese Poem, Nam Le’s new collection, is out. It’s been 10 years since Nam wrote the short stories in The Boat. Like so many of you, I’ve been so keen to see what he might do next, and today we have our answer. Geordie Williamson has reviewed the collection for me. It comes with these astonishing recommendations:
“Nam Le takes the English language to pieces and reassembles it with a virtuoso ease not seen since Finnegans Wake” – J.M. Coetzee
“A masterly performance” – David Malouf
There’s one from Nick Cave, too.
I was so pleased to get permission to run a poem from Nam in the pages today. Please don’t miss it. And thank you to our poetry editor, Jaya Savige, for making this happen for readers.
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It’s been more than 20 years since I met Anna Broinowski, the tremendously talented Australian filmmaker and writer. She was making a movie about the literary fraud Norma Khouri. She wanted me to be in it, along with Malcolm Knox, since we’d worked together on the investigation that uncovered the fraud. The movie won an AFI Award, which we were all so chuffed about. I remember how much I liked working with her, which maybe explains why I was thrilled to see that she’s now written a book, Datsun Angel. It’s hair-raising! In case you don’t know Anna’s work, she’s won a Walkley, the Rome Film Festival Cult Prize, a NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the Writers Guild of America Best Nonfiction Screenplay and other gongs, and her documentaries include Hell Bento!! (about Japan’s cultural underground); Forbidden Lie$ (which I can’t watch because I’m so achingly young in it); Helen’s War (about anti-nuclear crusader Helen Caldicott); and Aim High in Creation! (about North Korean cinema). Her previous nonfiction books include Please Explain: The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Pauline Hanson. She is now a senior lecturer at Sydney University. Her book has endorsements from Anna Funder and Catharine Lumby, and you’re not going to want to miss it.
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Today’s pages: Jack Marx takes a peek at Crystal Hefner’s new book about her life as Hugh’s wife in the Playboy mansion. I’ve done the Notable Books; we have a little story about a new dictionary of words that came from prisoners at the Parramatta Jail; and we have an extract from Boris Frankel’s memoir. His parents, during the Cold War, made the somewhat radical decision to leave Melbourne for Moscow. They had been members of the Communist Party of Australia, and part of the Lefty-Jew alliance in Carlton. Petrov used to drop around their house. He was an old drunk, apparently. Fascinating! I hope you find something you like, and feedback is welcome at overingtonc@theaustralian.com.au
Is it too late to start your life anew?
Is it ever too late to learn a new language, or even write that book? Here’s what late bloomers can tell you about reinventing your life.
Gallery puts female artists in the frame
Ethel Carrick Fox and Anne Dangar, the two subjects of the National Gallery of Australia’s latest exhibition of women in art, are of a very different calibre.