By Jason Steger
It’s 10 years in March since the Australian biographer Hazel Rowley died in New York not long after her fourth book, Franklin & Eleanor, the story of the marriage of president Franklin Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, was published to acclaim.
The fellowship established in the memory of the late Hazel Rowley is aiding biographers complete their projects. Credit: Mathieu Bourgois
Soon after, the endowment for an award in her name to help writers complete their biographical projects was established. Since then the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship has helped Jacqueline Kent (Vida Goldstein: A Woman for Our Time), Gabrielle Carey (Only Happiness Here: In Search of Elizabeth von Arnim), Mary Hoban (An Unconventional Wife: The Life of Julia Sorell Arnold), Maxine Beneba Clarke (The Hate Race), and Stephany Steggall (Interestingly Enough … The Life of Tom Keneally) to publication, and three other recipients of the fellowship are expecting publication this year.
The shortlist for this year’s $15,000 fellowship, the winner of which will be announced in early March, is: Jillian Graham (subject – Margaret Sutherland); Amanda Lourie (A.W. Howitt); Jo Oliver (Adelaide Perry); Sheila Ngoc Pham (Anne Spencer Parry); Kate Rice (Marian Dunn and Marian Marcus Clarke); Mandy Sayer (Paulette, Phyllis and Isabella McDonagh); and Michelle Scott Tucker (Aaron Fa’Aoso).
White line fever
The Sound of Things Falling, the acclaimed novel by the Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vasquez, begins with the shooting of a hippo in 2009. The creature, among several illegally imported into the country, had escaped from the private zoo in the MagdalenaValley that had been created by Pablo Escobar, the drug lord with a fortune said to amount to $30 billion who had been killed as he attempted to flee Colombian authorities in 1993. The book tries to understand an individual’s past and a country’s past and how events intersect and inform each other. In the novel the narrator, Antonio Yammara, relates the fate of the hippo and notes that two others had escaped with him.
Credit: Andrew Dyson
All these years later, there are apparently 80-100 wild hippos making their homes near the Magdalena River and, according to several media reports, scientists want to cull ‘‘the cocaine hippos’’ that are breeding voraciously and proving increasingly menacing. Is this life imitating art imitating life?
Catching a new wave
Last year was pretty dismal for writers festivals and book events, despite the best efforts of so many making use of Zoom and other channels. So it’s nice to be able to welcome Words on the Waves, a festival to be held at Umina Beach on the NSW Central Coast on the weekend of June 12-13. Guests already announced include Meg and Tom Keneally and children’s laureate Ursula Dubosarsky. Among the organisers are Benny Agius, general manager of Echo Publishing, and two former colleagues on ABC TV’s The Book Club, Angela Bennetts and Marie Davies. The full program for the festival will be announced on March 27. More information: wordsonwaves.com.au
An independent list
The independent bookshop sector has announced the shortlists for its indie awards for this year, with Chris Flynn’s novel Mammoth joining the authors of three big titles – All Our Shimmering Skies, Trent Dalton; The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, Richard Flanagan; Honeybee, Craig Silvey – that appeared in the later stages of last year. In the non-fiction list, centenarian Eddie Jaku (The Happiest Man on Earth) is joined by Julia Baird (Phosphorescence), Grace Karskens (People of the River) and Cassandra Pybus (Truganini). The bestselling author of The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams, is on the debut fiction list with Kyle Perry (The Bluffs), Nardi Simpson (Song of the Crocodile) and Jessie Tu (A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing).
Writers' lament
The Australian Society of Authors surveyed its members late last year to obtain data to present to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia's Creative and Cultural Industries. The 1400 respondents provided some depressing information. In terms of earnings, 49.7 per cent of writers made less than $2000 from their creative work. About 80 per cent earned less than $15,000, while a lucky 9.2 per cent earned in excess of $40,000.
The latter figure goes up to 23.7 per cent for full-time writers, but 54 per cent of full-time writers earned less than $15,000 and 23 per cent earned less than $2000. And it’s not as if advances are going to help them out. More than 52 per cent of authors did not get an advance at all for their work and about 24 per cent received one of between $1000 and $5000. Three years ago when the ASA conducted its survey it reported that of those who did receive an advance, 28 per cent received less than $2000. Last year that figure jumped to 65 per cent.
The Booklist newsletter
A weekly read for book lovers from Jason Steger. Sign up now.