Friday 27 May 2011

A Brief Chat With Carolyn Burke

Carolyn Burke is the author of a new biography on Edith Piaf, No Regrets. She was in town for the 2011 Sydney Writers' Festival. 

What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
Last: David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Current: Rose Tremain, The Road Home

Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
An impossible question but I will venture to say in difficult times, the novels of Jane Austen.

What inspired you to write a book about Edith Piaf?
I first heard her songs at 19, when studying at the Sorbonne: they have been a part of me ever since. At the 2006 memorial for Piaf at Pére Lachaise cemetery, where she is buried, I was moved to think I could write her life by drawing on the intimate correspondence between the chanteuse and her spiritual mentor released that year by the Bibliothèque Nationale.

What do you hope readers take away from No Regrets
A sense of Piaf's resilience, generosity, and creative spirit, to counterbalance the commonly held but reductive notion of the singer as self-destructive waif. The sound of her laughter. 

What are you working on next? 
A novel set in Paris just before World War I.
No Regrets is available from Shearer's Bookshop.

Tuesday 24 May 2011

A Brief Chat With Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham is the bestselling author of The Hours and By Nightfall. He was in town for the 2011 Sydney Writers' Festival. 


What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
Room by Emma Donoghue, Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest.

Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
First edition of A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf.

How could you best describe your latest novel, By Nightfall?
The story of a man's search for something true and beautiful in a cynical, irony plagued world. And it contains the best sex scene I ever wrote.

Which fictional character do you most identify with?
Satan in Paradise Lost.

What are you working on next?
Part way through The Snow Queen, my new novel, and a movie with Gus Van Sant, a fictionalised documentary set in 1912 Portland, Oregon.
Autographed copies of By Nightfall are available from Shearer's Bookshop.

A Brief Chat With Howard Jacobson

Howard Jacobson is the Booker Prize winning author of The Finkler Question. He was in town for the 2011 Sydney Writers' Festival.

What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
Karoo by Steve Tesich (wonderful - underrated black comedy).

Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
Dickens' Great Expectations, annotated by me.

How would you best describe your latest novel, The Finkler Question?
A hilarious tragedy.

How has winning the Booker Prize impacted your life?
Changed it.

What are you working on next?
New hilarious tragedy. Plus edition of my Independent columns, Whatever It Is, I Don't Like It.
Autographed copies of The Finkler Question are available from Shearer's Bookshop.

Friday 20 May 2011

A Brief Chat With Phillipa Fioretti

Phillipa Fioretti is the author of The Book of Love and The Fragment of Dreams. She is in town for the Sydney Writers' Festival. 

What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
The last book I read was Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett and I'm currently reading Bereft by Chris Womersley.


Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
My 1938 copy of The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome. This book was my mother's and I loved it as a child, reading it over and over again. I've loved the classical world ever since.


Which fictional character do you most identify with?
Otto the schnauzer from The Book of Love.

What are you working on next?
I'm working on a romantic/suspense/crime novel set in the Blue Mountains and amid the shenanigans of a corrupt State government, property developers, a restaurant and a young woman who thinks she's in love.
 
Autographed copies of The Fragment of Dreams are available from Shearer's Bookshop

A Brief Chat With Georgia Blain

Georgia Blain has published several novels including her latest, Too Close to Home. She is currently taking part in the Sydney Writers' Festival.

What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
The last one was Damon Galgut's In a Strange Room, & I have just started Eva Hornung's Dog Boy.

Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured & why?
I have no idea! I love my collection of Alice Munro, I have books written by my father and by my mother, & they are both special for obvious reasons. And I have the first 'novel' I wrote at age 9. Illustrated by myself as well.

How would you best describe your latest novel, Too Close to Home?
Definitely worth reading! It's set in Sydney's inner west about a group of friends who's political beliefs are challenged by personal turmoil.

In addition to your novels you've published a biography and a YA novel, is there a genre that you prefer to work in?
Definitely adult fiction.

What are you working on next?
Absolutely nothing.
Autographed copies of Too Close to Home are available from Shearer's Bookshop.

A Brief Chat With Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare is the author of The Infernal Devices series and The Mortal Instruments series. She is in town for the Sydney Writers' Festival.

What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
I recently finished The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox and just started Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan.

Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
Pride and Prejudice. It is not only my favourite book but it belonged to my mother and grandmother before her.

Which fictional character do you most identify with? 
Anne of Green Gables because once I used to hate my red hair and freckles too!

What are you working on next?
An updated version of Pride and Prejudice!
Autographed copies of Cassandra's latest book City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4) are available from Shearer's Bookshop.

Wednesday 18 May 2011

A Brief Chat With James Gleick

James Gleick is the bestselling author of Chaos and The Information. He is in Sydney for the 2011 Sydney Writers' Festival.

What are you currently reading?
Other People's Money by Justin Cartwright.

Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
Too hard! Complete Shakespeare? Honestly I'm not even halfway through. All of Updike's fiction?

How could you best describe your latest book, The Information?
The story of information becoming aware of itself.

What should people expect from your closing address 'Perish the Thought' at the Sydney Writers' Festival?
My task is to predict whether the book is on its last legs or will survive into a glorious future. I don't want to give away the answer - but you might take a guess. Here I am in this fabulous store, after all.

What are you working on next?
Don't know yet. Starting to feel guilty. 

Saturday 14 May 2011

When Genres Attack!

Last night three authors and a literary agent kept a crowd enthralled as the long awaited smack down called 'When Genres Attack!' took place. P.M. Newton, Kirsten Tranter, James Bradley and Sophie Hamley took to the stage in a sometimes heated but always interesting discussion on genre fiction, literary fiction, genre TV and the way we read.

We had very little idea how this event was going to run. It had all stemmed from a Twitter conversation that I'd had with Kirsten and P.M. Several months ago I'd been using my morning effectively by asking Twitter followers who should go toe to toe in a literary cage fight. I suggested P.M. Newton and Kirsten Tranter as they had just both been nominated for the same Indie Award. Kirsten tweeted back that they'd just wind up in the corner of the cage drinking wine and discussing Battlestar Galactica, and an event was born. Very quickly James and Sophie were on board and we chose Friday the 13th of May as the most appropriate date.



The discussion began with the panelists defining what 'genre' meant to them (almost simultaneously workmen started jackhammering outside the store, but we managed to endure the noise). This then lead into a discussion of whether literary fiction was itself a genre - the response was a resounding yes. The night really wound up being a discussion along this line, where does genre fiction end and literary fiction begin? Is literary fiction just as constrained as genre fiction is supposed to be? Why are people snobbish towards genre books but open to genre TV?

Some of the points made were:
-There is an idea that genre is churned out in an industrial way. Charles Dickens is still stigmatised because of serialisation.
-Science fiction 'literalises metaphor'.
-Australian literary fiction tends to be Sydney/Melbourne angst stories.
-Genre fiction can get close to the truth, for example: The Wire.
-Literary fiction is highly generic.
-Reading genre fiction and watching genre TV are socially different.


We also got some great insights into the works of these three writers and what they thought about genre as readers and as writers - and what they thought of the way that their books were categorised. James thought that his book, The Resurrectionist was incorrectly marketed in the UK as a 'Gothic thriller', while Kirsten's book The Legacy has just been released in Spain as 'a mystery'.


Our authors tended to differ mainly on genre TV, a certain Joss Whedon seemed to be loved and loathed in equal measure. Kirsten defended Midsomer Murders by saying that it is so aware of itself that it skewers the crime genre, P.M. spoke at length about The Wire and said that crime novelists should watch it and learn lessons on how to create long-term stories.


The evening could have run for much longer as there were many topics we simply didn't have time to cover. Afterwards there was much mingling and drinking, and conversations lasted until well after closing time. As with any worthwhile genre story, ours is not yet finished - plans for a follow up began before last night's event even started. Watch this space!




Tuesday 10 May 2011

Guest Blog: Some Thoughts on Genre and Literary Fiction by Kirsten Tranter

Kirsten Tranter is a novelist whose debut, The Legacy, was long listed for the 2011 Miles Franklin Award. She will be appearing at Shearer's on Friday 13/05/11 as a panel member for our special event, When Genres Attack!


 This week I had the very happy experience of admiring the brand new Spanish edition of my first novel, The Legacy. In Spanish, it's El Legado  - sounds so sinister and impressive. And the publishers have added a subtitle, just under the title: "una novela de misterio." My Spanish is virtually non-existent, but I think that what they are doing is telling readers what kind of book it is, which is to say what genre: "a mystery."

It's not wrong to call my book a mystery, but I'm not sure whether it's a good idea for the publishers to brand it like that. Without giving it all away, The Legacy plays with conventions of the mystery novel but doesn't entirely embrace them; at key points, it swerves away and refuses some of the narrative expectations that come with the genre, and deliberately takes another direction.

I've noticed in some reviews of the book that readers care a lot about these narrative expectations, which amount to an implicit promise or compact between the writer and the reader, and not all readers are happy when the rules are broken, even when they're broken with a purpose. I hope there aren't too many disappointed readers in Spain and the rest of the Spanish speaking world who pick up my book expecting one thing and getting something else. Maybe they’ll be pleased and surprised rather than disappointed; maybe Spanish readers are very open minded.

I describe my book as a "literary mystery" because while it engages with the conventions of the mystery novel, it does so in a critical way. This to me is what makes it literary: literary fiction, I think, is interested not only in telling a story, but in encouraging readers to reflect in some way on how the story is told. These issues are at the heart of The Legacy, which is interested in the shaping power stories have in our lives and our understanding of ourselves. In The Legacy I transform the plot of a Henry James novel, The Portrait of a Lady, and adapt it to a contemporary setting, before turning it into a mystery about a disappearance on September 11.

It can be hard for any book that engages with genre conventions to be taken seriously as literature. Why is this the case? Why is it that when Peter Temple won the Miles Franklin in 2010 for Truth, the judges felt compelled to insist that the book transcended its genre, as if to justify the incredible idea that a genre novel could have literary merit? And why does a former Booker Judge, John Sutherland, believe that submitting a crime novel to the prize would be “like putting a donkey into the Grand National”?

Anyone who reads sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance, or crime can tell you that there are plenty of writers working in and on the margins of those genres who are deeply concerned with the craft of writing, with questions of aesthetics and interpretation and other hallmarks of "the literary." But a deep prejudice against convention dominates some people's sense of what literature can be: the idea that any convention is a form of constraint, and thus an obstacle to originality and art.

Edward Doxc rehashed some of these ideas in a recent piece in The Guardian, an argument about why literary fiction is distinct from and better than genre fiction: "even good genre (not Larsson or Brown) is by definition a constrained form of writing. There are conventions and these limit the material."

Any author writing before the period of the Romantic poets would find this a very bizarre idea indeed: it's a relatively recent, modern idea to believe that all formal constraints are an impediment to art. True, we're not all in the habit of writing sonnets any more, and a hierarchy of genres has existed for a long time. But I don't see any reason why creativity and art can't inhere in the way conventions are utilised - the way they can be extended, played with, broken and put back together, or simply mastered with authority and a powerful command of language.

Like many people who want to oppose literary fiction to genre fiction, Edward Doxc is very troubled by the phenomenal success of Stieg Larsson, whose books he regards as typical instances of bad genre writing. I can only imagine that he doesn't read very widely in any genre apart from literary fiction. If he did, he would recognise the deep investment Larsson has in deliberately questioning and manipulating conventions and typical features of the crime/thriller genre. Sometimes, reading Larsson, I'm not sure whether he's deliberately screwing with my expectations, or whether his plotting is just clumsy (or both?) – his writing is intelligent enough for me to suspend that question, and tend towards the idea that he was genuinely trying to reinvent the genres he works with, on both a formal and political level.

Doxc is surprised that so many people read Larsson because Larsson is so bad (and he does have one valid point: the opening of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is boring. I personally thought it was satire) but I find myself surprised that so many people read Larsson because his books are so unconventional. The fact that so many readers stick with the strange narrative journey of the Millennium trilogy is testament to the strength of Larsson's central character, Lisbeth Salander: by half-way through the first book, we care enough about what happens to her that we'll follow her anywhere. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo starts out as a thriller about corruption in the world of corporate finance. It then becomes a murder mystery in the style of a classic "locked room" story; later, it morphs into hunt for a serial killer obsessed with Leviticus. Within each book and from one book to the next the precise generic contours twist and reshape themselves around this indomitable, brilliant, sociopathic woman. What is this if not formal innovation, a sustained reflection on and reinvention of the way stories are told - what is this if not literature?

Written by Kirsten Tranter


 The Legacy is available from Shearer's Bookshop. When Genres Attack! featuring Kirsten Tranter, P.M. Newton and James Bradley will take place at 7.30pm on Friday 13th May 2011 at Shearer's Bookshop. More information about this event can be found here.

Olivia Newton-John Event

Olivia Newton-John is no ordinary author. This is a woman who has toured the world, has been considered a sex symbol for more than 4 decades, survived cancer and won Grammys. Olivia Newton-John is a celebrity and believe you me, when she arrived at Shearer's on Thursday night, there was no denying her star appeal.

Olivia was in town to promote her new book Livwise, which she believes speaks to anyone who wants to live well. The book consists of recipes, many which are used at her Byron Bay retreat, Gaia.

Whilst we didn't get a tune from the songstress, we did get a great evening of terrific stories, advice about staying young and insight into her celebrity life. Those lucky enough to secure tickets for the evening had the opportunity to speak to Olivia personally and have their photo taken with the star. Many lingered long in to the evening at our cafe, just so as not to miss a glimpse.

Shearer's donated $5 from every copy of Livwise sold to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre.

Written by Megan

Friday 6 May 2011

A Brief Chat With Annabel Langbein

Annabel Langbein is the popular chef behind the TV series The Free Range Cook. She visited Shearer's to sign copies of The Free Range Cook cookbook.


What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading? 
Chris Cleave - The Other Hand, currently The Tiger.


Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
1st edition of Elizabeth David's Italian Food. From my great aunt's library and the book I first started cooking with and ran a restaurant menu from.


Which fictional character do you most identify with?
Mary Poppins with her magical ever producing bag and ability to airborne herself via umbrella.


What are you working on next?
New projects and new media...living well, having fun with friends and family, planning my new garden!

A Brief Chat With Morris Gleitzman

Morris Gleitzman visited Shearer's to sign copies of his new book, Too Small to Fail.

What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
The Quants by Scott Patterson. A fascinating piece of journalism about a bunch of maths geniuses on Wall Street who lost a few hundred billion dollars. My GFC novel for kids - Too Small to Fail - is published. The research is done, but I can't stop reading about this subject!

Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
The battered paperback edition of Joyce Casey's The Horse's Mouth. It was given to me by a man in a clothing factory I used to work in - it rekindled my love of reading at age 17 and led eventually to what I do now.

Which fictional character do you most identify with?
William Brown in Richmal Crompton's Just William stories. Sometimes also Madame Bovary.

What are you working on next?
A collection of short stories call Pizza Cake. Published in November 2011 - I'd better get writing.

Thursday 5 May 2011

A Brief Chat with Miles Poynton

Miles Poynton is the International and Digital Sales Director of Faber and Faber Publishing


What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry. I love how human his characters are and he reminds me how important family and love are in my life.

Which book from your bookshelf at home is your most treasured and why?
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's a book that moved me so much and when I think of it, I think of how important it is to make the most of each day.

Which fictional character do you most identify with?
I'd love to think I could be Aurelio Zen...in my dreams!

A Brief Chat with Dr. Martin Jarvis

Dr. Martin Jarvis is the author of Written by Mrs. Bach, one of Shearer's Books of the Month.

What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
The last book was The King's Speech. Now reading Pride and Prejudice and enjoying the sheer joy of the prose after a lifetime in non-fiction.


Whose writing do you admire most and why?
Charles Dickens and his ability to describe the scene and really place the reader inside the story.

What's the most fun you've ever had writing?
In my book, Written by Mrs Bach, I wrote a chapter 'The Scholars Get a Chance to Throw Rocks' (chapter 7). It was great fun recounting the metaphoric rocks that have been thrown at my research.


What are you working on next?
Two books underway: A personal history of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra and the novel of the 'Mrs Bach' story - an interesting journey!
 Written by Mrs. Bach is available from Shearer's Bookshop

A Brief Chat With Rohan Wilson

Rohan Wilson won this year's Australian/Vogel's Literary Award for his book The Roving Party.

What was the last book you read and what are you currently reading?
I read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet on iPad. I am now reading The Year of the Flood by Margaret Attwood on iPad.


If you could choose anywhere in the world for a book tour, where would you go and why?
The U.S. Such a wide, varied country. It would be like touring ten countries in one!

Who would you like to give your book to as a gift?
Hmmmmm.... Maybe to Bob Brown. I love his work.

What are you working on next?
My next book is about a man called Thomas Toosey. he is a drunk, and a murderer and he is about to get his comeuppance.
 The Roving Party is available from Shearer's Bookshop

Wednesday 4 May 2011

In Defence of the Miles Franklin Award Short List...

This year, only three books are in contention for the Miles Franklin Literary Award (MFA) – Chris Womersley’s Bereft, Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance and Roger McDonald’s When Colts Ran. The unusual and controversial stance of making such an exclusive shortlist has brought with it a lot of criticism.

The main argument against the shortlist is its apparent narrow representation of the Australian voice. Firstly, there are no women on the list despite Honey Brown, Kirsten Tranter and Melina Marchetta all making the Long List. Secondly, there are no novels set in Australia’s urban areas. Womersley and McDonald’s novels are set in rural or country Australia, and Scott’s novel covers the colonial settlement of south Western Australian. Thirdly, even though Scott has Aboriginal heritage, there are no novels exploring our multicultural diversity.

My answer to these complaints is that the exclusivity of the MFA in 2011 is a welcome and positive move. I commend the judges for maintaining the high standard of writing that the award should reflect. At the end of the day, the MFA showcases distinctive Australian voice in writing – but that writing also has to be of the highest calibre in the country. If the only writers who meet the criteria and standard of the MFA are all men who have all written about historic and rural Australia, then that is the lot of the MFA for that particular year. It is also completely misleading to say that these novels are essentially the same - the two novels I have read, Bereft and That Deadman Dance, are worlds apart in style, content and theme.

Readers should be able to trust judging panels and reviewers. If every Australian novel received glowing reviews, if every place in the MFA Short List was symbolic rather than based on merit, the public will learn to stop believing in good Australian writing. The great writers of this country will not get the recognition they deserve either.

I have been guilty of dismissing Australian literature as inferior to literature from overseas – I think many of us have been. However, there are some excellent and challenging reads out there and the MFA needs to be an indication of where to start looking. Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance and Chris Womersley’s Bereft are two of the finest novels – and not just Australian novels - that I have read in a long time; That Deadman Dance for Scott’s sheer mastery of storytelling and Bereft for the exciting potential Womersley displays in only his second novel. I will soon be reading McDonald’s When Colts Ran based purely on the company it keeps in this 2011 Short List.

 The Australian literary scene cannot head down the same track as its film counterpart where every Australian movie receives an extra star from Margaret and David, purely for being Australian. If Australian literature wants to be taken seriously, it needs to be reviewed and judged in a serious manner. We have amazing talent, but let’s be honest about it.


Written by Natalie

 
Bereft, That Deadman Dance and When Colts Ran are available from Shearer's Bookshop.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

May Books of the Month: 15% off the RRP in-store now!







Interview: Anita Heiss

Anita Heiss is the author of several books including Manhattan Dreaming and, most recently, Paris Dreaming

Hi Anita, thanks for answering some questions for us! Let's start with an easy one, what are you reading at the moment?
I’ve just started Sherman Alexie’s The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Why did you choose Paris as the setting of your latest book? Is there a special connection you have with the city? (and further, did you take the opportunity to travel to Paris for "research"?)
My character Libby Cutmore had to go abroad, and Paris with the Musée du Quai Branly in mind, was the most sensible place to take her. There is already an Indigenous arts presence there, and Libby works at the National Aboriginal Gallery in Canberra so I could quite easily write a believable storyline to get her there. I had also been published in French – my novel Who am I? The diary of Mary Talence, Sydney 1937 is published by Au vent des îles – and when we released in France, my interviews were done at the Musée and I just fell in love with the space, especially the cafe with the view of the Eiffel Tower.

Because I believe in suffering for my craft, and I am a method writer, I did have to get into character and head to Paris. I needed to cruise the Seine, weave in and out of galleries and museums, shop in designer stores and flee markets, and eat too many croissants and macaroons! The only way to write the scenes, the smells, sounds, tastes etc is to experience them.

In Paris Dreaming, Libby works at the Musée du Quai Branly, what attracted you to this gallery out of the myriad available in Paris?
I was inspired by the extraordinary Indigenous Australian Commission of works at the Musée du Quai Branly. Co-curated by Hetti Perkins and Brenda L Croft, it includes some of my favourite artists, Judy Watson and the late Michael Riley. I wanted to bring the experience of the Musée to those who may never have the opportunity to go to Paris and see the overwhelming installations for themselves.

Putting Aboriginal themes and characters into the 'chick-lit' genre has been extremely successful. Did you feel at the outset that this would be the case? 
To be honest, I didn’t think about the potential success of my work when I started writing in this genre, I just wanted to put Aboriginal women in urban areas and the complexity of our everyday lives on the Australian literary radar. I’m glad now though that the books and the storylines based on relationships between women and their friends, their mothers and the men in their lives speaks to a wide range of audiences.

Manhattan Dreaming, Paris Dreaming
, where to next?

Can you believe the next stop is Brisbane – the city and suburbs! But when you dig deep there’s almost as much culture and excitement in Bris-Vegas as there is Manhattan and Paris, especially around the cultural precinct on the Brisbane river.

How do you find the daily life of being a full time writer?
I left academia to be a full-time writer and while it is financially an insecure way to be, I have never been happier or healthier. When working on a novel deadline, I will work seven days a week for two months, and then give myself a lot of me time. I like the variety in my life, and my days including writing, performing, school visits, library visits and research. I never get bored. But I must admit that I am very disciplined, motivated and a workaholic.

You've been recognised with various awards, including Deadly Awards, has there been one that stands out as especially satisfying?
The Deadly Awards are meaningful because they are like our community ‘peoples choice’ awards and so it is validation that my own mob recognises what I do, and appreciate and am humbled by that. I am also very proud of winning the Australian Society of Authors award in 2003 (Tim Winton was a co-winner), because it was recognition from within the writing world.

Having worked on poetry, children's fiction, chick-lit, non-fiction, reviews, anthologies and other types of writing is there one that you can say you prefer? And is there a genre or style you haven't tackled yet that you'd like to?
I really enjoy working with the students at La Perouse Public School on our two novels Yirra and Her Deadly Dog, Demon (2007) and Demon Guards the School Yard (2011). But the most interesting work – in relation to researching and writing – has to be writing chick-lit, or as I prefer to call it, commercial women’s fiction. I’d like to be able to write for the stage also... one day!

Can you tell me a little about the short film you made and what inspired you to make it?

As part of the Lester Bostock Mentorship Program through Metro Screen NSW, I created a short film titled Checkerboard Love, about the relationship between an Aboriginal girl and her non-Aboriginal boyfriend who were having their parents over for dinner to meet for the first time, and they frantically de-Aboriginalise the flat to lessen any chance of friction.

What are you working on next?
I’ve just handed in the first draft of a memoir on identity titled Am I Black Enough for You? It will be released through Random House next year. In the meantime, I’ll be busy ‘researching’ arts and culture in Brisbane for my next novel Tiddas about five Aboriginal women from Mudgee, all finding themselves in Bris-Vegas in their 40s.
 Paris Dreaming, Manhattan Dreaming and Anita's other works are available online at Shearer's Bookshop.