WRITE
CLIMATE FOR CREATIVITY
Edited version published: Courier Mail (01 March 2008)
If you’re a young writer in Queensland, you’re probably familiar
with the annual exodus of friends leaving for Melbourne and beyond. Usually,
they never come back. But in a nice reversal of that phenomenon, young
writer, poet and journalist Anna Krien
moved from her hometown of Melbourne last year, for Brisbane.
Why? Firstly, winters were too cold to write in Melbourne. Secondly, she
says people preferred to talk about writing in Melbourne, rather than
actually write. Finally, the clincher for Krien was Brisbane’s literature
itself. “I’ve always had romantic visions about Brisbane.
All the best literature is based in the tropics, and it’s wet with
mangos,” she says. “This place drips. Brisbane feels wild
in comparison. It doesn’t feel like it’s killed everything
off else yet.”
Krien’s move might be anomalous to the dominant trend. But increasingly,
Brisbane is seen not only seen as a viable place for writers and publishers
to work, but the preferred location. Recently, senior Random House publisher
Carol Davidson moved away from her base in Sydney so she could work as
from Brisbane, where her family resides. It’s a bold and unusual
move for a major publishing house to plant one of its key players outside
Sydney or Melbourne.
Personally, Davidson is thrilled to be back in her home-town. “There’s
a very strong community here of writers and writing. There’s a great
strength in it, a camaraderie. It’s always been fertile ground for
great writing.” She also points out that the infrastructure in Queensland
is strong, citing the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, the
Brisbane Writer’s Festival (BWF) and the University of Queensland
Press (UQP) as crucial players in the current success of state’s
literary scene.
Lately, those successes have been resounding. Queensland’s novelists
are shifting significant sales and attracting lavish praise: Alexis Wright’s
Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin Award last year; Matthew Condon’s
The Trout Opera is already being reprinted and has sold in the
UK; Nick Earls’s 48 Shades of Brown has been made into
a film; Rebecca Sparrow’s The Girl Most Likely also is
in film development; and Gympie-based novelist Karen Foxlee recently sold
US rights for her debut novel The Anatomy of Wings for a six-figure
sum. Those are only some examples.
Those institutions and events Carol Davidson mentioned also rank as some
of the strongest in the country. The Queensland Premier’s Literary
Awards are the richest awards of their kind in Australia. The Brisbane
Writers Festival gets bigger every year and now attracts media coverage
nationally and abroad. UQP continues to break new ground in unearthing
not only new Australian literature, but poetry, children’s and Indigenous
writing. Over at the universities—UQ, QUT and Griffith University—demand
for creative writing courses has swollen beyond capacity.
Over at UQ, however, English lecturer and academic Stuart Glover argues
all this doesn’t necessarily constitute a literary “boom”
for Queensland. Instead, he reasons the strong quality of the literary
scene here has been progressively building for some time now. “It’s
been happening since about 1990, and it’s had peaks along the way,”
he says.
“When Nick Earls, Veny Armanno, and Andrew McGahan were published
in the early ‘90s, southern agents and publishers became very interested
in the idea of Queensland writers. After Helen Demidenko won the Miles
Franklin—which ended up being a debacle—the media again trumpeted
good news for Queensland writing. So the success is actually nothing new,
but it does continue to gather momentum.”
Still, there is also a lingering anxiety about whether Brisbane’s
literary output is good enough. “Sydney and Melbourne went through
a kind of cultural renaissance in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s,”
Glover says. “Brisbane and Queensland have been going through a
much-delayed process of maturation in the last 10 years. That comes along
with a deep concern over what Brisbane means, and where we are in the
scheme of things.”
To rephrase: Queensland is still undergoing a delayed cultural puberty,
stunted by decades of conservative State government policy. And like every
adolescence, Queensland’s inevitably comes coupled with navel-gazing
and a mild confidence crisis. Editor of Griffith Review Julianne
Schultz says she will be addressing that concern head-on in an upcoming
issue of the journal released later this year, entitled “Hidden
Queensland”.
For Schultz, that issue won’t be about attracting interstate readers
to Queensland writing. “Instead, what we're saying is that rather
than being a curiosity on the side, Queensland is a central part of the
national conversation already. Queensland writers, thinkers and journalists
are saying, ‘We’ve got something to say, and it’s not
just about Queensland. It’s about the state, the nation and the
world as it is.’”
As usual, Schultz says she will be consciously pursuing new and emerging
writers for that issue of Griffith Review—that has always
been deliberate policy for the journal. It’s been a successful formula,
with many new voices discovered by Griffith Review finding their way into
Black Inc’s prestigious Best Australian Stories. Schultz
cites James Halford, the 2006 winner of the State Library Young Writers
Award, as one writer who particularly impressed her with his work for
the journal.
For Halford, winning the 2006 award opened many doors in publishing. Last
year, he was one of those young writers published alongside the likes
of Kate Grenville, David Malouf, Roger McDonald and Frank Moorhouse in
Black Inc’s Best Australian Stories 2007. “It’s
strange that doors that seemed to be closed, suddenly opened,” Halford
says. “People were more likely to publish me, so winning that award
did have a significant effect.”
That dovetailing between Griffith Review’s editorial policy,
government-funded literary awards, and publishing successes like Halford’s,
makes Queensland seem like a paradise for aspiring writers. However, that
doesn’t explain why Brisbane still struggles to keep its young writers
in town, specifically those in their 20s.
Some argue it’s a universally 20-something phenomenon to leave home.
22-year-old Ronnie Scott, writer and editor of independent literary journal
The Lifted Brow, cites resources like Express Media—a Melbourne
organisation that provides publishing opportunities and workspace for
young writers in Melbourne—as a significant reason for moving.
At the same time, Scott recognises that The Lifted Brow—whose
fourth issue is already attracting contributions from powerhouse international
writers from overseas—could not have been founded anywhere else
but Brisbane. “We did a launch in Brisbane that got 300 people in
one night. There was a need for [something like it]. Because of that,
everyone was incredibly supportive.”
But when asked whether he’d ever move back to Brisbane, Scott immediately
says no. Population density is too low to support and sustain independent
projects like his. Moreover, when it came to mainstream writing institutions
like the Brisbane Writers Festival (BWF) and the Queensland Writers Centre
(QWC), Scott felt writers his age had been somewhat overlooked.
Membership at the QWC might be fierce overall, but youth membership currently
stands at a paltry six percent. Though youth attendance at the Brisbane
Writers Festival continues to swell amongst school-aged children and teenagers,
20-something writers opt for the more youth-oriented National Young Writers
Festival in Newcastle during that time.
Deputy Editor of Griffith Review Sally Breen sits on the board of the
QWC, and recognises the need to invest in youth membership. As someone
who has lectured and tutored young writers through Brisbane’s creative
writing university programs, Breen found a major discrepancy between the
number of young writers in Queensland, and QWC youth membership.
“We have started talking about developing a few programs,”
she says. “One of them was setting up a youth advisory committee,
so we could talk to young people about what exactly it was they wanted,
and getting them to drive it.” The advisory body has just held its
second meeting, and Breen has already discussed the possibility of an
official fringe arm of the BWF this year. In 2008, the QWC’s goal
is to double youth membership.
Considering these new initiatives, perhaps Queensland is now genuinely
on the cusp of a new adult phase of its literary growth. Davidson at Random
House is convinced the literary scene is already, undeniably there. “Numerous
colleagues throughout Australia—certainly Sydney and Melbourne—have
asked me, ‘Oh, you’ve returned to Brisbane?’”
she says. “What I think is left unsaid is, ‘Why would you
do that?’ I take great pride in asking: ‘Why not?’”
For her part, former Melbourne writer Krien doesn’t regret the move
up north. Even through Melbourne established her footing—writing
for publications like the Age, Express Media’s Voiceworks,
the Big Issue and being published in Best Australian Essays—she’s
staying put in Brisbane to work on her Masters in poetry.
As an outsider, Krien says Brisbane has yet to discover its secret virtue:
a pace that allows you to read. “God knows, I wasn’t reading
in Melbourne. For writers, reading is important. It’s easy to forget.
Brisbane wants to be like Melbourne, vibrant every night. But at the same
time, it’s really nice being able to stay in, not be freezing, and
read.”
WHAT
MAKES QUEENSLAND WRITING STRONG:
THE QUEENSLAND WRITERS CENTRE (QWC)
One of the strongest writer’s centres in the country, membership
is robust and the programming is highly respected. Youth membership is
a weakness, but QWC aims to double its 25 and under membership through
various initiatives in 2008.
www.qwc.asn.au
THE BRISBANE WRITERS FESTIVAL (BWF)
Buoyed by better weather than other writers festivals, and a
growing international reputation, Brisbane Writers Festival is now one
of the biggest in the country. It also makes national headlines with its
international authors, including 2007’s festival where Palestinian
journalist Abdel Bari Atwan was denied access into the country. (Eventually,
he was let in.)
www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au
UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND PRESS (UQP)
The publishing house that was a strong early champion of David
Malouf, Thea Astley, Peter Carey, Janette Turner Hospital and Matthew
Condon is now the national leader in discovering new, young and emerging
voices Australian fiction, poetry, children’s and Indigenous writing.
www.uqp.uq.edu.au
QUT, UQ & GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY
All three major universities in Brisbane offer creative writing
degrees, with lecturers ranging from novelists, playwrights, screenwriters
and arts administrators. Many graduates have gone onto major successes
here, interstate and abroad.
ONE BOOK MANY BRISBANES
After a couple of false starts, One Book Many Brisbanes is now
a popular institution. $6000 is awarded to the best story written in and
about Brisbane, and the resulting anthology is then distributed throughout
Brisbane City Council libraries.
www.brisbane.qld.gov.au
THE STATE LIBRARY YOUNG WRITERS AWARD
Open to all Queensland writers between the ages of 18 and 25,
this award gives $2000 to the best short story, and $500 to a runner up.
Previous winners and runners-up include UQP-published authors Tara-June
Winch and Alasdair Duncan, and James Halford.
www.slq.qld.gov.au/about/ppp/ywa
THE QUEENSLAND PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS
The richest premier’s literary awards in the country, these
awards boast innovative categories and the Emerging Queensland Author
award, which awards an unpublished writer a cash prize of $20,000 and
a publishing deal with UQP. The David Unaipon Award awards $15,000 to
the best unpublished Indigenous writer that year, and publishing with
UQP.
www.literaryawards.qld.gov.au
GRIFFITH REVIEW
Based in Brisbane, Griffith Review is now in its fifth year of
blending Australia’s best journalism, fiction, poetry and photo
essays. An innovative editorial policy means emerging writers are published
alongside established names like Frank Moorhouse, Carmel Bird, Malcolm
Knox and Matthew Condon.
www.griffithreview.com.au
INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOPS
Brisbane’s independent bookstores Avid Reader, Riverbend,
American Bookstore and Coaldrake’s are strong players in the market,
and regularly host the major local and international author events in
town. Boutique shops like Pulp Fiction and Comics Etc. build loyalty by
catering to niche tastes like crime, graphic novels, sci-fi and fantasy.
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Last
Updated :: 29 March 2008
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Benjamin Law 2008