The Nude Not Naked Tour 3 November in Sydney

I know that it says 2 November on my interview post with Nuala, but that's not entirely true. The interview was conducted in my yesterday and her tomorrow so that makes it our today, 3 November, and the temperature's still rising.

Nude hits Sydney and the temperature rises

The Nude not Naked tour is making its last stop in Sydney today where temperatures are expected to hit 35. I’m so glad that Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s collection of short stories, Nude, has come to Australia and am pleased to be asking Nuala some questions on the tour and her writing. So here goes.

Hi Nuala,
Seamus Heaney was in Vienna this year and so I was hoping to welcome you to Vienna, too. But the universe does strange things and so it is that the Nude Not Naked Tour ends in an antipodal embrace in Sydney. Welcome to the Land of Oz where Toto is a Kelpie and the wizard is just another bloke who needs a heart, a bit of brains and loads of courage. That being said, I’m glad and honoured that your tour stopped by at Merc’s World.

Thanks for having me here, Merc. It’s a thrill to be back in the Antipodes wrapping up the tour where it all kicked off ten long weeks ago.

1. The Nude Not Naked Tour – the words nude and naked have certainly got things buzzing, but the Not has also done its bit. I can’t help thinking that there’s something going on there and I’m drawn back to your stories seeking more beneath the surface. How did you come up with the name of the tour? Did it come in a flash or did you have to work at the words?

It just arrived, Merc. I guess it has layers of meaning: Nude is the collection’s title but it also plays on the quote from John Berger that I used as an epigraph to the book: ‘Nudity is a form of dress.’ He was referring to the nude in Western art and there is much of that in the book. But not all the stories deal with art and the other unclothed bodies in the stories – in the form of lovers – are also nudes, in that they are being observed by someone else.

2. Many of the stories in your super collection, Nude, deal with art and paintings in some way. But I keep going back to the story of “Cowboy and Nelly” where the only artwork is a tattoo, or rather two. For me that story is “naked” and depicts a wonderful vulnerability and yearning and an earthiness where smells and their associations are evoked on more than half of the pages of the story. Were you aware of this? Did you place the smell ‘imagery’ consciously?

I had the motif of the tattoo in my mind and I wanted to write this story in a simple way because the main characters are simple souls who end up in a complex situation. I had absolutely no idea that smells were central to the story so I am going to dash off now and re-read it with that in mind. OK, I’m back. Wow, yes, I see what you mean. There’s Nelly’s ‘sweet-dough smell’, Cowboy’s ‘underarm sweat’, ‘the smell of over-ripe fruit and Daz’ on Thomas Street, the ‘promising and new’ smell in Frawley’s clothes shop. I wasn’t aware of doing that but I always tell my CW students to use their senses when they write, so I seem to be unconsciously following my own advice.

3. Congratulations on your novel, You. Did you workshop it or parts thereof?

Thanks for the congrats – I’m thrilled about it; New Island are a publisher I have long admired No, I never really workshop fiction much and I didn’t with the novel. I did discuss it with one close writer friend – we were both writing novels at the time so we would gripe to each other when it wasn’t going well. Only three people have seen the novel: me, my (former) agent and my editor. I haven’t shown it to my nearest and dearest, or to anyone, because that’s not the way I work. I don’t really want other writers’ input into my fiction when it’s in progress because I’d be afraid they would interfere with the flow. Then, when it’s finished, it’s finished. I can’t wait to get stuck into it with my editor at New Island though!

4. How did you find the tour? Did it help or hinder your new writing? Would you do something like this again with your novel or your next collection?

The tour has been great, if a little exhausting. I do get tired wittering on about me and my book but, at the same time, I have learnt about what I think of the process of writing. I guess it hinders in that I have less time to write, but I’m not writing much anyway because I have a new baby and she takes up most of my time. I would consider doing a virtual tour again – it’s a great promotional tool. I might do less than 10 stops though – it’s hard to keep people’s interest over such a long period. But some stalwarts have followed me from New Zealand all the way around the world and back here to you in Australia. I want to thank them and applaud their stamina.

Thanks again for stopping by on your whiz around the world. Maybe we can meet again. I’ve enjoyed hearing all the questions and your generous and helpful answers. I’m wishing you lots of success with your writing and looking forward to more.

Thanks a million, Merc. Maybe we’ll meet again in June of 2010 in Toronto at the next Short Story Conference?!

I'll try very hard to be there, Nuala. Onwards!

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If you’ve missed some of the questions asked on the Nude not Naked tour, check out Nuala’s tour blog stops for some amazing insights.

Nude is available from SALT Publishing and from the amazons. In Sydney, run to your local indie bookshop and place your order. You won’t regret this sensual and moving read.

A "New Australian" history

I'm back in Sydney to say goodbye to the home I grew up in and to give a wave to Mum and Dad now strolling forever in their beloved bush. I hope the house becomes a hearth of home and creativity to the new owners and I hope it finds people it deserves. There's a lot of history in this house, "new Australian" history.

My Dad, Herbert S. Petter, ran an exclusive catering business in the 60s and 70s when big cats had generous expense accounts. Dad brought his Vienna and London schooling to a Sydney whose palate was strictly lamb and mint sauce with the occasional oyster to stray from old Blighty. Leo Scofield wrote about Dad and I've been going through lots of Dad's fan mail. The time was a boom for Sydney society with "exclusive" being the new catchword. Mum, Frieda Petter, helped Dad and specialised in delicious cold cheesecakes. And then there were stories. I must write them down. Maybe I'll do a book on Dad and his business with recipes and anecdotes of Sydney in the 60s.

And Mum, creative Mum. Waste not, want not was what she always said. Our house was full of wool and material, etched glasses, painted porcelain, patchwork and tapestries, spinning wheels, looms, .... Memories of all that will be in the book on Mum's craft that I promised her. After retirement Mum joined the Pink Ladies and contributed her craft work to supporting the local hospital. Yesterday I heard that the Pink Ladies completed and sold a lot of Mum's unfinished items. I can see her smiling with satisfaction.

Mum and Dad aren't buried anywhere, they've become part of the land they loved and they have left their mark on it. People called them "new Australians". I'm proud that they were. They started a new life here and they gave me a wonderful start to mine.

University rankings of my Alma Mater - Sydney/Vienna

Although I'm pleased that the two universities I've been and still am associated with both ranked in the top 200, I've been wondering why they've both slipped. 60 year-old UNSW, the University of New South Wales, is now 47th (45th last year) and the University of Vienna, the oldest German-speaking university clocked in at 132nd (115th last year).

Is it because government funding is weak in both places? Is it because research has to assert itself in the marketplace and there is no room to err? Methinks a lot is being lost in not being allowed to make mistakes; mistakes often lead to new ways of thinking, new fresh directions. But mistakes, they say, are costly. Haven't we learned from the FiCri, or the BigFinancialCrisis? (Roald Dahl move over.)

There's also that tricky sword edge of "independence". Why don't all the moguls invest in the future by putting their pennies into a university trust? Me naïve? Everyone wants returns on investments; but those returns don't always have to be measured in lucre, do they?

If governments are sincere in thinking of the future, why do they always want to have their cake now. OK, next time, the other side may be up. So are we in one country, are we in one world? Investment in learning goes beyond one party, beyond one life. And if you keep filling the lecture rooms until they burst, how do you hear, let alone learn?

Short Stories by Patrick Cullen - a review

Once again I was unable to crack a place in the ABR reviewing competition. My aim wasn't so much a prize, but publication of the review in Australia. No worries. Maybe my blog will reach another audience, so here's my "review"; and if you like short stories, Patrick has a second collection in the works.

Patrick Cullen
WHAT CAME BETWEEN
Scribe Publications, 192pp 9781921372889

In 2008 at the 10th International Short Story Conference in Cork, Ireland, Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler commented in a workshop on an exercise in which one of the students had transformed a panty hose into an instrument of yearning. That was my first encounter with the writing of Patrick Cullen.

I soon discovered that in addition to stories in The Age, Sleepers Almanac, Harvest and The Best Australian Stories 2007 (BAS07) edited by Robert Drewe, three of Cullen´s stories appeared as a ‘triptych’ in The Best Australian Stories 2005 (BAS05) edited by Frank Moorhouse. In a triptych, the left and right panels are subordinate to the centre one and so it also would seem to be with the stories “Mauve”, “Collapsing Under Their Own Weight” and “‘And?’” which all appear in amended forms (as does “The Easy Way Out” from BAS07) in Cullen´s story collection, What Came Between, published by Scribe Publications in August 2009. But in this collection of twelve linked stories, the central story of the triptych from BAS05, has been developed into a more complex one and appears as “Scar Tissue”, which for me represents the epiphany of the book. Although the stories can be read as stand-alones, when read in sequence they take on a hypertextual quality - a burrowing into layers which grounds the almost novelesque collection in the terrace houses of Laman Street, Newcastle, where the lives of neighbours interlink like cogwheels quietly ticking along from the 1989 Newcastle earthquake to the shutdown of the local steelworks a decade later, and beyond.

The first two stories, “Aftershocks” and “The Ground Beneath”, set the tone as the fault lines of the Newcastle earthquake expose the lives and longing of the inhabitants of Laman Street: the childless couple, Sarah and Paul, their neighbours, Ray and Pam, and the elderly Elsie. In “The Long Drive Home”, Elsie, learns to drive her grandson, Lucas´, car and, as in a relay, hands over her house to him. Then we segue into “And?” and the secrets Paul never divulged to his wife.

The next story, “The Comet”, describes how Lucas and Cate, a girl fleetingly mentioned in “The Long Drive Home”, get to know each other through the interweaving of Halley´s Comet, Huckleberry Finn and Mark Twain, before we are drawn on to “Mauve” in which Paul struggles with his career perceptions and the need to write as a way to express his feelings to Sarah. Although there are allusions to books and authors—Love in the Time of Cholera in “Scar Tissue” and Huckleberry Finn in “The Comet”—in “Mauve” the references to Paul, the writer of stories and poems, seem to fit better with the stand-alone “Mauve” than the “Mauve” of the story collection perhaps simply because there is no record of Paul ever writing again. Or will that be a part of the future?

In the middle of the collection the story “Dust” forms a natural marker for the following decade with the death of Geoffrey, a friend of Pam and Ray from their time before Laman Street: Pam and Ray are now parents, but Geoffrey´s death takes Pam back twenty years to when Geoffrey's then pregnant wife, Judy, confessed to Pam her infidelity. It is as though room for thought is provided to the reader before the next story, “The Easy Way Out” in which Pam encourages Ray to reconnect with their estranged son, Michael. At the same time, it would seem, in the story “Where Things Belong”, Lucas and Cate face impending parenthood and the enigmatic discovery of a child´s shoe in the ceiling. Then comes the brave and sensitive “Scar Tissue” where Sarah, standing naked in the surf displays her absent breast to the gaze of a passing stranger: “She hesitated for a moment then let her arms fall to her sides. … ‘Good morning,’ she said and laughed.” This sets the bitter-sweet tone for the last two stories: “Short of Breath, Full of Ache” where Michael discovers a new facet of his father Ray, and “The Birth of Unknowing” in which the birth of Cate and Lucas´ child indicates a certain hope for the future.

In simple prose Cullen describes the failings and victories of ordinary people with sensitivity and knowing that make the stories of this collection resonate. Robert Olen Butler, who on the back cover of the book speaks of the collection´s “vision of how we seek our deepest selves in the crush of the quotidian” also no doubt perceived in these stories a narrator who “yearns to face the dark things honestly.”

Needless to say, I enjoyed this collection and am curious as to the fate of the panty hose.

Blue - the new energy for the future

This year I lost Mum and a dear friend and since then I haven't been able to write. But I've just come out of a wonderful adventure helping to organise a conference at Vienna University.
The conference on educational research with more than 2,000 attendees was serviced by about 170 student volunteers in their blue t-shirts and I'm proud to say the blues stole the show. They did more than that - I think the participants learned a lot from the students who showed "Yes, we can." And a word to Tanja, my boss: "Honey, we did it!" We also put on a lovely evening with Schrammel Musik by the Soyka-Stirner Duo.
I've worked at a lot of international conferences, big and small, in my time, but never with such an army of volunteers. The adrenaline flowed and the buzz was amazing. The students, I'm sure learned a lot, but I'd like them to know that I learned a lot, too, for which I am grateful. And I know that it won't be too long before I'm writing again.

And here are some Flickrpix before Monday's registration tsunami.

Ballistics reviewed by Jake Moss

About a year ago I met a young Aussie in Vienna at an Aussie pub. I usually don't go to Aussie pubs, but the place I wanted to go was closed. It was a warm evening and I'd just enjoyed an outdoor concert with a couple of friends. My accent must have given me away and that's how I met Jake Moss. When I said I was a writer, he asked my name. I told him and added, "You wouldn't know me." But he did. He'd read an article in Ether Magazine which he wrote for and asked if I'd look at his stories. I said I wasn't a teacher, but I could share what I knew. It was up to him to make something of it. I also told him about a teacher I'd had, Alex Keegan. After working on a story with Jake, a story that had a strange nugget in it that begged to be found, I gave him a copy of Alex Keegan's short-story collection, Ballistics and asked him to write a review. Here's the review and I look forward to more of Jake's stories. The first is now out in the wild. Write, write, write; submit, submit, submit, as Alex would say.

Ballistics by Alex Keegan, reviewed by Jake Moss

"Ballistics, a collection of stellar short stories, put together like a photo album, snapshots of the ordinary life and its changing beauty and disarranged intensity. Captured, Succinctly - Situations where ordinary people who are living relatively ordinary lives are faced with the extraordinary complexities of it all.

"Keegan’s appeal lies in how he balances the emotional depth and engaging length of difficult situations- broken families, broken hearts, growing up, uncontrollable disasters, death and life- with humour, a dry philosophy, redemption and, ultimately the imperfect resolutions. He resuscitates the depth of these ‘every day’ lives while exposing the mucky mess of truth and the failures of being human which are habitually ignored.

"We see in many of his stories such as ‘Ballistics’ and ‘An old man watching football’, situations in which an individual’s past has conspired with their future to produce an outcome that can be sourced all the way back to childhood. I found myself more than once twisting around to face my estranged childhood and unravelling tangled memories. He provokes something real. ‘It’s as real as a tree’ he writes in ‘The smell of almond polish’ and this can be said about his stories. They are organic and pure- I can smell the almond polish as his characters make love upon it.

"His past talent as a Crimi writer also infuses something special into the stories. The rueful sentimentalism in ‘Spectacles and Testicles’ is enriched by the suspense he is able to conjure. The themes of innocence, the old, the young and death are often placed together. ‘The Quarry’, is one of those in which such themes are played with, causing a dark curtain of thoughts to descend after you’ve finished reading. In others, ‘Postcards from balloon Land’, your emotions are made to do laps and climb mountains. A strong narrative pulse is inherent throughout. Written in a blunt, quirky and bold language these stories carry a strong pulse.

"As an aspiring writer myself, a student of the pen, I say that he gives me something to look forward to and a target at which to aim. A purchase essential for the real amongst us. "

Good on ya, mate!

Vienna Lit Marathon and my midnight sandwich

Around this time every year Vienna stages a 24-hour reading marathon, Rund um die Burg, held in tents next to the Burgtheater. There’s a kid’s tent Friday and Saturday and the main tent starts Friday at 4pm and ends Saturday at 5pm. Local published authors, big and smaller, get a 30-minute slot. Crime lit is on after midnight and erotica in the wee hours. And it’s all free! (I was privileged to participate in the Schule for Dichtung (Vienna Poetry Academy) class slot on the Saturday back in 2006. Our teacher then was the Viennese songwriter and author, Ernst Molden.)

The day job’s been taking a toll on my time these days, but I couldn’t resist swinging by at 9pm to secure a seat before what turned out to be a full house for Ernst Molden and Michael Niavarani.

Things were running 30 minutes behind schedule so I was in for a pumpkin time. Uschi Fellner, founder of Austria's Woman magazine and a big name in Austrian publishing introduced Barbara Pachl-Eberhart who read from her diaries. Pachl-Eberhart, a teacher who also volunteered as a clown at children’s hospitals, tragically lost her husband and children in 2008. She received a Leading Lady Award for her strength and optimism. People were very moved by her experience, but as she read from her diaries, with photos of her husband and children, the award ceremony, all on the big screen, I couldn’t help wonder about the need for people to know that stories are “true” and how mediatic presentations of such seemed to make it impossible to see nothing but the message. Is it the “message” we crave in our troubled times as our own form of therapy? “Sadness comes in waves,” she said. Many in the audience nodded. Call me cynical, but I couldn’t join in with clapping.

Then came prize-winning author, Antonio Fian with dream stories, Im Schlaf. I kept wondering who the narrator was as many of the stories talked of writers and publishers. The most humourous were the self-deprecating ones with allusions to bungled situations, some with sexual overtones; the author was definitely not dead as he seemed to insinuate himself into nearly all of the stories. I wondered whether a German-speaking audience had a different take on what I saw as humour. But we were already in that twilight between real life and fiction, the place of dreams, so who was I to scratch my head? The next slot was long fiction, with prize-winning Peter Rosei reading from his novel, Das Grosse Toeten. It’s hard to engage with a 30-minute chunk of a novel, but I did notice the detail used to sketch his believable characters. Then followed prize-winning novelist and poet, Bettina Balaka who read a number of poems from her collection, Schaumschluchten and an excerpt from her novel, Eisfluestern . This was lyrical and serious stuff that did not deserve a thinning of the crowd.

But then the room began to fill up as Ernst Molden took the stage, not with a book, but with his guitar, to sing from his latest CD and LP (yes, LP), Ohne Di . “I don’t write books anymore,” he said. (I hope he will write another one though, if only a collation of his weekly column, "Wien Mitte", in the Saturday Freizeit Kurier.) The man has a way with words in both his written and performed texts. Sit back and relax and dip into a Vienna much earthier and greener than the tourist brochures. 30 minutes were too short as the applause demonstrated, and it was already midnight.

Call on the clowns. Enter cabaretist and author, Michael Niavarani, Vienna’s own Persian son. A performer, Niavarani, read a series of excerpts from his book, Vater Morgana: eine Persische Familiengeschichte (story of a Persian family). The audience was in stitches as he recounted the strengths and weaknesses of the members of Martin’s (not Michael’s – he could get away with more by saying it was maybe not really all true, erhem) family. When noise from outside got a bit loud, Michael, the performer said, “Hey, I’m nearly finished,” and that was near the beginning. A great performance. Would I read the book? Yes. But I’d miss his spoken voice, his pauses, his grin, everything that covers up an inherent sadness of the “other”.

Both Molden and Niavarani, in their very different ways, for me held up a true mirror to the human condition, my human condition, that the ‘Truth”, craft, creative non-fiction and lyricism of previous presenters lacked. So I wonder if by stepping outside of ourselves and risking the unexpected we are then able to touch an audience in a manner that resonates beyond just one hearing or reading.

Sharon Ratheiser Exhibition in Carinthia

After exhibitions in Vienna, Sharon Ratheiser is now having her first exhibition in Carinthia. Befittingly, it will be in a castle and is part of a series on contemporary artists. The vernissage is today, 5 September from 17:00 to 19:00. Sharon works in a variety of media. She did the covers of my two story collections, The Past Present and Back Burning and has done some lovely nudes over at AstridL's blog.

2. höfleiner donauweiten poesiefestival - the gig

It was overcast, damp and cool on Saturday, so we moved inside to a full house under the guidance of Dieter Berdel and Heinz Pusitz. The rehearsal paid off, judging by the reception of our group work. The range of work was amazing: from pieces accompanied by music, to group pieces and presentations by prize-winning KrimiAutorin, Edith Kneifl and Bachmann Prize nominee, Caterina Satanik. The open-mic sessions allowed new talent on the stage. I particularly liked a story about a schoolboy losing and finding himself during swimming classes in Vienna's Amalienbad. A reading in Serbian brought laughter with well-timed sound effects of breaking cups - the serendipity of a foreign language which we were able to rehear in the German translation. Some of the Labyrinth regulars presented poems and pieces some together with Sandro Miori's sax. Janus Zeitstein read in Tyrolian lingo a wonderful piece about how we all started out with four arms, four legs and no worries and that the jealousy of the gods chopped us down to size. But somehow, though we humans managed to have the last words. The show went on in the sunshine on Sunday, and oh, the event got a good write up in the local press (in German with 2 pix). There'll be a CD of the weekend and possibly a book of the contributions ... one way to capture the fun fleeting moments.

2. höfleiner donauweiten poesiefestival - rehearsal

Yikes! Getting ready for the 2. höfleiner donauweiten poesiefestival which will be held on Saturday and Sunday in the hills just beyond the Vienna Woods. Rehearsing tonight with a group piece based on a poem by Evelyn Holloway. On the weekend, there´ll be words in English and German and other languages, too. There´ll be music and performance by well- and lesser-known poets, writers and musicians from all around the area. Now to take on my stage fright ...
Bon weekend!