Sunday Driver! *Shakes Fist*

Hello lovelies, not long now until Christmas! I get to go for a wonderful break (which will still include reading and blogging, don’t worry) in the land of the Big Banana, Coffs Harbour. Can’t wait to see my sister, my folks, my Nanna, and bestie Tania. Lots of beach time, and possibly a ‘prop’ party for New Years. And no working in retail! What are you guys up to?

Now, for what is becoming my regular Sunday round-up of bits and bobs:

The new Cordite is now online. A wonderful online journal of poetry and poetry review. The current issue is ‘Pastoral’.  

The Lifted Brow are looking for submissions, and an intern. Here’s a bit of their email:

SEND US YOUR STUFF

We’re reading submissions for our fifth issue until 1 January. That’s a month away! We only put out two issues a year, and the one after this is another big curated project – so now is the time. We’ve published people who’ve won World Fantasy Awards and people who’ve won Pulitzers. We’ve also published high school students. Surprise us, we’ll like it. Fiction, comics (A5-size please), essays/reportage, interviews, science, poetry, photography, greyscale art, scripts. If in doubt, just send it through – do not sweat the formats, if we can’t open it we’ll tell you. editors@theliftedbrow.com by 1 Jan.

INTERN

We recently received an intern application from a girl who thinks we’re a newspaper, and after many impassioned discussions, we agreed not to do anything about it because it would have been too hard to lie all the time. But we are seeking a Melbourne-based intern who knows what we do. Interns will do a full-issue cycle, gaining good, fun, dirty experience in editing (at all levels), events management (bands, artists, writers), misc. publishing business, design, and being cooked for (this is an unpaid internship). Applicants should be available to start in January, one weekday per week, until around midyear. Niceness and good writing skills are the main things; might be a good idea if you need uni credit or if your school offers an independent study subject or something. Apply in as much detail as you can: editors@theliftedbrow.com by 1 Jan.

TLB4 is out soon. Check the website!

And something interesting that Crikey’s Jane Nethercote led me to – The School of Life.

*More exciting 2009 news* The absolutely wonderful Matthew Condon will have a new novel, set right after the bombs fell on Hiroshima (I think). Perhaps he will give me an exclusive peek at some stage? And Emily Maguire will also have a new novel. I will soon be posting a review of her Princesses and Pornstars.

I’ve had a part-stressful/part-exciting week with doing pre-Christmas bookseller surveys, and attending lots of Christmas parties. The Allen&Unwin party was massive. I met Ron Barassi, Terry Denton, and all sorts of people! My work Christmas party was followed by the Emerging Writers’ Festival Christmas party, and the launch of Harvest, where I also met the lovely Fiona Wright from Giramondo. She is also researcher and media assistant for The Red Room Company.

And a strange, lovely thing that has happened, which I’ve been reluctant to talk about in case nothing comes of it (but then learning will always come out of it) in that four publishers have asked me to send Smoke & Dancing along to them. As soon as one was interested it was like a little flood. I think it might be frowned upon to do multiple submissions so I’m talking to the one who asked first next week and handing over the ms. I think this publisher is very cool, and very up-and-coming. Small but with large distribution, and great passion. Of the other three, one is large, one if very prestigious (and I think it’d be a long shot with them), and one is also up-and-coming and mainly a nonfiction publisher, who is only just starting to look at doing fiction. If none of them think it’s right for them, I’m sure I’ll be a little sad, but then I’m already writing another so my focus is all positive and go-go-go

Speaking of which, 90s novel is one week in. 33 handwritten pages written between the magic hour of 6am and 7am. Let’s celebrate with a 90s tune: