Andrew Kelly, in the "black dog blog", writes of an article published in the "Melbourne Weekly" concerning independent publishers in the city. He acknowledges the differences between his publishing house, Black Dog Books, and that of Michael Heyward's Text Publishing. "The differences between the independents, in fact the differences between publishers, are a good thing. It means we're all offering something different."
Susan Wyndham, former and currently acting literary editor of "The Sydney Morning Herald", writes about the reviewer/blogger discussion - that was mentioned here a while back - on her "Undercover" blog at the newspaper. Her conclusion: "The solution is to read critically, even when you're reading reviews." Exactly. I'm not sure why people would think this is any different from reading film reviews. Do you believe every film review you hear/read from Margaret Pomeranz or David Stratton, or your local paper's film critic? Of course not. You have to become attuned to their likes and dislikes, their prejudices and hidden "guilty pleasures". The same goes for book reviewers, whether they write for weblogs or printed media. It takes a while but it makes the whole process worth it in the end.
Margo Lanagan reports that she has signed a two book deal with Knopf in the US. One of which will be an "as yet unwritten novel". That one is due out in April
2008. No more bike-riding for Margo then.
If you are at all into Children's or YA literature (and why wouldn't you be), then you should be reading Judith Ridge's "The New Misrule Blog". Her latest entry concerns the curious workings of the JHunt award. Markus Zusak is one of the twelve on the 2006 longlist.
