There's a new suburb to be built on the banks of the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne and writer Michael McGirr wants it named after the poet John Shaw Neilson, who lived in the area for many years. Sounds like a plan to me.
Anson Cameron was so taken by the theft of Picasso's Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria in the mid-1980s that he decided to write a novel about it, and quickly discovered that "the rumours were more valuable to me than the truth."
A while ago it was a musical version of Thorn Birds, and now it's Picnic at Hanging Rock getting the treatment. I'm thinking they can use "Anything Can Happen" by the Finn Brothers, or "The Great Gig in the Sky" by Pink Floyd, or maybe even "Waiting for the UFO's" by Graham Parker.
Peter Carey is moving publishers. He stayed with the University of Queensland Press from The Fat Man in History in 1974 until True History of the Kelly Gang in 2000. "When Carol Davidson, who was publicity director and then publisher at UQP, became sales and international publishing director at Random House Australia in 2003, Carey went with her. " Davidson has now left Random House and Carey has decided to move to Penguin's Hamish Hamilton list where he joins such authors as Tim Winton and Robert Drewe.
Angela Meyer, of the "LiteraryMinded" weblog, makes a guest appearance on the "Flashlight Worthy" weblog and lists the Australian fiction that has shaped her literary tastes.
Michael C has been reappraising grunge fiction over on his weblog "Eurhythmania". That's such works as Christos Tsiolkas' Loaded, Andrew McGahan's Praise, and Justine Ettler's The River Ophelia.
