Beyond Borders conference Melbourne Nov 05

June 7, 2008

“Beyond Borders – creative strategies for global harmony”
inaugural conference of the Asia Pacific Writers Network

I went travelling in India for 3 months after attending this, and felt I never had the time to really contemplate all that happened here. But – given my renewed commitment to this blog noting my literary-related activities, and given how wonderful this conference was, I must also belatedly and briefly note its occasion. This meeting was the brainchild of the indomitable berni m janssen, a poet, performer and literary activist who managed to get a mob of writers from Asia, the Pacific and Australia to give papers and readings and discuss many issues of moment to us all – freedom and censorship, translation and access, peace and boundaries, and what we might do in the future. The new website will include many of the papers presented here [will add url when I find it].
APWN is related to PEN :

http://www.pen.org.au

As a non-Indigenous Australian who can write and speak with relative freedom (even while our freedom is under threat) I was reminded of how much writers in far more repressive countries continue to suffer for practicing their calling. I met old friends, I met people whose work I knew or who knew mine, and I met lots of new people. Everyone here was a committed writer also engaged in politics. I am particularly interested in new hybrid identities, cross-cultural expressions and readings. In fact I called for a “mongrel” movement which appealed to some but not all.

New book: sun square moon has arrived

June 6, 2008

Now that I’ve got a blog I’ve had to decide what to write here. No book reviews, literary journalism, political comment, personal diary, links to cool sites, reports on the culture. Plenty of that already out there. This will only be about my writing and publishing. Naturally I’ll reply to any questions that come up here.

Today, finally, boxes of my new book arrived. I self-published an edition of sun square moon: writings on yoga and writing – this has been ready to publish for over two years. The Indian edition, contracted to Rupa (publisher of my last novel Neem Dreams) has been endlessly delayed. I’ll be selling these through my new distributor Kathryn Johnson, who will offer online ordering as well as supplying bookshops (listed on the site). Am glad for the completion; I expect to do more writing in this area – looking at yoga from a writer’s point of view and at writing from a yoga student’s.

Meanwhile, and relevantly, I’ve been looking at the final edits on a chapter on Self Publishing I wrote for a book on academic publishing. Not that my publishing is academic. I’ll put the piece up on my site after the book is out. Another article I’ve been writing is on the casualisation of academic work in Australian universities.

On Friday I’m off to Melbourne, to give a workshop on yoga and writing at the Victorian Writers Centre. In the following days I’ll be attending the “Beyond Borders – strategies for global harmony meeting” (“an event of the Asia Pacific Writers Network, dedicated to writing, conversations and freedom of speech in the region”).

A week later I fly to Calcutta – my ninth trip to India but the first time to Calcutta. Kolkata, I should say.