“Scene Stealers” in The Weekend Australian
June 7, 2008
A piece I wrote on novels based on earlier novels and my recently completed novel Lotus Feet (based on Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge) was published as “Scene Stealers” in The Forum column, page 2 of the Review section of the Weekend Australian July 1-2, 2006.
The Forum is not published in the online edition of The Australian so i will put up a copy on the short prose page of my website.
Casual academics article
June 7, 2008
My essay (“At Last A Job”) on the casualisation of academic teaching was published in the Autumn 2006 edition of Griffith Review (Getting Smart – The Battle for Ideas in Education).
Download here
An abbreviated version was published in the Higher Education supplement of
The Australian on 8 February 2006.
Not available online anymore, sorry. Will put it on my site.
Have had a lot of response to this one.
As a reviewer (Frank O’Shea) said “There is a grim picture painted by Inez Baranay of the exploitation of casual lecturing and teaching staff by universities. The Howard “battlers”, who have been seduced into thinking that they may prosper as a result of being able to negotiate with their bosses for an individual contract, should read how the system has been working for years in universities where the abused worked are highly educated, articulate, ambitious.”
(Canberra Times 25/02/2006 page 17)
Chiasmus Reading Surfers Paradise 28 May 06
June 7, 2008
The writing group Chiasmus from Griffith University Gold Coast were joined by writing students from QUT (they share charismatic teacher Sally Breen) for an entertaining night of reading (+ listening + drinking), held at the Chophouse nightclub at Surfers. Fun to see old colleagues and students. (I’m taking a year off teaching.)
Readers included the editors of new online magazine Wastrel. (Attitude that reminds me of self-published magazines of my long past younger days….)
http://www.wastrelmag.com
Sunshine Coast short story competition May 06
June 7, 2008
I judged this, choosing 1st, 2nd and 3rd plus 7 commended from 149 entrants.
They will be published in an anthology.
Names to be announced.
Josephine Ulrich Literature Prize May 2006
June 7, 2008
I read the 271 entrants for the country’s richest short story prize ($10,000) and chose the winner and runner-up with fellow judge Frank Moorhouse. Names announced on the night of the dinner, June 13.
Meera Nanda Delhi
June 7, 2008
Back in Delhi i had the great pleasure of meeting Meera Nanda, whose work I have admired since i came across it in the early days of research for Neem Dreams. We’ve been in email contact for some time and i was glad to find our time in Delhi would co-incide. We had lunch and wandered round the bookshops and cyber cafes of Connaught Place … We exchanged our latest books. She is a vehement and articulate defender of science and critic of the Hindu Right, and a great champion of secularisation… I know i will be referencing her work in the future…
Check out her book Prophets Facing Backwards (among others) and here is a 2004 piece of hers in The Hindu: www.hindu.com
Australian Studies conference Ajmer Jan 06
June 7, 2008
Set off on a freezing, dark, pre-dawn Delhi morning to get the train to Ajmer; Australian poet Les Murray and his wife were heading there too in the same compartment. (Thanks to Australian High Commission Delhi for the arrangements.)
I had been to Ajmer in Sept 03 on the occasion of the publication of Neem Dreams. It was great to see (academic) Pradeep Trikha again, to stay at the magnificently located Circuit House again, to attend sessions at Dayanand College again, to see old friends and students and meet others … I gave a talk and a reading somewhere in here, and, as usual in India, enjoyed stimulating conversations and heavenly food. Also staying at Circuit House was brilliant speaker and scholar Professor Pushpesh Pant (JNU), a connoisseur of Indian cuisines as well as literature, whose beautiful book (with Huma Mohsin) “Food Path: Cuisine alng the Grand Trunk Road from Kabul to Kolkata” i bought in Delhi the following week …
booksource.com.au
June 7, 2008
Kathryn Johnson has her new Booksource website up (www.booksource.com.au).
She is the exclusive distributor for my in-print titles in Australia.
My visit to Writers Workshop Kolkata only strengthened my ideal of keeping works in print and of being able to publish ‘non-commercial’ works. The internet once more makes so much possible…
Creative Writing course Chennai
June 7, 2008
My old friend Eugenie Pinto is the headmistress here – I wrote about meeting her in “Letter from Madras” published in Australian Author back in … . As a result of our connection, i spent a couple of months as Writer in Residence at Madras University and have revisited this favourite city many times.
In December 05 I spent three weeks teaching daily classes after normal college hours.
Fifteen participants, three of them college teachers of whom two were already practicing writing, and the rest of them students who had never done anything like this. Total dedication. They were an absolute joy.
It was QUITE an experience. I have written about it at length for a forthcoming book … I will post my chapter here (promise).