Poetry reading

On Monday night, a rare event: I'll be doing a poetry reading, for the first time in ages. With Stephanie Honor Convery, I'll be part of the first of a series of new literary salons, hosted as part of the Gilgamesh Readings in South Melbourne. Monday February 4, 7.30pm, at the Evening Star, corner Cecil and York streets, South Melbourne. Details and press release below:

First Monday will feature writers Alison Croggon and Stephanie Honor Convery. A well-known novelist, poet and critic, Croggon will be reading poems. A novelist, blogger and activist, Convery will be reading work based on her in-progress book on the politics of exercise and the body. The event will be MCd by the wonderful Bo Svoronos; open session for writers following the features. Upcoming writers at the salon, to be held the first Monday of each month, include Petra White, Steve Smart, Gig Ryan, Kent MacCarter, Ali Alizadeh, Matt Hetherington, Elizabeth Campbell, Cheryl Overs, Kevin Brophy, Elizabeth Campbell and Jacinda Woodhead. The idea of the salon is to create a serious but pleasurable forum. 'Like' the Port Phillip GR Page and we will keep you updated on the future Salons. 

BIOS
Alison Croggon has published several collections of poetry, which won the Anne Elder and Dame Mary Gilmore Prizes and were shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Her most recent collection is THEATRE (Salt Publishing 2008). She is the author of the best-selling fantasy quartet THE BOOKS OF PELLINOR, which has been published worldwide, shortlisted for two Aurealis Awards and named one of the Notable Books of 2003 by the Children's Book Council of Australia. The US edition of THE NAMING, was judged a Top Ten Teen Read by Amazon.com. Her new novel BLACK SPRING has just been released in Australia and the UK. From 2004-2012 she ran the review blog THEATRE NOTES for which she won the 2009 Geraldine Pascall Prize for Critic of the Year, and was formerly Melbourne theatre critic for The Australian and The Bulletin. She has written several works for theatre, including the operas THE BURROW and GAUGUIN with the composer Michael Smetanin, and MAYAKOVSKY, commissioned by Victorian Opera in 2013.

Stephanie Honor Convery is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, criticism and commentary in the fields of feminism, politics, Indigenous Australia, literature, art and travel. Her work has been published by Meanjin, the ABC Drum, Overland Literary Journal, the Melbourne Writers’ Festival blog, harvest, Voiceworks, The Wheeler Centre and The Big Issue. She has completed a first novel, BIG RIVER, a magical realist drama set in the Australian tropics. She is presently writing a non-fiction book on the politics of exercise and the body. Stephanie is also an activist and academic. She blogs regularly at www.gingerandhoney.com
 
MC: Bo Svoronos - who calls himself a casual neo-troubadorian and host and producer of curious things - is known to many of you as a writer and performer. He recently completed his doctorate in Indigenous Festivals and Reciprocity. He has been an independent producer and tour manager for the Global Poetics Tour and chairperson of WELL Productions inc. In his role as Indigenous Arts Officer for the City of Port Phillip, he founded, produced and programmed five Indigenous multi-disciplinary festivals, curated visual art exhibitions and established significant cultural programs. Bo re-founded, produced and co-directed two St Kilda Writers’ Festivals. He also writes and performs his own works across various disciplines and genres.

World building, rewriting classics and more etc

It's been a full-on January for me. When I gave up writing my blog Theatre Notes, I had a vision of unbounded vistas of time. Each morning I'd gracefully arise in my boudoir, don my silk dressing gown, pick up my quill and leisurely continue the next chapter of my novel before, you know, going out to cut roses or something. The good news is that I have been writing the novel - this is the story about Cadvan in his youth, a prequel to the Pellinor stories, which now is reaching what I think is the halfway mark. But in between, I seem to have been as busy as I was before. I'm not complaining much: of course it's all my own fault. I needn't have said "yes" to all those interesting things. But I did, because I'm like that.

Anyway, some of those things have been writing posts on various fantasy-related topics for the Black Spring UK blog tour, and I find that I have fallen behind in logging them here. I've been doing this through January, and have just finished the final one, discussing YA and story telling, which will appear on February 1 at Narratively Speaking. Meanwhile, here are the others:

* On worldbuilding, with some handy hints from WG Sebald, at Sister Spooky

* On rewriting classics, at Book Angel Booktopia

* On adding fantasy to a classic book, at The Overflowing Library

* And, in case you missed it, On sexism in fantasy at Serendipity Reviews

Thanks so much to the bloggers who have been hosting me on my virtual tour. It's been deeply appreciated, and also, which is not unimportant, it's been fun.

Meanwhile, more Black Spring reviews have been rolling in, so here's some linkety goodness:

Buzz Words, the Australia/New Zealand emag for children's writers and illustrators, has given it a rave: "Alison Croggon has created a verbal and visual masterpiece. The sheer beauty of the magnetic prose and the outstanding descriptions of the rugged natural world won’t allow you to stop reading before the end." Woohoo!

From the UK, Michelle Moloney King also talked about the writing, finishing with: "I would heartily recommend a read, the beautiful prose alone is worth it."

On I Read Therefore I Blog, the book also gets a thumbs up. "All in all, this was a vivid, well-told book that takes elements from WUTHERING HEIGHTS but (for me) riffed on them to more entertaining effect. I look forward to reading Croggon’s other books."

And over at My Favourite Books, Essjay says: "If you've never read it and you enjoy Black Spring then possibly you'll read Wuthering Heights. If you hate the original then this may well remind you why. I find it an impressive modern retelling which captures something of the language, drama, madness, tortured love and agony of the original. Well worth reading."

Thanks again to all you hardworking bloggers, both hosts and reviewers.  Now, hugely encouraged, back to the novel...

And so it begins!

This week Black Spring is officially out in the UK, and to celebrate I'm doing a virtual tour, guesting at some hospitable British bloggers. (Dates and topics are in the banner on the right). The first post, a brief meditation on sexism and patriarchy in fantasy writing, is now up at Serendipity Reviews. In part:

The presence of women (or of people of colour, or any other so-called minority) in fantasy narratives remains controversial, and the fantasy genre is still too prone to white them out as decorative, characterless, generic extras, if indeed they are held to exist at all. The excuses given for what is actually lack of imagination (this is fantasy, right?) or plain bad writing often come down to so-called “historical accuracy”: writing about sexist worlds means that it’s perfectly acceptable for writing to be sexist. In Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical, author Foz Meadows magisterially takes this idea down and shows it for the shabby, historically inaccurate laziness it is. 

You can read the rest here (and read Foz Meadows's zing of a post while you're at it). And there's also a nice review from Vivienne, in which she says: "Anyone who can turn my most hated read into an excellent enjoyable book is definitely an author to be explored further." There seem to be two schools of thought on Black Spring, among those readers who like it: those who love Wuthering Heights and therefore enjoy my spin on Bronte, and those who hate Wuthering Heights, and therefore enjoy my spin on Bronte. I never realised that it was such a polarising book!

From the "I love Wuthering Heights" school come two new UK reviews, which particularly pleased me because they are by people who are clearly very intimate with Bronte's original. Erin Johnson is in the second year of her DPhil in English at the University of Oxford, studying representations of masculinity in the Bronte's writing, and so may be said to know her onions. On her blog Oxford Erin, she has a look at Black Spring, and gives it a terrific thumbs up along the way.

It's a bit difficult for me to write about - because I love the source text so much, because I also have literary critical opinions about the novel and how its works, and because Croggon's take probably fits into the Neo-Victorian genre (think A.S. Byatt's Possession), a genre which often creates complex intertextual links with Victorian novels and which I have researched and written on in the past year.

That said, there are two important things you can take away from this review.

1)  This is a fantastic book.
2)  In my opinion, it is also a respectful, critical, fascinating reworking of Wuthering Heights.  If you like Bronte's novel, I suspect you will enjoy Croggon's too.

Of course, like all authors, I am delighted when someone enjoys my books; but what delights me most of all is when a reader picks what you did, and why you did it. This is one of those reviews that does exactly that. As does Beth Kemp's, on her blog Thoughts from the Hearthfire. Beth writes: "Wuthering Heights with Wizards! No, I couldn't believe it when I read that either, but I loved it. Much of the darkness and strangeness, the ethereality of Wuthering Heights is captured through the fantasy elements in this retelling, while the romance is brought more clearly into focus... this version is uncannily similar and yet still its own. All the way through, there are episodes and details which mirror the original and were an absolute delight to me."

Thanks for the lovely responses; and maybe I'll just swing a bottle of champers against a bookshelf or something and officially declare the UK Black Spring launched!

And my, how I've got behind...

It's been a busy few weeks in the Croggon household. As a result, I've let this blog lapse a bit, and find I have lots of Black Spring news to catch up on. I decided to close Theatre Notes, the blog that has occupied a great deal of my time and energy over the past eight years. I expected a bit of dolour and dudgeon, but the reaction completely blindsided me: I was swamped by comments on the blog and emails and tweets and Facebook messages. And then there has been lots of ancillary discussion about the state of theatre criticism in Australia, which has mostly been very interesting, and even the odd obituary.

The idea is that I have more time to write my own work, although I'm not sure, given various conversations I'm having, that it will work out in practice! I guess we'll see. I'm trying to be careful, but I have to say that Melbourne theatre is a very seductive mistress.

But back to business: recent reviews and upcoming events. Bear with me as I do the bullet point thing: there are quite a few links to share.

* Jeff Sparrow, editor of Overland Journal (for which I am a columnist and poetry reviewer) named Black Spring as one of his top books for 2012, which surprised me and pleased me enormously: mainly because I know that he wouldn't have said it if he didn't mean it. "Her book’s marketed as young adult," he says, "but Croggon’s authorial intelligence and elegant prose produces a very adult novel, a mash-up of Wuthering Heights and magic that makes you rethink both Emily Bronte and the fantasy genre."

* The UK reviews are beginning to roll in, as the release in Britain approaches. On her Book Review Blog, Katy Moran writes an excellent review which discusses the relationships between Black Spring and Wuthering Heights. Of course it pleased me, as she says, after confessing her trepidation on reading a fantasy reworking of one of her favourite books: "It's beautiful".

* Over at the Centre for Youth Literature, at the State Library of Victoria, there's another great review: "this subtly-challenging and much-needed feminist perspective ... makes me want to staple Black Springs onto every copy of Wuthering Heights currently sitting in a bookshop." And over on their blog, Inside a Dog, they have 5 Reasons to Read Black Spring, which are all very good ones, although the final reason - the brilliant Australian cover - doesn't quite count for UK readers, who have an equally brilliant, but very different, version.

* Another early UK review from Lyndsey Rushby on Page After Page. "Black Spring was a wonderful, refreshing take on Wuthering Heights with unique and exciting additions to such a well-known story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one and considering I hated Wuthering Heights, I wasn’t expecting to like it quite as much." 

* Over at Novels on the Run, an interview where I confess my major literary crush and a nice review. 

* The Centre for Youth Literature yesterday announced Reading Matters 2013, where I will be appearing with fellow YA authors Andrew McGahan, Libby Bray, Gayle Forman and Myke Bartlett in May. On twitter they labelled me "Walker's Renaissance woman", which makes me laugh.

* In January, in the run up to the UK release of Black Spring, I'm doing a blog tour.  The banner in the side column gives all the details: I'll be writing five, hopefully interesting posts about various aspects of fantasy and YA writing. Look out for the dates, although of course I'll remind you!

I've a nagging feeling I've forgotten something, but if I have I can always update later. Meanwhile, I'm taking a bit of time out for Christmas, before plunging into a very busy January. Which includes *cough* finishing that Cadvan book, which is still languishing at the half-way mark. Seasonal greetings to you all, and I'll probably see you - more frequently, I hope - in the New Year!

PS I did forget something - the German translation, the ominously titled Land des Todes! That is out now, and you can see the cover in the side bar.

And a rave review!

Sonia Nair at the arts website Artshub has given Black Spring the kind of review that makes an author's head swell in an unseemly fashion. Needless to say, I am hugely pleased. This is how it begins:

Every so often one chances upon a novel so uplifting, enthralling and immersive that it becomes a struggle to put it down. Alison Croggon’s latest fantasy tale is just such a book. 

You can read the rest at ArtsHub.

How I wrote Black Spring

I have a guest post at the website for Readings, Melbourne's iconic independent bookshop, part of a regular and interesting series in which Readings asks writers about how their books were written. I really enjoyed writing this one, and it ended up rather longer than planned, with bonus photographs. The story of the story of Black Spring begins:

It’s hard to know when a book begins. Perhaps Black Spring began when I was six years old and running over the bone-strewn turf of the Cornish moors with my sisters. I remember the boundless feeling of freedom: I loved the wind rushing over the bare hills, the granite tors that thrust out of the ground. The moors were my favourite place in the world then. Or maybe it began when I first read Wuthering Heights in my early 20s, and thought idly: I’d like to write a book like that one day. Or maybe it was in my early teens, when I first read Emily Brontë’s poetry.

Maybe a novel begins when you write the first words. I am good at starting novels: I have around five unfinished works on my computer, some quite substantial. Some of them end up being written, some of them don’t. They always begin with an image, or a feeling, or a voice or a thought. I follow this along for as long as it seems to last, and then I usually run out of ideas. I put it aside and wait to see if it is actually alive.

Black Spring began like that. 

Read the rest at Readings. 

Black Spring: Sneak preview, twitter chat

So Black Spring is now out in Australia with my lovely publisher, Walker Books Australia. Which is an enormous relief: in a weird way, I can now stop thinking about it. The rest is up to you.

First things first: if you go to Walker's Facebook page - which presently is topped with groovy Black Spring graphics - you can download a sneak preview of the first chapter. As you'll see, Black Spring concerns a rather different world from that of the Pellinor books, but this is a different kind of book.

For those of you on twitter, Walker is running a twitter chat on October 15, 8pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. I haven't done one of these before, but I rather think that will be like me on twitter as usual - you can find me at @alisoncroggon, chatting about whatever in between all the Serious Work I'm supposed to be doing - except with the hashtag #blackspring. Hope to see some of you then!