NancyElin.blog

#Poetry Winner Costa Award for Poetry 2020

• Author: Mary Jean Chan (1990)
  
• Title:  Flèche ( 50 poems 88 pg)
• Genre: poems
• Published: 2019
  
• Trivia: 2019  winner Costa Book Award for Best collection Poetry
• Trivia: 2020 longlist for Dylan Thomas Prize
• List of Challenges 2020
• Monthly plan

Conclusion

1. I have been OUT of the poetry reading mode for many months.
2. I feel very lucky that I discovered
3. Flèche by Ms Chan to bring me back to poetry.
4. This book gave me 88 pages of reflection
5. …without the extra  300 pages
6. I would have had to read if I had chosen a novel!
7. Here are 50 love poems
8. …for her family, mother and partner.

1. A poem should work for you
2. …if not, you don’t need this poem.
3. It’s not your fault. It’s not you at all. It’s fine.
4. Scrap it, ignore it and turn the page.
5. Poetry gets to the heart of things.
6. There must  be one poem that will stop your heart.
7. Ms Chan’s poems  are a compact form
8. in which the drama of a life is staged.
9. The mother-daughter tense relationship is central.
10. The love poem that stopped MY heart was
11. “Always’

Always

Do you ever write about me?
Mother, what do you think?
You are always where I begin.

Always the child who wanted to be
a boy so you could be spared
by your mother-in-law.

Always the ear that hears you
translating my poems
with a bilingual dictionary.

Always the pen dreaming
it could redeem the years
you fled from, those
Red-Guarded days
and nightmare

Always the mind’s eye tracing
your frantic footsteps
toward the grandfather
I would never meet.

Always the lips wishing
they could kiss those mouths
you would approve of.

Themes:

1. Multilingualism
2. Queerness
3. Post-colonialism
4. Psychoanalysis
5. Cultural history

Structure:

1. This was very clever….Ms Chan uses  terms found in the sport of fencing.
2. It give the reader an indication what the poems will be about.
3. Parry – defense – “push” aside a blade that is attacking
4. Riposte – counter attack
5. Corps-À-Corps – impasse – 2 fencers are engaged…neither can use her weapon
6. Each section contains 16 poems.
7. There are 2 introductory poems  – her mother is the narrator
8. Title:  Flèche is an aggressive offensive
9. fencing technique used with foil and épée.
10. It also is homophone
11. …when pronounced, seems similar to another word.
12. In this case flesh found in the poem “Flèche”.

Last thoughts:

1. Strong point: poems are short, one-page-ers
2. …but don’t confuse length and density.
3. Ms Chan conveys her ideas in a few words.
4. “..I long for a landslide of the mind
   …so I can bury the moment”
5. So much nuance…in just a line.
6. I’ve read and reviewed at least 20 poetry collections (see blog)
7. …and this book gets my HIGHEST  score!
8. 50 poems….and I really liked 38
9. …that’s 76%
10. I haven’t read the other long listed books for
11. the Dylan Thomas Award 2020…but this book
12. …will be hard to beat!
13. #Bravo
14. Chapeau au bas…..Ms. Chan

#AWW2020 Amy Witting

• Author: Amy Witting (1918-2001)
  
• Title:  Marriages ( 6 stories, 139 pg)
• Review:  Bottle of Tears
• Short review: The Surviviors and Goodbye, Ady, Goodbye, Joe
• Genre: short stories
• Published: 1990
  
• List of Challenges 2020
• Monthly plan
• #AWW2020
• @AusWomenWriters

Bottle of Tears:

1. Trivia: Bottle of Tears was first published 1958
2. in the Southerly Journal (editor Kenneth Slessor)
3. Trivia: Amy Witting is the pseudonym for Joan Levick.

What does the title mean?   Bottle of Tears

1. “You number my wanderings;
2. put my tears into Your bottle… Psalm 56:8
3. This is an allusion to a very ancient custom
4. among the Greeks and Romans, of putting the tears
5. which were shed for the death of any person into small phials
6. …and offering them on the tomb of the deceased.
7. This was another method people used in
8. the past to remember, in this case to remember griefs.
9. Rita recently had seen a dying man in hospital
10. …..and could not forget his plight.
11. “If I put my tears in a bottle and
12. sent it to him it would be nothing,
13. …a bottle of salt water
14. …..what else is pity anyhow?”

Story was very cryptic.

1. A few sentences between Rita and Matt could be interpreted
2. in many ways but depending on the reader’s choice
3. …the story could take  on another meaning!
4. Here is the section that is the turning point:

1. Rita: “I’ve changed my mind.
2. You don’t have to change yours on that account.”
3. “..feeling tired all at once, thinking
4. …it would be a relief if the blow fell now.“
5. Matt: “You really mean it?”

1. “Matt’s voice was full of reverence (awe, love)
2. …not for her
3. …nor for love but for good luck.”
4. The story completely baffles me and the ending…
5. well, I still wonder why Rita compares herself with
6. “Gulliver tied down with threads.”

1. But after reading it 3 x…
2. my impression is that Rita refused
3. …to accept a proposal of marriage
4. …and now she calls him to say:
5. “I’ve changed my mind.”
6. The comparison with Gulliver that she feels ‘weighed down’ by the
7. idea of marriage. That could be her first fear…as Rita says
8. “…his happiness weighed her down with responsibility…
   
9. ….as if  he had given her something fragile to carry.”

Conclusion:

1. I haven’t been so impressed by a writer since I
2. discovered Thea Astley.
3. Amy Witting ..she can nuance in a line
4. that might take a lesser writer one page!
5. Thea Astley and Amy Witting  were very good friends.
6. Ms Astley even dedicated her book
7. The Acolyte to Ms Witting.

Books by Thea Astley  (1925-2004)

• Girl with a Monkey (1958)
  
• A Descant for Gossips (1960)
  
• The Well Dressed Explorer (1962)   Miles Franklin Award 1962
  
• The Slow Natives (1965)    Miles Franklin Award 1965
  
• A Boat Load of Home Folk (1968)
  
• The Acolyte (1972)   Miles Franklin Award 1972
  
• It’s Raining in Mango (1987)
  
• A Kindness Cup (1974)
  
• Hunting the Wild Pineapple  (8 short stories) (1979)
  
• Drylands (2000)   Miles Franklin Award 2000

1. Bottle of Tears  is  a ‘classic’ short story.
2. — the form is intensely compressed
3. — there is more left unsaid…than is said
4. — ergo the 3 x reading necessary to form my thoughts!
5. — it occurs over a period of no more than 24 hours
6. Rita is a dynamic character
7. she learns and changes and realizes
8. …what life would be without Matt.
9. Matt is a static character
10. …he was in love with Rita….and still is!

The Surviviors  (very ‘long’ short story)

1. This is a comical and amusing look at….
   
2. a young couple embarking on
3. “…an accident waiting to happen” marriage:
4. Kevin must marry Gloria…in a shot-gun-wedding.
5. “A man would have done better to go to jail”.
6. Marriage …”Twenty minutes, life imprisonment”
7. Marriage: “….the past on her  face and
8. …the future in her great belly.”

Goodbye, Ady, Goodbye Joe

1. Just by looking at this title
2. ….you wonder what is going to happen to this old married couple.
3. Flood waters are rising and Amy Withing is a master
4. …creating tension right up until the last page.
5. First published in The New Yorker October 29 1965
6. Some quick notes:
7. Love in the “golden years” 
8. …Joe’s thoughts about being old and romantic:
   
9. “…Since then the lion had grown old and died
10. …become a disregarded old lion skin warm to the body in cold weather…”

#AWW2020 Aurealis 2018 Award Best SF Novella

• Author: Stephanie Gunn
  
• Title:  Icefall   (114 pg)
• Genre:   novella  (SF)
  
• Published: 2018
• Trivia: Best Science Fiction Novella  2018  Aurealis Award
• List of Challenges 2020
• Monthly plan
• #AWW2020
• @AusWomenWriters

Introduction:

1. Well, fly me to the moon..…
2. if you are like me I seldom read SF. It just does not entertain me.
3. But I am trying to read deeply and widely,
4. so I decided to ‘test the waters’ with a short 114 pg novella.
5. Now, I did the research for you (see review)
6. …so you can dive right into this book.
7. Just think….at the next book club meeting when they ask t
8. o suggest a ‘something completely different…
9. you can suggest ICEFALL by Stephanie Gunn!
10. The club will be determined NOT to read it
11. ….you could probably crack rocks on their jaws!
12. But…at least try to guide them into the world of SF!
13. Millions of people read nothing else!
14. Stephenie Gunn was a research scientist turned full time writer.
15. I’m curious how she will combine her
16. …scientific backround with her fiction
17. Will Ms Gunn write what she knows
18. ….or what she feels?

Research

1. I do not read very much SF
2. …so looked at some terms I found in the text…and what they mean.
3. This made the book MUCH easier to process.
4. VIR POD – spaceship ‘Wanda R’ (named for Wanda Rutkiewicz,
5. first woman to climb K2, second highest mountain on old Earth)
6. VIR – virutal interfaced reality
7. VIR implants – one can experience both worlds (virtual and real) at the same time
8. AI hologram – 3D image formed by split laser beam.
9. Ms Gunn describes a AI holographic character as
10. genderless, expressionless, fingers bloodless
11. …can dematerialize and form again in i.e. the navigator’s chair (ch 15)
12. …can flow around me (Aisha) to envelope me completely in its field (ch1)
13. AI (artifcial intelligence)
14. I did not know if this was a human replication or just a voice!
15. Replicant androids are indistinguishable from human beings
16. …remember the film: Blade Runner… how was human and who was AI?
17. In this book AI comes with a package of standard visages:
18. male, female or null gender.
19. AI uses the visage and name of Mallory
20. …in reference to G. Mallory
21. the first person to summit Mt Everest.

Title:

1. Icefall is a similar planet to old Earth.
   
2. MacGregor Corporation has established two colonies on Icefall.
3. Icefall organizes a Icefall Climbing Competition once every 7 years.
4. Essential in the plot is a ‘weeping mountain’.
5. All of the pointed masses of ice  and snow in a glacier melt.
6. Millions of mega litres of water wash over the
7. continent destroying everything in its path.
8. The waters lie still for one ICEFALL  day (25 hrs).
9. The next day waters retreat…moving against gravity.
10. The mountain draws everything back towards it
11. …the glaciers, the icefall and continental ice all reform.
12. This was the SPOOKIEST thing in the entire book!

Setting:

1. Planet Demeter home of narrator Aisha Ashkani
   
2. Planet Icefall
3. Greyspace – folded space beneath normal space that surrounds planet Icefall
4. Many references to “old Earth”

Structure:  26 chapters,  114 pages

1. Ch 1-5-11 present (arriving via VIR POD to planet Icefall
   
2. Ch  2-3-4-6-7-8-9-10-13  backstory
3. Ch 14-26  present (perilous journey in Icefall Climbing Competition)

Main Characters:

1. Mallory (AI) – projects its holographic interface around narrator Aisha.
2. Aisha:  former priestess of ONE Order of the New Earth
3. Maggie (Margaret Malleore) mountain climber – Maggie and narrator are married
4. Gorak – bot (robot) raven like bird that will be narrator’s ‘eyes’ on the Mountain.

Irony:

1. Aisha Ashkani (priestess) is from Sherpa heritage.
2. Sherpa believe the mountain is
3. …their goddess and one should not
4. trespass on the sacred ground.
5. Ironically…Aisha becomes fascinated
6. with mountaint climbing and leaves the temple
7. …to reach the snowy summit.

Conclusion:

1. This SF novella is about Mountain climbing in space…in the future.
2. Humans have left old Earth and have colonised the universe.
3. There is also  a very touching love story in this book
4. …that brings the SF and the human elements in balance.
5. You will have to read the book (reading time?  2 hrs)
6. to discover the tender bond between Aisha Ashkani and Maggie.
7. #GreatRead

Last thoughts:

1. I’ve read some great books by Australian women writers.
2. …who were included on long- and shortlist of
3. …The Aurealis Award.
4. Do have a look at these reviews and longlist….
5. …perhaps you will find something you like!

1. The Grief Hole – K. Warren    
2. Aletheia – J.S. Breukelaar
3. Closing Down – Sally Abbott
4. Psynode – M.J. Ward
5. Girl Reporter – T. Roberts
6. From the Wreck – J. Rawson
7. Catching Teller Crow – A. and E. Kwaymullina
8. The Endsister – P. Russon
9. The Tide of Stone – Kaaron Warren
10. Who’s Afraid – M. Lewis

21 February 2019

The finalists are:

Best science fiction novel

1. Scales of Empire (Kylie Chan)
2. Obsidio (Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff)
3. Lifel1k3 (Jay Kristoff)
4. Dyschronia (Jennifer Mills)
5. A Superior Spectre (Angela Meyer)
6. The Second Cure (Margaret Morgan)

Best fantasy novel

1. Devouring Dark (Alan Baxter)
2. Lady Helen and the Dark Days Deceit (Alison Goodman)
3. City of Lies (Sam Hawke)
4. Lightning Tracks (Alethea Kinsela)
5. The Witch Who Courted Death (Maria Lewis)
6. We Ride the Storm (Devin Madson)

Best horror novel

1. The Bus on Thursday (Shirley Barrett)
2. Years of the Wolf (Craig Cormick)
3. Tide of Stone (Kaaron Warren)

Best graphic novel/illustrated work

1. Deathship Jenny (Rob O’Connor)
2. Cicada (Shaun Tan)
3. Tales from The Inner City (Shaun Tan)

Best children’s fiction

1. The Relic of the Blue Dragon (Rebecca Lim)
2. The Slightly Alarming Tales of the Whispering Wars (Jaclyn Moriarty)
3. The Endsister (Penni Russon)
4. Secret Guardians (Lian Tanner)
5. Ting Ting the Ghosthunter (Gabrielle Wang)
6. Ottilie Colter and the Narroway Hunt (Rhiannon Williams)

Best young adult novel

1. Small Spaces (Sarah Epstein)
2. Lifel1k3 (Jay Kristoff)
3. Catching Teller Crow (Ambelin Kwaymullina & Ezekiel Kwaymullina)
4. His Name was Walter (Emily Rodda)
5. A Curse of Ash and Embers (Jo Spurrier)
6. Impostors (Scott Westerfeld)

Best collection

1. Not Quite the End of the World Just Yet (Peter M Ball,)
2. Phantom Limbs (Margo Lanagan)
3. Tales from The Inner City (Shaun Tan)
4. Exploring Dark Short Fiction #2: A Primer to Kaaron Warren (Kaaron Warren)

Best anthology

1. Sword and Sonnet (Aiden Doyle, Rachael K Jones & E Catherine Tobler)
2. Aurum (Russell B Farr)
3. Mother of Invention (Rivqa Rafael & Tansy Rayner Roberts)
4. Infinity’s End (Jonathan Strahan)
5. The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year (Jonathan Strahan)

Best science fiction novella

1. ‘I Almost Went To The Library Last Night’ (Joanne Anderton)
2. The Starling Requiem (Jodi Cleghorn)
3. Icefall (Stephanie Gunn)
4. ‘Pinion’ (Stephanie Gunn)
5. ‘Singles’ Day’ (Samantha Murray)
6. Static Ruin (Corey J White)

Best science fiction short story

1. ‘The Sixes, The Wisdom and the Wasp’ (E J Delaney)
2. ‘The Fallen’ (Pamela Jeffs)
3. ‘On the Consequences of Clinically-Inhibited Maturation in the Common Sydney Octopus’ (S. Petrie & E. Harvey)
4. ‘A Fair Wind off Baracoa’ (Robert Porteous)
5. ‘The Astronaut’ (Jen White)

Best fantasy novella

1. ‘This Side of the Wall’ (Michael Gardner)
2. ‘Beautiful’ (Juliet Marillier)
3. ‘The Staff in the Stone’ (Garth Nix)
4. Merry Happy Valkyrie (Tansy Rayner Roberts)
5. ‘The Dressmaker and the Colonel’s Coat’ (David Versace)
6. The Dragon’s Child (Janeen Webb)

Best fantasy short story

1. ‘Crying Demon’ (Alan Baxter)
2. ‘Army Men’ (Juliet Marillier)
3. ‘The Further Shore’ (J Ashley Smith)
4. ‘Child of the Emptyness’ (Amanda J Spedding)
5. ‘A Moment’s Peace’ (Dave Versace)
6. ‘Heartwood, Sapwood, Spring’ (Suzanne J Willis)

Best horror novella

1. ‘Andromeda Ascends’ (Matthew R Davis)
2. ‘Kopura Rising’ (David Kuraria)
3. ‘The Black Sea’ (Chris Mason)
4. Triquetra (Kirstyn McDermott)
5. ‘With This Needle I Thee Thread’ (Angela Rega)
6. Crisis Apparition (Kaaron Warren)

Best horror short story

1. ‘The Offering’ (Michael Gardner)
2. ‘Slither’ (Jason Nahrung)
3. ‘By Kindle Light’ (Jessica Nelson-Tyers)
4. ‘Hit and Rot’ (Jessica Nelson-Tyers)
5. ‘Sub-Urban’ (Alfie Simpson)
6. ‘The Further Shore’ (J Ashley Smith)

Best young adult short story

1. ‘A Robot Like Me’ (Lee Cope, Mother of Invention)
2. ‘The Moon Collector’ (D K Mok)
3. ‘The Sea-Maker of Darmid Bay’ (Shauna O’Meara)
4. ‘Eight-Step Koan’ (Anya Ow)
5. ‘For Weirdless Days and Weary Nights’ (Deborah Sheldon)

#AWW2020 Fiona McFarlane

• Author: Fiona McFarlane
• Title:  The High Places (13 stories, 288 pg)
• Genre: short stories
• Published: 2016
• List of Challenges 2020
• Monthly plan
• #AWW2020
• @AusWomenWriters

Introduction:

1. Fiona McFarlane is the winner of  £30,000 Dylan Thomas Prize 2017.
2. The prize is open to writers in the English language aged 39 and under.
3. NOTE: Longlist for Dylan Thomas Prize 2020 will be announced
4. at the Jaipur Literature Festival  @JaipurLitFest
5. 24 Jan 2020   0800 GMT (0900 CET) 1900 Sydney Australia

Conclusion:

1. Here are a few more stories  I tried to summarize.
2. Short stories are a joy to read….
3. …but a chore to review!
4. I’m always searching for the right template for a
5. short story collection blogpost.
6. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
7. Everyone will have their own favorites stories
8. …but mine are:
9. Mycenae (Janet….I loved her!)
10. Man and Bird ( …shortest story in collection…but packs a punch!)
11. Violet, Violet (enchanting, had to laugh out-loud!)
12. The High Places (reveals the meaning of the title!)
13. #MustRead  Fiona McFarlane

Exotic Animal Medicine

1. POV:  3rd-person narrative focused on one character Sarah.
2. Plot: Sarah: animal veterinarian who specializes in exotic animal medicine.
3. On her wedding day the newly-weds are involved in a car crash
4. on their way to her surgery job…an accident on a dark country road.
5. My Question:  Sarah cares for victim of car accident
6. ..but had Sarah had too much to drink?
7. Conflict: Sarah’s inner struggle accident, no witnesses, old man dies.
8. Theme: Burden of guilt is heavy….hard feeling to handle. What should I do?
9. Ending: is satisfying but not a neatly tied up conclusion.

Conclusion:

First reading:

I read the story too quickly. I formed an ‘ending’ in my thoughts before I even  finished the story. I was taking the easy way out and assumed this would be a cut and dry story about the burden of guilt. I missed the essential role played by  the cat Queen of Sheba!

Second reading:

I knew this story had more to offer than meets the eye. It won a very prestigious literary prize in 2009 at th school where McFarlane was studying: University of Texas in Austin. Also having read an article by Joe Morgan in The Guardian about reflection and quiet absorption…the art of slow reading. I decided to take it slowly.

The story took on a whole new dimension.

….the parallel between the cat Sheba and Mr. Ronald!  It felt that Sarah the main character had a telepathic connection with the cat in the surgery.

Mr. Ronald….dying in the car moaned as did the cat in its cage many miles away.

This gave the story a ‘spooky’ feeling.

Mycaene:

1. POV: First Person Janet tells the story and interacts in the story as well.
2. Plot: 2 couples (60+) (college friends) on a reunion holiday in Greece
3. Characters: Janet – Murray (live in AUS)  Amy – Eric (live in USA)
4. Theme: marriage
5. Timeline: 1 week
6. Clever play on words: Cornwall is south westernmost point of England
   It is where the couples as young students spent a holiday.
   Relationships were tested.
   “Marriage is like that, isn’t it, …It reaches a point.”
7. Strong point: Feeling of pathos
   I can relate to Janet because I understand what it feels like to have a girlfriend
   who runs the show, steals the spotlight with no care of what others may feel!

Art Appreciation:

1. POV: Third Person narrator is in a “god-like” position
   in which he can see into the minds of the characters.
2. Plot:  Henry is a gambling man. He likes to weigh his odds and options
3. He likes a little profit…a little loss.
4. But what happens when he discovers  love does not work this way!
5. Characters: Henry (28 yr) – Ellie (fiancé)  Kath (mistress)
6. Theme: marriage; loneliness
7. Timeline: 1,5 year
8. Strong point: Character development (Henry)
   Henry utilizes the emotions of others to his own ends.
   Machiavellian…he is motivated out of pure, calculating self-interest.

Man and Bird:

1. POV: 3rd person
2. Plot: fall of a local preacher when he doubts his faith
3. Characters: preacher and white parrot
4. Theme: faith
5. Timeline: unspecified in story
6. Strong point: symbol of a parrot seen as a messenger from God
   …but the preacher feels he is “mindlessly mimicking” God’s message
   …as a parrot mimics speech!
7. Strong point: McFarlane ‘bookends’ her story.
   The imagery that introduced the story…ends the story.
   This gives the reader a feeling that loose ends are tis up
   …. of coming full circle.
8. NOTE: story contains no dialogue an is shortest story in the collection

Unnecessary Gifts

1. POV: First Person Philip (father)  tells the story and interacts in the story as well
2. Plot:
3. Grandparents provide Phil and Glenda state-of-the are devices….see
4. Title:  “Unnecessary Gifts” to  attach to James and Greg to track their movements.
5. …to keep their grandchildren safe. But the parents did not keep up the surveillance.
6. Boys disappear from neighbourhood….where are they?
7. Characters:
8. Philip – Glenda – Greg – James ( father/mother/sons)
9. Tony (playmate of James and Greg)
10. Tony’s brother (security guard in store at the mall)
11. Theme:  parenting
12. ….grandparents are savvy of dangers that their own children do not see!
13. Timeline: 1 day (…with flashbacks to provide background family info)
14. Strong point: tension…mention of police report,
15. security tapes and Tony’s brother’s statement on
16. …2nd page is foreshadowing that something is going to go wrong!
17. Weak point:  the aforementioned ‘tension …where did it go?
18. The story fizzles out completely! Deflates like a cold soufflé!
19. I’m very disappointed with this selection…it had so much potential.
20. It feels like Mcfalrlane’s heart and concentration are not really in
21. this story: “she phoned it in.”

Those Americans Falling From the Sky

1. POV: First Person Jeanie tells the story and interacts in the story as well
2. Plot: pastoral description of life @home for Jeanie en Nora
3. ….and the impact of US airmen in the town of Merrigool.
4. But the story enters around 8 dead airmen whose
5. plane crashed behind their farm and one missing parachutist.
6. Their souls began to cause trouble in the area.
7. Characters:
8. Edith (60+) neighbor
9. Nora – Jeanie (sisters)
10. Maggie (mother) – Frank (stepfather of sisters)
11. Theme: nostalgia
12. Weak point: the story felt a bit pointless
13. Memories of life on a farm during WW II in Australia
14. …nothing else.
15. “Their souls began to cause trouble in the area”
16. …sounded like an excellent opportunity to write some great
17. …subplots but McFarlane did not flesh this out.