"A book that makes you think... what else is writing about?" Spinifex Press turns 21

Over the past few years, I've corresponded intermittently with feminist publisher and author, Susan Hawthorne, of Spinifex Press, a publishing house which next week celebrates 21 years of operation. Ahead of its time, Spinifex was the first Australian publisher (to my knowledge) that produced ebooks.

To celebrate Spinifex's success and International Women's Day, Hawthorne agreed to write a summary of books published - in some cases, republished - recently by Spinifex. (Stay tuned for a book give-away.


Hawthorne writes:
As a publisher and a writer I always find these challenges difficult. Not because I don’t have ideas about what’s good or what’s a waste of time. As a publisher I read the books we at Spinifex publish well ahead of everyone else. It’s a solitary kind of thrill, but no one to talk to about the latest most exciting book, so exciting you are prepared to fork out money and time to ensure it gets onto the shelves.

Here are the Australian novels that we have published at Spinifex Press between September 2010 and March 2012. I’ll work backwards with a book that is just published.

Fish-Hair Woman by Merlinda Bobis is a book that I have wanted to see published for more than ten years. Based on a short story first published in Merlinda’s award-winning collection, The White Turtle, if you read one book in 2012, make it this one. Fish-Hair Woman is set in the Philippines in 1987 during the Marcos regime and the novel gives great insight into the political violence and kidnappings that have occurred in recent years. It is a complex novel in which the author asks awkward questions about violence, war, death but also about love, commitment and beauty. The title refers to the woman whose hair grows each time a body is found in the river. It grows and grows, and as the bodies wash downstream she walks into the river and gathers the latest body up in her hair.

Other books by Merlinda Bobis:              
White Turtle 

Summer was a Fast Train without Terminals 

Banana Heart Summer

The Solemn Lantern Maker

Bite Your Tongue by Francesca Rendle-Short is a book I first saw in a different form some years earlier. What I enjoy about the published version is the crossover of genres – from fiction to memoir back to fiction. I like the way that Francesca both separates and melds. For many writers, fiction becomes a way to explore experiences and ideas from the real world blurring their origins. Francesca explores her relationship with her mother – and mother daughter relationships are complex – as well as with the meta-mother, the mother who might have been. Through her fictional self, Glory, Francesca gets to speak the words she wished she’d said. This is an enticing read, one that pulls the read back and forth. But it is also a book that makes you think, and what else is writing about? 

Other books by Francesca Rendle-Short        
Imago

Remember the Tarantella by Finola Moorhead was first published in 1987 to great acclaim. Finola then went on to win the 1991 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction in the Victoria Premier’s Awards for Still Murder and wrote the epic novel, Darkness More Visible. Remember the Tarantella has 26 characters – all women. She wrote the novel in response to a challenge from Christina Stead, and through the use of letters of the alphabet, astrology, tarot, colours and maps, as well as an extraordinary process of feedback from other writers (documented in the Afterword) Finola keeps her characters in hand. And they are a rebellious lot: they travel around the world, they shift allegiances and relationships, they talk endlessly and they dance. The dance is a key theme in this novel, whether it be the tarantella or the ancient dance of women. Once you’ve read this novel, you will want to go out and read other works by Finola Moorhead. 

Other novels by Finola Moorhead             
Still Murder  
Darkness More Visible 

Quilt

A Handwritten Modern Classic

My Sister Chaos by Lara Fergus is an outstanding book and in 25 years in publishing, I think it is the best first novel I have encountered and been able to publish. It tells the story of two sisters from an unnamed country who have escaped from a war, one is a cartographer, the other an artist. The cartographer and the artist in their own ways are trying to keep chaos at bay as they try to come to terms with what has happened to them and others close to them during the war. It is a book about what refugees go through, how people are silenced and the impact of brutality. The book is structurally satisfying as well as compelling in its narrative. As a reader you just have to finish it – and many do – in a single sitting. The book was one of three finalists in the Dobbie Literary Awards 2010. 

Publishing fiction is a joy. What I enjoy most is working with a writer through discussion about the shape of the novel, talking about structure, theme, metaphor, whether the characters are sufficiently delineated and whether the novel hangs together. I’ve lost count of how many works of fiction we have published, probably around 50 and we published authors from Australia, New Zealand, Botswana, South Africa, Nigeria, India and the UK. The media is not always interested in fiction in spite of the many good reviewers in the country who are keen to have good books to read, books that make a reader think.



Susan Hawthorne was born in Wagga Wagga and grew up on a farm near Ardlethan. She’s a poet, aerialist, publisher and academic. She is the co-founder with Renate Klein of Australia's feminist publishing house, Spinifex Press which turns 21 next week. She has lived for many years in Melbourne and now spends her time between Victoria and Far North Queensland. Hawthorne has five books of poetry published, a novel and several books of political theory.

 

Hawthorne has five books of poetry published, a novel and several books of political theory.

Poetry: 

• Cow (2011)
• Earth’s Breath (2009; also as eBook)
  
• Unsettling the Land (chapbook with artist Suzanne Bellamy, 2008; also as eBook)
  
• The Butterfly Effect (2005; also as eBook)
  
• Bird (1999; as eBook)

For a review of Hawthorne's latest collection, Cow, see Robyn Cadwallader's "The playful provocation of a complex tapestry" in this week's Verity La.


Spinifex Press has an outstanding record of publishing books by Australian women. Here is a list of their authors (with links to their biographies on the Spinifex website):

·      Carol Bacchi
·      Judy Horacek
·      Betty McLellan
·      Rose Zwi
·      Robyn Rowland
·      Jocelynne Scutt
·      Sandy Jeffs
·      Jean Taylor
·      Laurene Kelly
·      Francesca Rendle-Short
·      Deborah Staines
·      Sheila Jeffreys
·      Suzanne Bellamy
·      Dale Spender
·      Zohl de Ishtar
·      Diane Bell
·      Patricia Easteal
·      Finola Moorhead
·      Rye Senjen
·      Denise Thompson
·      Jordie Albiston
·      Zelda D’Aprano
·      Lin Van Hek
·      Lizz Murphy
·      Lucy Sussex
·      Bronwyn Whitlocke
·      Anne Thacker
·      Louise Crisp
·      Patricia Sykes
·      Miriel Lenore
·      Susan Hawthorne
·      Lariane Fonseca
·      Margaret Somerville
·      Kerryn Higgs
·      Doris Kartinyeri
·      Erika Kimpton
·      Merrilee Moss
·      Jenny Kelly
·      Debra Adelaide
·      Sue Hardisty
·      Gina Mercer
·      Beth Shelton
·      Sarah Brill
·      Judi Fisher
·      Patricia Hughes
·      Munya Andrews
·      Diane Fahey
·      Felicity Jack
·      Lara Fergus
·      Mary Sullivan
·      Lynette Dumble
·      Judy Atkinson
·      Melinda Tankard Reist
·      Abigail Bray

AWW writes:
March is "think" month for the National Year of Reading. Have you read and/or reviewed any of Spinifex's books? Can you recommend any other books by Australian women that make you think? What else is writing about?