Spinifex Press turns 21: Book Giveaway

To celebrate Spinifex Press's 21st birthday, the publishers have invited Australian Women Writers to host a giveaway of the following books:

Kick the Tin by Doris Kartinyeri 

Bite Your Tongue by Francesca Rendle-Short

Still Murder by Finola Moorhead

Fish-Hair Woman by Merlinda Bobis 

My Sister Chaos by Lara Fergus

To enter, just leave a comment below and correctly answer the following quiz questions. (Comments will remain hidden from view.) Entries are now closed. 

Winners:
Nic: Fish-Hair Woman
Tansy: Bite Your Tongue
Gillian: My Sister Chaos
Deb: Still Murder
Kandy: Kick the Tin

Method of draw: 
Each correct answer was counted for the draw (represented by a name in a hat). One name was drawn twice (Nic) and was discounted for a second win (apologies, Nic!). The person with the most correct answers was Margaret, but her name didn't come out of the hat. 


Winners, please email Danielle Binks at digital@spinifexpress.com.au. Put 'Aust Women Writers Winner' in the subject heading, give your contact details, and state whether you'd prefer print or an ebook. 


Thanks everyone for entering! (And we can argue among ourselves over the correct answers for e and g.)

Any correct answer given will make you eligible for the draw; the more correct answers you give, the greater your chances of being selected. Comments will be moderated to allow time for as many people as possible to enter. This competition is open to international participants as well as Australian, with your choice of ebook or print copy. Competition will close at AWW's discretion (when enough people have entered to make it competitive and the drawing worthwhile).

Note: Spinifex Press is a feminist publisher. Publisher Susan Hawthorne discussed their recent releases on the AWW blog here.

Note: The following answers (apart from the initially missing "e" and the last one, "q") were supplied by Danielle Binks of Spinifex Press. Both "e" and "g" arguably have more than one correct answer.

Quiz

a. Mother Theresa worked in which Indian city? A: Calcutta

b. The goddess Freya from Norway gives us which day of the week? A: Friday

c. What was it that Marie Curie discovered? A: Radium/Radiation

d. Who loved a sunburnt country? A: Dorothea MacKellar

e. Which early 20th-century Australian female poet and novelist, known as "The Rebel Girl," joined the International Workers of the World?* A. Lesbia Harford (but there may be other contenders?)

f. Who was the first woman to attempt to fly around the world? A: Amelia Earhart

g. Who was the first Australian woman to be appointed to the cabinet? A: Susan Ryan (As the question didn't specify which cabinet, Federal or State, this question may have more than one correct answer.)

h. I was born on 25 December 1933 at Echuca, Victoria, a member of the Yorta-Yorta tribe from the Murray River area. Amongst my ancestors were also the Wurundjeri people of the Melbourne area. When I was a child my family and I walked off the Cummeragunja Station to Mooroopna, and later Shepparton. I went to school in the Good Shepherd Convent in Abbotsford, Melbourne and later worked as a domestic at St Andrews Hospital. I married a Andrew Marimutha, a Malayan Indian, whose name we all shortened. I initiated the setting up of the Aboriginal Health Service and the Aboriginal Legal Service. I also set up Worowa Aboriginal College and later Worawa Primary School for younger children. I am well known for coauthoring the script of Women of the Sun. Who am I? A: Hyllus Maris

i. A well-known figure in Sydney from the mid-twenties to the sixties, she was a voracious reader, often refused to pay cab fares, gave recitations of Shakespeare wearing a green tennis shade. In old age she claimed, ‘I have no allergies that I know of, one complex, no delusions, two inhibitions, no neuroses, three phobias, no superstitions and no frustrations.’ She is the subject of Kate Grenville’s novel, Lilian’s Story. What is her name? A: Bea Miles

j. I was born in Melbourne, Australia and moved to Britain during the 1970s.
My first book of poems was Hecate’s Charms. I have also written a novel, Between Friends and a book on the life and art of Dorothy Richardson. I have written widely on modernist women writers and on lesbian culture and lifestyle. In 1986 I co-authored a collection of poems with Suniti Namjoshi. Who am I? A: Gillian Hanscombe


k. Which Australian poet was taken to court by her ex-husband because of a poem? A: Dorothy Hewett

l. Australia’s best known Aboriginal poet is the author of We Are Going, The Dawn is at Hand, My People and Stradbroke Dreaming. What is her name? A: Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly Kath Walker)


m. What is the name of the book by Katherine Susannah Pritchard that centres on the life of an Aboriginal woman?A: Coonardoo (The Well in the Shadow)


n. Which writer left Australia and lived for many years on the Greek island of Hydra? A: Charmian Clift

o. Who am I? I was born in England and later came to Australia. My family ran a Quaker home for down-and-outs. I worked as a nurse, a real-estate agent and a teacher. My manuscripts were rejected for many years. I am now considered one of Australia’s finest writers. My name is . . . ? A: Elizabeth Jolley 

p. Tasma is the pseudonym of what Australian writer? A: Jessie Couvreur

q. Who is the woman in the following photo and what is she famous for? A: Louisa Lawson, famous for editing and producing The Dawn, Australia's first journal produced solely by women.

Remember, the more answers you get right, the greater your chances of winning, but even one correct answer puts you in the draw.

* Mea culpa. Question "e" was added after an early entrant pointed out it was missing. No entrant will be disadvantaged by the oversight.

"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?