Category Archives: australian

Kabuff or Wunderkammer?

Posted on July 5, 2019 by Kelvin Smith

Fictional publishers often appear at international book fairs. The setting gives writers the chance to introduce new characters, engineer plot twists and inject the frisson of drunken conversations and illicit sex. The Frankfurt Kabuff, Blaire Squiscoll’s recent work, adds a … Continue reading →

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Penguin…and all the other things we once thought mattered

Posted on December 2, 2017 by Kelvin Smith

Kif, the narrator of Richard Flanagan’s First Person, is writing a novel, but it’s going nowhere when his old pal Ray gets him the job of ghostwriting Ziggy Heidl’s autobiography. That’s how he and Ray ‘drifted into that world of … Continue reading →

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What can an editor trust?

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Kelvin Smith

“All I knew now, in my moment of greatest confusion and suspicion, was that my heart was beating very fast indeed. Rereading the fragment, I felt that excitement in my blood which is the only thing an editor should ever … Continue reading →

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Publishing and Power

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Kelvin Smith

The unexpected use of “good Anglo-Saxon names” makes the characters like people “you meet in the street”, and adds to the tension and terror in Thomas Keneally’s The Tyrant’s Novel. Here a writer from an unnamed country calling himself Alan … Continue reading →

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