image of person or book cover 6515482042211485076.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon #SaveOzStories anthology   essay  
Alternative title: Saveourstories
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 #SaveOzStories
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

''Australians deserve that their lives, experiences, country and culture be reflected in the literature that they read.' —Tom Keneally

'#SaveOzStories is a gift to book lovers from Australia's finest writers and the industry that supports them. David Malouf, Tim Winton, Jackie French and many more of our best writers have come together to issue a clarion call to all Australian citizens to defend writers and writing. If politicians have their way we will be the only nation to give away our right to tell our own stories. If you think a world without the next Richard Flanagan, Di Morrissey or Andy Griffiths will be a poorer one, then read this collection of impassioned arguments from our most esteemed wordsmiths.

'Contributors include Richard Flanagan, Tim Winton, Jackie French, Matthew Reilly, Geraldine Brooks, Michael Robotham, Andy Griffiths, Christos Tsiolkas, Charlotte Wood, Toni Jordan, Frank Moorhouse and others.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Unpaged

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:Melbourne University Press , 2016 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Own Goal, Geraldine Brooks , single work essay
Isobelle Carmody, Isobelle Carmody , single work essay
'My name is Isobelle Carmody. I am fifty-eight years old. I have written more than thirty books and many short stories. My books have been largely published for children or young adults though I have written for adults, too. I wrote my first book in 1972, when I was fourteen years old. That was Obernewtyn, which was published in my twenties. I have been published for over three decades. Everything I have written is still in print. I have written for long enough that many of those who started reading me when I was first published are now mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, even grandparents, many of whom still read my books and a good many of whom give them and read them to their children and grandchildren.' (Introduction)
Peter FitzSimons, Peter FitzSimons , single work essay
Richard Flanagan, Richard Flanagan , single work essay
'It may seem at the moment that the only thing that will save the Australian book industry is moving every publisher and writer into Christopher Pyne’s electorate, and making them all wear hi-vis jackets and safety helmets.' (Introduction)
The People of the Books, Jackie French , single work essay

'When I was a child I knew where Paradise lived. It was in Barker’s Bookstore, Brisbane’s only bookshop, where I found my lifelong friend, The Magic Pudding, and discovered who I was, and what my country may be.' (Introduction)

Anna Funder, Anna Funder , single work essay
Nikki Gemmell, Nikki Gemmell , single work essay

'I write this in anguish. At the debasement of writers in this country. This is the most despairing time to be an Australian writer for as long as I can remember. Our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, declared that an Australia of the future has to be agile, innovative and creative; and by his cosmopolitan nature once gave the nation’s artistic community hope that he would oversee a great flowering of the arts in the way a Whitlam did, or a Keating. We mistakenly assumed Mr Turnbull took pride in the worlds of artistic creativity and would nurture them as the mark of a mature and dynamic nation. That he would want the arts to flourish under his stewardship, to create a legacy of vision, daring and confidence.' (Introduction)

Morris Gleitzman, Morris Gleitzman , single work essay
'I’m writing this letter because soon the Productivity Commission will recommend that you hurt Australian books, although they won’t put it that way.' (Introduction)
Finding Australian Stories, Kate Grenville , extract essay

'The proposed changes to copyright have the potential to send Australian writing, in one lifetime, through an entire cycle from bust to boom and back to bust again. Sixty years ago, what Australians got to read was by and large dictated by people on the other side of the world. We were a literary colony. If the Productivity Commission has its way, we’ll be back to that same second-hand status.' (Introduction)

Food, Fighting and Funny Pictures : Growing Up with Australian Books, Andy Griffiths , single work essay

'As a child I was fortunate enough to have a bookshelf filled with great books from all around the world, but Australian children’s classics such as The Magic Pudding and Cole’s Funny Picture Books spoke to me in a way that even at a young age I recognised as unmistakably Australian. It is difficult to define exactly what that ‘Australian-ness’ is. It’s not just—or even—about seeing Australian animals or iconical Australian places and landmarks … it’s broader and deeper than that. It’s more of a feeling—a sort of freewheeling knockabout charm that, like Vegemite, is instantly identifiable.' (Introduction)

Jane Harper, Jane Harper , single work essay
'Winning the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript has been a wonderful experience for me from start to finish. But the award also created a much wider circle of very real benefits and opportunities. I think too often we make the mistake of viewing creative awards as something that benefits the winner alone, and risk overlooking the bigger picture.' (Introduction)
Suggested Edits 2017, Chloe Hooper , single work

'Dear Ms Hopper,

Thank you for submitting this fascinating article. It's a great start, but we wonder if you've considered moving the location to better suit an international audience? This could work wonderfully well in a 'hardscrabble' Anglo-Irish context, or you might like to pursue our suggestions below!'

The Colonial Edition, Toni Jordan , single work essay

'It’s a strange kind of headline for us today, living in the era of Richard Flanagan and Liane Moriarty and Helen Garner and Michael Robotham. AUSTRALIAN NOVELISTS, the top line reads, and underneath: BOOKS PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND. It’s not a front-page story, of course, literature is rarely that, but it’s in a reasonable spot: page 18 in the Brisbane Telegraph, 10 July 1926. It says: ‘The Australian novelist, Mr. Jack MacLaren, has published his twenty-fifth book, “The Isle of Escape”, which is a sex story, set in the South Seas. His wife is publishing a novel dealing with reincarnation, entitled “Which Hath Been”’. (I’d love to read both of these—they seem perfect for me—but finding them isn’t easy, as I’ll explain.)' (Introduction)

Thomas Keneally, Thomas Keneally , single work essay
'Because I was on book tour in Britain as this volume was put together, I had to fall back on the following fairly staid piece I wrote for the Australian Financial Review. There were some images cut from the piece which would have been tolerated in a more robust piece. For example, I described the Australian publishing industry as existing on a narrow ledge of guaranteed time. I am proud of what it has produced on that ledge. I celebrate the diverse commentary, the wealth of creation, now likely to be obliterated by a federal government trumpeting innovation. As the first step on that much-waited-for post-colonial road, they seek to obliterate the very industry equipped to interpret innovation to the citizenry. Similarly, I was tempted to call on Malcolm Turnbull to confront what he knew and cherished in his late, great uncle, Robert Hughes, who would—I am sure—have counselled his nephew by marriage against such a fatal step. And there was one last image cut from the piece, perhaps an exorbitant one but one that’s apposite. When I began to write, and I and other Australian writers, some older, some younger, were trying to create the craft of letters as a modern profession in Australia, it seemed that a well-published Australian was almost as rare and as much a cause for surprise as a goanna riding a bicycle. It isn’t any more, nor should it be.' (Introduction)
Book Culture, A Delicate Balance, David Malouf , single work essay

'The ecology of a culture may be as fragile, as precariously balanced, as the one we call Nature. We should be very sure of how that balance has been achieved and continues to work before we think of adjusting or ‘improving’ it.' (Introduction)

Monica McInerney, Monica McInerney , single work essay

'Long before I was a full-time writer, I was a full-time reader.

'As a child growing up in rural South Australia, I read a diet of mostly English and American stories. I knew more about Mark Twain’s Mississippi River and Enid Blyton’s English woods and islands than I did about my own country. It felt rare and thrilling to find a story with Australian settings, characters and lives.' (Introduction)

Alex Miller, Alex Miller , single work essay

'The Coalition Government has rightly made much recently of its policy to promote growth and jobs through its support of small and medium-size Australian businesses. The Australian publishing industry is made up of hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses. The independent Australian publishing industry, on which printers and allied trades also rely for much of their work, directly and indirectly employs thousands of skilled and professional workers. Abolishing territorial copyright would place Australian publishing at an impossible business disadvantage in relation to its overseas competitors. Some publishers would almost certainly be driven to the wall. An essential of any modern civilised nation is a robust independent publishing industry which can offer to the reading public the stories of its writers. The cultural independence and richness of any nation depends on the writers who tell the stories of that nation.' (Introduction)

Frank Moorhouse, Frank Moorhouse , single work essay

'To: Malcolm, Bill,

'Cc: Queen Elizabeth, Head of State (you may remember me, you have given me a couple of medals and I met your late sister, Margaret), Richard Di Natale, leader Australian Greens (we haven’t met), Barnaby Joyce and all Independents

'Re: KPIs—‘Things is crook in Tallarook and there’s no dough in Dubbo …’ (Jack O’Hagan)' (Introduction)

We Wouldn’t Do It to Our Olympians, So Why Do It to Our Authors and Publishers?, Matthew Reilly , single work essay
'Imagine if it was announced that the Australian Olympic swimming team will now include swimmers who are not Australian.' (Introduction)
Nobody’s Land, Michael Robotham , single work essay
'Australian authors tend to be gentle folk who spend their time in lonely garrets and garden sheds rather than fronting protest campaigns or carrying placards. We let our stories speak for us, creating worlds and characters that come to life in a reader’s imagination, revealing truths, touching hearts and maybe, if we’re very lucky, changing someone’s life.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Finding Australian Stories Kate Grenville , 2016 extract essay
— Appears in: Brisbane Times , 12 August 2016; The Sydney Morning Herald , 13-14 August 2016; (p. 26) The Sunday Age , 14 August 2016; (p. 24) #SaveOzStories 2016;

'The proposed changes to copyright have the potential to send Australian writing, in one lifetime, through an entire cycle from bust to boom and back to bust again. Sixty years ago, what Australians got to read was by and large dictated by people on the other side of the world. We were a literary colony. If the Productivity Commission has its way, we’ll be back to that same second-hand status.' (Introduction)

Finding Australian Stories Kate Grenville , 2016 extract essay
— Appears in: Brisbane Times , 12 August 2016; The Sydney Morning Herald , 13-14 August 2016; (p. 26) The Sunday Age , 14 August 2016; (p. 24) #SaveOzStories 2016;

'The proposed changes to copyright have the potential to send Australian writing, in one lifetime, through an entire cycle from bust to boom and back to bust again. Sixty years ago, what Australians got to read was by and large dictated by people on the other side of the world. We were a literary colony. If the Productivity Commission has its way, we’ll be back to that same second-hand status.' (Introduction)

Last amended 19 Aug 2016 10:57:40
X