Cirrus@Austlit

'Tess Brady moves from the city to the village of Clunes in Victoria's central highlands. Slowly, her own story and that of the village merge, and neither will ever be quite the same again. Tess discovers that Clunes is home to a wonderfully eccentric bunch of locals, and boasts a defiantly singular way of doing things. Before long she finds herself taking part in a duck race in a dried-up creek bed, helping out with the annual grape harvest and hunting for a missing mayoral table. Then, suddenly, the very fabric of the village comes under threat, as government planners decide to turn it into a dank and dreary dormitory suburb for commuters. The situation looks bleak, until Tess and her mates come up with an unlikely counter-plan. Could Clunes be saved by, of all things, a pile of secondhand books? The Noise of Empty Buildings is a tree-change story that enchants and delights - and shows that sometimes the pen really is mightier than the sword.' (Publication summary)

The authors researched the collaborative process, including forms of collaboration, long term collaborators and their own experience writing a collaborative text, The Girls Guide to Real Estate (Brady & Brien 2002), with a view to 'isolating tools useful in practising and analysing effective collaborative writing methods.'

Brady examines the history of The Australian /Vogel National Literary Award, including the various controversies that have surrounded it, and details the annual judging process for the Vogel. After explaining the methodology used by a Griffith University team to research the Vogel's winning and shortlisted authors, Brady applies the research findings to dispelling three myths surrounding the prize: 'that it is a one-book wonder prize; that in order to get the benefits of the prize the writer needs to be the winner; that the winners can come from any background and are not necessarily coming from the university sector'.