RIASS stuff:

A review of Games'by Robin Klein (a brilliant YA thriller that will give you chills)

A review of'Bella's Run'by Margareta Osborn'(is rural lit the next big thing?

Coming up: an'interview with Margareta Osborn and an interview with Joel from Momentum Books, Pan Macmillans new digital-only imprint

Just a note that I'll be tango dancing my way through Argentina in April, and would love to receive some guest posts to feature during that time. Feel free to drop me a line at readinasinglesitting@gmail.com.

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Other bookish stuff:

How Gogol* Explains the Post-Soviet World: proof that literature and politics go hand-in-hand:

So here is a not entirely frivolous suggestion: How about skipping the political science textbooks when it comes to trying to understand the former Soviet Union and instead opening up the pages of Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky?

Maisey Yates on maintaining conflict throughout a novel:

The good oil on Australian publishing success:

I will, however, disclose that [Selwa] Anthony offered one piece of advice that turned upside down all my preconceptions: authors, she advised, should write books set in Australia for the Australian market.' Local publishers prefer books that will sell well'at home, where (by signing up Australian and New Zealand publishing rights) they can exert greater control over price and distribution. Foreign rights are negotiated completely separately.

An honest account of the agent search:

Apart from mine, who is lovely, I have a pretty poor impression of agents. They have been rude, condescending and aggressive. When they approached me, almost none of them knew anything about me other than that I had the number one book and/or had sold a lot of copies. They werent interested in me personally, other than the fact that I might be able to make them money. I was the number one book in October ' and stayed in the top two for the best part of three months ' yet it took most people to read it in a newspaper or'The Bookseller'to even know my name. If that's the amount of attention agents pay to their own industry, then it's a pretty sorry state of affairs. By the time most of them contacted me, I had already been working with someone for three months.

The argument against beautiful bookshops:

The reason for my unease is that what is so lovingly created in such settings is not a bookshop, but an idea of a bookshop. It is a sentimental idea, a kind of pastoral often untouched by serious commercial consideration. The kind of bookshop you might find in a Beatrix Potter book, with browsing rabbits. Why bother choosing a great stock when you can provide a great environment? This is such a lovely shop, customers (not!) will swoon over their cup of tea, I just adore it here! But the purpose of a bookshop is not to make its patrons sigh with pleasure, but to make them buy books. And I have seen scant evidence that, as a marketing strategy, the beautiful bookshop works very well as a selling venue. Some may succeed in spite of their beauty ' through a great location or an excellent stock ' but few because of it.

Love tweeting or making short films? Australian Poetry wants you!

Podcast interview with author David D Levine

Michael Chabon discusses adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs for the big screen

Roald Dahl chosen as childrens top author

Childrens author Kate Messner to give a TED talk

Are you participating in the Australian Women Writers 2012 challenge?

Books (Aussie edition):