RIASS stuff:
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Calling all bookish Melburnians! RIASS and some bookish buddies are planning a night out at the Astor Theatre on the 9th of June. All welcome, so if you're a local (or wish to commute), feel free to drop by. Details'here.
A giveaway of'Revived'by Cat Patrick'(ends 2 June)
A review of Diane Chamberlains The Good Father, which explores the lengths parents will go to for their children. (Rating: 
)
Chekhov's Gun: is it time to take it off the mantelpiece?'Has our love of Chekhov and his ubiquitous literary device had a less than positive effect on the books being written today?
Other bookish stuff:
What habits do you have to help you get in the editing mood? Im going to guess that chocolate and coffee are very high on this list for most people.
Fakelore vs folklore: That our stories are mirrors of our time, reflecting prevalent prejudices and class hatreds does not surprise any of us. Recent eventsall these are relevant to any discussion of moral issues. Yet when a fairy story creates a dark mirror, giving back in a fantastic setting the baser beliefs and feelings and legalities its own day, that often comes as a shock to even the more perspicacious reader (and as a total mystery to those readers who skim along the tops of metaphors.)
Gertrude Steins book of alphabets
10 works of literature that were really hard to write
An interview with Nicola Moriarty: I visited several different career paths before returning to my love of literature and I was asked recently if I would have written a novel had my eldest sisters not done so first. In all honesty, I was stumped by the question. I know that I most definitely would have been writing, because that's always been a part of my life ' but I do wonder if I would have been compelled to complete an entire novel without that confidence boost that comes from a lot of inspiration, plenty of pride and just a little bit of (perfectly healthy!?) envy. So while coming from a family of writers may fuel my insecurities, I have a LOT to be grateful for, because becoming a writer feels very much like coming home, which really is quite lovely.'(see our review of Nicolas debut here)
The overthinking persons drinking game
Melanie Gideon offers seven tips for writers. Top of the list? Dont google yourself.
The cost of being an unbeatable evil overlord: We assumed an army of 1,000 Evil Legionnaires of Terror, and a rebel army to consist of 100 traitors. Our conclusion? It would cost just $14,268,632, or a little over 14 million dollars to ensure that your reign as an Evil Overlord is truly unstoppable. (contains columns! Woo!)
Arch Tait on Russian translation'A problem confronting translators of Russian texts is a belief, widespread in the culture, that if a little is good, then more must be better. The emotionality of writing often needs toning down if it is not to grate with the English reader, even when what is being translated is almost as upsetting for the translator as it must be for the writer. Rapturous, ecstatic and delirious ephithets have to be discounted by at least a third, and 80% of exclamation marks and 98% of ellipses to be deleted. Russians, by the way, retaliate by italicising words in texts translated from English.
Meljean Brook on steampunk (or SF with goggles): I think for many readers and writers, the 'science fiction' aspect often trips them up when they are trying to visualize what steampunk is supposed to be. For many of us, 'science fiction' means spaceships and computers, robots and transporter beams'and trying to imagine those things in a historical context produces a world that simply doesn't make sense. It's like 'Cowboys and Aliens''but without the aliens to provide an explanation for the anachronisms.
Want to impress that spunky lifeguards swotty older sibling? Try this list of 10 Highbrow Books to Read on the Beach
Awesome 60s sci fi novels (okay, Ive only read about half of them, but Ill go out on a limb and assume the rest are good, too)
Jonathan Franzen answers those tried and true author questions, and some more as well. When a writer makes a claim like Forsters [about characters "taking over"], the best-case scenario is that hes mistaken. More often, unfortunately, I catch a whiff of self-aggrandisement, as if the writer were trying to distance his work from the mechanistic plotting of genre novels. The writer would like us to believe that, unlike those hacks who can tell you in advance how their books are going to end,'his'imagination is so powerful, and'his'characters so real and vivid, that he has no control over them. The best case here, again, is that it isnt true, because the notion presupposes a loss of authorial will, an abdication of intent. The novelists primary responsibility is to create meaning, and if you could somehow leave this job to your characters you would necessarily be avoiding it yourself.
This is what Im going to do for my Christmas tree this year
Audio:
An interview with Shaun Tan
Is Patrick White unAustralian? (or just a grump?)
Video:
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