Apparently…

(Yes, another web meme thing, but given the topic, I really couldn’t resist trying this one. Not a bad answer to see, really!)

News just in this morning… I did not win the Text Prize for fiction…

http://textpublishing.com.au/news/post/text-prize-winner-announced/

Congratulations to Jane Higgins, winner of the 2010 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing, for her apocalyptic action novel The Bridge.

I’ll second that. Congratulations to Jane on her win, and congratulations to my fellow nominees for being shortlisted. May we all be published eventually!

See the Text Publishing site for more details, and the basic plot of Jane’s novel. It’s hard to tell of course from such a brief description, but The Bridge does sound like a compelling and exciting work.

I’ll be back here, writing away furiously on my next work, and perfecting the first News Bytes. Did I mention that News Bytes is most definitely a series? There was never really a place in the entry to indicate that, though I suppose the book itself gave some clues to that at the end.

But enough about me (that’s the only time you’ll ever hear this on my blog!) Congratulations to Jane again — may you have much success when the book is released.

Must admit I am extremely proud and happy about this one. I only submitted for this competition at the literal last minute, after I found a courier in town that could ship to Melbourne overnight. But look where I am now…


From http://textpublishing.com.au/news/post/text-prize-shortlist-announced/

Text Prize shortlist announced 30.06.2010

After weeks of reading, discussing and reading some more, we have chosen a shortlist of five contenders for the 2010 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing. We were really impressed with the high standard of entries this year, and look forward to the continued growth of the prize, now in its third year.

And the shortlisted titles are…

Haunting the Dead, Tiffany Chapple
The Diamond Factory, Julie Harris-Spearritt
Breken Crossing, Jane Higgins
Youth Bytes, Stephen Turner
How to Talk to Girls, Philippa Werry

Congratulations to each of these authors! The winner will be announced at the Australian Booksellers’ Association Conference in Brisbane on July 12, and on the Text website later that day. The winning book will be published by Text in mid-2011.

It’s quite a big prize this one, and the rewards would be professionally and personally lucrative…. but at the same time it really is a great thing to be nominated (to borrow a cliche), and it really is something I can use to point to my writing progress in big and little ways.

Click through the link above for details on the other entries, but then here’s the details on my work I supplied, and the biography I supplied as well:

YOUTH BYTES
Five smart and talented teenagers are brought together by a software millionaire to start an online youth news service. They have no choice in the matter—they might be smart, but they’re also in big trouble with the law in various ways. But the teenagers discover real trouble when an Aboriginal girl brings them the case of a cop who might just have murdered her brother. With no one else to turn to, and their own problems to deal with as well, each member of the team needs to step up and show what they’re made of: break the story, expose a corrupt cop, and stay alive while doing it.

About the author: Stephen Turner has been a writer since he could read, and has worked in journalism and editing, but now works with computers at a local high school. From Sydney originally, he’s escaped the rat race and now lives with his wife and three children in Coonabarabran.

The winner is announced on July 12 at a booksellers’ conference in Brisbane, and believe me, even if I don’t win, I plan to make myself a winner in the long run from this anyway!

(Image from Flickr user Powerhouse Museum, used under Creative Commons License.)

• Inkwell Management
  Good NY lit house with lots of Australian clients, including Tristan Bancks. Definitely one to approach.
  (tags: writing agent)

It’s always the time of the year to think about this thing, as we’re constantly reminded in all media… along with the constant reminder that we mostly never follow through with these things. So just for the record, here’s what I’d like to do more of this year:

– Writing. Well duh, of course. I did pretty well with it last year, but I just want to keep up my consistency. There’s at least two books I could write this year that I already have in mind.

– Revising, editing and improving the above. This one is probably more important, as it’s something I’m less familiar with and less at ease with. I have to apply what I know to revise what I’ve already done. Fix it. Make it better. Improve it. On every level I can find. And this includes getting involved with writing groups and getting other people to help me revise. Which leads to…

– Getting a publishing deal. This one is harder, of course, and it’s not exactly in my control, but I must resolve to do everything in my power to make this happen (usually just lots of the previous two points). And that’s a deal, not necessarily publication, because you can never control the timing of that.

– More physical activity. Might depend on where I live of course, but there’s always something. And a team sport would be better, to inject something more social. Golf would be good too. Get better fitness, eat well.

– Group creative collaboration. This is really vague, but I’m thinking something creative with a group of people would be good. Done a little of this years ago, but would lke to get back to it, and it would most likely be online. Could be gaming, animation, writing, film, comics or something else. Really, the social aspect is as important as whatever the project is. Gettting to know other creative people again and all that.

– Business. Whether it’s IT repairs/help/online freelancing, or a secondhand bookshop, or a combination of both, I want to get that going this year (yes, that would be in Coona in all likelihood). This is really regardless of my main job aspirations there. It will be easier to start slowly if I have the day job, and if I don’t and go for this, well it will just have to be all out then, won’t it?

– Being active in the town. If as is most likely, we’re all in Coona within a month or two, I want to be active in the town. Groups, activities, events. Good for me, good for the family. Good for business above too. And just fun and social at the same time.

– Make stuff. Do more woodworking — all kinds of stuff big and small. Get into some of the electronics things I want to do. MAME cabinets, home theatre PCs, other gadgetry. Build my electric guitar (and then more!) Amp, speakers too? Business or fun, it doesn’t matter, just do it.

– Cooking and foodie stuff. Well, we cook to eat, so just more variety there, but what about more? Ginger beer, beer brewing (try what I made!), other soft drink, other produce. Get Sallie in the garden (and join her?!?), grow stuff. Fun or business, but there’s always possibilities.

– Family. Honestly, I think I’m doing pretty well there. Keep up the time with Will and Alex, give Lachlan more time as he gets bigger and more aware, and just make family the most important thing, despite all the above. Make Will’s school the best it can be for him.

That really covers it all I think. Ten points. That’s quite enough really

Pixar has been accused by various people of having killed off Hollywood’s (and by extention the audience’s) interest in 2D animation. A ridiculous accusation of course, but when John Lasseter took over running all of Disney Animation in 2006, he heard that talk, and decided to prove it wrong anyway. He immediately put into production a new 2D theatrical feature, the kind of classic, old school, animated musical that Disney used to be best known for.

That’s out today as The Princess and the Frog, and Will and I checked it out today. It’s very deliberately old fashioned, from its setting to its style and classic 2D animation style, but it really is very good. With an outstanding New Orleans influenced jazz score by Randy Newman, including plenty of musical-style songs, the movie is steeped in African American and Creole culture, again, something not often seen.

Though unfamiliar with most of them, the voice cast is excellent, with plenty of great singers among them. When I get the access I’ll check more into them — they do some great songs.

Excellent animation in the classic Disney style — this couldn’t be any further from the Pixar style if it tried — but it’s up there with the Pixar quality. Almost too old school in some ways, but it is definitely worthy in its own right anyway. For some reason Disney stopped doing this sort of movie in any quality way nearly 15 years ago, so naturally it took John Lasseter to bring it back. Four stars.

Got some freebies from work to see previews of the re-released Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D, so naturally I had to take Will We both know the two movies inside out, but he’s never seen either on the big screen, and I last saw Toy Story at the movies nearly 15 years ago, so we were going in for something new.

And it was 3D… which would be something new. It seems like all the animation being released these days is available in 3D, but we don’t usually go for it (either cause of cost or interest). Which was probably right again, since Will really hasn’t been into the 3D thing, and he wasn’t really into the 3D today. Even though the glasses are a whole new thing: clear, easy to wear, Will really didn’t like it, but he doesn’t keep anything on his face really!

But I thought it was pretty cool. It’s unobtrusive, fitting well into the story, and giving the scenes real depth and variety. It’s especially interesting to see how the 3D was added to an already existing movie.

Memorable characters, memorable music, groundbreaking animation, just the all round package. The 3D was an appealing touch, and it makes seeing a movie you already know so well a new experience in itself. And both movies together — even better! Definitely one not to be missed. Four and a half stars.

It’s “fear the asylum seekers” time, as the screwy situations in the world lead to an influx of displaced people, and half of Australia rears its ugly and paranoid head again in fear of the other. The government is behaving reasonably well in the situation though, about as well as you could realistically hope for, while the Opposition is behaving exactly as pathetically xenophobic and politically opportunistic as you could believe.

Is the situation really hard to understand? Sure, people smuggling is not a good thing, for a whole host of reasons. It’s extremely exploitative and dangerous for the desperate people being smuggled, first and foremost. But asylum seekers are not the enemy, and never have been. They are scared, desperate people who will do anything to escape their previous situation.

Basically all current asylum seekers in our part of the world are from Sri Lanka, people from the Tamil minority, who’s half of the country was completely devastated earlier this year. Leaving the “who’s to blame?” for that to other arguments, it’s not at all surprising there have been many Tamils fleeing. And terribly obviously, it’s a local conflict that barely made a dent in the local media (both because the government there did minimise the reporting on it, but also because local media didn’t care enough), so too many people now have no idea why there would be so many people fleeing.

And so we have the local reaction. The Labor government is caught in the “must be tough” situation, like all governments here, with an electoral majority equal parts ignorant and intolerant of how these situations come about, but they’re going about it reasonably well: they’re not demonising the asylum seekers, they’re treating them humanely, and they’re doing it in conjunction with neighbours like Indonesia. Sure I’d like to see more compassion, but any party in power will only go so far in this country.

But the Opposition… my goodness. It’s almost too obvious, watching Turnbull’s desperate and pathetic lunge for old Howard policies, simultaneously trying to scare everyone with xenophobia while declaring it’s all Kevin Rudd’s fault somehow. Like he could have stopped the Sri Lankan civil war. I had a slight amount of respect for Turnbull recently, watching him battle the extreme idiots in his own party, trying to get some kind of engagement on climate change, instead of writing themselves into irrelevance with more old Howard obstructionism.

That’s out the window now as Turnbull desperate grabs for the racist idiot vote. Give it up Malcolm, Johnny Howard did it so much better than you, and it won’t work from Opposition anyway. The difference between the parties couldn’t be more stark again: the pragmatic and reasonably good versus the xenophobic and dated.

And remember, the asylum seekers are not the enemy here. They are the exploited, the threatened. The fact they desperately want to come here says something good about us. I wonder if they’re faith is justified of course, but it is what it is. What we really need to do of course is as much as possible to address refugee problems in countries like Sri Lanka before it becomes the serious problem we see now. Tamil refugees are everywhere now (dozens were found on a cargo ship heading for Canada recently).

We should be working there to help resettle people orderly as required, not lock them out. Australia takes its share, as will other countries. Then we freeze out the people smugglers and help the asylum seekers. That’s how you fix the problem.

Obama at the UN last month: this probably had something to do with it

… and Glen Beck’s head explodes. (While Rush Limbaugh fat gut explodes).

It was surprising news today… great news, but still surprising. There’s been some headshaking from all sides, but pleasant congratulations from anyone sane enough not to be a jerk (that includes John McCain, oddly enough)… but a lot of talk all the same.

I mean, the nice complaint is just to wonder if it’s too soon and not tied to enough achievements… while the insane response is, well just read them at TPM. Go you wacky wingnuts.

After some reading, I have a better idea of what it’s about, and while there’s a little bit of “he’s not Bush”, this is as much about promise and the future as about this year. Obama has made such a big change to world discourse, and changed the tone of everything in world diplomacy, that the Nobel committee just couldn’t ignore it. And as Obama has even said, it’s a “call to action”, rather than anything to rest on.

There’s also been talk about the nominations closing on February 1, just two weeks after his inauguration. But it’s clear that while he was nominated early, the vote is not until September/October, and it’s taken into account his many actions… like being the first US President to chair the UN security council in person, organising serious nuclear disarmament efforts, dealing with Russia in a new way, deals with Iran… and really, putting the position of the US in the right place with the world.

So that is partially “anti-Bush”, but also partially about taking the powerful entity that is the US, and getting its aim right again. Let’s hope he keeps it that way.

As a semi-regular Letterman viewer (thanks to Channel Ten here), it’s been an odd one reading about this whole Letterman/affairs/blackmail saga. Missed last week’s initial revelations due to it not being on until 1am, but checked out part two last night, and it was odd. Interesting but odd.

So he had some affairs. Not a newsflash really, as he does kind of seem the type, especially since he was unmarried for decades, and that only changed earlier this year. I presume these affairs ceased before his marriage, but even then it isn’t much of our business if they didn’t, but it would make sense. While his girlfriend and now wife was with him for 20 years, we don’t really know the situation of their relationship, or the stability. Totally between them of course. I can easily imagine though that a condition of their marriage might have been that such things ended. which again would make sense.

But then the blackmail thing, and the remarkably public way he’s handled it… well that was unexpected. On the one hand he’s such a public figure, but on the other hand he has been fairly private for such a well known name. Masterful media relations really, as being upfront about it has probably lessened or removed anby damage to him, which is smart. And he’s keeping the women out of it as much as possible, while really letting the accused blackmailer have it. I’ve already read the suggestion that it’s an uneven playing field, that Letterman can put his side out there every night while the accused can only do it in court, but really, who did this guy think he was up against? I’d say this is par for the course if you try and blackmail a major celebrity, something that seems like a fairly zero sum game to begin with anyway.

As for the fallout, well it’s already been asked iif Letterman risks hypocrasy over this, with so much of his humour being about other people’s infidelity. But really, he never condemned, just made jokes, and it’s clear he expects the same in return. All the other talkshows are on him now, and his routine last night was good, where he mocked going for Clinton, Spitzer and Sanford jokes and realised going there was pointless now.

Letterman’s schtick has always been heavily based on self mocking, so that skill will seriously help him now, and I wouldn’t expect that to change. He’s endless self-depricating, and will continue to be. As long as anything he did never involved any kind of coersion or other kind of boss-employee manipulation, I think people will let this slide, just as anyone sane did with Bill Clinton. All Letterman should get in return is good humoured mockery, and he’s already got a jump on us by laying plenty of that on himself.