Latest news with #MilesFranklin
ABC News
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Michelle de Kretser wins 2025 Stella Prize for Theory & Practice, her genre-busting seventh novel
Michelle de Kretser, one of Australia's most decorated authors, has won the 2025 Stella Prize, worth $60,000, for her novel Theory & Practice. It's a case of third time lucky for the Sri Lankan-born author, who has been twice shortlisted for the Stella, a literary award for women and non-binary writers established in 2013. (That year, Questions of Travel was shortlisted and The Life to Come followed in 2018. Both novels went on to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award). Theory & Practice follows an unnamed narrator in her 20s studying for a postgraduate degree and living a bohemian life in grungy St Kilda. Much conjecture has been made regarding just how autobiographical the novel is. Is it memoir? Is it autofiction? And does the distinction matter? De Kretser doesn't think so. "It doesn't seem to me like the most interesting question you could ask about the book," she tells ABC Arts. But the fact that the novel has left readers guessing what is fact and what is fiction is a testament to its success. "I succeeded in doing what I set out to do, which is to write a novel that doesn't read like a novel; that reads like fact, like life captured on the wing," de Kretser says. The novel opens with what turns out to be a fragment of what de Kretser calls "conventional fiction": a young Australian geologist, travelling in Switzerland in 1957, daydreams about a beguiling music teacher he met in London. But then, on page 12, the narrator suddenly intercedes in the story: "At that point, the novel I was writing stalled." What follows reads like a memoir as de Kretser uses forms associated with non-fiction, such as letters, diaristic prose and essays, to create the sense of verisimilitude. The candid authorial voice written in the first person makes it easy to forget that Theory & Practice is a work of fiction — and that was the point. "I was drawing all the time on the techniques of non-fiction to write fiction. I think that is something that isn't done very often," de Kretser says. "It was deliberate, to make people think this is truth; this is reality. Of course, anyone who knows me knows that my life is different from the life that's described in [the novel]. But of course, most readers don't know me." Through the narrator, de Kretser signposts her intention early on: "I was discovering that I no longer wanted to write novels that read like novels. Instead of shapeliness and disguise, I wanted a form that allowed formlessness and mess. It occurred to me that one way to find that form might be to tell the truth." Adding to the illusion of realism is the cover, which features a photo of de Kretser, taken in 1986, above the words, "The new novel". "I think this is very clever of the designer [WH Chong] because what that is saying is, 'Here is a photo of a real person, but it's only a representation of reality,'" she says. De Kretser likens the effect to that of René Magritte's famous 1929 painting of a pipe titled The Treachery of Images, also known as This Is Not a Pipe. "[The message is] the representation of reality in art is not reality," de Kretser says. "It mimics it." Given her reading list at the start of the semester, the narrator discovers in her time away from study "French post-structuralist theory — Theory — had conquered the humanities". Suddenly, she had to read "texts" (not books) in a completely new way. "Theory … posited that meaning was unstable and endlessly deferred." De Kretser has drawn on her own experience in 80s academia. "Being at Melbourne Uni in the 1980s, where capital-T post-structuralist Theory absolutely ruled the roost, at least in the English department, I was interested in how one applied theory to literary practice," de Kretser told ABC Radio National's The Book Show. The novel explores the "messy gap" between the two in many facets of life, as it relates to Israeli military strategy or university social dynamics. But it's a tension that plays out most dramatically in the narrator's romantic life. As a feminist, she believes she shouldn't feel emotions like anger and jealousy towards other women. But when her ex leaves her for the "smart, good-looking, outspoken" Lois, her rage is directed towards the woman rather than her ex. Later, when she embarks on an affair with an engineering student named Kit, she feels only a mix of triumph and scorn when she thinks about his girlfriend Olivia, highlighting the gulf between the idealism of feminist solidarity and the messiness of real-life relationships. De Kretser says these kinds of conflicted feelings are fertile ground for fiction. "It reveals the gap between [the narrator's] values and her ideals — she's a feminist — and her practice: what's going on in her life, where she constructs the other woman … as a rival and is jealous of her. "It makes her a multifaceted, complex character and speaks to the novel's theme of theory and practice." Theory & Practice is also in conversation with the late fiction of Virginia Woolf, whom de Kretser describes as a "towering" literary figure. "She did adventurous things with form, but she also theorised women's lives, famously in A Room of One's Own," she says. "And then she lived a very unconventional life herself [as] part of the Bloomsbury set." The narrator of Theory & Practice is writing her thesis on Woolf's 1937 novel, The Years. "In her original idea for that novel, Woolf intended to write a fictional chapter followed by an essay, fictional chapter followed by an essay [and so on]," de Kretser says. "She wrote about 100,000 words along those lines and then abandoned it. I don't exactly know why, but I'm guessing it was just too schematic for Woolf. "But I liked that idea; I thought, 'OK, that's something I could take up.' I didn't like the very rigid structure of fiction, non-fiction, fiction, non-fiction; I thought you could mix that up a bit." Taking her cue from Woolf, de Kretser settled on a hybrid form that blends fiction, essay and memoir. But while Theory & Practice offers a homage to Woolf, it's also a critique. The novel shows Woolf as a flawed figure. Reading Woolf's diaries, the narrator comes across a 1917 entry describing EW Perera, a leading member of the Sri Lankan independence movement, as a "poor little mahogany-coloured wretch". It's a moment of intense disappointment for the narrator, who views the modernist writer as a sort of maternal figure: her "Woolfmother". De Kretser says she wanted to explore our relationships with figures we admire, such as Woolf, who don't live up to our expectations. "How do we deal with that?" she asks. "Woolf, a brilliant theorist of women's lives, seeing how women under patriarchy are oppressed, simply could not extend that view to thinking about how colonial people were oppressed, for instance, even though she was married to a man who had served in the empire and was an anti-imperialist. Stella CEO Fiona Sweet describes de Kretser's winning novel as "another example of the depth of her talent as a writer". In their report, the 2025 Stella Prize judges described it as "a brilliantly auto fictive knot, composed of the shifting intensities and treacheries of young love, of complex inheritances both literary and maternal, of overwhelming jealousies and dark shivers of shame". In 2025, the Stella Prize received more than 180 entries. It was the first year the Stella shortlist featured books exclusively by women of colour. De Kretser says she's thrilled to have finally won the prize.
Scroll.in
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
A new UK publisher will focus on books by men. Are male writers and readers really under threat?
A new publisher, Conduit Books, founded by UK novelist and critic Jude Cook, will focus on publishing literary fiction and memoirs by men: at least initially. Conduit is currently seeking its launch title, 'preferably a debut novel by a male UK novelist under 35'. It aims to publish three books a year from 2026. Diminishing attention is now paid to male authors, Cook feels, creating a need for 'an independent publisher that champions literary fiction by men'. This argument has been made closer to home [in Australia] too. Earlier this year, Australian poet and fiction writer Michael Crane bemoaned the diminishing space and attention for male authors, claiming to be unfairly overlooked as a white male author over 50. Prizes, working writers and sales While more focused on age than gender, Crane noted, 'most books published locally are by women'. He also argued that female writers have recently come to dominate the Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist. There is some truth in this: since 2012, the year the Stella Prize was founded, there have been 12 women winners of the Miles Franklin and just one man. In the equivalent preceding period (1999–2011), there were ten men and three women. So, there has been a change – even a flip – in the past decade or so. That said, older male authors have historically been overrepresented in literary culture, both within Australia and globally. The shift seems, in part, a correction. Last year's overall top ten bestseller list in Australia reads similarly: seven titles were authored by women. Two of these, ranked first and second, were RecipeTin Eats cookbooks by Nagi Maehashi. In the UK, too, female authors are increasingly dominating publishing lists and the space and attention for male authors has dwindled. New and established male authors lack the 'cultural buzz' associated with female authors like Sally Rooney, who have arguably captured the literary zeitgeist, wrote literary critic Johanna Thomas-Corr in the Guardian. On the other hand, in the period when Australia's leading literary prize had 12 women and one male winner (2012–24), the Booker Prize was still narrowly dominated by men, with eight male and six female winners. (Two women, Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood, shared the 2019 prize.) And in the US during that period, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was heavily dominated by men, with nine male and four female winners. (The 2023 prize was shared between Barbara Kingsolver and Hernan Diaz.) The 2025 Pulitzer Prize for fiction winner is Percival Everett, for James. Do men need better stories? While Cook's project has its sceptics, it seems well-intentioned. As Cook notes, current conversations around toxic masculinity make it more important than ever to 'pay attention to what young men are reading'. Other commentators have argued the decline of male authors and readers is a cause for concern, too. In recent months, Las Vegas English professor David J Morris argued in the New York Times that dwindling interest in literary fiction represents emotional, cultural and educational regression among men in the United States. He notes women readers now account for about 80% of US fiction sales. The alienated, disaffected young men who have been drawn to the 'manosphere' and contributed to Trump's second election win 'need better stories – and they need to see themselves as belonging to the world of storytelling'. He makes a good case for the importance of literary fiction in developing emotional intelligence – and that the decline in male readership is therefore troubling. Cook seems to agree: he believes important narratives and voices are being overlooked. He is keen to publish novels and stories that focus on fatherhood, masculinity, working-class life, relationships and other topics that relate to 'navigating the 21st century as a man'. He stresses, however, that Conduit Books is not taking an 'adversarial stance'. It will 'not exclude writers of colour, or queer, non-binary and neurodivergent authors'. Women read more than men A February 2025 Australia Reads survey indicates 'avid readers' (who regularly start new books and read daily) are predominantly women, whereas 'ambivalent readers' and 'uninterested non-readers' were far more likely to be men. Furthermore, recent research suggests there is still a significant gender bias in male reading habits. Men made up less than 20 per cent of the readership for the top ten bestselling titles by female authors, Nielsen Bookscan data revealed in 2023. Conversely, the readership for bestselling titles by male authors was more evenly split: 56 per cent men and 44 per cent women. Women, on balance, read far more than men do, and are much more willing to read books by men than men are to read books by women. It would be fair to say all writers of literary fiction are largely dependent on a predominantly female audience – and have been for a long time. Back in 2005, when male writers were not exactly underrepresented in the literary marketplace, UK novelist Ian McEwan embarked on an experiment. Seeking to clear out some shelf space, he took a stack of novels to a nearby park and attempted to give them away to passersby. The free books were happily accepted by women, but he failed to give away a single title to a man. McEwan gloomily concluded: 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead'. Publishing and demand Cook believes works by men that grapple with themes especially relevant to male readers are 'not being commissioned' in the current literary environment. A 2020 diversity study reported 78 per cent of editorial staff in the UK are women (though the same study indicates just under half of senior management roles in publishing are still occupied by men). An anonymous male publisher told the Guardian a few years ago, 'the exciting writing is coming from women right now', but this was 'because there aren't that many men around. Men aren't coming through.' Another publisher, from literary imprint Serpent's Tail, said: 'If a really good novel by a male writer lands on my desk, I do genuinely say to myself, this will be more difficult to publish.' Sales figures seem to back this. The Guardian calculated, based on figures from the Bookseller, that 629 of the 1,000 bestselling fiction titles from 2020 were written by women, with 341 authored by men (27 were co-authored by men and women, and three were by non-binary writers). Of course, many still read the historical literary canon, which is overwhelmingly male. Cook seems to argue that men are now less interested in literary fiction because there are fewer contemporary male authors, and they attract less commentary and acclaim. But it is just as likely that female authors have become more prominent because women are consistently more engaged with literary fiction – and the publishing market is simply adapting to cater to its principal audience. Can we bring back male readers? So will publishing and promoting more men bring back male readers? Or does this just amount to a demand that the overwhelmingly female audience for literary fiction should pay more attention to male authors? As literary critic Thomas-Corr notes, regardless of authorship, a lot of men couldn't give a toss about fiction, especially literary fiction. They have video games, YouTube, nonfiction, podcasts, magazines, Netflix. Male writers are still well represented in these media, so perhaps it may be as or more important to devote serious attention to their narratives and storytelling practices. Novels aren't, after all, the only engines for emotional intelligence or empathy. Cook's initiative will at the very least create more discussion around the growing absence of male authors and readers in literary spaces, and will probably ensure the first few titles published by Conduit Press will be received with interest. But given contemporary reading demographics, it seems reasonable to expect male authors will occupy an increasingly niche space in literary publishing.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Student apartment building in Hyattsville deemed ‘unfit for human habitation'
HYATTSVILLE, Md. () — An apartment building in Hyattsville that is home to students from area colleges is in hot water. It's been days since Vie Towers has had water or electricity that powers elevators, among other things. The City of Hyattsville said students should find other places to stay, calling the building 'unfit for human habitation,' and threatening $500 fines each day the building does not meet city code. Fans excited as Maryland men's, women's basketball teams head to NCAA Tournament Students who live there, many of whom attend Howard University but some of whom attend the University of Maryland, told DC News Now their latest commutes to class begins with dozens of flights of stairs. The stairwell has a flickering light that Nijile Young, who lives there, said 'looks kind of crazy.' 'It's very inconvenient especially if you're trying to catch a shuttle to class,' the Howard University student said. 'I really need them to fix the problem because I can't keep commuting to campus just to find somewhere to take a shower or use a bathroom.' A spokesperson for the city told DC News Now the building's management is aware of the problems and working to fix them. The city will send inspectors to the building on Wednesday to see the work that has been done. Hundreds in Prince George's County attend Empower-Her Global Business Summit In the meantime, Howard University student Miles Franklin and his girlfriend packed up and left for a hotel. 'I'm just paying for it because I have to,' he said. 'I need somewhere to take a shower. I mean, the electricity is not working. The Wi-Fi is not on, so I can't do my schoolwork.' David Henderson, who's in town on his spring break visiting his girlfriend, said more needs to be done.'The fact that they haven't at least given us shelter in a different hotel or something like that is really disappointing,' he said. President Trump decides not to move FBI to Prince George's County The city is not mandating anyone leave the building, just suggesting if they can find alternative housing, they should. DC News Now reached out to Vie Towers management to ask about the progress of their work but did not hear back in time for publication. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Guardian
27-01-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘It will be dire for readers': the disappearing voices of Australia's independent publishers
The world of Australian publishing got smaller last week – and the industry fears it is bad news for lovers of literary fiction, and for those who want to write it. Fresh concerns for the health of the Australian novel have arisen after one of the world's behemoth publishers bought Text Publishing Company after more than three decades of independence. Text's publisher would not disclose how much the acquisition by Penguin Random House was worth to its owners, Michael Heyward and his wife Penny Hueston, and Maureen and Tony Wheeler. But industry insiders were in almost unanimous agreement the sale was a sign of the rocky times book publishers are facing. 'Independent publishing is in a position where it is struggling to financially continue,' Sophie Cunningham, the chair of the Australian Society of Authors, warned. 'A whole lot of small businesses face going under or having no choice but to merge.' Forced to compete in an ever-increasingly crowded entertainment and leisure market, the book sector is also facing soaring production costs due to inflation and a low supply of paper. According to Nielsen BookScan, the Australian book market was down 3% in value and 1.2% in volume in 2024 compared to the year before. Cookbooks, self-help books and novels by American authors now dominate the bestselling lists in Australia, and the only Australian author to make it into the top 10 in 2024 was Liane Moriarty. Creators of Australian literary fiction – the intellectual high end of pleasure reading – have witnessed the merging of three independents into larger companies in almost as many months. The 'big five' – Penguin Random House, Hachette, Allen & Unwin, Harper Collins and Pan Macmillan – now own more than 70% of the Australian book publishing industry. There are concerns about how this market concentration may affect the rich diversity of voices found within Australian literature. 'It's deeply concerning,' said Cunningham. 'The constriction of the industry has reached the point that it's become harder and harder for new Australian writers to get published or sell books.' Independent publishing houses such as Text have long punched above their weight in Australian literary fiction, especially when it comes to collecting prestigious literary prizes such as the Miles Franklin and the Stella. 'The landscape is changing rapidly … effectively, what this announcement means for us is one less publisher we can submit to,' said Fiona Inglis, managing director of Sydney's Curtis Brown literary agency. 'Contraction of the market is never good for writers, and in the long run it will be dire for Australian readers,' said Melbourne agent Jacinta di Mase. 'Independent publishers have always been able to take risks and successfully publish books that the multi-national companies could not – or will not – publish.' It is this risk-taking approach on the part of independent publishers, di Mase said, that has created an incredibly diverse, responsive, radical and innovative publishing ecosystem that reaches the broadest possible readership. Announcing the acquisition last Wednesday, Heyward said Text had secured a charter of independence with Penguin Random House. 'While PRH is now the owner of the business, we will continue to do what we've always done … we will run our own show,' he told the Guardian. But the literary agents the Guardian spoke to expressed some scepticism over how ironcast that charter might prove to be. 'I'm old enough to remember when McPhee Gribble was bought by Penguin,' said veteran agent Lyn Tranter, owner of Australian Literary Management. Text's media release of Wednesday bore a disturbing resemblance to the one she recalled reading in 1983. 'It will remain the same, nothing will change, we will continue to publish their cutting-edge titles,' said Tranter. 'And five years later – zip. No more McPhee Gribble.' Benython Oldfield, the Sydney-based director of Zeitgeist Agency, told the Guardian: 'For all the hope that [Text] will remain independent, they now have global overlords who will be asking daily questions about sales and sales projections.' 'That is a tough place to be after running your own show.' But one of the people who forged Text publishing into existence in 1990 is far more optimistic. Crikey publisher Eric Beecher dismissed concerns that Text would be beholden to offshore shareholders with little interest in developing and preserving diverse Australian literary voices. 'You have to be financially viable to survive, and whatever creative aspirations you have – or aspirations to be independent or to support the culture of the country in which you operate – if you can't make it financially viable, then you don't exist,' he said. 'It's an inevitable outcome but a good one, because it ensures the survival of the Text imprint.' Almost as sanguine is publishing stalwart Richard Walsh, a former director of Text media and now a commissioning editor for Allen & Unwin. 'It's good for Michael [Heyward]. It's good for Text authors, but is it good for the ecosystem? 'Clearly it narrows the field, but then who's not to know that something new might arise somewhere else? 'Publishing is like a rainforest. Trees fall down, and when they do, they open up sunlight. New trees grow in the space the old tree occupied … it's a very natural process.' Walsh's fecund rainforest analogy becomes a scorched earth scenario when speaking to Monash University academic Ben Eltham, one of the organisers of the Save Our Arts campaign, formed earlier this month to pressure policy changes to protect Australian arts and culture in the lead-up to the federal election. Two of the three takeovers the Australian publishing sector has witnessed in recent months – the other being Simon & Schuster's acquisition of Melbourne independent publisher Affirm, reflect a trend already evident in the Australian music industry, he said. With multinational takeovers and mergers over the past decades, Australia's six major record labels have condensed into three. The result? The appearance of an Australian act on the Australian top 40 charts is an exception rather than a rule. 'Publishing isn't a great money maker – like a lot of other cultural businesses, they're not that great surviving in the ruthless private sector,' Eltham said. '[Publishing] belongs under a nonprofit model with some appropriate government support. A little bit of grant funding here and there is just not going to cut it, the government needs to intervene in the cultural economy in a meaningful way.' Eltham accuses dominant booksellers such as Amazon and Big W of predatory pricing, driving the wholesale price of books down to the point where publishers and writers barely break even on most titles, necessitating the mergers and acquisitions the sector is now witnessing. A spokesperson from Amazon said its focus was 'on offering customers competitive prices, vast selection, fast delivery, and the most convenient shopping experience possible'. A Big W spokesperson said the company was making books affordable and accessible to as many Australian families as possible. 'The families that shop with us have come to trust us for having everything from new releases to classics all year round,' the statement said. 'We work closely with our publishing partners to ensure our range delivers the variety and value our customers have come to expect.' In Europe, many countries have fixed pricing laws that prevent dominant players from discounting first editions of any book published. In anti-price fixing Australia, where even cultural product is not immune to anticompetitive regulation, there are no such protections. Cunningham agrees. 'The absolute globalisation of this industry, the squeezing of all costs out of it, it becomes almost impossible for people to make money – writers, publishers, editors. These companies put downward pressure on the entire market. 'I don't think this is something the Australian government is interested in fixing. I suppose you would call it protectionism which has become a dirty word here. But the implications are that we will lose Australian culture in the process.'
