Online Writer's festival

Hi, just a reminder for anyone with nothing to do today that the online writer's festival is on today. The next person on the forum is John Marsden at 1pm (Melbourne time), writer Kate Morton is on at 5 and Matthew Reilly (who is blissfully unaware of the fact that he is Martin's arch-nemesis) is on at 7. Then Rosemary Cantor (a UK agent) is on at 9. See The Australian Writer's Marketplace website for instructions on how to join up so you can attend. Full membership is about $50, quarterly membership is $25. There's discounts if you're a member of one of the state writer's centres. I've been to the morning sessions and will write more later.

Belinda Emmett

I didn't know her. I didn't follow her career. But the death of Belinda Emmett is very sad news and my heart goes out to her family, especially her husband Rove who has to learn to live without her and will have to find a way to grieve in the spotlight.
Love to all on this Sunday.

Linky Mclinks

Very short story competition here. 500 words, theme is 'inner city: anywhere, anytime'. Deadline 1 December.

For kids: storyline, a project by the screen actor's guild. See your favourite celebrities read picture books. Come on. Al Gore! Okay it's not all Al Gore, there's the Mum from Malcolm in the Middle (we love her) and the guy from West Wing who walks like a ballet dancer, um, Bradley Whitford, reading an Australian book Wilfred Gordon Macdoanld Partridge by Mem Fox (digression: see her discuss the book in an unusual way here). Lou Diamond Phillips reads The Polar Express...oh go look for yourself. It's such a nice idea, unfortunately the way its done is a wee bit cheesy with soft "storytelling" voices and plinkly music, and so the texts lack some of the energy and verve you would hope an experienced actor might bring to the reading of them. But Fred will probably quite like it all the same. I'm saving it up for a rainy day.

The Australian Writer's Marketplace

Click here to check out the new website for the Australian Writer's Marketplace, who have been around for years in book form, up to their 8th edition I think of a bumper book of publishers, magazines, competitions and other opportunities for writers in Australia. You can sign up for the free newsletter or get a paid subscription to find out about a wide range of publishing opportunities. They also have a blog called Speakeasy, which is still all new and fresh looking.

A good prod about the site will show that they are hosting an online writing festival. If you're not published and would like to be, or even if you are and have only a writer's understanding of the literary world, it looks like a good line up. I'm particularly intererested in Miss Snark whose blog is immensely useful and interesting. Plus how does someone with a surname like November end up being an editor and not a writer? It's a crying shame. Here's the scoop:

Online Writing Festival
13 November: Australia's biggest Online Writing Festival. Featuring authors John Marsden, Matthew Reilly and Kate Forsyth, as well as NY literary agent Miss Snark, Orbit Editorial Director Darren Nash, UK agent Rosemary Canter, and Penguin US editor Sharyn November.

I love memes

48 things you could care less about
1. First Name? Penelope, but you can call me Penni. Some people call me Nell.
2. Were you named after anyone? Nope, though my dad once had a dog called Penny. And as a child I was deeply fascinated by Penelope, wife of Odysseus/Ulysses and I think it's part of what sparked my interest in myth, Ancient History and stories.
3. When did you last cry? I got teary reading Fred a picture book the other day. The Potato People by Pamel Allen. It's sad - the grandmother is left all alone and you don't know why but you suspect something is amiss.
4. Do you like your handwriting? Yes, now I do. I used to be wildly experimental with it as a teen. I'm glad I dropped the p-h-a-t look and the circles over the 'i's.
5. What is your favourite lunchmeat? King Island smoked beef
6. If you were another person would you be friends with you? Yes, but I'd really give me the shits sometimes. (Am I allowed to swear? Oh yes, it's MY blog.)
7. Do you have a journal? Only inasmuch as I write a blog, which the world is allowed to poke about in.
8. Do you still have your tonsils? Yes.
9. Would you bungee jump? No.
10. What is your favourite cereal? I love a good homemade muesli, with dates and pecans, soaked overnight in organic pear juice (we don't do this very often!).
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Nope.
12. Do you think you are strong? Physically, not really, I'm all soft and noodly. But mentally and emotionally, yes.
13. What is your favourite ice-cream flavour? Passionfruit.
14. Shoe size? 6ish.
15. Red or pink? Pink roses. Red shoes.
16. What is the least favourite thing about yourself? The blobby bits. Actually the fact that I can't just accept and love the blobby bits.
17. Who do you miss most? I'd have loved my nanna to meet my little girls.
18. Do you want everyone to send this back to you? Nah.
19. What colour pants, shirt and shoes are you wearing? I'm wearing two different pyjamas - my purple snowflakes bottoms and Martin's blue chequered top. No shoes. Just toes.
20. Last thing you ate? Vegemite toast. Or Jemmamite, as it is called in this house.
21. What are you listening to right now? Fred's watching Beatrix Potter performed by the London Ballet, so I am listening to the music and to Fred dancing to it and occasionally saying 'look what I can do!'
22. If you were a crayon what colour would you be? I like to think something deep and mysterious like indigo but probably more like a ferny green. Or light brown.
23. Favourite smell? Roses. Mushrooms cooking with garlic. Fred and Una's hair. Easter eggs. My moisturiser (which smells like easter eggs). Their beer soap smells delicious too.
24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Um. Una!
25. The first thing you notice about people you are attracted to? Voice.
26. Do you like who you stole this off? Yes.
27. Favourite drink? Coffee.
28. Favourite sport? Um. I don't think I have one. Not that I hate sport, I recognise it's right to exist alongside me. But over there a bit. And round the corner. I always think if I did like sport it would be listening to the cricket on the radio. I like the idea of that, like if I was a painter or something, it would be nice to have on in the background.
29. Eye colour? Brown. Though Fred says my eyes are black.
30. Hat size? I don't know. My head appears to be in reasonable proportion to my body.
31. Do you wear contacts? Nope. Glasses.
32. Favourite food? It's kind of an in the moment thing (sometimes, mustardy green lentil salad, sometimes pannacotta...) but you can never go wrong with crusty bread and good cheese and maybe some olives.
33. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings
34. If you could live anywhere in the world where would that be? In a really big sprawling terrace house or Californian Bungalow in North Fitzroy, but I'd have a little stone house in Greece too.
35. Summer or winter? Summer. Though I also love Autumn.
36. Hugs or kisses? From who?
37. Favourite dessert? Pannacotta.
38. Who is most likely to respond? I don't know
39. Least likely to respond? Most of the known universe.
40. What books are you currently reading? The Memory of Running
41. What's on your mouse pad? I have one of those lap top things where you swirl your finger around, no mouse, no pad.
42. What did you watch on TV last night? Old Buffy episodes
43. Favourite sounds? An orchestra tuning up. Una 'talking', Fred's laugh. The postie's motorbike outside our house. The sound of a good friend's voice on the otehr end of the phone.
44. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Actually to be honest neither, though I know more Beatles songs.
45. The furthest you have been from home? Dunkeld, Scotland.
46. What's your special talent? I stared at this a long time and then I thought, oh yeah. I write books. But Einstein said something along the lines of: 'I don't have any special talent, I am just intensely curious.' I'm inclined to agree.
47. Where were you born? Battery Point, Hobart.
48. Who sent this to you? I stole it from Janet.

Making the most of a day's rain

Well, we so needed it, a rainy day, and Frederique was so happy to be able to put her PINK raincoat on and her Bill the Builder (she can't be convinced otherwise) gumboots on and run in the rain.

The orchids have exploded this year - it's the first year we've seen flowers since 2003 - they seem to like the inner north and the dry.

I've been rewriting my short story and an exegesis for university, and then I'm finished for the year. An exegesis must be about the most ridiculous academic exercise I've ever had to do, contextualising my own work in terms of the reading we've done this semester. Such an artificial and unrevealing process, it really says nothing about the story or the writing process and creates a sense that ideas come from one or two concrete sources, that writing is a deliberate act of conveying meaning, of articulating ideas through a fictional construct, when the imagination is actually a lot more freeform and a lot less traceable than that.

On Monday when I hand my essay in I am going to see Ben Highmore talk and then I'll be attending a workshop with him about researching the everyday. He's going to be talking about food. The abstract says:

Because food is often a focus of both racist reaction and cosmopolitan desires I theorise why food has been such a contested and viscerally active agent in the forming of multicultural Britain. Using 'sense studies', psychoanalysis, theories of affect, and cultural history I open-up popular cultural representations on to the histories of migration and the psycho-social dynamics of alimentary culture.

It's the first time I've been able to make use of the opportunities made available to PhD students because these seminars usually happen on days when I need to look after the girls. Geekily, I'm really looking forward to it.

Another reason not to watch television

You love something,
they take it away.