Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: editor

  • The Returns

    The Returns

    The storyline in this simple and yet complex voyage into the real world of middle age, is one that winds about the psyche until it spins its web of beauty, capturing the imagination, as Trevor and Elizabeth each evolve into intricate people, with backstories that have contributed to the manner in which they live their lives; slowly, repressed and almost regressive.

    The Returns is a complex novel of humanity, loss, grief, loneliness and eventual deep friendship, built on a slow acceptance of each other’s frailties, a deep need for acceptance and an eventual non-threatening, gentle style of love.

    Slow, and yet because of the slower metre, the words used by Philip Salom resonate deep within the human spirit, often somewhat tongue in cheek, which certainly helps lighten, what could all to easily become a somewhat depressing read.

    Trevor spends his days as the owner of a bookshop in inner city Melbourne, accepting his life is fast unravelling, yet again, but not really knowing what to do about making changes, or even wanting to. His lethargy is great. He is very lonely.

    Elizabeth is a freelance book editor who has a room to rent. She almost collapses outside Trevor’s bookshop, reluctantly admitting she is feeling faint but is OK. She returns later to post a notice for a room to rent in his shop window. Feisty and seeped deep in denial and guilt, she has become solitary and very lonely.

    The room to rent is the catalyst they have both been seeking, which very, very slowly brings a rare and beautiful thing to both their lives; friendship and acceptance, and possibly even a gentle kind of love.

    As the characters reveal their layers, of which there are many, the real beauty of Salom’s writing becomes apparent, as he shows a rich and deep understanding of how the many twists and turns that life offers up, create changes that often seem irreversible, but with the right circumstances and good dose of courage, can be the basis of a fresh new world.

    The Returns is a very different read, gentle and almost unassuming, but will leave a lasting impression as it deals with the reality of life, living and moving on, with a very gentle, kind and understanding acceptance.

  • A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, a literary life, 2nd Edition

    A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, a literary life, 2nd Edition

    Originally written some twenty years ago, A Certain Style has now been reissued, presenting in the author Jacqueline Kent’s words ‘something of time capsule, a salute to a time in literary history that has gone’.

    Beatrice Davis was a woman who in so many ways, was unique for her time in the heady years of book publishing in Australia.   Born in 1909, her father Edward was a lawyer, her mother Emily, came from a Sydney family of great style, but very little money.

    Growing up in a family who were ‘bookish’ she grew into a young woman who was well read, intelligent and very sure of who she was as a woman, in a world that was dominated by men, but a world that was changing rapidly. Her love of literature and her academic abilities saw her earn a place at the University of Sydney to study Arts. The straightened family circumstances after her father’s death, saw her apply for a scholarship to teachers’ college, which came with a small financial allowance and had the fees paid. Beatrice became a secondary schoolteacher earning some much-needed money to support the family.

    From her early days at University she developed her own style, a style which was to become her trade mark as she moved from teacher to secretary and eventually into the world of publishing, becoming a book editor with the then massive publishing company of Angus and Robertson, thanks to her association with Mervyn Archdale, with whom she worked and her friendship with Fredrick Bridges.

    Over the many years of her colourful life she became a woman who was revered, feared, respected and in many ways adored by her suitors and authors, of which there were a few or many, depending on who you talked with, for her flamboyant, intellectual lifestyle and ability to be able to dissect an author’s work to create a book which would sell.

    The heady days of publishing in this slow and thorough style, where the author and the editor would develop a relationship which could in many instances last for years, have long since disappeared to make way for mass marketing, something which Beatrice found incomprehensible.

    Jacqueline Kent has created a masterful manuscript in re-creating the life and times of Beatrice Davis, a woman who lived her life to the fullest, rose to become one of the most influential women in the world of book publishing in Sydney, listing amongst her friends and associates many of the more colourful, influential and intellectual men of the time.

    She was one of the first judges of the famous Miles Franklin Award, a role she carried out well into her later years, setting the standard for what she considered ‘constituted good Australian writing’. Her legacy lives on through the medium of her vision for Australian literature, always pressing the point that good writing has to go further than the medium of storytelling, to explore ways of writing that that dominate and transform their subject matter.

    After a long period of ill health, she died peacefully in her sleep on 24 May 1992, a woman who set the benchmark high at a time when literature in Australia was still in its infancy. Many a book editor who learned their craft during the later years of Beatrice Davis life may still ask the question when pondering a difficult manuscript, ‘What would Beatrice have done?’ Her legacy will live on long into the future through the Miles Franklin Awards, and a travelling fellowship for editors named after her.

    A Certain Style is a wonderful, warm, rich and totally enjoyable biography about an undoubted lady once referred to by her long-time friend Hal Porter as ‘always being attracted to the devil in the basement’ while novelist D’Arcy Niland summed her up as ‘a gentlewoman… and she’s a little beaut, too!’

    A Certain Style is a work of love and respect well worth the reading, as it offers so many insights not just into the world of Beatrice Davis, and publishing in Australia, but a lifestyle which has passed, as so much does into the realms of history, but formed the basis for what is now modern-day Australia, with a literary legacy that rates up amongst the top authors in the world.

  • How to Be Writer

    How to Be Writer

    So you think you want to be a writer! You are convinced that the words you write will be a best seller that you are inspired, but all you need to do is find the time to write this epic book.

    Well, before you commence this incredible novel, and if you are a rank beginner at placing words on a page, or even if you have been dabbling about the edges of the craft for some time, by following the many, many tips and hints offered by John Birmingham, you may be the next Stephen King, possibly ‘smash those dreaded deadlines, crush editors under a torrent of words and maybe even live in a solid gold hovercraft’! Who knows until the final word has been written, the editing done and the book released!

    John Birmingham started his craft as a ‘freelancer’, grubbing out a meagre existence writing columns and articles for a range of magazines. Freelancing sounds like a glamourous way to write and earn a living but the reality is a bit more sobering; it is hard work, your words may or may not get printed, your money is not always guaranteed and in today’s world of rapid information, internet and so forth, freelancers have a very torrid time selling words.

    Birmingham rose to acclaim when his first novel, He Died With A Falafel In His Hand, was published in 1994, quickly rising up the best seller list. He has gone one to become a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction books, several of which have been turned into plays, movies and graphic novels.

    So when he writes a book like How To Be A Writer, sit up and take notice.

    As you read your way through the chapters you will begin to realise, in amongst the various language styles used, there is so much fact, so much information, that has been road tested by Birmingham, as he too was learning his craft, that if you are serious, you will take this information to heart, study it over and over again, then spend the time honing your skills.

    The topics covered  may be considered Ho Hum, but the reality is they are anything but as they look at getting noticed, establishing a routine to write, which by the way is very necessary, regardless of what you are writing, using technology to your advantage, promoting and pitching your skills, tenacity, which is most essential as you will get more putdowns than accolades, the ability to keep on going even when the cause looks hopeless, he calls it bravery and it is, and most importantly write, and keep on writing. And so very much more.

    As Birmingham says, success cannot be guaranteed, but by putting yourself at the ‘very centre of the human story, it is there the storyteller lives’ (sic).

    So if you are serious, are determined to crash through the obstacle course to getting published and actually selling and making money from your craft, treat this a little like the bible of how to, treasure it and wear out the pages as you refer to that hint or tip over and over again, but most importantly, learn to never, ever give up!