Title to come

Here’s the latest in my very infrequent newsletter on my publishing and related activities.
Infrequent is probably good.

The major thing since my last was the publication of the biography Drink Against Drunkenness: the life and times of Sasha Soldatow [Link to D.A.D on my website] again using Local Time Publishing as the imprint. (LTP was set up initially to re-publish my out-of-print back list in print-on-demand paper editions; I added a couple of new titles. Link )
When eventually I decided to self-publish the biography a crowd-funding campaign for set-up costs including the designer’s fee raised the goal in two days. (Thank you again, donors.) Beyond-goal funds were useful for a launch in Sydney at Kinselas on 19 October 2022 (link to YouTube video of the launch), and in Melbourne at the Harehole on 19 November 22 (video to come). 

At both joyous occasions Christos Tsiolkas launched the book, paying tribute to Sasha’s importance for his own writing and publishing. At the Sydney launch Jonny Hawkins performed some of Sasha’s poems from the Rock’n’roll Sally sequence, adding to the pleasure and surprise of the night—  such an empathetic, spirited (can I say camp?) response to Sasha’s work from a much younger artist.
Thanks galore to all who helped make the biography take up pages in the book—the people I interviewed, heroic editor Bruce Sims, all of you.
Fresh thanks today to everyone who has written kind responses to the book.
I created a page at FaceBook for the biography. News and comments to be posted here from time to time. (I haven’t figured out how to let other people post there without the page getting miles of spam.)

events

I spoke about the biography on a panel of old-timers called "We Were Here" at the Enqueer festival in November

and at an "in conversation" with Nadia Wheatley at Garden Lounge Newtown in December.

I spoke about Drink Against Drunkenness on the Queer View Mirror program on Radio 2SER

reviews

First review of the book fittingly was in the Star Observer, online here.
In the Weekend Australian, Drink Against Drunkenness was written of enthusiastically in Caroline Overington’s column view here  

Tony Preece wrote about the biography in his Godless Traveller blog, view here

First major review coming in Australian Book Review

there could be more reviews
Where, for example? I encourage you to write a review of the biography or persuade someone you know to do it.  Be in touch for a review copy.

bookshops

I don’t have a distributor so have been inviting independent bookshops to order the book.
Bookshops that hold Drink Against Drunkenness are listed on the Facebook page.
Please do ask your bookshop to order it (yes even if you already have a copy, go on).
You’ll need ISBN 978-0-646-86685-7
Maybe also tell your bookshop they order from IngramSpark/Lightning Source
(Sorry to learn bookshops don’t offer to order it when someone asks if they have it.)

libraries

Drink Against Drunkenness is now listed with library suppliers.
Please do suggest your local and university library order the book (… yes even if you do own a copy).
ISBN  978-0-646-86685-7

A deal!

a copy of the biography for $25 + postage

Until 7 March 2023 I offer a copy of Drink Against Drunkenness for $25 plus postage ($9.70 within Australia for one or two copies). Send me an email with “order biography” in subject line.
(If you want any other Local Time Publishing titles tell me, I usually have some on hand.)

Turn Left at Venus — latest

Meanwhile, about my previous book, the novel Turn Left at Venus, published by Transit Lounge in 2019 (more about that here on my website and in the previous newsletter) … Reviews were great but few. It has taken this long but an insightful essay on aspects of the novel by Harper Boon and Leigh Dale has just been published in JASAL Vol. 22 No. 2 (2022). That link takes you to a page with a link to the PDF of the piece. The abstract reads:

>>The work of Australian writer Inez Baranay is read in the light of Stephen Orgel’s assertion that ‘If readers construct books, books also construct readers,’ and a parallel remark by Elizabeth Webby, that the ‘life/fiction opposition is too simple: the values people act upon in life may, in fact, be derived from novels they have read.’ While making some reference to Baranay’s career as a whole, our focus is the 2019 novel Turn Left at Venus (2019), a structurally complex book about a (fictional) writer of science fiction whose most renowned work is titled Turn Left At Venus. The essay argues that, in reflecting on the making of literary values among those in the book industry, in scholarly environs, and general readers (particularly fans), reading Turn Left at Venus prompts questions about the role of gender, sexuality, cultural and linguistic difference, travel, and genre, as they shape the valuing of books and writers in Australia.<<

The writers will discuss other aspects of this novel in another essay; Newsblog on my website will have the link when it's out.

I wrote about writing Turn Left at Venus here

what’s next

New work is in progress. It’s mostly set in pre-Independence India and I have to do a great big lot of reading for it. Have planned a research trip to India in March 2023. I’ll be giving some lectures and talks at universities in Delhi and Udaipur, and spending a month at a writers’ retreat. More about that next time.  

what's old

As I usually [in these newsletters] tell you about 2 of my previous books, this time I choose my previous 2 India novels, both first published in India. Available from Lulu or send me an e to have a copy sent to you