South Australian authors are encouraged to enter the Arts SA Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award. The winning entrant receives a cash prize and publication of their manuscript. Submissions must be received by Friday 15 December. MORE INFORMATION HERE
Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell
Alison Whitelock dreamed of shooting her father with a sawn-off shotgun. Her brother planned to use the longest knife in the cutlery drawer, and her mother tried to poison him with out-of-date tranquillisers. This wee book is a bittersweet account of growing up in Scotland in the strange and brutal kingdom we call home. But Poking Seaweed with a Stick is anything but a tale of childhood suffering; it is an enchanted Scottish tale that will have you smiling through your tears and laughing till you cry.
And My Heart Crumples Like a Coke Can
Raw and beautiful and completely devoid of pretension, Ali Whitelock's poems will speak to anyone who's ever messed up, been confused, wished they'd done things differently; to anyone who's had an affair and regretted it, who's been loved completely but was too blind to see it.
The Lactic Acid in the Calves of Your Despair
Political, profound, profane. These poems of defiant disobedience crash through the barriers erected to keep us contained. Writing with humour and tenderness, Ali Whitelock takes us through the parched landscape of life, death, love, fear, regret and the unbearable sadness of losing a dog.
A Brief Letter to the Sea About a Couple of Things
Ali Whitelock's poems are bold, loud and heartbreaking. They howl and they ache, they hoot and they pine, they curl up with the sea urchins, sing to the starfish, waltz with the seahorses - they sleep with the moon.
Ambulances and Dreamers creates a world where people search for the thing they need the most - love, music, food or each other. It's a book for the disappointed and the desolate in all of us. In Every Time You Close Your Eyes Bel Schenk tells the story of disparate characters sharing New York City through two blackouts. Through a blunt poetic style infused with subtle irony and a tact for laying down a soul ... Schenk adheres to people wanting to connect, with each other and with themselves. Every Time You Close Your Eyes is a work of intense atmospheric enquiry.
Jack's Daughter: Growing up during World War II was tough, especially if you lived on the wrong side of the mines that divided the Silver City of Broken Hill. If you were a girl? And German? You needed plenty of spirit!
Broken Hill had a spirit all its own: smart enough to exclude outsiders from the big bucks; strong enough to stop miners drinking beer for months when there was a point to be made; stubborn enough to force cinemas to lift their game. Tough housewives dictated the prices shops could charge. Beneath it all lay the cruelty of war. And a secret. ...
Silver Lies, Golden Truths: Reinhold (Jack) Schuster was an illegal German immigrant. A trained soldier in the German Armeekorps, he sat out both world wars in the Australian outback of Broken Hill. Jack's story debunks the myth that salutes the mining town as the birthplace of solidarity - by exposing divisiveness, prejudice and powerlessness. ...
Cars are a central feature of life in remote Aboriginal communities. Far from spare parts and sophisticated tools, bush mechanics keep cars running with what is available in the bush, including mulga wood, spinifex and sand. And while the increasing complexity of modern cars poses a challenge, even today the best tool available to travellers in Central Australia is the ingenuity of the bush mechanic. ...
In Great Central State, Jack Cross tells the story of South Australia's ambitious - or foolhardy - plan to become the premier colony of Australia using its own unique experience in planned colonisation, and its bid to develop the north coast as an integral part of South-East Asia. ...
Journey with Stuart Traynor to the heart of the country to learn the diverse history of Alice Springs, then traverse the east coast with witty German traveller Friedrich Gerstäcker's 1800s travelogue, Australia. Reminisce about the good 'ol days with Jill Roe as she explores the Eyre Peninsula in Our Fathers Cleared the Bush and, finally, take a walk along the picturesque paths of the West Terrace Cemetery with Carol Lefevre in Quiet City.
Flight to Fame: Flight to Fame, a classic adventure story, tells the hair-raising tale of the world-first flight from England to Australia, in the words of the pilot, (Sir) Ross Smith.
In March 1919, Australia's prime minister announced a prize of £10,000 for the first successful flight from Great Britain to Australia in under 30 days. Late that same year, the victorious pilots, Ross and Keith Smith, landed in Darwin to international acclaim. The New York Times gushed: 'Captain Ross Smith has done a wonderful thing for the prestige of the British Empire. He must be hailed as the foremost living aviator.' Their achievement was the forerunner to the age of international air travel. ...
Long Flight Home: The First World War is over and air mechanic Wally Shiers has promised to return home to his fiancée, Helena Alford. But Wally never reckoned on charismatic fighter pilot Ross Smith, and an invitation to compete in the world's most audacious air race.
A £10,000 prize has been offered for the first airmen to fly from England to Australia. Smith is banking on an open-cockpit Vickers Vimy, a biplane with a fuselage that looks ominously like a coffin.
And who can resist a hero? Wally writes to Helena to say he won't be home for another year - and the love of his life is left holding her hand-stitched wedding dress ...
Fallout is the strange but true story of a celebrated Australian scientist's involvement in the 1956 British atomic bomb tests. Hedley Marston, an idol with his own feet of clay, was determined not only to reveal official lies and chicanery, but to expose as charlatans the Australian scientists who were appointed to protect the nation from any possible harm. ...
In Beyond Belief, Roger Cross and Avon Hudson give a long-ignored voice to the veterans of the British atomic bomb tests conducted in Australia during the 1950s and 1960s. ...
Miss Marryat's Circle: In 1915, the second year of the Great War, Mabel Marryat - granddaughter of South Australia's first colonial chaplain Charles Howard - joined the newly formed League of Loyal Women. Mabel was active in the League's emergency corps, 'women who are prepared to give their service in any need that may arise'. It wasn't long before Mabel was appointed Honorary Supervisor of the Red Cross Depot at the Keswick Military Hospital: No. 7 AGH. After the war, the hospital was renamed RGH Keswick. Here Mabel stayed for 30 years.
This book gives voice to the women of South Australia's first 110 years of European settlement and opportunity to reflect on the changing position of women in society. But the spotlight shines on Mabel. Her long and devoted community service - particularly to her 'Diggers' - was extraordinary.
Mary Lee: Suffragist and social justice advocate Mary Lee was determined to leave the world a better place than she found it. The feisty 59-year-old widow, of limited means and with few family and friends, settled in Adelaide in 1879 and immediately set to work.
Undaunted by the opposition of antagonistic politicians and a conservative public, Mary thrust herself into high profile campaigns in support of female refuge, improving women's working conditions and gaining women's suffrage. In 1894, South Australia became the first place in the world to pass legislation giving women the right to vote and be elected members of parliament, thanks in no small part to Mary Lee's energy and committed determination.
Hans Heysen: Into the Light is the fourth book in a series featuring artists represented in the collection of Carrick Hill, Adelaide. Hans Heysen is one of Australia's greatest landscape painters and best-known artists. His work is collected in galleries and museums throughout the world. Hans Heysen: Into the Light is a study of the artist's watercolours, an aspect of his oeuvre much loved by the general public, scholars and fellow artists. This book discusses the progress of his career through his watercolours and also explores his watercolour technique. It includes a short biography of the artist.
Nora Heysen grew up at The Cedars near the Adelaide Hills town of Hahndorf, and was deeply influenced by her father, Hans Heysen. Nora Heysen: Light and life explores a notable career spanning seven decades, during which the artist painted some of Australia's most outstanding self-portraits, became the country's first female war artist, and was the first woman to win the prestigious Archibald Prize.
Ashton's Hotel: South Australia was meant to be the perfect colony: free settlers, no crime, and no mental illness. But good intentions go awry. Within three years plans for a permanent gaol were well established, along with a governor to oversee it: William Baker Ashton. ...
Quiet City: I do not think that I believe in ghosts, but just for this morning, just for the time it will take to ramble through this quiet city under clouds the colour of tin, or of pigeons' wings, I am going to believe in them.
Ordinary lives are revealed as extraordinary, as Carol Lefevre traces the stories of West Terrace Cemetery's little-known inhabitants: there is the tale of the man who fatally turned his back on a tiger, and the man who avoided one shipwreck only to perish in another; there is the story of the young woman who came home from a dance and drank belladonna, and those who died at the hands of one of South Australia's most notorious abortionists. ...