ANNOUNCEMENT: Stephen Orr Long-Listed for the DUBLIN Literary Award
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Category Archives: Awards
Congratulations to Carol Lefevre!
Wakefield Press is thrilled to announce that Carol Lefevre’s Quiet City: Walking through West Terrace Cemetery has been shortlisted in the Non-Fiction category of the 2018 Adelaide Festival Awards for literature. Winners in each category will be announced on Saturday 3 March in 2018 during Writers’ Week. Visit the Arts SA website to see the other shortlisted titles, and for more information on SA Writers’ Week.
About 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.
Said to be the most poetic place in Adelaide, in this heritage-listed burial ground the beginnings of the colony of South Australia are still within reach. Amid a sea of weather-bleached monuments, the excavated remains of Australia’s oldest crematorium can be seen, and its quietest corner shelters the country’s first dedicated military cemetery.
From archives, and headstones, the author recovers histories that time and weather threaten to obliterate. Quiet City is a book for everyone who has ever wandered through an old graveyard and wished its stones could speak.
Praise for Quiet City:
‘Lefevre’s touching, terrifying, courageous characters return to haunt us in this rich and companionable book – a treasure trove of social history and a fine writer’s personal reflection on death and living.’ – Nicholas Jose
‘[Lefevre] has done thorough research in the cemetery archives and state records, and then enlivened and enriched this information with a true story-teller’s gifts – an eye for vivid detail and a lyrical turn of phrase.’ – Jennifer Osborn,Transnational Literature
Quiet City is available online and at our Mile End bookshop.
Low-angle shot of the Miles Franklin Award
The Miles Franklin announcement is not far away. This award is arguably the most important on the Australian literary scene. In his Brief Take on the Australian Novel, Jean François-Vernay structures his approach by borrowing from another popular art form: film. Here we have his ‘Low-angle shot of the Miles Franklin Award’.
In line with the wishes of Stella Franklin, who bequeathed almost all of her estate estimated at £8,996 to establish this literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award must give preference to a published work ‘of the highest literary merit and which must present Australian Life in any of its phases’. Founded in 1957, the award has ever since crowned 58 novels with glory and increased their sales.
As is the case with any respected prize, the Miles Franklin has had its share of controversies. In 1994, the jurors unleashed a debate by excluding Frank Moorhouse’s novel Grand Days (1993) from the competition, claiming that its Australian content was practically insignificant. The story traces the career of a young Australian woman who, after the Great War, works for the United Nations in Geneva. In 1995, the committee tried to make amends by celebrating The Hand That Signed the Paper by Helen Demidenko, but it later transpired that the author was a Ukrainian-impersonating plagiarist. After this scandal, the jury decided to play it safe in 1996 with Highways to a War by Christopher Koch. Pocketing the prize money, Koch started another controversy when he revealed his uncharitable thoughts about academia.
Today, some people think it is high time the overly restrictive selection criteria of this award should be revised in order to take into account novels whose characters, settings, themes and plots are located outside Australia. The list of recipients of the Miles Franklin is also widely criticised for comprising chiefly middleaged novelists, few of whom are women (approximately one third of all prize-winners), let alone Aboriginal (Kim Scott and Alexis Wright being the exceptions). There is a sneaking suspicion that the judging panel might almost be guilty of ageism, sexism and racism. Despite the criticism, this national and nationalistic prize is still regarded as a reliable benchmark for identifying great Australian novels. The winner in 2010, Peter Temple’s Truth, indicated that popular genres like crime novels are now taken seriously.
For more close-ups, panoramic views and special features on the Australian novel, see here.
Another accolade for The First Week
Margaret Merrilees can add another feather to her cap*. Her debut novel The First Week has been shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award, a very cool award that celebrates work that depicts ‘women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society’.
Read an extract of The First Week here or skip that and buy a copy here.You can read more about the award here and see the full (and awesome) shortlist here.
One of the judges, Dorothy Johnston, has written about the judging process here, and pointed out that:
Another interesting point to note is that, out of seven shortlisted titles, four were published by small (or small to medium-sized) publishers, although by far the greatest number of entries were submitted by the ‘big names’ – Penguin, Random House, Allen & Unwin and so on.
Tiny but mighty, over here. And we couldn’t be prouder.
*Is that the right saying? What does it even mean?
Oh me oh my
Let the awards for Nature’s Line begin.
The shortlist for the very highly respected Ernest Scott Prize was announced today, and Janis Sheldrick’s amazing George Goyder biography is top of the list! With some spot on judges’ comments, too.
We’re incredibly proud of this book, and the mammoth amount of work, love and dedication put into by Janis.
We’re definitely expecting more from where this came from. Congratulations Janis!
Our authors are the best authors
Am I repeating myself? Because they’re ace. We’ve always known it, but it’s nice when they get the recognition they deserve, as is happening at the moment —
Hard on the heels of Margaret Merrilees’s shortlisting for the Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing, we now have not one but two longlistings from the Nita B. Kibble Awards as well!
The first is Rachel Hennessy, whose novel The Heaven I Swallowed was runner-up for the Australian/Vogel award before it was even published. Now it has been longlisted for the Kibble Literary Award for an established Australian female author. This is a HUGE deal, but then again The Heaven I Swallowed deserves every word of praise it gets.
The second is Margaret again! The First Week has now been longlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award, awarded each year for a first published work from an Australian woman writer.
These are two powerful books, written by two of the most talented authors working in Australia today. Today, us Wakefieldians are feeling pretty bloody proud.
(Also a bit sick. Celebratory Easter chocolate is getting out of hand over here. Is it wine time yet? HAPPY EASTER, KIDS!!)
ALL OF THE FEELINGS
Guess who has just been shortlisted for the Glenda Adams Prize for New Fiction?
CONGRATULATIONS MARGARET! Not that anyone here at Wakefield HQ is surprised. The First Week is gripping, beautifully written, and stays with you for a long time after you’ve finished reading. Click here to read an extract.
Best in the business
The cost of implementing an ERP system is easily eclipsed by the ROI of a more efficient, fully optimized business environment.
How is ERP different?
ERP is a method of organizing and managing systems of information. Most businesses have a web-based or networked IT infrastructure (or both). ERP was developed as a way of using existing information systems to organize and manage existing information.
ERP consists of two main components: the management system and the content management system (CMS). The management system (also called the ERP system) gathers, stores, and processes information. It helps organize and prioritize activities, and it provides centralized information access. The CMS facilitates information flow, enabling business units to access and create their own content.
For example, business units may wish to add or modify information about them through ERP, but they don’t necessarily want to change how it is stored, managed, and distributed. ERP systems also enable business units to use existing databases (often one that was designed for a different business unit) to do their own work and make their own data available to other business units.
Businesses use ERP systems to collect, store, and organize their information. Examples include billing systems, payroll systems, accounting systems, timekeeping systems, and business intelligence systems.
Information management systems are used to allow a group of companies to access information from one another. For example, a bank uses ERP to organize information about its customers and accounts, as well as customer accounts and credit reports.
If you are thinking about implementing a system for your business, or if you are looking to create one, then you have come to the right place. In this section, we will look at five important systems within ERP that you need to consider when you compare ERP systems.
a data warehouse
a customer relationship management (CRM) system
a CRM management system
a CRM business intelligence system
a CRM knowledge base system If you already have an ERP system, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. The first is that there are many components of the ERP system that you can separate out. There are different levels of organization that you can choose to deploy to. You will only need a set of systems that fits within your company, and your organization’s specific needs. But if you are developing your own system, you will need to think about: How to organize information about your customers?
How to organize data in your ERP?
How to organize information about your customers and accounts? Where are the databases stored? How are data objects stored? Is there a single solution that can handle all the information? How do the different systems communicate with each other? How do different systems interact with the internet, with each other, with your own internal database?
This is something that you need to make sure that you and your development team are well aware of when you start developing your own ERP. That’s because your system will not work if you’re not thinking about how it interacts with your external systems.
How do you manage data access? How do you manage all the different databases that your system will need to work? How do you manage database access using multiple authentication systems, with multiple users? How do you manage access to your applications? This is something that you need to make sure that you and your development team are well aware of when you start developing your own ERP. That’s because your system will not work if you’re not thinking about how it interacts