Month: December 2012
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On the Third Day pre-Christmas, this author said to me … (Erol Engin)
December 15, 2012Here’s a reflection that you won’t find in page seventeen #10 – this is Erol Engin on ‘The Sea Monkeys’, the winner of our 2012 Short Story Competition.
Beau Hillier | Editor, pageseventeen
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‘The Sea Monkeys’ story is nearly a true story. Like the character Osmond, I bought a Sea Monkeys kit for my young son, but really, it was for me – or rather, my childhood self. I’d never had one, never knew anyone who had one, and was never allowed to have one as a kid. So I used to gaze longingly at the enticing ads for Sea Monkeys that were always buried in the back pages of my favourite comic books, and would wonder what it would be like to have my very own kit. When I came across a pack in an Australian Geographic store last year, I just had to get it.
I’m embarrassed to tell you that, again like Osmond in the story, I was more excited – way more excited – than my son was to have a kit. And like Osmond, I was similarly disappointed, hurt even, when it became clear that no one in my family seemed to share my enthusiasm. In fact, I think my wife and son though that I’d gone a little batty (or is fishy more appropriate here?).
In the end, I decided that the whole Sea Monkeys fiasco might make a decent, funny story. I would use my own experiences to portray an aging character who badly wants to connect with his family, but fails. At the same time, there seemed to be room to work in other ideas about faith, atheism and technology.
There is one aspect of the story, however, that is not based on my personal experience. Unlike me, Osmond never quite gives up on the Sea Monkeys.
I hope that readers find something reassuring in that.
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Erol Engin lives with his wife and son and writes in Newcastle, NSW.
On the Second Day pre-Christmas, this author said to me … (David Goodwin)
December 14, 2012Just pretend that I’m singing the titles to these blog posts, as tuneless as it might sound. It helps with the festive mood.
Up next on our reflections, David Goodwin on his poem ‘Cerulean Fire’.
Beau Hillier | Editor, pageseventeen
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I wrote this piece after an unnumbered collection of nights made up from moments just like ‘Cerulean Fire’, often as a passenger in a car sluicing through the glittering circuit board of Melbourne post 2am. I’ve written many more since.
Depending on how you approach it – not to mention how you choose to fuel it – a night out in most cities usually presents its own witching hour for all choose to partake. While such a thing is often a chemical romance, I’ve found that it doesn’t subtract from its almost whispering splendour, nor its power to hang silken, but still warm, billowing occasionally in my folds of memory.
I still have many snapshots from nights where the city pulsed like a living thing, its dark arms pushing us through its circus of searing green, molten reds and that omniscient liquid blue that poured over the glass in an alien sheen as you sailed by entranced, staring from within the eye of a gathering storm.
With psy-trance leaking out the windows the world was a videogame of holographic ghosts; it was slower and softer but with a holy urgency thrumming from both inside and out.
And often, just as in voodoo where the half hour before midnight is for things of light, the following time attracted different energies. It’s hard to forget the club’s neon roar, its crunch a foundry of the gods as Medusan arms slithered between duelling swords of purple; rapturous funnel eyes machine-gunned by searing strobe light as they rose like an army, yanking unknowingly on the threads of the night.
On nights like this the city and its secrets were a racecourse for colour and dark, twisting like strands of DNA through an Oz that glittered, pernicious, like a promise that couldn’t be kept.
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David Goodwin is a young Melbourne writer who is starting to enjoy poetry. This is his first published poem. He is currently seeking publication for his memoir detailing six chaotic years working nights in petrol stations. He enjoys psychedelic trance, semicolons, and attempting to train his French bulldog, Madeleine.
On the First Day pre-Christmas, this author said to me … (Amra Pajalic)
December 13, 2012Hi All,
Christmas is just around the corner, and at $24.95 the latest issue of pageseventeen just may fit some of those KK budgets.
A lot goes into each short story and poem that goes into an issue, and in the lead-up to Christmas I’ll be posting some of the reflections offered by the writers and poets featured in pageseventeen #10. Some of these reflections are from the pages of the latest issue – some will be blog-exclusive.
First up is Amra Pajalic, whose poem ‘Drill Sergeant’ was shortlisted in pageseventeen‘s 2012 Poetry Competition.
Beau Hillier | Editor, pageseventeen
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I used to write poetry a long time ago and I began to feel the yearning again, but never quite found the time. In December last year I was reading Penni Russon’s blog and saw she was undertaking the Month of Poetry in January 2012, the purpose of which was to write a poem a day. Spontaneously I jumped on board and managed to write 31 poems that month. Most of them are works in progress as I found my internal poet again, but a few like ‘Drill Sergeant’ are gems that I’ve been submitting this year.
‘Drill Sergeant’ came from a conversation with my mother and she somehow weaved in a negative critique of my housekeeping with the words, ‘It’s my fault because I never taught you.’ Her words hit me hard. In her materialistic migrant mind it didn’t matter what achievements I had behind me or the qualifications I had collected, at the end of the day if my house wasn’t perfectly cleaned I was viewed as a failure as a woman.
Over the next few weeks I engaged in a frenzy of housekeeping determined that those words wouldn’t pass her lips again, only to realise it was a thankless task that gave me no respite or opportunity to do the things I truly liked doing, like playing with my daughter.
Being shortlisted in this competition has given me the confidence to keep writing poetry and trust in my muse. Since February poetry has been nudged off the agenda as I complete my second novel for submission to my publisher and undertook a new role as co-editor of an anthology, but now I’m determined to carve out time every week for poetry and ensure I feed my soul.
Amra Pajalic is a novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel The Good Daughter won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Civic Choice Award. She is currently co-editing an anthology of Muslim writers to be published by Allen and Unwin. Her website is www.amrapajalic.com.
Outside the Page – 28 People Write, and Love and F*** Poems
December 2, 2012‘Outside the page’ will probably be a recurring little plug from me for when I hear of other events going on in town, especially when contributors to page seventeen are involved (let’s face it, we’re a pretty cool flock).
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Bronwyn Evans featured in our most recent issue (#10 was launched only two weeks ago – plenty of copies still available online at the pageseventeen website or at the Busybird website). She’s also recently been involved in the editing of 28 People Write, a collection of short stories and poetry from writers in eastern Melbourne. 28 People Write is launching on the coming Wednesday at the Sandybeach Centre, at 2 Sims St, Sandringham. More details can be found here.
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Koraly Dimitriadis, poetry judge for Issue 10, will be performing from her latest poetry collection, Love and F*** Poems, next Thursday night from 6:30 onwards at the Brunswick St Bookstore (305 Brunswich St, Fitzroy VIC). Short story judge for Issue 10 Les Zigomanis was editor for Love and F*** Poems as well. Please RSVP to info@outsidetheboxpress.com if you’re keen on attending!
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If you’ve been involved with page seventeen in the past and have an event or something writerly coming up, let me know at beau@pageseventeen.com.
Beau Hillier | Editor, pageseventeen