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Monday 19 October 2020

And Other Essays by Michael Cohen + Interview!


Here's the video of Michael Cohen's second book with IP, And Other Essays, being launched on Zoom.



Before we launched And Other Essays on Zoom, we sat down with Michael to ask him some questions about the book.

Why choose the essay form?

            History and inclination, I’d say. I spent quite a few years teaching what we called, hopefully, “expository writing.” We didn’t expect anything like finished essays from our students; we were trying to coach them into writing clearly and concisely so that they could be good communicators in their various jobs. But we used the best essays for models and springboards for student writing, and I got used to looking at how good essays were put together, and also to encouraging students to see how they worked. Those were really lit classes where I taught the literary form that was somewhat neglected in the rest of the literature curriculum.

            But I like the essay form because it’s not just a way of trying to craft something that is satisfying; before I get to the revising and refining stages, writing an essay is a way of thinking about a subject that does not happen until I seek to form sentences about it.

 

What is the hardest part of creating a collection of essays?

 

            Well, just as in all writing, you have to murder your darlings. I put the whole corpus of work since my last collection together and tried to look at it as ruthlessly as I could. Is there really enough good stuff for a collection there? As it turned out, there wasn’t; I had to write a couple of essays to make up for the weakest parts I kept finding in the collection, and I was doing that cutting and substitution right up until the time we went into production.

 

How did you decide what went into this book?

 

            As I have said, it was a decision based on the quality of the whole group of essays I was choosing from. I do not see this collection of essays as having a theme or unity beyond those features of style and favorite structures and methods of development that are unique to me, and those features, while they may be obvious to others, are mostly opaque to me. I think this omnium gatherum sort of nature is reflected in the title: And Other Essays. The subject matter too, keeps coming back to what Michael did last summer: there are a couple of essays about flying, a couple about gyms, one about golf, and a bunch about what I’ve read and reread.

 

Are essays primarily sources of information or entertainment?

 

            I suppose a writer’s unique viewpoint about a topic might give you information of a sort, but I think mostly what you find out about by reading a book like this is my take on things. Of course I strive for accuracy in writing about climate change or the New Atheism or what various writers have to say, but I certainly hope I’m not the main source of your information about any of those topics, and I hope also, fervently, that you find what I have to say about them entertaining, because I’m convinced you won’t continue reading me very long if you don’t. 

 

What experiences have helped shape you as a writer?

 

            The short answer is everything I’ve done or read. And also what I’ve written: I wrote academic essays and books all during my teaching career, and when I retired I knew I didn’t want to do that anymore. But I still wanted to write, and I discovered that I could think about things that had happened to me and things I’d read in a very free and enjoyable way by writing about them without the sorts of constraints I had while writing about Shakespeare or nineteenth-century English paintings and novels for an academic press. I know, though, that academic writing is very useful, and mostly for the person who’s doing the writing. Again, it’s because it’s a concentrated way of thinking about the subject. And there were plenty of things that had happened to me throughout my life that weren’t very well sorted out in my mind before I began to write about them. Reading is the main way we learn about what’s going on in other people’s heads, and knowing what other people are thinking is a way to see that our troubles and concerns aren’t unique. Writing is a way of giving back to that conversation and when it works at all, it works both ways, for the reader and the writer. Once I had realized a few of these things, I became a writer in the sense that writing became as necessary for me as reading.

— Michael was interviewed by Lauryn Garrard, Assistant Editor, IP, in October 2020

    Michael's previous book with IP is A Place to Read


Sunday 11 October 2020

Interview with Laura Jan Shore, author of Afterglow



  • You went through a traumatic event when it came to losing your husband. How important do you think poetry was in helping you through this process?


After the loss of my husband, it was reading poetry that brought solace and connection. I noticed many of my friends and family didn’t know what to say to comfort me. Our culture does not offer a container to support those experiencing grief.  Other people’s poems gave me permission to find language to express my own feelings.


  • What prompted you to respond through poetry?


Writing a poem is a process of discovery. Articulating what I felt or what I remembered deepened as I worked the craft. I explored a variety of ways to say it in a condensed form, to get at the essence of it.


  • Have you been in contact with people who have experienced similar tragedies and resonated with the way you have handled grief and loss in your book?


Yes, I’ve had feedback from other women who’ve experienced the weird reality of being a widow in a society that no longer names this or has a cultural place for it.



  • Did your husband’s death change the way you responded to him in your poetry? Did you feel closer to him in the poetry written after his death than before?

When I wrote poems about him while Anand was alive, he would give me feedback and suggestions.  Not a writer himself, he enjoyed having me write about him. After he died, I felt his presence and heard his input.  


  • Would you recommend writing as a means of coping for people who have lost a significant other? 


Absolutely.  Journaling is an amazing resource for working through the waves of grief. It’s a way to keep the loved one alive by remembering and a way to give voice to the pain of loss. Whether that writing remains private or later becomes the seed of a more polished form, the process is invaluable.


  • Do you think his memory will continue to inspire you to write? 


I find I am frequently addressing Anand as I write. It is a way to continue our conversations.


  • If your husband were still alive, how do you think he would respond to the book? 


I believe he would be proud of the book and grateful to me for writing it. He was always transparent about his own shortcomings and psychological challenges so I know he would have appreciated my efforts to describe these, in hopes that it might help someone else.


  • What is next on the horizon for you, Laura? Any upcoming projects? 


I’ve another poetry collection with the working title, Ripening, that I’m still compiling.  It is about growing older in chaotic environmental times, bearing witness to species loss and cultural upheaval in parallel to personal loss and physical deterioration. 


— Laura was interviewed by Lauryn Garrard, Assistant Editor, IP, in October 2020

    Laura's previous book with IP is Water Over Stone

Wednesday 24 June 2020

Update on the Outer Space, Inner Minds anthology

A special update

Due to COVID-19 and other technical hitches, we've updated the entry deadline for our digital Outer Space, Inner Minds anthology to 31 July. Please see the full details our earlier blog entry below.

Link to the entry form: https://bit.ly/2BffgoY

Text and media entries are open to all Earthlings and intelligent beings on yet to be discovered exoplanets, so please submit—and spread the word.


Friday 5 June 2020

Outer Space, Inner Minds Digital Anthology

Calling all "self isolating" artists (& others)

We think it's time to blast off from this virus-fuelled 'hot spot' to the fresh air of inspiration to be found in the cosmos.

So we're calling for entries to our first-ever digital anthology, which will have the theme/title Outer Space, Inner Minds. Any work that touches on our relation to the cosmos and its impact on our thinking or creativity is eligible.

Our idea for this took flight from the success of Dark Sky Dreaming: an Inland Skywriters Anthology, which brought together creatives and scientists from regional New South Wales and elsewhere in Australia. Check it out to see the types of work that were accepted.


The anthology will be published online in 2021 and be comprised of the best poetry and prose that are submitted, but also audio and short films. Artists from anywhere on or slightly above Earth are eligible, but any text must be in English (ETs, please note).

Previously published work is eligible, but you must have clearance from any licensee to the work for it to be published in our anthology royalty-free.

As well as text-based works such as poetry and prose (up to 1500 words per entry), we're open to:
• audio files
• moving poems / prose
• short films

Format:

• text: Word (.docx) or Pages
• images: .jpgs @ 300dpi resolution, preferred
• audio as .mp3s (5 minutes playing time maximum)
• video as .m4v, .mov or .wav (5 minutes playing time maximum)

Entry fee is AUD20 for each group of up to three poems, each story or non-fiction work, or each audio or film entry.

Entries, with the required fee, must be submitted via our online form. Extended deadline due to COVID-19 and other considerations: 31 July 2020.

Full-time students, people on a pension or people under-employed due to COVID-19 are eligible for a fee waiver for one entry. Please apply to info@ipoz.biz with your details.

As a special bonus, all entrants will receive a free eBook of David P Reiter's Time Lords Remixed.

We look forward to seeing, reading and publishing the best work out there. 

May the Cosmos be with you!








Wednesday 6 May 2020

Magic Mistakes Trailer & Creator Interviews




The trailer for our new picture book — Belinda Blecher (author) and Lisa Allen (illustrator):

http://bit.ly/2RANWYc







An interview with Belinda Blecher, author of Magic Mistakes

Magic Mistakes is your first picture book. What led you to choose this as a medium for addressing some of the key themes in the book?

Since I commonly work with early years educators I observed a lot of anxiety around perfectionism. I felt that a picture book would be a really helpful resource for teachers and parents to have at their disposal to facilitate and reinforce viewing mistakes as a learning opportunity. Before giving words to children, teachers and parents need to find the words for themselves. A big part of school readiness is being interested in what you don’t know instead of being scared by it. Magic Mistakes reinforces these ideas and assists children through the transition to primary school.  



As a child and adolescent psychologist, you believe in “early intervention” as a means of promoting positive growth in children. What does this involve?

Early intervention involves taking action at a time of brain development and when learning patterns have not been set. Here, one can engage in preventative work rather than treatment. During the early intervention stage much of children’s difficult behaviour is seen as development opportunities rather than clinical concerns. At this time, the brain is open to learning and instilling positive neuro pathways that promote positive growth in becoming out of the box creative thinkers.   

Do you think children these days are more or less prone to risk taking than children, say, 20 years ago?

Obviously due to changes in the modern world there are higher levels of anticipatory anxiety, and incidental risk taking has been reduced, such as riding bikes in the streets or climbing trees. In this way, children today are less prone to risk taking than those 20 years ago. In today’s world, it is really up to us to create a safe forum in which children can be free to explore and take risks. 

How can parents provide models of behaviour to their children to strengthen their resilience in everyday life?

Parents can model this behaviour to their children by living and embracing mistakes. As a family they should try new things together, embrace mistakes with no judgment and celebrate failure. When children see their parents making magic mistakes they feel encouraged to make them too. Families should celebrate trying new things rather than simply celebrating conventional achievements. 

Now that your first picture book is published, how keen are you to write a second, or a third?

I am committed to building emotional literacy libraries for children. I have a book in the wings.  

And with Lisa Allen, illustrator.

Magic Mistakes has important themes it seeks to get across to children, their parents and teachers. Did you find illustrating this type of book more challenging than “entertainment” sorts of books that you’ve previously illustrated?  

Actually I have a history of illustrating quite serious picture books that have carried important messages.  'Mangrove' my first picture book was a reflection on mans impact on a fragile coastal ecosystem.  That was followed by 'Anzac Day Parade' which centred around a war veteran relaying his traumatic memories of the battle of Crete to a young boy. Probably only a handful of the books I have done have been purely fun and upbeat.  I enjoyed working on all of them in different aspects.  I'd have to say I like a balance - fun for children, but with some deeper layers that adults can pick up on.  
Children need books of all sorts.  The challenge with Magic Mistakes was not to make it look serious and so I chose a sillier style of illustration and used plenty of colour.  Kids are magpies when it comes to colour.  Belinda's use of language is fun, so it gave me lots to work with - there is always a child in the class with dripping snot and you can never get a child to eat bananas with black spots, so there is natural and relatable humour in there pitched at child level.  Children love finding things to laugh at.



Your illustrations in Magic Mistakes  are bright and vibrant. What media do you prefer to produce these effects? How does this approach enhance the delivery of the serious messages in the book?  

My picture books cover a wide range of drawing styles.  I admit to taking the long way around with these illustrations.  They are first hand-drawn in black ink on zeta paper.  I scan, refine and then digitally colour them up in photoshop in a series of layers.  It is certainly not the fastest process.  I could have used a wacom which would be a lot more efficient, but that means some serious retraining for my drawing hand.  Because I've had so many years of just working with a mouse I find that faster than holding a digital pen.  However, the best part for me is still hand-drawing the line work in ink on paper - it allows me freedom to add quirky details.  Traditional methods are still the most comfortable for me.  Each story speaks to me in terms of a style, when I read it for the first time.  I knew a funky typeface would work on this and I wanted children to feel the mess of brightly coloured paint splatters.  Finger painting was the only activity I wanted to do at pre-school and I was trying to capture that mess.  I chose a naive simple style as I knew the characters had to be accessible to kindergarten aged children.  For that reason I've kept it clean and uncluttered and used lots of white space around them.  Facial expressions are important - I wanted children to be instantly able to recognise emotions on the characters faces.  
As a creative, were you able to relate to challenges faced by Frankie? If so, how did this affect your rendering of Frankie and Tallulah’s character?

The myth about creatives is that we are all wild Tallulah's with unbrushed hair, when in fact most often we are uptight, perfectionist Frankie's.  I'm certainly a Frankie for a good deal of the process and in most areas of my life.  I get unreasonably finickity throughout the creation of a book (as I'm sure you can attest) but that is because if I do something that is incorrect, I literally have a gut reaction that niggles at me until I get something right.  I do lots of drafts, obsess over things and often have to walk away and come back to something a few days later to make sure it is working.  I have been known to wake at 2am with the solution to a layout problem or character expression.  But something extraordinary does happen when I do a book - I start with a very clean workspace with all my ducks in a row and within days it has turned into utter chaos.  Like Tallulah there are scribbles and paint tubes and random sketches everywhere.  Paper starts to pile up in drifts and I'm tripping over pencils.  I completely turn into Tallulah and ideas just flow.  Time seems to slow and I'm tuned in completely to another level.  It's very hard to describe, but I'd liken it to consciously shifting the part of the brain I use.  

Anyone walking into my studio is struck by the mess and destruction, yet I feel very calm and happy and creative at this stage.  I love this part of a picture book - simply drawing and idea making.  Then I have to snap out of it and tidy up!  There are the structural parts of the book to deal with and that's when I'm back to Frankie again.  To produce a finished product as a creative, you have to be both Frankie and Tallulah by turns.  I can see distinct parts of myself in both characters.

You were intimately involved in the layout of the book, and the relation of your images to the text. Why is that level of involvement important to you? And how did you go about responding creatively to Belinda’s text?  

I'm a control freak - seriously!  That is a good thing mostly, but does drive everyone around me mad.  When I start a book I actually envisage the whole thing in its entirety - I can literally see it on the bookshop shelf.  For me, typography is key and there is an entwined relationship between the physical text and the image on the page.  I can pick up a book and not want to read it  if I hate the font.  It is quite a visceral thing.  Typefaces have distinct personalities and again I have a gut feeling if I have chosen the right one.  Also, the cover makes itself clear to me very early on and is pretty much visualised from the beginning.  

Picture books are very delicate constructions in actuality - the images, text, design and layout has to work in a balanced way and each element is dependent on the others.  That is why I like to do the whole lot.  In addition, my illustrations have to not only mirror the authors words, but also tell other stories and establish relationships between characters that are not implicit in the writing.  In 'Magic Mistakes' the animal characters were fun to do as the were not prescribed in any way - so that's my little creative contribution.   

Contemporary publishing and printing practices have largely abandoned physical print in the pre-publication stages of a book. Are you comfortable with these processes? Do you see any disadvantages of this way of doing things in the name of efficiency?

I'm comfortable with all aspects of pre-publication.  When I started out with my first picture book everything was very different and each stage of book production was contracted out to a different person.  I quickly learned that I had the ability to do all those jobs because of my design background.  I'm the first to admit my technical knowledge can be patchy at production level and if I rush, I miss things.  But it is a matter of me slowing down and taking more care at that end of the process.  It is fair to say I made more technical glitches (we'll call them Magic Mistakes!) along the way on this book than I ever have, but everything got sorted in the end.  Whew!  I've come to enjoy the digital parts of the process much more over time and I do like teaching myself new techniques.  The disadvantage with the new processes, is that it is very easy to get something out there - a product can be created very quickly with the new technology.  However, a book is a work of art, no matter which format it is delivered in and needs patience and an eye for detail consistently throughout its creation.  

Books also need many hands in the process to produce quality - we all miss minor details and the good thing about working with a publishing team is that errors get picked up on and corrected.  Also, the first ideas out of the blocks are not always the best and so there is an element of refining that happens along the way which is crucial to a good result. Concepts have to be challenged and disagreed with, or fought for, to achieve quality.  Accepting robust critique is vital.




Saturday 28 March 2020

Welcome to our Covid-19 Series!

A message from Dr David Reiter, CEO / Publisher, IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd)


Stay tuned as we dance between COVID-19 droplets for the weeks and months to come.

With so many businesses standing down employees, public events being cancelled and so many people retreating indoors with only the Internet as a lifeline to the outside world, it's hard to be optimistic about the future.

But there will be a future, though the shape of it post-pandemic is somewhat uncertain from the perspective of this bad dream that is the present.

Poets will continue to write, painters to paint, musicians to play in synchronicity on balconies or via Zoom and other apps. Many creatives actually start from a base line of advantage. They are often introverts who choose self isolation as their environment. And things of enduring beauty grow from that redoubt.

Creatives know resilience like the back of their hand. They can feel their way out of dark spaces without a torch. They will find a way to do what they do best in spite of the depressing headlines.

But of course they are not made of words, or pigments, or drum rolls. They need to eat, feed their children, keep a roof over their heads. Handouts from government buy them time but not a living.

That's where you come in. You can help by buying their books, their artworks, their songs. There's mutual benefit in that: they create the art, and you can share in it by expressing its value through your purchases.

In the Old Economy that predated the pandemic, you might go to book launches, gallery openings, open-air concerts, and buy their merchandise directly. You knew that those direct sales benefit artists the most, and your purchase somehow prolonged the emotion of your contact with them.

But people—even those well-off in the Old Economy—have fallen into the habit of sourcing artist content through the cheapest channels, sometimes not even paying for it at all. A whole generation has grown up with the attitude that everything online should be accessible for free.

The distance imposed by the Internet between artists and their audiences only encourages this sense of entitlement in people who "consume" art rather than supporting it through attendance and subscription.

What I'm suggesting is that, in the pandemic and post-pandemic New Economy, we should do our best, within our means, to support artists directly at points as high up the supply chain as possible.

In the case of authors and book illustrators, this could mean buying their work directly—either from the creatives themselves or their publishers' online stores. Next best option is to buy through your local independent bookshop, resisting the option to source the title from those discount sites that are now second nature to our buying habits.

Publishers have a role to play in this New Economy. We will be substituting virtual means of personalising our artists' contact with you, their audience. These new methods may include more blog and vlog posts, audio samples, and podcast interviews. There may be other channels yet to be invented that will bring our artists closer to you.

So, make it personal from now on. Express your interest in the creatives you follow by buying their work at the highest point in the supply chain as you can afford. Like and Comment on their posts, and by all means spread the word. 

We'll all feel better for it.

Best,
David