The Tricky Navigation to...

Greetings – and especial thanks to my Followers for joining me on this journey. Much appreciated!

Here’s the first of occasional updates regarding my ‘Debut Novel’ and its journey toward publication (one way or another). My novel is called Cecilia’s Hatbox and follows the life of Cecilia Toris through the 20th century. Her adventures are set against the rise of Communism, Fascism and budding Gay Liberation, with the backdrop of London, Weimar Berlin and Melbourne. The novel draws on the real lives of lesbians of the time – from Dolly Wilde (Oscar’s niece) to Margareta Webber (of Melbourne bookshop fame). Cecilia’s Hatbox is a bold, sexy antidote to Radclyffe Hall’s doom-laden Sapphic novel, The Well of Loneliness, famously banned as obscene in 1928 – a novel that becomes a touchstone throughout Cecilia’s life.

The Tricky Navigation...

These days a Debut Novelist needs a Literary Agent to pick the locks of all those closed Publisher’s gates forbidding admittance to authors without an agent. So, I’ve been trying to find a Literary Agent. But it’s Catch 22! Few Literary Agents are accepting submissions from authors, especially novelists – because so many of them are looking to be published. (Slush-piles rise like tower-blocks threatening to fall.) But persistence is the name of the game! Two Literary Agents have agreed to have a look at my manuscript…

But let’s go to Venice. Or rather let’s congratulate Patricia Cornelius who has just returned from the Venice Theatre Biennale where two of her play productions were invited to be performed, namely SHIT and Love. Here’s what the New York Times theatre reviewer had to say about seeing these two plays on an international stage (note that the reviewer is unable to bring herself to name the first play!):

     ‘Alongside the youthful experiments of Club Gewalt, the Venice Theater Biennale also gave a platform to an Australian duo with three decades’ experience. The director Susie Dee and the playwright Patricia Cornelius have crafted award-winning productions focusing on Australia’s underclass. Still, mainstream companies in their country shy from putting on their work because of its “more challenging” nature, Ms. Cornelius told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2017.

     That’s a mistake because the two pieces of theirs at the Biennale, a 2015 work with an unprintable title that rhymes with “grit,” and “Love,” new this year, suggest Ms. Dee and Ms. Cornelius are producing exactly the kind of work that socially conscious theaters and audiences around the world are currently looking for. In “Love,” a teenager, Annie, works as a prostitute to support her girlfriend Tanya and Lorenzo, a drug addict. In the 2015 work, the easy banter of three women who have been ground down by abuse and poverty takes a dark turn when they commit a crime.

     Ms. Cornelius’s excellent writing mostly steers clear of misery porn. Profanities and slang have no secrets for her and Ms. Dee, who lend them a rapid-fire musical rhythm: The swearing sequences in the 2015 work are especially virtuosic, and earned shocked laughter in Venice. The characters, served by superb casts, are alternately vile and vulnerable.’

The two productions are currently playing at the Edinburgh Festival – where Patricia waved them farewell and flew home.

But Cornelius will not be home in Melbourne for long. In a couple of weeks she is off to the USA to receive an almighty gong, plus cheque. She is one of the recipients of the Windham-Campbell prize. These are global English-language awards that call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns. Prize-winners receive an unrestricted grant of $165,000 USD.

Patricia Cornelius has a groaning shelf-full of awards for her writing, but only latterly has her work been receiving the productions it deserves. Does it take overseas recognition to fully see and appreciate one of Australia’s own?

And are we sensibly supporting our own in the arts? Just today I heard of two major cuts to arts funding (and doubtless there are more). Australian Plays (australianplays.org), which helps promote Australian plays and playwrights in numerous ways, has had a radical funding cut; as has Theatre Works in St Kilda. It is the small to medium organisations that are bleeding, the ones that create the new and interesting, challenging work – the work that feeds eventually into the big theatres, the big companies (or should).

Patricia Cornelius’ next production, Anthem, is a collaboration with Andrew Bovell, Melissa Reeves, Christos Tsiolkas and Irine Vela, directed by Susie Dee. It’s part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival in October. This production is a follow-up to their highly successful Who’s Afraid of the Working Class? – created 21 years ago. Anthem, says the blurb, asks a bold question: does Australia share a dream and do we really sing with one voice?

And with that thought … till next time.