The Book Post

Janni Moss. 1947 - 1990. We never forget you.



For many years, Mother's Day was a day I tried to ignore. In May each year I tried not to hear about my friend's plans for this day. I tried to avoid the ads, tried not to see the cards, the flowers, the news headlines. Mother's day was a painful day for me because I could not spend it with my own mother Janni, who lost her battle with cancer in 1990 at only 43.

I confess that Mother's Day still holds a touch of sadness for me, but in time I have learned to celebrate my mum on this day and not simply mourn her loss. Now that I am a mother myself, I feel closer to her and I am even more grateful for the life, love and lessons she gave me. She's there in my daughter's smile and even in my own reflection as I grow older. I sense her in the decisions I make, in my outlook on life. The truth is, though some mums leave us too soon, they are never truly gone. They leave a lasting legacy.

My mother was the person who first encouraged me to get involved in the community. On Halloween each year (which is celebrated enthusiastically in my birth country of Canada) my sister and I would dress up as silly ghouls or scarecrows and go door to door to collect for UNICEF rather than only collecting Halloween candy. It was an unusual thing at the time, but the neighbours loved it, and filled our pillow slips (the sacks we used) with spare change they wouldn't miss. I think it says a lot about my mum that she taught her daughters about the importance of that engagement with the larger world when we were so young. As a family we were far from rich, but candy and sweets were something we could afford when we wanted. Collecting for UNICEF had a much greater impact on us as kids than the brief joy of a candied apple or stick of chocolate.

I think my mum would like UNICEF's Inspired Gifts.

UNICEF's Inspired Gifts can be purchased online in literally minutes, and UNICEF will send an e-card, PDF or mail a card to the recipient with info about your wonderful gift. If you haven't done so already, it's not too late to send a gift to your mum that can make her proud, and can save lives. It could take you minutes today, and your help will be felt across the world. For only $62 you can vaccinate 200 children to protect them against measles, which can be deadly in developing nations, and leaves those lucky enough to survive with life-long disabilities that can include blindness and brain damage. Or for only $31 you can protect 100 kids, for $16 buy nutrients for kids, or for $12 buy them story books. Plus there are many other life changing and inspired options to choose from. Please think about it. I will be buying an inspired gift in my mum's memory today.

To all the mums out there, I salute you.

And mum, thank you for making me the woman I am today.

April 23 is World Book and Copyright Day, a time to promote reading and the preservation of intellectual property, and a very good day to show your local book shop some extra love. It's also an important date for world literature, as Shakespeare, Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died on April 23 in 1616, and this is the date of birth or death of significant authors including Vladimir Nabokov and Maurice Druon.

For bibliophiles and romantics alike, there's arguably no better place to celebrate World Book Day than Barcelona, where it is La Diada de Sant Jordi, or Saint George's day - the patron saint of Catalonia, El dia de la Rosa, The Day of the Rose, and El dia del Llibre, The Day of the Book. On this day, tradition has it that men should give their novias a rose (red roses were said to spring from the shed blood of the dragon slain by Saint George) and women should give their novios a book. (And no, on this day e-books do not count.) Reportedly, over seven million roses were sold on this day and nearly half a million books, making it the biggest day in publishing for all of Spain. There are readings, author signings and lineups of enthusiastic book lovers buying new and used books of all kinds at stalls set up on streets throughout the city.

Today the scent of roses was on every corner, and every street was lined with stalls draped in Catalan flags and selling novels or flowers. Every woman had a rose, every man a book - and quite a few had both.

El dia del Llibre is surely Barcelona at its most beautiful. A bibliophile's dream.

This is a tradition I would love to bring home.



PS In Plaça de Catalunya, above left, I came across books that were part of the library of the Spanish Occupy movement, who camped there for 40 days to protest, before the police disbanded them and seized their books. Today the books were given back and 'returned to the people for free' for El dia del Llibre.

Read so hard with La Shea Delaney and Annabelle Quezada in this brilliant spoof on Jay Z & Kanye's 'N*ggas in Paris', titled B*tches in Bookshops.

'I guess you could say I'm Mark Twaining...'

Lyrics:

Read so hard librarians tryin' ta FINE me­,
They can't identify me,
Checked in with a pseudonym, so I guess you can say I'm Mark Twaining.
Read so hard, I'm not lazy.
Go on Goodreads, so much rated.
Fountainhead, on my just read, gave it four stars, and then changed it.
Read so hard, I'm literary.
Goosebumps series, TOO SCARY!

Animal Farm, Jane Eyre
Barnes & Nobles, Foursquare it
No TV, I read instead
Got lotsa Bills, but not bread
BURROUGHS , GOLDING, SHAKESPEARE -- all dead

» Read more on 'Read so hard.'

As feminist icon Professor Germaine Greer made headlines today for the wrong reasons
the Internet lit up once more with debate about feminism, just who is a feminist, who is not, and what 'feminism' means. (In the words of author Rebecca West, 'I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.')

One blog, Jack the Insider, wrote: ‘Do I agree that women should have equality of opportunity? Do I agree that some earnest ecclesiastical or lay types have no truck rooting around in women’s uteri? Yes, but none of this makes me a feminist.’

I argued that it makes him exactly that. His reply, ‘It makes me a humanist.’

One basic definition of humanism: ‘An outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters.’

And feminism?: ‘The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.’

Certainly there is room for debate here as to whether the definitions above are correct or absolute, but still, it seems to me at a glance that our friend Jack the Insider is both humanist and feminist. In fact, any person who believes in human rights and equality for all human beings would naturally be a feminist, wouldn’t they?

In 2003, on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, journalist and radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch said the following, with regards to whether or not he was a feminist: ‘I try to be. I’ve always said I’m as much of a…of a feminist as I could be. No man can be an absolute feminist. First of all, we don’t have a clue about the pains of childbirth and never will — that’s number one. You can’t be an absolute feminist but you try to be as much as you can. I grew up… In my 20s, I was interviewing people like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, so that gave me a pretty good grounding. No, you can’t be a total feminist, but you try.’

While I can see where Hinch is going with his assertion that he can’t fully understand the female condition without being female (which absolutely true), the pain of childbirth, of course, does not make someone a better or more complete feminist. Yes, child birth gives you some first hand experience into what is one of the major, life-changing experiences in many women’s lives, but many prominent feminists have never given birth, Germaine Greer included. No, it's not giving birth that makes you a feminist.

Jack the Insider said of a man (Derryn Hinch) declaring that he is a feminist: 'I’ve always thought it an odd thing for a man to say.'

So can men be feminists or not? Can they not be ‘total feminists’? Only half feminists?

» Read more on 'Can men be feminists?'

On International Women's Day yesterday I took part in a panel at The Carrington in Katoomba to discuss The Stella Prize, women's writing and the latest statistics on the representation of female authors in the literary world. It was a standing room only event, and the many attendees - some of whom came from as far as Sydney and Mudgee - offered great questions of the panel.

Chair for the session, author of The Legacy Kirsten Tranter talked about the importance of the Stella prize, for which she is a co-founder, and about how literary awards change the careers of writers who would otherwise go unnoticed. The Stella, if you are unaware of it, will be a new fiction prize for women. It is named for author Stella 'Miles' Franklin. The Miles Franklin award remains a highly coveted literary prize in Australia, as you may know, and it has copped criticism for its poor representation of female authors. (Only 13 times has a woman won the Miles Franklin since it was started in 1957 and last year's short-list, for instance, was all-male.) Stella, I believe, would like this new women's prize named in her honour.

Fellow panellist Claire Corbett, who has just been short-listed for the 2012 Barbara Jefferis Prize for When We Have Wings, talked about the importance of expanding our reading habits, as a culture. In particular she talked about how men should read more fiction (stats show men tend to read non-fiction more often than fiction) to improve on their 'interior lives' and 'emotional vocabulary', and how the lasting stories tended to be the classic novels. She also urged women to start reading and writing speculative fiction so they are part of the dialogue about 'the future'.

» Read more on 'International Women's Day with Stella.'

I was deep in the edits for the sixth Mak Vanderwall novel, Assassin, when a striking image by Lithuanian artist Natalie Shau stopped me dead. (So to speak.) This nightmarishly beautiful piece, with its severed foot and heeled shoe, brings to mind the fetishistic murders of the Stiletto Killer of my first three novels, albeit with a Tim Burton-esque dash of humour. What would Mak make of it, I wonder...?

Well, 'The Count' is out. According to the latest statistics published today by VIDA, in 2011 we again saw a clear gender bias in the literary world - unconscious or otherwise - with some of the worst offenders including major publications like London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, The New Republic and The Atlantic, among others.



I have blogged about this issue previously, to some interesting - and heated - responses. (Check out this great index of discussions online about this controversial topic.)

This is not a 'women VS men' debate, and no one person, publication, literary prize or gender are to blame for what has been revealed to be an obvious and broad imbalance in representation. As I have stated before, in my view there has never been a better time to be a writer, to be a woman, or to be a woman writer. But that doesn't mean the issues surrounding gender bias in the literary world, or any other arena, should not be openly discussed, or should be deemed 'privileged whining' - to quote one critic. It is clear that although many of us would be quick to claim we don't care about the gender of the authors we read, we may nonetheless take a glance at our shelves, or book recommendations and find ourselves shocked to see a clear imbalance - an 80/20 split or worse in many cases, which may be about equal to the representation of women's fiction in the reviews of many of the most important literary publications.

» Read more on 'The Count Is Out.'

Yesterday I returned from a family holiday in Canada and came across a piece titled, ‘Time to get a grasp on reality and stop making colossal boobs of ourselves over breast politics’, by Mia Freedman, published in the Sunday Telegraph. I wrote an email to Mia about the article. She was good enough to post it in the comments section of her blog and I have cut and pasted it below because I feel the issues we are discussing are of some importance. I hope you will add your thoughts in the comments below. This is an emotive issue. Many women have tough breastfeeding stories to tell, and many have beautiful stories, also. All are welcome here.

It is important to note that BFHI accredited hospitals (accreditation is governed by the Australian College of Midwives) provide much needed support for all mothers and babies, regardless of their circumstances, desire or ability to breastfeed. It is a global initiative and BFHI policy is the same in every one of the more than 150 countries where it is implemented. The ABA, on the other hand, is a grassroots volunteer organisation that has no involvement with BFHI hospital policy, as implied in Mia's article.

x

*****

Feb 27, 2012

Dear Mia Freedman,

Firstly, congratulations on your ongoing role as one of the leading voices of women in Australia, and on your ability to bring important women’s issues into the public eye. I have read many of your articles published at Mamamia.com.au and in the weekend newspapers, and of course we have met and communicated numerous times over the years. Yesterday I came across your piece titled ‘Time to get a grasp on reality and stop making colossal boobs of ourselves over breast politics’ and I felt I should contact you to address some important issues.

I am unaware of any ‘Breast Feeding Association’ that gives accreditation to hospitals, as mentioned in your article. There is a volunteer group called the Australian Breastfeeding Assoc that provides breastfeeding classes and a 24 hour hotline (1800 mum 2 mum) to help women with breastfeeding problems, with the phone lines manned - ‘womaned’ actually - by volunteers who have earned qualifications to help women struggling with breastfeeding related issues, milk supply, attachment problems, etc. They generously provide a free and helpful service but do not provide accreditation to hospitals. The Baby Friendly Health Initiative, or BFHI (previously named the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative), developed by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF in 1991 and implemented in over 150 countries worldwide, does provide accreditation for hospitals globally, and is governed locally by the Australian College of Midwives (not the ABA). I think this may be the program you are referring to in your article, and as I am patron for BFHI in Australia I thought I should address some of the issues you raised.

The Baby Friendly Health Initiative, and their ‘10 Steps To Successful Breastfeeding’ have been very successful in raising breastfeeding rates in countries with Baby Friendly accredited hospitals. To give one example, after only two years of BFHI implementation in China exclusive breastfeeding rates in that country doubled in rural areas and increased from 10 per cent to 47 per cent in urban areas. Currently, Australia’s exclusive breastfeeding rate at the medically recommended six month mark is 14% - less than half the world average. Governments around the world, medical professionals and organisations like WHO and UNICEF are actively trying to raise breastfeeding rates and in particular exclusive breastfeeding rates during the crucial first six months because of significant health implications for mothers and babies. The focus on exclusive feeding is due to a wealth of evidence showing health risks associated with formula feeding and mixed feeding. Beyond the long-term outcomes like higher rates of infection, disease and obesity associated with formula feeding, unlike breast milk suckled directly from the breast, formula is not sterile. Equally, bottles and teats are not sterile, and making these items medically sterile can be costly in hospitals, using specialised equipment, and parents can only ever have limited success in making them sterile at home. As human beings we are all imperfect, and as a result, the preparation of formula can be flawed and babies can and do get very sick. The latest research shows that an estimated 53 per cent of diarrhoea hospitalisations could be prevented each month by exclusive breastfeeding, breastfed babies have 15 per cent fewer doctor visits in the first six months, and in developing countries where sterilisation techniques are arguably poorest, use of bottles and formula cause an estimated 1.4 million deaths in children under five. These are some of the reasons why BFHI accredited hospitals aim only to introduce bottles to babies (including expressed breast milk in bottles) when medically necessary.

Until such practices were widely banned, many hospitals gave out free packs of formula to new mothers, and had formula tins and formula advertisements displayed within maternity wards, where new mothers are most vulnerable. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in significantly lower breastfeeding rates and higher rates of formula use. (To give an example of how much sway advertising can have on a culture, formula is reportedly one of the top 3 consumer commodities and one of the top imports in the Philippines, where there is currently no ban on the advertising of formula for babies, and sales amount to nearly half a billion US dollars annually despite much of the country living in poverty.) It is for these reasons that formula is not displayed in BFHI accredited hospitals, however it can be readily accessed for medical reasons or if the mother wishes. The introduction of bottles is not taken lightly because of the increased health risks for babies and the potential hurdles it can create for mothers who wish to breastfeed, including ‘nipple confusion’ and attachment problems in newborns, and lowered milk supply in mothers. Breastfeeding is not always easy in the early days or weeks and the last thing we need is any hospital policy that makes it yet harder to breastfeed. For many of the same reasons, nipple substitutes, such as pacifiers, are not encouraged in BFHI accredited hospitals either. It is important to mention that although BFHI accredited hospitals have policies in place to support breastfeeding, they also have policies in place to support women who chose not to breastfeed or can’t breastfeed for medical reasons. That does not extend to actively promoting or displaying artificial nipples or breast milk substitutes. As you wrote in your article ‘formula was never displayed anywhere – it was hidden – and neither were bottles of ANY KIND EVER’. Indeed. Why should formula be displayed in maternity wards? We see aisles of it in supermarkets.

» Read more on 'Breast 'politics' and a response to Mia Freedman'

D Day - first draft delivery day - has finally arrived. Well, technically it was to be on Monday, but for quite possibly the first time in my career, I have delivered a few days early. I can report that I have lost a holiday and gained a wan complexion, two totally unnecessary kilos and most importantly, a workable first draft of the novel I began plotting and researching two years ago and began writing in August, after spending the past 9 weeks almost exclusively sitting in a darkened room in front of my laptop and consuming unhealthy quantities of coffee from sun up to sun down.

How does it feel? Ask me in the morning.

Oh look, Ewan McGregor with a manuscript and champagne. That gives me an idea...

I am heavily caffeinated in a darkened room, beset with something of a persistent headache (rubbing the temples helps, above) and almost unable to hold a conversation. And I am bloody excited about Assassin.

D minus 12 days. 10,000 words to go. Welcome to the world of a writer on deadline.

As promised, I am blogging about the writing of the sixth Mak Vanderwall novel to give one account of the writing process. Each author works differently, but equally, each book can be different to write, even for experienced novelists. Bestselling crime writer Val McDermid, for example, told me in our recent interview together that she had a process which worked well for her for a full 15 or 16 novels, and then, 'Without warning, it stopped working...I couldn't get a handle on the middle of [the book]. It was like trying to herd cats.'

My approach to writing this novel has differed in some key ways to that of my previous seven books. It hasn't been like herding cats, but there have been new logistical challenges. One obvious thing that has changed since the writing of the previous Mak novel, Siren, is that I have become a parent and accordingly, I haven't been able to write through the night as I did previously. One night of writing 9pm to 5am and waking at 7am to feed my daughter was enough to convince me that was a habit of the past. Additionally, with my new television and UNICEF commitments and the Pandora English series, I have never been busier. I've needed to be far more time efficient in every respect. As a result I took more time than usual plotting and researching this novel before putting fingertip to keyboard. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, I got stuck into long and continuous writing days. It's been a real marathon of writing since embarking on the first draft in August. For the past month, in particular, I have been staying with my understanding in-laws in Western Australia, locked away in a back bedroom writing from sun up until sun down, with enthusiastic child minding on tap in the next room - an ideal scenario for enthusiastic new grandparents and for a writer on hard deadline. It has been a very productive system, even if I felt like the bedraggled and pale antisocial teenager, hiding in my room and being called out for meals, mumbling to myself. A writer has got to do what a writer has got to do...

» Read more on 'D minus 12 days. 10,000 words to go.'