this exhibition of bushfire art features an amazing painting which I had on the list for the book but didn't make it in:



(William Strutt, Black Thursday February 6th 1851)

as Christopher Allen says in The Australian, it's not necessarily the best historical painting, but it captures the terror of the animals and humans perfectly.

usually it lives at the State Library of Victoria. what struck me most about it was the rendering of the sky; the depth of the glow behind the dark smoke. and it's big; the sort of art you can sink into

the exhibition is on in Healesville until July 25, with lots of other photos and paintings of Victorian fires and their aftermath. but if you can't get out there, it's worth wandering into the Cowan Gallery at the SLV later in the year and standing in front of this. see if you don't feel a bit warmer, or wonder if you smell smoke...

Reading The Midnight Disease by Alice W. Flaherty. Have just started it, but I was struck by this line: "Beauty drives copies of itself, whether in art, or when we want to make children with someone we love."

She's a writer and medical doctor who has suffered - if that's the word - from hypergraphia and writers' block, and the book is about the biological mechanisms behind both. There are so many ways to come at the question of creativity; this looks like a particularly interesting and analytical essay on the subject ("essay" in the sense of attempt; it's a full length book; and while I'm qualifying, the link above is to Amazon, but they do have the book at the lovely Readings bookshops right here in Melbourne...)

proof of concept

well, the proofs are all done. I believe the actual file is yet to go to the printer's, but as my editor said to me, the time to speak or forever hold your peace is gone.

the design looks great; all those images and the work on getting permission to use them has paid off. it'll be in actual bookshops before know it. (for those who want facts not flowery prose, that means early August!)

now looking for a good place to launch it in August (within the City of Melbourne, for various reasons)...any ideas anyone?

allow me a geeky author moment: I am quite excited to see the book now has an ISBN. I was also, of course, excited to get the design/layout pages - it looks amazing, which is more a credit to the designers than to me - but the ISBN thing makes it seem real.

Guerilla tram choir

no sure how this is a representation of Melbourne, but it's very Melbourne: the Guerrilla Tram Choir sings on the Number 19 tram...(aka Spontaneous Tram Choir...and what I find really freaky is that this post appeared as a Google result for "Guerilla Tram Choir" after FOUR minutes.)

coming soon...

...looks like the book might actually be happening...it's on the publisher's web site and all...and I am supposed to provide a photo for a proper page for the book...quick, where's that make-up girl?

oh, and there's now a RRP: $29.95, which is good as at one point it looked like being more. and even though I get a % of the price, I'd rather more people bought it for less...