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Debra Adelaide — Fiction, anthologies of fiction

Motherlove, an anthology of short fiction about mothers and babies, brilliantly edited by Debra from a surprising variety of writers, was published by Random House in 1996, followed by Motherlove II in 1997, and Cutting The Cord in 1998.

Debra’s blackly humorous novel The Hotel Albatross (Random House, 1995; Pan Macmillan 2009) deals with two people who by unhappy chance become the managers of a large country hotel. Filled with scathing vignettes of small town life and unforgettable eccentric characters, it is a novel of great warmth and humour.

Her 1998 novel Serpent Dust is a deeply moving account of the tragedies that followed the white occupation of Australia, and was published by Random House.

Acts of Dog, a collection of short stories edited by Debra, was published in 2003 by Random House. Rights were also sold into Hungary.

Her latest book is the novel Household Guide to Dying. This is a brilliant, original work which charts one woman’s attempts to make provision for her husband and daughters — from writing lists on the fridge to teaching her 8-year-old to make boiled eggs — and to confront a ghost from the past. Delia has made a living writing an acerbic advice column and a series of wildly successful modern household guides. As the book opens, she has only a short time to live. Going about the ordinary routines of daily life, she is consumed by two things: how to make provision for her husband and daughters — and how to make her peace with the past. The two stories interweave, and each section opens with very funny snippets from Delia’s acerbic advice column, and, later, her Household Guide to Dying.

The novel was published by Picador in Australia, HarperCollins in Britain and Putnams in the US. It has been sold into nine countries in translation.

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Martin Armiger ― fiction

Noisemakers is the long-awaited follow-up to Martin’s first novel the waiters published in 2000 by Text Publishing. ‘A brilliant first novel… announces the arrival of an exciting new novelist whose multiple talents… seep effortlessly into his writing.’ ― Weekend Australian.

Noisemakers is about music and obsessive love, about a pianist and a piano marker and the women who love them, and about the way art mirrors life. But is also about how a charismatic genius can attract and hold people within his brilliant light.
Euwan Purcell grows up in a small country town. As a young man he goes to study music in Adelaide and falls in love with Greta Paley, the most talented girl in the university.

Leon Koel is the gifted son of conductor Sandor Koel and an opera diva. He grows up as a piano prodigy, and after a meteoric rise to fame in Europe as a pianist he eventually marries and takes a job teaching at Adelaide University. There the lives of Euwan, Greta, Leon and his wife collide.

The novel traces the conflicting demands of art and love through the work and lives of these ‘noisemakers’. It also traces a parallel in the story of the composer Hector Berlioz, his mistress Camille, and her husband Pleyel. Through the story of Koel and his circle is threaded the Berlioz narrative, linking together ideas about genius and desire, creativity and interpretation, music and meaning.

Martin Armiger has produced records and composed music for theatre, feature films and television.

Rights: World rights available

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Alan Attwood — Historical fiction

It was ambitious. It was heroic. It was a disaster. And only one man survived to tell what happened at the end. Burke’s Soldier is his story, a story of the biggest exploration expedition ever assembled in Australia. Led by Robert O’Hara Burke, an Irishman, and William Wills, an Englishman, the expedition foundered in the swamps of the far north and the deserts of Central Australia. It has become synonymous with failure and wretched luck.
     Almost forgotten is John King, the last man alive from the expedition, the one who was taken in by the natives Burke had scorned. The one who was with Burke, his leader, when he died.
     Burke’s Soldier is a powerfully written novel with wonderful literary undertones. Published by Penguin in 2003.

Rights sold: Australia/New Zealand (Penguin Australia).

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Julia Baird

is a journalist with The Sydney Morning Herald. Scribe released her Media Tarts — How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians at the Melbourne Writers’ Week in 2004. An insightful, accessible and impeccably researched book, it immediately received outstanding reviews.

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Alison Booth — Fiction

After the death of her husband in 1957, Illona and her young daughter Zidra travel to the remote coastal town of Stillwater Creek. Illona, a piano teacher and a concentration camp survivor, is searching for peace and an opportunity to start anew. But this Australian small town is not quite the utopia it seems.

Seven main characters people this novel. Illona expects little from life for herself, but everything for her daughter Zidra. Zidra responds to taunts about being a “reffo” (refugee) by becoming friends with the local Aboriginal girl, Lorna. These two young girls bond, and Zidra is devastated when Lorna is taken from her family and sent to the Gudgiegalah Girls’ Home because she is a half-caste.

Then there is Bill Bates, the publican, whose wife, Cherry Bates, is conducting a secret liaison with the school mistress Pat Nesbitt. But Bill is not the affable man he seems, and when Cherry discovers his interest in child pornography, she tries to conceal it. The local butcher is George Cadwallader, whose wife treats him with contempt and whose artistry manifests itself in his shop front window and a need to contemplate the stars. His son Jim has hopes of winning a scholarship to a school in the city. His observant views of life are sometimes more adult than those of the people around him. He befriends Zidra and becomes her protector. As their lives entwine, a rich and powerful novel unfolds. Stillwater Creek is ultimately a tale of redemption and hope and will be popular with readers everywhere.

You can find out more about Alison Booth on her website: http://www.alisonbooth.net/

World Rights: Random House Australia
Contact: Nerillee Weir <nweir [ at ] randomhouse.com.au>

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Richard Broinowski

Driven

From Japan to Mexico, Tehran to Vietnam, Australian diplomat Richard Broinowski was “our man” in some of the works’s key hot spots during a distinguished 34-year career. And all through his life he has had an obsession with cars.

His favorites include a Riley 1.5 litre (in Canberra), a Hillman Imp (in Japan), a Holden Kindswood (in Rangoon) and a 2.8 litre Jaguar XJ6 (in Tehran).

In this engaging memoir, Broinowski reveals what it was like to observe and implement Australian foreign policy, intertwining his reflections on foreign postings with reminiscences of a lifelong love of the motorcar.

Rights: Australia and New Zealand: ABC Books / HarperCollins

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John Bryson — Novels, non-fiction, television

John Bryson achieved international acclaim with Evil Angels, his celebrated book on the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain. It was also released as a major film starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill. Hodder Headline Australia released a new edition of Evil Angels in 2000.
     When John followed the Azaria Chamberlain case through the early eighties, the moment of greatest shock for him came at the conclusion of the trial. Weeks of detailed evidence from the Defence had conclusively demonstrated the profound errors of procedure that the police forensic scientists had committed. However, the jury utterly ignored the facts, and found Lindy Chamberlain guilty of murdering her baby. It was this triumph of prejudice over truth, so nakedly revealed in the jury’s decision, that spurred John on to write the book Evil Angels. It became a turning point in public opinion. Not merely exposing the flaws in the conviction, it above all demonstrated that despite Australians’ belief in their sense of fairness, prejudice can overwhelm us.
     John Bryson’s novel, To the Death, Amic, was published by Viking/Penguin in Australia and the UK in 1994. His Whoring Around was published by Penguin in 1981 and a collection of reportage, Backstage at the Revolution and Twelve Other Reports, was published by Penguin in 1988. He originated the production and wrote the courtroom scenario for the TV special Secrets of the Jury Room for SBSTV 2004.
     John lectures in law, literary journalism, and fiction, acts on advisory panels to government, NGOs, and universities, and on literary judging panels. At the end of the millennium, a Schools of Journalism panel included him in ‘The 100 Journalists of the Century’.

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Helen Caldicott — Non-fiction

Doctor, anti-nuclear activist, and author of three books on nuclear energy and the environment, Helen Caldicott is the founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her autobiography A Passionate Life was published by Random House in 1996.
     She is writing a new book on the continuing nuclear arms race and the dangers of the anti-ballistic missile system now proposed for the United States. The New Nuclear Danger was published by Simon & Schuster in the United States and Scribe Publications in Australia in 2002.
     Her latest work Nuclear Power is Not the Answer was released by Melbourne University Press in 2006. Martin Sheen says ‘In a world where dark and dangerous forces are threatening our planet, Helen Caldicott shines a powerful light. This much-needed book reverals truths that confirm that we must take positive action now if we are to make a difference.’

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Dany Chouet — Memoir

Périgord-born Dany Chouet brought French cuisine to Australia in the 1970s, starting out at the much-loved restaurant “Upstairs”, before flying solo at “Au Chabrol” and “Cleopatra”. Now, in her first book, So French, Dany shares the fascinating story of her life in food and hospitality as well as more than 60 recipes. These include signature dishes from her restaurants and timeless provincial favourites such as pissaladière, cassoulet, and apricot soufflé tart. Complemented by stunning images taken at her home in the South-West of France, this is truly a book to treasure.

Dany’s memoir/ cookbook begins its journey around Bordeaux in the fifties with a picture of a childhood in provincial France filled with tradition and the memories of a way of life which has largely disappeared. From Bordeaux she travelled to Paris and then on to Australia. Dany started up the first real French bistro in Sydney in 1970 called “Upstairs”. The more chic “Au Chabrol” followed in Darlinghurst, and then “Glenella” in the Blue Mountains, the first guest house praised for its great food. Then came the iconic “Cleopatra”, a guest house hailed not only for its outstanding food but for its beautiful interiors, becoming a pilgrimage site for foodies.

After a highly successful seventeen-year reign at “Cleopatra” Dany then returned to rural France, the gastronomic centre of Europe, to continue her life long love affair with sensational cooking.

Both a cookbook and a memoir (and a work of art), Dany Chouet’s So French is beautifully published by Murdoch books.

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Paul Cleary — Non-fiction

Shakedown: Australia’s grab for Timor oil

In 2000 one of the poorest nations on earth began negotiations with Australia over rights to the lucrative oil and gas resources of the Timor Sea. With the revenue from the oil and gas fields, the young democracy of East Timor would have a chance to secure its economic future -- if Australia would allow it. In an ironic twist of fate, East Timor found that Australia, the country which had delivered freedom to the Timorese by intervening against Indonesia’s bloody attacks in 1999, was now trying to deny it a fair share of the profits. This is the inside story of Australia’s attempts to bully East Timor out of a promising future in the Timor Sea oil dispute.

Paul Cleary, a former East Timor government adviser, gives a gripping insider’s account of the six years of bruising negotiations between Australia and East Timor that followed the independence ballot. He saw how the Timorese pulled off one of the great David and Goliath feats of the region but then were unable to lay the foundations for a peaceful future. In this compelling insight into Australia’s international operations, Cleary exposes the heroes and villains who emerged in a one-hundred-billion-dollar shakedown.

His new book, The Men Who Came Out of the Ground, is based on Australia’s guerilla war against the Japanese in Timor in the 1940s, and was released by Hachette in 2010.

The is the gripping story of a small force of Australian Special Forces commandos who launched relentless hit and run raids on far superior Japanese forces in East Timor for most of 1942.
      It was early 1942, Australia was in dire straits. The seemingly all-conquering Japanese military forces had rolled over South-east Asia. Singapore had fallen. Most of the 23,000 soldiers Australia had sent to its north to fight had been captured. Only a few hundred men remained in Timor. These soldiers, the 2/2 Australian Independent Company — Sparrow Force — were all that stood between Japanese forces and Papua New Guinea. A Special Forces unit set up to fight a different kind of war, many were bushmen and crack shots, and all were trained to fight behind enemy lines. Mobilising the support of the locals, the 2/2 Company avoided pitched battles, instead picking just the right time to strike. They adapted their bush skills to become the masters of this new kind of commando warfare.
      Always greatly outnumbered but relentless in their harassing campaign of skirmishes and ambushes, Sparrow Force tied down thousands of Japanese in a fierce guerilla war — not just matching them, but beating them. The men of the 2/2 Company and their campaign in Timor became a defining moment in Australia’s military history.

Expertly researched by Paul Cleary, who is fluent in Tetum, the main language of the indigenous group of East Timor, it contains black and white photos.

Paul Cleary is a senior writer with The Australian newspaper and a researcher in Indigenous development at the Australian National University. In a career spanning 20 years he has reported on politics and economics for a decade in the Canberra press gallery, and worked as a correspondent in Southeast Asia and as a political adviser. Awarded a Chevening fellowship by the UK Foreign Office to study at SOAS, University of London, he became an adviser to government of newly-independent East Timor. His work on the Timor Sea resource negotiations led to his first non-fiction book, Shakedown — Australia’s grab for Timor oil. The Timor veterans whom he met while based in East Timor inspired this book. He speaks several languages, and lives in Sydney with his partner and son.

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Shady Cosgrove — Fiction/ Non Fiction

She Played Elvis is the story of a trip that Shady, a young American immigrant to Australia, undertakes with her Australian boyfriend to rediscover her homeland — which, after several years in Australia, doesn’t necessarily feel like “home” anymore. As part of the journey, the pair decides to make a pilgrimage across America, travelling on Greyhound buses, to get to Graceland for the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death.

Shady busks, singing Elvis songs, at cities and towns along the way. As they travel across the country, memories of her past begin to surface and Shady realises that while she is coming to understand the meaning of “home”, she is also untangling the knotted threads of her difficult relationship with her estranged, erratic, and often violent father.

Shady Cosgrove graduated from Vassar College in New York State (1996) with honours in Women’s Studies and English before completing her doctorate at the Australian National University in 2002. She has a background in journalism and is currently a lecturer at the University of Wollongong in the School of Journalism and Creative Writing. Her non-fiction manuscript “She Played Elvis” was shortlisted for the 2007 Australian/Vogel Literary Prize and was later published by Allen & Unwin in 2009. She Played Elvis is a fresh and compelling memoir recounting the days when Shady made her way across America to Graceland.

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Eva Cox — Feminism, economics, essays, public speaking

High-profile feminist economist, and very much in demand as a public speaker and commentator. She delivered the ABC Boyer Lectures in 1995 and her book Leading Women - an examination of he place of women in the contemporary political economy of Australia - was published by Random House in 1996.

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Stephen Daisley — Fiction: Traitor

Gallipolli 1915: A young New Zealand soldier and a Turkish doctor meet in the chaos of battle. When a shell bursts overhead, David and Mahmoud are taken to the same military hospital. There, an unshakeable bond grows between them: naive shepherd and educated Sufi mystic. A bond such that, when the time comes, David will choose to betray his country for his friend. The savage punishment that follows will break David and make him anew. The compassion he finds within himself will touch the lives of his comrades in the trenches. And later, back in the hill country of New Zealand, it will wrench open the heart of a woman crazed by grief.

Traitor is a story of war, and love how each changes everything, forever. Evoking both brutality and transcendent beauty, Stephen Daisley’s astonishing debut novel will transport the reader heart and soul into another realm.

Stephen Daisley was born in 1955, and grew up in remote parts of the North Island of New Zealand. He served for five years in an infantry battalion of the NZ Army, and has worked on sheep and cattle stations, on oil and gas construction sites and as a truck driver and bartender, among many other jobs. He has university degrees in writing and literature and lives in Western Australia with his wife and five children. Traitor is his first novel.

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Genna de Bont — Fiction

For successful artist Mallory Smith, painting has always been an escape — from his lonely childhood, his turbulent relationships with his three wives, and the birth of a daughter with a severe disability. But art is failing him now. As Mallory traces his colourful past, we see him through the eyes of the women in his life. His ex-wife Margaret challenges him to face his future, while his much younger wife Sueyen buries herself in her work to escape their failing marriage. The Pepper Gate is a compelling and unpredictable novel about building relationships and deconstructing the past.

Genna de Bont is a new literary fiction author. She was born in Tasmania. After completing university studies, Genna worked for several years with children with disabilities. Her particular interest in language learning and literacy were later extended into her work with adults with neurological impairment. She lives in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges with her husband and family, and is currently (2007) working on her second novel.

The Pepper Gate was published by the University of Queensland Press in 2007.
Author photo: Sarah de Bont

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Robert Dessaix — Novels, essays, journalism, literary interviews

For many years Robert was the presenter of the ABC Radio National’s Books and Writing program. His autobiography, A Mother’s Disgrace, was published by HarperCollins in 1994.
     Robert’s best-selling novel Night Letters was published to great success in Australia, U.K. and the U.S.A. as well as being translated into German, French, Italian, Dutch, Finnish and Portuguese. This was followed by Corfu, released by Scribners in the UK in 2001 and in the Netherlands by Muelenhoff.

Twilight of Love followed, which highlighted Robert’s fascination with Russia and in particular Russian writers. He is a fluent Russian speaker and his doctoral thesis was on the author Ivan Turgenev. In Twilight of Love he revisits the Europe he experienced more than twenty years ago and follows the footsteps of Turgenev. Partly inspired by Alice Kaplan’s French Lessons (a memoir about ‘falling in love with a language not one’s own’);  Richard Holmes’ Footsteps; and Alain de Botton’s books about Proust, philosophy and the art of travel, Robert explores these ideas and more as he weaves together Turgenev’s time in the nineteenth century, his own Soviet experience, and Russia as it is today.

Released at the Melbourne Writers’ Week in 2004 by Pan Macmillan, it was also published in the UK by Simon and Schuster and in the US by Shoemaker and Hoard.

Robert’s current work (Pan Macmillan 2008) is Arabesques, based on the Nobel Prize winning author André Gide. Part travel, part memoir, Arabesques explores Robert’s fascination with Gide’s attempt to find a balance between his homosexual desires and an almost puritanical core.

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Luke Devenish

It is 44 BC and the rival powers of Rome are driving the Republic to a violent end. A soothsayer foretells that the young Tiberius Nero, if he is wed to his cousin, the darkly beautiful Livia Drusilla, will sire four kings of Rome. Fuelled by ambition, Livia devotes her life to fulfilling the prophecy. No crime is too great when destiny beckons. So begins a murderous saga of sex, corruption and obsession at the dawning of the age of emperors.

Narrated by the 100-year-old slave Iphicles, Den of Wolves brings to life the great women of Imperial Rome — Livia, Julia, Antonia and Agrippina — women who relied on their ambition, instincts and cunning to prosper. In this first book of the dramatic new series Empress of Rome, Luke Devenish superbly recreates these outstanding women who lived in such monstrous times. The second in the series is… Nest of Vipers.

Rome is bathed in blood as the Emperor Tiberius is tormented by drug-fuelled terrors of treason. The innocent are butchered while the guilty do evil in darkness. None is guiltier than the Emperor’s devoted and deluded ‘son’, Sejanus. In this city of poison three beautiful women are locked in a lethal rivalry…
      Agrippina: Driven mad with grief, her obsession with revenge for her murdered husband imperils the lives of her children.
      Apigata: Robbed of her eyes and embittered in her heart, she schemes in the shadows to empower the husband who despises her.
      Livilla: Sensual and sly, she is gripped by lust for a lover as deadly as he is desirable.

Rome is a nest of vipers, and Livia, the one true Empress of Rome, is hell-bent on wreaking her vengeance…
      Nest of Vipers is the second volume in the gripping Empress of Rome series.

Den of Wolves was published in Australia and New Zealand by Random House in 2008, and has also been sold into Turkey, Spain and Russia. It is the first book in a trilogy commissioned by Random House.

Luke Devenish is a writer for television and theatre, and a lecturer in screenwriting. He lives with his partner in central Victoria, Australia. Den of Wolves is his first novel. Visit his website: http://www.lukedevenish.com/

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Paul Dillon

 — When is the right time to start talking to my kids about drugs?
 — How can I reduce the influence of peer pressure?
 — How should I introduce alcohol to my child?
 — How can I make sure that a party I hold for my teenager doesn’t get out of control?
 — Can you really overdose on alcohol?
 — How do I look after someone who has drunk too much?
 — Can ecstasy really kill?


There are so many questions that need answers, but how do parents start talking to their kids about alcohol and drugs? Asking ‘Are you taking drugs?’ won’t do it — that approach won’t give teenagers the information they desperately need to keep themselves and their friends safe.

Teenagers, Alcohol and Drugs has been written in response to the stories Paul Dillon has heard over 25 years in drug and alcohol education, It provides answers to the questions he has been asked by both young people and their parents and also includes solutions to the many scenarios he has heard about from anxious teenagers who haven’t known what to do when things went bad,

This book shows parents how to talk to their children in a way that is respectful and reasonable, non-threatening and non-judgmental. It will help them understand the issues their children are facing, and show them how to help their kids negotiate a minefield of misinformation and social pressure in a calm and sensible way — to tell them what they really want and need to know about alcohol and drugs.

The book has been sold into Spain to Ediciones Medici.

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Ross Duncan — Fiction

Ross Duncan is a lawyer and also works occasionally as a freelance journalist. He has been a regular visitor to Fiji in recent years.

Martin Flint has been hit hard. Two years ago his young daughter died in an accident and now his marriage is in jeopardy. More and more Martin is turning to the only other friend he’s got: The Pillars of Wisdom poker machine — until it lets him down one time too many.

From the realm of Sydney’s poker machine parlours to the bars and backstreets of Suva, All Those Bright Crosses is a compelling insight into addiction, grief and the elusive nature of happiness.

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Arabella Edge — Novels, historical fiction

The God of Spring

The Company, Arabella’s gripping debut novel based on the shipwreck of the Dutch ship the Batavia in 1629, was published to critical acclaim in Australia, Britain, the US, and translated into Dutch, French and German.
     Her new novel The God of Spring is set in Paris during the upheavals of the French Revolution, the Empire and the Restoration, and is inspired by the fascinating life of the artist Theodore Gericault.
     Arabella is currently working on a novel, Fields of Ice, based on the tragic Franklin expedition to find the elusive North-west Passage.

Rights sold: Australia/New Zealand (Pan Macmillan), Britain (Picador) and Simon and Schuster in the USA. She is currently working on a non-fiction book on shipwrecks for ABC Books.

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