2012 AWARDS & SHORTLISTINGS


Thanks to all our Spinifex friends for your support and friendship throughout the year. It's been a great year with many of our authors and their work recognised for the rich contribution they make to art and culture. We've been thrilled to see My Sister Chaos by Lara Fergus win the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction as well as coming in as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Debut Fiction; Bite Your Tongue by Francesca Rendle-Short was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award; Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry edited by Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray was Highly Commended in the 2012 Australian Educational Publishing Awards; Cow by Susan Hawthorne was a finalist for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry and was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, NSW Premier's Literary and History Awards and cartoonist Judy Horacek was a finalist for the 2012 Walkley Award. Diane Fahey co-author of The Body in Time/Nervous Arcs, has been selected for the 2012 International Poet Tour and Susan Hawthorne has been granted a six-month residency in Rome, thanks to the Australia Council for the Arts.

CHRISTMAS FREE FREIGHT AND A PRESENT FOR YOU!


Don't forget we have free freight until Christmas. And as a special thank you for your friendship throughout the year we would like to give a gift of either of our latest releases, Making Peace with the Earth by Vandana Shiva or The Fabulous Feminist by Suniti Namjoshi, to the first two people to tell us in 50 words or less who their favourite spinifex author is and why, email women@spinifexpress.com.au

NEWS


The launch of The Fabulous Feminist by Suniti Namjoshi was a blast, with fans of her work keen to snap up her latest collection. Here's a great review in Jabberwock in Me, you, and books and again in The Age

Making Peace with the Earth by Vandana Shiva was reviewed in Scoop.co.nz  and Vandana received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Toronto Read a great article for the non-profit magazine Yes! Vandana discusses the war against the earth and the movements to save it.

Tito Genova Valiente from the Business Mirror reviewed Fish Hair Woman by Merlinda Bobis and wrote about its launch in the Philippines. He wasn't the only one who was inspired; the extremely talented Stephen Prestado has created his own version of the Fish-Hair Woman after seeing Merlinda perform her work. "I was moved by Dr. Merlinda Bobis' novel about desaparecidos to draw something out of it. The vivid images of characters played in my mind while she was performing it last 21 November 2012 at the Arrupe Convention Hall at Ateneo de Naga University. This took me five days drawing lots of lines while listening to classroom discussions or being alone at the cafeteria."

Spinifex classic Still Murder by Finola Moorhead was reviewed in Me, you, and books.

Gail Dines, author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, continues to fight the good fight. Counterpunch has published an interview with Gail where she discusses the impact of the multi-billion dollar porn industry.

RE-PRINTED


We are very excited to announce the re-printing of Merlinda Bobis' White Turtle. It arrived this morning with its beautiful new cover and will be available for purchase in January.  White Turtle was the co-winner of the 2000 Steele Rudd Award, and named winner of the National Book Award for fiction by the Manila Critics Circle.

BLOG
'Guilt-Free Gift Ideas' by Danielle Binks is our annual guide to conscientious shopping.
'Confronting Rape as a Weapon of War in the Democratic Republic of Congo' is an excerpt of Anneke Woudenberg's chapter in The Unfinished Revolution: Voices from the Global Fight for Women's Rights, it was posted in response to claims emerging from the Democratic Republic of Congo that the rebel M23 movement is raping and looting.
'Shades of Grey: What now that BDSM has gone mainstream?' by Susan Hawthorne, examines the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey and its reflection of current culture.
Betty McLellan, author of Unspeakable: A Feminist Ethic of Speech, discusses the need to not compromise on the underlying issues in, 'Speaking Out from the Margins: Radical Feminism in Focus'
'Take back the night-again' by Helen Lobato calls for a serious public discussion around male violence directed at women.

THANK YOU JACLYN
A very big thank you to our intern Jaclyn, who came to us in the latter half of the year and was a lovely addition to the Spinifex crew- we loved her work, and wish her all the best in her future endeavours. We miss her already.

HERE COMES 2013
Our book list for 2013 is looking strong with many of our books tapping into the zeitgeist. Suniti Namjoshi has written a wonderful novella called Suki. It is both a biography of her cat, a marvellously wise animal and a novel about the challenges of meditation. 'Life Matters' on ABC Radio National recently ran a 6-week meditation challenge. If you or anyone you know is dealing with the challenges of meditation, the interrupting voices, the endless stream of chatter, this is the book to look out for.

Beryl Fletcher's novella, Juno and Hannah is set in the early years of the 20th century when eugenics was popular. The characters face the prospect of forced sterilisation of a young woman. 'Life Matters' ran a discussion about this subject just this week.

Ann Ostby's novel, Town of Love deals with a small town in Bihar, India where all the women are born into prostitution. The NGO Aapne Ap works to help women who want to leave prostitution. This novel shows just how hard it is to make that happen.

And look out for a limited edition of Finola Moorhead's manifesto, A Handwritten Modern Classic. Written in 1977 and published in 1982, this facsimile edition picks up on something Gertrude Stein once said: '...the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until [s]he is a classic'. This quirky manifesto in the experimentalist tradition challenges readers and writers alike not to fall for a romantic view of the world.

That's just a snippet of what to look out for in 2013. We'll be back in February to tell you more. All the staff at Spinifex Press wish you and those you love, be they two-legged, four-legged or something in-between a HAPPY FEMINISTA.


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