Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Wordstorm Darwin

I'll be up in Darwin for the Wordstorm Festival and looking forward to getting together with ASA members there. I'll be presenting sessions on legal matters for authors as well as a session for beginning authors called "So you want to be an author?". These sessions need to be booked through Wordstorm and the Northern Territory Writers Centre: http://www.ntwriters.com.au/

Sydney Writers Festival

I'll be at the 2008 Sydney Writers Festival. Details after 5 April at: www.swf.org.au
Book early!!

Workshop: Legal Issues for Writers with Jeremy Fisher
Event 43



Australian Society of Authors Executive Director, Jeremy Fisher, tackles the legal complexities facing authors, including intellectual property rights, copyright territories, permissions, publishing contracts, licensing rights, digital contracts, PLR, ELR and CAL.
Come along and learn more about your rights.
The ASA acknowledges the CAL Cultural Fund for its generous support of the professional development seminar program.
Duration: 3 hours
This workshop has a maximum capacity of 20 participants.


trope: Promoting New Writing in Second Life
Event 70

trope is a new space in Second Life promoting creative writing in virtual environments. The roundtable features trope's creators alongside writers selected for the first iteration, discussing the dynamics of this intersection between literature and new media. Participants include Cristyn Davies, Elena Knox, Sarah Waterson, Jeremy Fisher, Keri Glastonbury, Gary Hayes, Sara Knox, Louise Wakeling and Fiona Wright, chaired by Jill Jones. This project is supported by the Literature Board of The Australia Council for the Arts and The University of Western Sydney.


Arts Law week in Sydney

I'll be appearing in the Macleay Room of the Rex Centre in Kings Cross on April 2 in a session on "agents" as part of Arts Law Week Sydney. See more at: http://www.artslaw.com.au/Events/ArtsLawWeekSydney2008.asp
My co-speakers will be Patrick Togher, Patrick Togher Artists’ Management, and Moses Kakaire, solicitor, Simpsons Solicitors.
Patrick will give a presentation on the role and functions of agents, i.e. agents as well as managers more generally.
Following Patrick’s presentation, Moses will describe the legal characteristics of the relationship between the agent/manager and the artist, and deal with the contents of any agreement governing that relationship.
I will talk about users’ expectations, not only in relation to the agreement between agent/manager and the artist but also in terms of the agent’s understanding of any agreement, as well as what rights are covered by a specific agreement.

Uwe Timm in conversation

I was delighted to be invited to be in conversation with German author Uwe Timm on 18 March at Gleebooks in Sydney. This bilingual event (German/English) presented by the Goethe Institute of Sydney was a great opportunity for Australian readers to become familiar with one of Germany's finest contemporary novelists. Uwe has gained a fine international reputation for his novel In my brother's shadow (there is a link to my review of this book in the right hand column of this page).
If published in Australia, I am certain there would have been moves to classify this book as memoir or autobiography. Uwe insists it is fiction, even though "Uwe Timm" is the first person narrator and the book includes sections of Uwe's brother's diary from World War II.
I wonder why we in Australia need to make something "factual"? Nevertheless, "faction" is a good description of Uwe's book.