Express Media – We're here for young writers

Zoe Dattner. Female. Lives in central Victoria, Australia. Writer of fiction and nonfiction. Co-founder and Creative Director of Sleepers Publishing. General Manager of SPUNC (the Small Press Underground Networking Community), a peak organisation that represents, advocates, and promotes more than eighty small publishers around Australia. Is also a graphic designer, and has worked in pretty much all areas of publishing. Kicks arse about town.

Zoe Dattner. Female. Lives in central Victoria, Australia. Writer of fiction and nonfiction. Co-founder and Creative Director of Sleepers Publishing. General Manager of SPUNC (the Small Press Underground Networking Community), a peak organisation that represents, advocates, and promotes more than eighty small publishers around Australia. Is also a graphic designer, and has worked in pretty much all areas of publishing. Kicks arse about town.

Writing: necessity or luxury?

For me? It's a luxury. For anyone who's particularly good at it, it's a necessity.

You are an ardent spruiker for small press publishing. Why?

It's my job. No, seriously, the fact is that I feel passionate about all small, independent endeavors where business meets creativity. When these two basic human disciplines work together in harmony, they form the basis for Supreme Human Productivity, a wonderful symbiotic reaction very particular to our species whereby the flourishing of our intellect and our creative urges promotes and invites more of the same. We're part of a wonderfully mad machine that sits up there with modern agricultural practices, as far as its significance to our civilisation goes.

SPUNC has about eighty member organisations now. Are you aiming for McDonald's/Apple/Coca-Cola style domination? What is your plan of attack?

I like to think that some of the best operations ever carried out in history owe their success to a serendipitous turn of events. Look at the storming of Normandy for instance - sure, there was a lot of planning and a lot of smart people involved, but if the weather hadn't suddenly turned bad, and then suddenly turned good again, providing a very small window of opportunity, the outcome of world war II would possibly have been very very different. The challenge to us is in taking risks and pursuing an opportunity and being clear on what our objectives are. That sounds like corporate motivational speak  - and I guess it is. It's amazing how appropriate military analogies can be when answering these sorts of questions. The upshot of all that is that my plan of attack will always involve lots of smart people, then I can take credit for all their brilliant ideas when things go really well. Likewise, I can blame them when things go badly.

Sleepers Publishing is goin’ great guns/kickin’ goals/right on the money, mate. What’s next?

More novels, more new fiction, more exciting writers you never knew existed, and more innovative explorations into the realms of digital publishing. Well, perhaps not innovative (all the great ideas we come up with tend to happen about a fortnight before people with more money and resources have exactly the same idea - it's so hard being original these days). What have we got to do? One of two things: either do something that no one else is doing and make waves that way, or do something that everyone else is doing, but do it better.

If you could read anyone’s journal or raid anyone’s hard drive, through whose would you rifle?

Charlie Chapman, Leni Riefenstahl, Edith Campbell Berry (fictional character from Frank Moorhouse's novels), Steve Jobs.

The internet: friend or foe? Discuss.

Frenemy? I like the internet. I think it rocks. It's just like real life, only you can turn it off.

You can punch one person in the schnoz and get away scot free. Who do you clobber?

I confess, I don't really feel that way about anyone. But I do rather dislike Angelina Jolie. (Sorry Ange, I know we had that talk and you thought we'd sorted out all our differences, but I guess I wasn't being completely honest with you. I just don't like your face.)

You’re an exile, banished to a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. You are allowed one book and one album of music (in a solar powered iPod) to last the rest of your days. Any preferences?

Book: the collected works of every word anyone in my family has ever written about anything (they're all big wordsmiths, each and every one of them, it would make for one hell of compendium. Not for anyone else, mind you, but a masterpiece for me.)

Album: Likewise, the greatest hits of every drunken singalong that's happened around the dining table with my family. Anyone who's been privy to one of these sessions would have to agree that we're insanely talented.

Have you ever hit a cane toad with a golf club? Could you?

No. Absolutely.

Louise Swinn. Female. Lives in Melbourne. Co-founder and Editorial Director of Sleepers Publishing. Writer of fiction and nonfiction. Book reviewer. Sits on a bunch of boards and committees. Dedicated, passionate and paid up.

Writing: necessity or luxury?

I write all the time but it's hardly poetry. Lots of lists, quotes and thoughts and observations. If I couldn't - if there was some law banning it - it would be murder. So: necessity.

You used to write a blog, and then you stopped. Why? And what does ‘blogging’ mean to you?

It wasn't a blog in the strictest sense of the word really - it wasn't chatty or even opinionated; it was just a list of the things I read that morning, with links. I stopped because it started being the case that the only things I was reading every morning were manuscripts (goodbye New Yorker subscription, ug) and also I didn't know who my audience was - people didn't comment much after they'd read, so it felt like talking to an empty room. Blogging - I'd like to think it's a place to express yourself freely and quickly. But imagine if they were really anonymous and unconstrained.

Your short fiction has cropped up in top-notch publications like Meanjin, Best Australian Stories, Overland, New Australian Stories and Cutwater. What's next for Lou Swinn, fiction writer?

I'm not happy with my writing. I'm not very good at nailing the words the way I want them to be. But I think I am gradually getting better at that, letting fewer soft sentences creep in. I think that today; perhaps tomorrow I'll think differently... If I can write another couple of short stories that are really good, then if I could write a really knock-out one, that would be good. I used to want to write lots of books - now that I read lots of books I guess I just want to produce a decent sentence or story or one really good book. Sometimes, on the darker days, I think there are too many average books - I don't want to contribute. I think perhaps all my stories are just one story and I need to find the best way of saying that. Just to write one knock-out story that I am really proud of. Ask me tomorrow and my answer could be quite different.

How goes it down there at Sleepers Publishing? Can you offer us a glimpse inside the sleek machine headed by you and Zoe Dattner?

Oh, Sam - sleek machine?! Haha. A glimpse inside Sleepers? Um, okay - we're just two hokey girls trying our best to make a godfearin' livin' from some publishin' of the literary variety... We drink lots of tea. We talk about writers and books and words we don't like (panties) and how annoying the mean people are and how amazing the great people are. We drink more tea and we read and read and read and read and hope for the next great novel. We write grant applications and send out lots of mail. We giggle a lot at silly jokes - that's kind of important to our business plan. Really, if we weren't doing Sleepers, we'd be doing comedy or some kind of live entertainment act with snakes and Zoe on banjo.

If you could read anyone's journal or raid anyone's hard drive, through whose would you rifle?

Can I do the opposite -- can I know less of that kind of stuff about people? I feel as though I'm reading everyone's diaries all the time already. Don't you? I sort of feel icky about that kind of thing. I wouldn't go to a party I wasn't invited to either - I don't know why exactly, but it's just not something I feel comfortable with. All the magic in the universe is contained in the knowing that there are things I can only guess - if I learn them, they lose their power.

The internet: friend or foe? Discuss.

Friend (are you crazy?)! It's a tool I use hundreds of times a week and it makes so many things quicker. Of course, it has its drawbacks, of course - but then, so does chocolate.

You can punch one person in the schnoz and get away scot free. Who do you clobber?

Sam Newman. And I'd have nunchucks in my fist. Then I'd accidentally body-slam him to the goolies.

You’re an exile, banished to a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. You are allowed one book and one album of music (in a solar powered iPod) to last the rest of your days. Any preferences?

Salinger's Franny and Zooey & Everything But the Girl's Amplified Heart. We can talk about them sometime you have a few hours.

Have you ever hit a cane toad with a golf club? Could you?

I guess I could if there was a reason good enough. Like, to save the human race or something. But, as a general rule, it's not something I'd do with any ease, no. I don't dig them particularly but I am a bit soft for animals and reptiles of the non-human variety.

Steven Amsterdam. Male. Born in New York. Lives in Melbourne. Debut novel: Things We Didn't See Coming. Out now in Australia and USA and soon in Europe. Won 2009 Age Book of the Year. Recently shortlisted for NSW Premier's Literary Award. Publishes plenty of short stories. Has worked in a fistload of different fields. Right now is a psychiatric nurse (and writer).

Writing: necessity or luxury?

Aah. I don't always feel particularly driven, but maybe that's from years of not having anyone asking me what I'm working on. It just seems to happen and now I'm definitely writing with a plan. The fact that I seem to keep doing it points to a kind of need then, doesn't it? I choose column A.

Things We Didn’t See Coming continues to provoke acclaim, and is conquering the globe. Does this freak you out?

Conquering the globe? To the extent that it's had warm reception in two countries now, I'm pleased. I hope it continues. This may be a measure of my own mental health or lack thereof but I don't walk around blissed out or freaking about this fact. It seems like a very good thing to me, like a big present. It doesn't feel like planting a flag on this Everest that's been in my mind since I was twelve, which I suppose it should. I guess I'm superstitious. Not that a good review can be taken away, but still.

You are an American living in Australia. Does this mean anything?

To my family and friends back there, yes, but I try to get back when I can.

I read somewhere that being an immigrant for a while makes you a stranger in two lands at once and I've started to notice this effect. There are subtle distances during my trips "home" to the US. For instance, I was once quite attached to the American political circus, watching the Sunday news shows and screaming loudly for my favourite team. But now I feel a bit of a relief when I read about it all. I've started to look it at with the same distance I look at say, Nicole and Keith. It's happening to someone else. This is, of course, wrongthink, because even if it doesn't effect me directly, it effects people I love, and in the long run, America casts quite a big shadow on the globe, so its impact may well reach me wherever I hide. Still, there's been a sense of ease, not feeling personally responsible for universal healthcare being passed. The corollary (a word that you all pronounce differently to Seppos) is that I haven't exactly glommed onto Australian politics. It lacks the virulent partisanship that makes American politics so engaging. Clearly I've used this whole immigration thing as an excuse to get my mind off of public policy and onto real things, like fiction.

Alongside writing, you work as a psychiatric and palliative care nurse. Would you quit if money was no object?

No. Emphatically not. I love the work I'm doing now and it provides an important balance to the writing and to my newer business of being a writer.

Your website bio says that you “Once got yelled at by Sean Penn.” Can you elaborate?

I was an assistant to the assistant to the producer on his first film, The Indian Runner (early Viggo Mortenson, really worth seeing). They were showing dailies early on and I walked in. Sean didn't know who I was and started yelling at me until someone told him to stop. We didn't become mates afterwards, but he didn't yell at me again.

If you could read anyone’s journal or raid anyone’s hard drive, through whose would you rifle?

I'm stunned to find that no one comes to mind. I'm writing a story right now about a girl who discovers her gift for invisibility and I have found it hard to use her power for such spying. I must be moral.

The internet: friend or foe? Discuss.

: )

You can punch one person in the schnoz and get away scot free. Who do you clobber?

George W Bush springs to mind. The next thing that bubbles up: only one?

You’re an exile, banished to a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. You are allowed one book and one album of music (in a solar powered iPod) to last the rest of your days. Any preferences?

I picked my desert island music a long time ago (back when I had it in album format)—Bowie's Young Americans—and I think that still stands. For literature, a toss up between Lolita and Jane Eyre. Of course, if the measure is what would I like not to have ruined by overexposure, it would be anything but those choices. Couldn't my captors spring for an ipad so I could bring all my music and books with me?

Have you ever hit a cane toad with a golf club? Could you?

Just saw my first cane toad a week ago in the Gold Coast. I felt sorry for it. Imported from another land, thriving in a strange terrain where it wasn't wanted. Being thought of as destructive, invasive, a pest. Makes you think, doesn't it?