Events Upstairs @ 49 - Launches                   September 2010 Sunday, September 12, 2010 / 3.30 for 4pm Launch   Denise Russell Who Rules the waves Published by: Macmillan To be launched by Adrian Vickers Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Cost: Free RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333 or Request a place via the gleebooks' secure server Buy Who Rules the waves With piracy raging in the Indian Ocean, international disputes over undersea oil and gas, and chronic overfishing, the oceans have rarely been subject to such varied and environmentally damaging conflict outside a world war. In Who Rules the Waves? Denise Russell gives us a rare insight into these issues and how they could be resolved. International law states that a coastal country has territorial rights for 12 miles into the sea beyond its coastline, and economic rights for 200 miles, but in practice many countries have virtually no control over their own waters, and there is no international agency powerful enough to settle disputes. Russell provides a thorough examination of the politics of the sea, showing that without a radical change in ocean governance, accelerating climate change and overuse of the sea's resources is likely to have catastrophic effects. Denise Russell is a Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She is former Head of the Department of General Philosophy at the University of Sydney. Her numerous publications include articles on sea ethics, indigenous rights, marine park management and cetaceans. She holds a Ph.D in Philosophy and a Masters in Earth and Environmental Science, focusing on marine issues. Tuesday, September 14, 2010 / 6.00 for 6.30pm Launch   Ross Honeywill Wasted Published by: Penguin To be launched by Bob Ellis Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Cost: Free RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333 or Request a place via the gleebooks' secure server Buy Wasted Wasted is the true story of Jim McNeil – a man jailed for armed robbery who would become one of the most important Australian playwrights of the twentieth century. Jim McNeil quit school at thirteen. At fourteen he was introduced to Melbourne's underworld by his lover, the madam of a notorious brothel. Despite his love of reading and philosophy, McNeil relished his life among thugs and thieves, becoming one of Australia’s most feared criminals. In 1967, having jumped bail and fled to New South Wales, the 32-year-old McNeil shot a policeman during an armed robbery. He was convicted and began a seventeen-year prison sentence, leaving behind his pregnant wife and five children. In Parramatta maximum-security prison, surrounded by the worst criminals in Australia, McNeil joined a reform group known as the Resurgents, where he soon discovered his talent as a writer. Locked up for what seemed a lifetime, he also discovered prison sex, became involved in a prison break and outwitted Australia’s underworld legends. When he wrote his first play, McNeil had never set foot in a theatre. Just four years later he was a celebrity, freed ten years early thanks to David Marr, Katharine Brisbane and a powerful group of Sydney's elite, who declared him one of the country's most important writers. Within months of his release, McNeil had married actor and director Robyn Nevin, won the Australian Writers' Guild award for the most outstanding script in any category for How Does Your Garden Grow, and was commissioned to write the screenplay for My Brilliant Career. Charismatic, dangerous and charming, he was at the height of his powers. But McNeil never wrote again. Feted by Sydney society and lost in a world that lacked the strict regimen of prison life, he fell into alcoholism and violence. He returned to the streets and died within a decade. His four plays stand as a testament to a remarkable talent sadly wasted. Ross Honeywill met Jim McNeil after he was released from prison and has long wanted to tell his story. In Wasted he draws on previously unpublished letters by McNeil as well as original research. He is a social and consumer behaviourist, and is frequently quoted as a commentator on social change. He lives in Tasmania. Bob Ellis is the author of more than twenty books. His titles include One Hundred Days of Summer, The Capitalism Delusion, And So It Went, Goodbye Jerusalem, Goodbye Babylon and First Abolish the Customer.He co-wrote the classic films Newsfront, Fatty Finn and Goodbye Paradise. Friday, September 17, 2010 / 6.00 for 6.30pm Launch   Maggie MacKellar When it rains Published by: Random house To be launched by Anne Deveson Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Cost: Free RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333 or Request a place via the gleebooks' secure server Buy When it rains Maggie MacKellar seemingly had it all together – an academic career in the city, a loving husband, a beautiful five year-old daughter and baby number two on the way. When her husband spirals into depression, and announces it is not the first time, Maggie’s happy existence begins to unravel. After tragedy strikes and Maggie starts to grapple with unimaginable grief, her mother, backbone of the family, is diagnosed with aggressive cancer and dies shortly after. How do I tell you about us? About him and me, I mean. How do I stitch a pattern where you might peek at what I had and what I lost? I’m being seduced in my dreams, he’s pursuing me, he won’t leave me alone and my anger is being unpicked, even as I hug it closer. Deciding she needs a break from juggling single motherhood and a career, Maggie moves with her children to the family farm in central western New South Wales. The Australian landscape, even in the grip of drought, offers a chance for Maggie to shape a new life for herself. Maggie MacKellar has published two books on the history of settlement in Australia and Canada. She was a history lecturer at Sydney University before she moved with her two children to central western New South Wales where she currently resides. An early manuscript of When It Rains won the Peter Blazey Award for Memoir, Autobiography, Biography & Lifewriting. An essay by Maggie entitled Grief & Desire’, and based on the material in When It Rains, was published in Meanjin to rave reviews and was shortlisted for Best Australian Essays. Saturday, September 18, 2010 / 3.30 for 4pm Launch   Ace Press Launch To be launched by Luke Carman and Rachel Morley Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Cost: Free RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333 or Request a place via the gleebooks' secure server A new boutique publishing company, Ace Press, will be launched by Dr Rachel Morley (University of Western Sydney), with readings by Luke Carman, from two of its adult novels. Chre Isabelle is an epistolary novel of loss, grief and regeneration. The twenty-nine letters are written in English by a French woman now settled in Sydney, to her childhood friend in Paris. Loaded Hearts is a novel that charts the fortunes of two lovers, exploring their lives in a time of rapid social change, where jobs are plentiful, travel is cheap and love is free – or is it? Sixteen year-old Kiri English-Hawke will read from her young adult novel, The Handkerchief Map. Ten year-old author, Juliette Davies, will read from her adventures of JJ Halo, Spyling. Janou Beaugeais, author of Chre Isabelle, is a Sydney based author with a special interest in women’s fiction and French literature. Juliette Davies, author of JJ Halo, Spyling and JJ Halo The Shaddow Returns, is in fourth class at Cammeray Public School where she plays the oboe in the Concert Band and dreams of JJ Halo conquering the world. Kiri English-Hawke, author of The Handkerchief Map, is in Year 10 at Stella Maris College, Manly. She is a national rowing champion and an avid reader. Adrienne Sallay, author of Loaded Hearts, writes short stories, novels, and essays on Australian literature; she also facilitates community reading and writing workshops. Luke Carman is an anti-folk monologist who dabbles in epigrammatical prose pieces. He has pretensions of completing a mystic realism collection of shorts within the year. Dr Rachel Morley is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Communication Arts at the University of Western Sydney where she teaches writing and communications. She is currently working on a novel about the collaborative poets, Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, also known as the 'Michael Fields'. Sunday, September 19, 2010 / 3.30 for 4pm Launch   Valerie Brown Tackling Wicked Problems: Academics meet Industry Published by: Newsouth Books To be launched by Roberta Ryan Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Cost: Free RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333 or Request a place via the gleebooks' secure server "Tackling Wicked Problems the through the transdisciplinary imagination" Earthsan, London 2010 edited by by Professor Valerie A. Brown AO; Dr. John A. Harris and Dr.Jacqui Russell PhD. The launch will be followed by a discussion panel on "Research or consultancy: how well are you being served?" with the book's editors, Professor Valerie Brown, Dr. John Harris and Dr Jacqui Russell, and Roberta Ryan and Dr Greg Walkerden, lecturer in Environmental Studies at Macquarie University and Principal, Batkin Walkerden Associates. From climate change to GM foods, we are increasingly confronted with complex, interconnected social and environmental problems that span disciplines, knowledge bases and value systems. This book offers a transdisciplinary, open approach for those working towards resolving these 'wicked' problems and highlights the crucial role of this 'transdisciplinary imagination' in addressing the shift to sustainable futures. Tackling Wicked Problems provides readers with a framework that will guide the design and conduct of their own open-ended enquiries. In this approach, academic disciplines are combined with personal, local and strategic understanding and researchers are required to recognise multiple knowledge cultures, accept the inevitability of uncertainty, and clarify their own and others' ethical positions. The authors then comment on fifteen case studies which provide real life examples of how researchers have engaged with the opportunities and challenges of conducting transdisciplinary inquiries. The book gives those who are grappling with complex problems innovative methods of inquiry that will allow them to work collaboratively towards long-term solutions. Valerie A. Brown is Director of the Local Sustainability Project, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University; and Emeritus Professor of Environmental Health, University of Western Sydney. John A. Harris is a university academic, outdoors educator, and former Head of School of Environmental Science, University of Canberra. Jacqueline Y. Russell has recently completed a highly-regarded PhD thesis on transdisciplinary frameworks. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences. Roberta Ryan is the Senior partner of the international consulting firm Urbis Australia Asia Middle East. Monday, September 20, 2010 / 6.00 for 6.30pm Launch   Susan Metcalfe The Pacific Solution Published by: Australian Scholarly Publishing To be launched by David Marr Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Cost: Free RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333 or Request a place via the gleebooks' secure server The Australian Government said frankly, 'we don't want to accept you, you are never going to get accepted'. On the other hand, it wasn't safe for us to go back home as well. It's like you are in space, disconnected from the earth and the sky, uncertain of having a future. Between 2001 and 2008, Australia detained a total of 1,637 asylum-seekers in offshore camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. This Pacific Solution policy caused undeniable damage to vulnerable people seeking sanctuary in Australia. An Amnesty International representative described the Pacific camps as a kind of Dante-like scenario or Fellini-like scenario where you have a lot of people who are just milling around, dressed up with nowhere to go, just waiting’. The camps became breeding grounds for relentless anxieties and severe depressions. Some people took medication, others turned to alcohol, hunger strikes and self-harm – measures of last resort for those without hope. In The Pacific Solution, Susan Metcalfe brings together accounts of her own visits to Nauru, extensive interviews conducted with refugees and advocates, media reports, long-distance correspondence and new research. Going beyond labels of 'illegals' and 'queue-jumpers', she engages with the stories of people who, after years of exile in Pacific countries, are now our neighbours, workmates and friends, and for whom Australia is now home. How, she asks, can we justify what we have done? Susan Metcalfe is a writer and refugee advocate who made many visits to the detention centres in Nauru. David Marr is one of Australia's leading intellectuals. Saturday, September 25, 2010 / 3.30 for 4pm Launch   Vagabond Press Poets A celebration of Vagabond Press and three new titles To be MC’d by Liz Allen Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Cost: Free RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333 or Request a place via the gleebooks' secure server Felt by Johanna Featherstone to be launched by Joanne Burns Johanna Featherstone is a Sydney based poet. She is founder and Artistic Director of The Red Room Company.www.redroomcompany.org. If she had a dog, she would call it Hastings. Everyday Static by Toby Fitch to be launched by tba Toby Fitch - author and musician, born in London and raised in Sydney, has published poems in Meanjin, Southerly, The Sun Herald, and was recently a winner in the Fish Publishing International Poetry Competition. He is due to perform at the Melbourne Writers Festival 2010. The pamphlet, Everyday Static, is his first solo publication. A full-length book of poems, Raw Shock, is coming soon, and samples of it can be read on his blog: tobyfitch.blogspot.com Red Trees by Peter Skrzynecki to be launched by Rhyll McMaster Peter Skrzynecki has published seventeen books of poetry and prose. His most recent book of poetry is Old/New World: New & Selected Poems ( UQP, 2007). His novel, Boys of Summer, was published earlier this year by Brandl & Schlesinger.           gleebooks pty ltd - ABN: 87 000 357 317        © 1996-2010 gleebooks & MetaForm.   All rights reserved.