Meanwhile, on the reviewing front ...

Entries have now closed for this year’s ABR Reviewing Competition. We thank all our entrants and look forward to reading their submissions. In the December/January issue, we will announce the winners in all three categories: fiction, non-fiction and children's literature. They will each win $500, plus publication and a future commission.

A month of biographies

Each year, it seems to rain biography, and we review several of them in this and coming issues. How fitting, then, that Peter Porter (himself the subject of a biography: Bruce Bennett's Spirit in Exile, 1991) should be back in Australia to deliver this year’s National Biography Award Annual Lecture. His theme is biography in poetry, and the title of his lecture is ‘The Observed of All Observers’. (We'll present an autographed copy of Mr Porter's new collection, Afterburner, to the first person who can name the play from which this phrase is drawn.) Mr Porter will deliver his lecture twice: first in Sydney, at the State Library of New South Wales, on October 6; then at the State Library of Victoria, on October 12. You will need to book for both, so consult the advertisement on page 59 for more details. Meanwhile, the National Biography Award (so generously financed by Dr Geoff Cains) is on again this year. Entries close on October 22. Once again, the award is worth $15,000. More details and the entry form are available at: www.sl.nsw.gov.au/awards/biog.cfm.

Indexing The Argus

La Trobe University has been indexing The Argus for longer than most newspapers and magazines remain in print. Dr John Hirst, Reader in History and a noted media commentator himself, began the task in 1984, and has been directing the indexing of The Argus, which appeared in Melbourne from 1846 to 1955. To date he has attracted a team of readers and researchers, who are compiling an index of the news content of the paper from 1860 to 1909, not uninteresting decades in our history, as Dr Hirst well knows, having written The Sentimental Nation: The Making of the Australian Commonwealth (2000). Dr Hirst has discovered much colourful primary material: ‘For example, there is a news story about a man pretending to be Ned Kelly demanding free drinks at a pub and another about a bank manager who killed himself with a pistol issued to him to protect him from the Kelly Gang.’ He hopes the project will be completed by 2010, not long after La Trobe University opens its new city campus, aptly in the massive old Argus Building on Elizabeth Street. And when the index is finished, and promulgated? ‘Australia will have an equivalent resource to The Times Index in Britain or The New York Times Index in the US,’ says Dr Hirst. New readers and volunteers will assist his cause, so if you are interested in helping, ring him on (03) 9479 2369.

Remembering the republic

At least one historian hasn't abandoned all hope of an Australian republic before the glorious reign of Charles III. Larissa Behrendt reviews Mark McKenna’s book This Country: A Reconciled Republic? in this issue. Neal Blewett (author and former politician and diplomat) will also have something to say on the subject on October 26, when he will deliver the 2004 Henry Parkes Oration at the National Library of Australia. His theme is ‘A Republican President or a Presidential Republic?’ This is a free event, commencing at 6 p.m., but bookings are essential: (02) 6262 1122.

Rathcoola calling

The poet Andrew Sant has apprised ‘Advances’ of an auspicious new residency that is available to writers and artists living in Australia or New Zealand who would like to pursue their work in Ireland. Each year the successful applicant will spend six months (commencing in either January or July) in an apartment in Rathcoola, Donoughmore, which, for the geographically challenged, is about thirty kilometres north-west of Cork. As well as accommodation studio space and the use of a car, he or she will receive a stipend equivalent to A$20,000 and a return airfare to Cork. Rathcoola, a large country house built in 1752, is named after the river that runs through the property. It is set in substantial grounds and has a walled garden with ancient apple trees. (Andrew Sant advises us that there are pubs and villages nearby if the golden apples of the sun don't suffice.) This admirable residency has been created by the Richard and Sophie Nicoll Trust, based in London, and will be advertised annually in October. Those interested should consult the website: www.rathcoola.info.