Usher was amazed at the final number of entries which came from all over Australia and overseas. Initially the number of entries was tiny, but in the week before the closing date the deluge began. Apart from the number of stories entered, Usher was curious about the number of stories about marriage breakups. ‘If we made it a condition of entry that there couldn’t be any broken marriage stories, we’d get the number of entries down to 500,’ Rod said.

Second and third prizes went to poet Tony Lintermans and Jane Hyde.

West Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley has switched American publishers. In a deal negotiated by her American agent Elise Goodman, Harper &Row offered Elizabeth just short of six figures for her next two books. Elizabeth’s Australian agent, Caroline Lurie, said that her previous publisher, Viking didn’t offer enough. Lurie added that what swung the deal was Harper & Row’s offer to spend $US50,000 promoting Elizabeth Jolley in the U.S. ‘Viking haven’t sold her as effectively as we would have hoped and the promotion commitment was the clincher.

‘Harper & Row get hardback and paperback rights for Elizabeth’s next two novels –Sugar Mother (reviewed in this issue of ABR) and My Father’s Moon which will be published late this year or early 1988. In Australia, Jolley continues her relationship with Penguin although Fremantle Arts Center Press publish the hardback of Sugar Mother and Penguin the paperback. According to Caroline Sugar Mother is Elizabeth’s most accessible work yet and part of the promotion money will be spent on touring Elizabeth in America.

Harper & Row are also publishing Peter Carey’s new novel, Oscar and Lucinda, (also reviewed in this issue) and have also allocated a large amount to promotion.

While authors Peter Carey and Elizabeth Jolley continue to publish with Australian publishers in this country, there is still concern amongst publishers and editors about successful Australian writers being tempted overseas.

Expatriate Australian publisher, Carmen Callil, director of the English house Chatto & Windus (who is in Australia attending the Adelaide Festival) has been attacked in the past by Australia publishers for ‘poaching’ Australian authors. Many smaller publishers were afraid that authors they had published and were now becoming successful would be lured away by glamorous offers from UK and US publishing houses.

So far this doesn’t seem to have happened to any great extent and while Australian authors seem to be having more success overseas, the sale of foreign rights seem to follow successful publication in this country. Australian writers obviously find it easier to find a market in Australia and it seems to be true that when they are published and promoted by a local publisher their books do better. The local publisher who has a strong financial and intellectual commitment to a book will obviously try harder to sell that book than they would if they are simply distributing the output of an overseas company. Less well known Australian authors such as James Murray and Gail Morgan who have published in the UK and then had their books distributed here do not seem to have done well either here or overseas.

Ironically, one of Chatto & Windus’ Australian authors is the Director of the Literary Arts Board, Tom Shapcott (the Literary Arts Board has been partly responsible for the recent growth in Australian publishing) and Carmen Callil’s visit will also coincide with the arrival in Australia of Shapcott’s new book, Limestone and Lemon Wine. Shapcott’s first novel with Chatto & Windus, Hotel Bellevue, did seem to suffer because of its English publication.

Limestone and Lemon Wine is a collection of interconnected short stories set in a small provincial Australian city. The characters and emotions in the book are ordinary and at once not ordinary and the book creates a very real yet vaguely sinister world. It is certainly one of the best works of fiction published in Australia recently and should be a major contender for this year’s literary prizes.