‘Aussiecon’ (dreadful name, but we had to sell the idea to the Americans and they like that kind of thing) was the 33rd World Science Fiction Convention, held in Melbourne in 1975. Ursula K. Le Guin was our guest of honour.

Ursula also conducted a full-scale SF writers’ workshop a few weeks before the convention and The Altered I is a record of that workshop. (The American edition is called The Altered Eye, but you know what they’re like.)

The next workshop was held at Monash University in 1977, with Vonda McIntyre (‘American sky-fi author’, the man said, between the plumbing commercials, in a memorable interview on Adelaide radio), Chris Priest (from England), and George Turner. The View from the Edge came out of this workshop.

The stories in the collection are not ‘polished’ because they are workshop stories. The book is about writing – mostly; but not exclusively, about writing science fiction – and about one particular writers’ workshop. That the stories are enjoyable is a pleasant bonus.

There are more SF workshops coming up, notably one in Sydney next January with George Turner and Terry Carr (American author, anthologist and publisher).

Geoff Muirden is right: most of this activity was set off by Aussiecon. What seems to me most interesting about all this is that the whole caboodle – conventions, workshops, seminars, most of the publishing even – has been initiated and organised by readers. Or to give them their right name, the science fiction fans.

John Bangsund, Kew

Dear Sir,

John McLaren’s comment ‘Bookends’, (ABR August) on the transposition of the two halves of the second book of Milton’s Paradise Lost during the broadcast of the work on ABC Sunday Night Radio Two reminded me of a comparable incident during an ABC Sunday lunchtime broadcast some four years ago.

The program was a radio adaptation of an episode of Dad’s Army in a 1:00-1:30 pm time slot. The story was about halfway through – and funny it was too – when, about 1:15 pm, the broadcast suddenly stopped and a voice solemnly announced that they had just been informed that the wrong episode was being played. ‘We will now play the right episode’, the voice went on.

I must confess I was somewhat chagrined by this unwanted interruption to a most entertaining program, but thought that as I was to get another full episode probably just as entertaining, there would be adequate compensation made for the annoyance caused.

But lo! what happened? Not another full episode at all, but an episode which commenced play halfway through! – it must be over by 1:30pm you see. All context of course was lost and the antics of Captain Mainwaring and company no longer seemed so amusing.

While the ABC continues to be counted among my favourite organisations, I’m afraid I’ve never quite forgiven them for that ruination of my Sunday lunchtime those four years ago.

Charles Emerton, Fitzroy

Dear Sir,

‘A vintage year for children’s book awards’ (ABR, August 1978) was reasonable if uncritical of the awards, in that in 1977 four awards went to one publishing house, and that according to borrowings records, primary children do not rate some of them highly for interest.

T.G. Wills, Teacher-Librarian - Rocherlen Primary School, Tasmania

Dear Sir,

The resurrection of Australian Book Review is welcome for many reasons. But there is an aspect of its Policy which will lessen the Review’s effectiveness and still leave unplugged an important gap in Australian publishing.

What concerns me is the policy of excluding ‘primary and secondary school textbooks of purely instructional interest’ from the Review’s net. As a teacher at a Victorian High School, I have long felt the need for some systematic review cum list of new texts in my field. It is an impossible job to find out all of what is being published. In my job as History and Politics Coordinator, I have had to depend on the vagaries of a particular bookseller’s stocks, combined· with the effectiveness of a given publisher’s promotional methods, to get even a glimmering of what is available, in a hopeless attempt to make informed decisions about textbooks.

The Book Review can fill a long felt need if policy is changed to systematically include those worthless books of ‘purely instructional interest’. It is not possible to tell whether the decision is due to misguided elitism or to cost and space considerations. But please Editor – change it. Even from the point of view of The Trade, it would seem to be more profitable to review those ‘purely instructional’ primary and secondary texts, with their potentially far greater markets, than ‘purely instructional’ tertiary texts.

I might be doing the Editorial Board a disservice and it may be that they thought, mistakenly, that primary and secondary texts are adequately covered elsewhere. If they are, please tell me where.

To illustrate the problem. I read all three journals published by the Victorian Historical Association, the journal of the Victorian Association of Social Studies Teachers, Historical Studies, Australian Outlook, Dyason House Papers, two daily papers, four weekly papers, plus other odds and ends, and still only scratch the surface of what is being published in Australia. God only knows what I don’t get to hear of.

But there is another problem that arises from this and that is the problem of parochialism and lack of perspective because of my ignorance of what is happening in other States – or are they still separate colonies?

I think that Australian Book Review is ideally placed to solve these problems if it reviews, or at least lists, ALL Australian books. It is the only journal which is both national and capable of being complete. Only the Review can avoid the trap of missing books because of the problems of classification and categorisation. It can also help people and teachers (sic) get some idea of what is going on outside their special interests. (I, for example, have picked up some very interesting snippets of historical information from reading my son’s How It Works, which is basically a scientific/technical weekly.) Can the Book Review also widen its definition of book to include teaching kits mistakenly thought by some teachers to solve the problems of literacy? A set of kits which comes to mind here is the Social Education Materials Project stuff. Review, readers may remember that the SEMP: was recently Bjelked in Queensland as a warmup for The Chant Of Jimmy Blacksmith.

Since the SEMP material is being published by Heinemann’s who do, I believe, also publish ‘books’ then there is a reasonable case for including kits.

(By the way, judging from the SEMP kit on the Aborigines, Bjelke wouldn’t need to ban it, it is far beyond the understanding of the kids it seems to be designed for).

What about it Editors, how about a place for those at the bottom of the totem pole?

Breon Barker, History & Politics Co-ordinator, Bentleigh High School, (Ex Science, Maths, Biology and Indonesian language teacher.