Lisa Pryor's Writers Under the Beds

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By Yvette_Walker, on 03/03/2010

Oh dear. Once again we are no good artists draining the country of precious resources that could go to the Sciences or Business, or to mentoring the future in Australian Cricket. It took me 10 years, two months and eleven days to become a good writer, and no doubt, if I am not plunged into despair by the lack of respect, good will and general appreciation for the art in Australia, i might spend the next few decades trying to add a very to that description. If physicists had to work in their potting sheds, after hours, while they did something else for a living, there would be a national outcry. I could go on and on about the cultural worth of novels, the importance in a small nation like Australia of our own voices being heard, and all the rest, but I am currently on a funded (sorry Lisa) month stay at Varuna in the Blue Mountains, surrounded by the great Australian novels of the last 200 years, buoyed by the metaphysical presence of Eleanor Dark, and I would dearly like to get back to work... 

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value of creative workers

Submitted by barbarem on Fri, 05/03/2010 - 09:22.

Tried to think of a list of valuable creative persons and had to shorten it somewhat. Just a few valuable contributors to the connecting of the world:  Harriet Beacher Stowe; Dickens; Solzhenitsen (spelling?); a former slave trader who wrote a hymn; Ann Frank; painters who provide works such as 'Guernica' etc. These people present real suffering without commentary or statistics. They open the minds of people who may never, otherwise, imagine or accept the reality of such horrors. Another thing such providers offer: the awful ordinariness of the perpetrators - another valuable contribution to human understanding.

BME

Composers who "escaped clutches of the law"

Submitted by cacroker on Sun, 07/03/2010 - 09:23.

Very interesting throw away line on Classic FM on Friday night. The presenter listed the great composers whose fathers wanted them to study law as a profession. How poor our cultural heritage would  have been had they followed their parental career advice. I wonder how many of our greatest writers escaped a similar 'fate' for the betterment of society.

Next  issue is I read of a woman added to the Victorian Women's Trust Roll of Honour (forgot to bookmark it) is making a world wide list via Facebook to connect all exemplary women writers to assist young females in developing Countries who are discourage from pursuing education (and even being denied basic literacy skills). Fantastic effort. Must research further and use her list as examples of the power weilded by the Pryor-disparaged creative writers, especially if thay actually studied at Uiversity level or TAFE!

 

human need for fiction

Submitted by barbarem on Tue, 09/03/2010 - 14:31.

I attended a conference on Norfolk Island in October. Naturally, being Norfolk Island, convicts had to come into the picture. Several conferees gave the second only (if I remember right) performance of a play that had last been performed by convicts on the island. Even in that place, intended to be hell on earth, stories were valued.

BME

human need for fiction

Submitted by Daniel Zalec on Sat, 13/03/2010 - 17:54.

We are dead without our stories. Movies, video games, novels, whatever form they happen to take.

-- DZ --

need for fiction

Submitted by barbarem on Tue, 16/03/2010 - 11:02.

Thanks Daniel. I think the most significant 'fairy tale' for the current era is 'The Princess and the Frog'. I understood its meaning as a child under the age of nine, but many don't and I think it tells us the greatest need for these days on a number of levels.

What do you reckon?

BME

reply to me? greetings to all

Submitted by barbarem on Wed, 17/03/2010 - 08:55.

Lá A Happy Naomh Pádraig go léir.