Amra Pajalic

Last night had a wonderful night at the Brimbank Literary Awards where my husband Fikret Pajalic was highly commended in the short story category. This morning we went shopping at Watergardens Shopping Centre and had a lovely time spending the $200 voucher. Most of it on our daughter who picked impossibly cute ballet shoes and a top from Pumpkin Patch.

The ceremony was at Overnewton Castle which was a castle built in 1849 and a 15 minute drive away from me. The most bizarre thing-this is the first time I’ve heard about the castle. I wonder did I know about it from years before and forget. It was such a beautiful building and so full of ambience. They also do high tea so the next time I want an extravagance I’ll be going there. I also want to find out if they have ghost stories to go with the castle. Will be doing some investigating.

We went as a family and Sofia, my two year old, ended up stealing the show. She loved clapping as each category was awarded and then when her Daddy was on stage she kept running up to him and  getting a lot of laughs, until I took her into another room so the winner could read their extract. I was exhausted wrangling her, but she enjoyed her first ‘grown up party’ and loved the castle. It was ‘the best castle ever.’

Had a  crazy couple of weeks. This week was finishing up the residency. Ended up meeting with 20 students in one day to give them feedback on their stories. I was exhausted by the end. I’ve still got a few more stories to critique and will be doing some work in Term 4. The process is that the students partake in the workshops, submit a draft, receive feedback, submit a final copy. It’s a lot of work for me and them, but I’ve been extremely impressed by the breadth of stories submitted and their work ethic in adapting feedback.

The week before had three public appearances. On the 12 September my first gig with Melton City Council doing an ESL workshop, on the 13 September ran three workshops with a youth organisation, and on the 14 September did a panel with Demet Divaroren during the Brimbank Literary Festival about our book What a Muslim Woman Looks Like and received really great feedback on our talk. This was the first time we did a talk together and we really bounced well off each other and had a great time. Fingers crossed this is the one of many.

Had a great week also and been booked for another two gigs-one of them at the Big West Festival which I’m really excited about. We need more such events in this area.

So my plans for this week:

• The fun stuff-go to the Melbourne Show. This will be the second time we’re taking our daughter and I can’t wait to see it through her eyes again.
• Planning on really getting stuck into my novel.
• And also need to start a fitness regime. Went to the doctor the other day and they checked my height and weight.  I did not want to know my weight because I’ve packed it on in the past few months but my BMI is 30-which is in the obese category (this is the medical obese category). Yikes.

Article in Brimbank Weekly about anthology of short stories I helped edit during my stint as 2010 Artist in Residence at St Albans Secondary College funded by Artists in Schools.

My uber talented husband Fikret Pajalic was highly commended in the Victorian Writers’ Centre 2011 Grace Marion Prize, his second placement in a short story competition this year. He was also selected to exhibit a photograph at the Melton Art Show. Very chuffed.

Began my Artist in Residence stint for Term 3 at Keilor Downs Secondary College and I’m loving it. I have a really switched on and supportive Project Manager, Colleen Van Der Horst, who has done all the hard yards to organise everything.

This is my second time as an Artist in Residence funded by Artists in Schools and I learnt so much the first time around that has helped me in my professional career. I developed some really great resources that I’ve been using in workshops and have supported young people in developing their creativity.

I’ve been really excited about this opportunity again so that I can put into practice all the lessons I’ve learnt in the year since. Had my first lot of workshops and have received really positive feedback via teachers.

I’m working with 40 Year 9 students by running 4 week workshops for 10 students at time. The students were nominated by their teachers (one of them is even a precocious Year 7) and am also developing resources for teachers to use so that all Year 9s participate in the program and write a short story.

An anthology will be produced in the end featuring the stories of the 40 students who did the workshops with me and any other stories nominated by teachers. The school has been really supportive and the teachers are really eager to get access to the resources and use them in class-which is a great compliment.

I’ve also had another personal milestone in accessing technology and have developed a kick arse powerpoint presentations about my writing journey. I’ve included photos of the drafts of my novel as well as scanned pages of my manuscript showing my first editorial mark ups in order to give the students an appreciation of the hard yakka that goes into a polished piece of work. Their faces of awestruck awe was gratifying.

I’m reading the work the students produce each week during the workshops. Our first week they developed characters and it’s such an amazing experience to see their imagination at work and read who they will write about. I’m covering the building blocks of writing and will guide them through the process so that in the end they will have lots of words on the page to produce a draft. Then I’ll intensively critique their story and they’ll revise it. I’ve even assisted with writing the assessment sheet as this short story is being included as part of the curriculum. A great experience for my future career.

So excited about this opportunity and the next 10 weeks. I’m hoping to use the resources I create for future residencies, but in the meantime I’ll be enjoying myself.

The world is full of good ideas. The trick is to know which ones to pinch. The very clever Angela Meyer published her short stories as ebooks and I have now done the same.

Buy my short story for .99 cents

I’m beginning with my two favourite and most successful short stories Siege and Fuck Me Eyes published in 2004 and 2005 Best Australian Stories edited by Frank Moorhouse. The stories are available on Smashwords for .99 cents and Amazon Kindle.

Win a free copy of my book

In order to encourage sales and promotion I’m running a competition. Buy a short story and review it on Smashwords or Amazon and be in the running to win a copy of my novel The Good Daughter. Your review can be one line or one word-as long as it is complimentary you are eligible. The competition is open to anyone-just post your details in the comments of this post-and will run until 7 August 2011.

I will be posting a new story every month (yes I have an arsenal of them hidden away) and each month will be giving away a copy of my novel to a reviewer.

Siege Cover

Buy from Smashwords for .99 cents
Buy from Amazon Kindle for .99 cents

A young girl writes in her diary about her life while under siege in Sarajevo during the Balkan War.

Originally published in 2004 Best Australian Stories, edited by Frank Moorhouse

Reviews:

‘A powerful and moving story of family dissolution and the suffering, deprivation and terror of war’ (Australian Book Review, Feb 2005)

‘Amra Pajalic’s Bosnian Diary is a masterpiece of broken elegy’ (Bulletin, Dec 2004)

Cover art by Fikret Pajalic

Fuck Me Eyes Cover

Buy from Smashwords for .99 cents
Buy from Amazon Kindle for .99 cents

When the narrator’s older half sister, May, comes to live with her family one summer, everything changes. Stranded in the band of pre-teen and soon-to-be-teen May is everything she wants to be.

Originally published in 2005 Best Australian Stories, Black Inc, edited by Frank Moorhouse

Reviews:
‘Briskly narrated and interesting and original writing’ (Australian Book Review, Feb 2006)
‘Marvellous and a brisk tale’ (Rip It Up, Dec 2005)

Cover art by Fikret Pajalic

I also wanted to remind everyone my super talented husband Fikret Pajalic who did my cover art has also published his short story Shades of Grey on Smashwords.

A harrowing account of war-torn Bosnia seen through the eyes of a young photographer and detailing his encounter with a young village boy. Shades of Grey won equal first prize in the 2011 Ada Cambridge Prize.

Haven’t been well so I’ve spent a lot of time watching tv. Have some random thoughts I wanted to ruminate on.

• Watched Season 3 of United States of Tara. The premise of the show is a family in Kansas with the Mum, played by Toni Collette, suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder and having various alters taking over her life. I loved Season 1, by Season 2 was getting a bit concerned with the gimmick of using a new alter to create tension. Halfway through Season 3 I was well and truly bored. It’s all about the alter, there’s no narrative tension and there comes a point where the husband is depicted in such heroic and perfect terms that just doesn’t ring true. Fact is-noone would endure what she puts them through. The show has been cancelled and just as well. I had to push myself to watch the last four episodes of the season and this was only to satisfy my curiosity.
• I also watched Season 3 of Nurse Jackie and this show just gets better and better. Nurse Jackie is battling to be a good mother, wife and nurse, while also being a drug addict. Each season unravels her life more and more and I can just feel everything she goes through. Edie Falco is absolutely brilliant and her face is a canvas on which you see her emotions. The character is a strong woman who takes no shit. My favourite scene is she watches a rollerskater terrorising a senior citizen. The skater comes past her and she knocks them off, breaking their elbow. She does the shit that we all dream about doing.
• I’ve also been watching Dawson’s Creek and it has aged pretty well. I love how the show is tongue in cheek with characters commenting that Dawson’s script features teenagers who don’t speak like teenagers, and Season 1 had a cliffhanger with them making fun of cliffhangers in tv shows. It makes me laugh and get chocked up with emotion at the same time.

Also been doing some reading:

• Read John Green’s Paper Towns and really enjoyed it. Made me remember my own final days of high school and the moment I had the realisation that this was it. Life as I knew it was over and I was going to be out in the big, bad world.
• One of my all time favourite movies is Stir of Echoes with Kevin Bacon. I finally read the book by Richard Matheson that the movie was based on and it was amazing what a metamorphoses the script went on by David Koepp. There were very few elements of the book in the movie and I have to say I preferred the movie. One of my favourite lines from the movie is this conversation between husband and wife:

Tom Witzky: I never wanted to be famous. I just never expected to be so…
Maggie Witzky: What?
Tom Witzky: I don’t know, ordinary.
I so felt this scene. It’s what we all fear at some point or another. That we are ordinary and just cogs in the wheel. Yet at other times it’s also incredibly comforting to be one with the crowd.

As you’ve guessed-haven’t been doing a lot of writing. Too many health dramas to be able to cope with anything right now. I’m hoping to get a routine going this week, but still wrecked and recovering so have to be kind to myself.

If you missed the story on Today Tonight about three non-Muslim women wearing the burka for a day and featuring participants (myself included) from the book What a Muslim Woman Looks Like you can watch it on the Today Tonight website here

Three of the women featured in the book What a Muslim Woman Looks Like (myself included) participated in an interview with Today Tonight to air tonight at 6.30 pm on Channel 7. The interview is in light of the recent burka issue and we presented our point of view that we’re tired of negative news stories featuring Muslim women, that we want more positive news stories, that Muslim women are diverse and articulate and should be able to speak for themselves, that the Burka should not be banned as it is about freedom of expression.

They did a feature where three non-Muslim woman wore the Burka and went out in public to report that they received hostile and negative attention. We put forward the view that women who choose to wear the Burka do so because of their belief and spirituality and this would give them strength and that of course women who wear something that is not their regular clothing would feel uncomfortable.

We’re hoping there will be a shot of the book featured and that our comments are used to present a different angle on this debate and move away from the sensationalist viewpoint currently out there.

Received an interesting update from google alert about a negative review of my novel The Good Daughter on Goodreads. It was posted 3 April and only just came to my attention. First, I need to backtrack and set the scene.

Early in the year I was contacted by a newly published writer asking me to do a review to promote her novel. After a google search I noted that the publisher was a vanity publisher,* that is she paid to have her book published as opposed to the professional model where a writer of merit is paid by the publisher to have their book published.

This fact rang some warning bells. I wanted to give the writer the benefit of the doubt that the novel had merit, but I was concerned that the book wouldn’t be of a good enough standard. I was flattered to be approached for a review and I always try to support other authors so I contacted my publicist for advice. She told me to tell the writer that I’m busy, but will do my best to read it and review it. This way if I didn’t like the book I had an exit strategy because I work on the motto ‘If you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all.’

I received the novel and began reading. As I suspected it suffered from the usual affliction that we have all gone through as beginner writers who have yet to master the craft: that is telling and not showing, a lack of tension and characterisation, etc. So I wrote to her and said I was sorry that I wouldn’t have time to read the novel and review.

As you’ve all probably guesssed the negative review is by the one and same writer**. This raises some questions:

Why did this writer request a review from me if she didn’t like my novel or my writing? After all this should be an indication that we would not be a good match and that this was a wasted exercise for both.

Or is this a review a case of sour grapes because of my lack of support for her vanity publication?

 You decide***.

The lesson from me-if in future I receive any contact from writers who have gone the vanity publishing route my firm and swift response will be a no. I firmly believe, and have had this confirmed through my own personal experience and from discussions with industry professionals, that ‘good writing rises to the top.’ That is, if you have talent and persistence you will get published by a commercial publisher. If you believe you have what it takes to be a writer use your money to access resources that will help you develop your writing craft, not to have your vanity satisfied.

* I will not give this writer publicity on my blog by mentioning their name or book. Furthermore, I will not refer to this writer as an author because they have not earned this title.

**I do not lump independent publishers or e-publishing with vanity publication. There are now opportunities for writers to take non traditional routes to publication like Amanda Hocking.

***If you disagree with this person’s review of The Good Daughter -could you please post a rebuttal on goodreads. I don’t want to engage in a slanging match or begin a flame war, but I would like it if there is a range of opinions available so readers can make up their own mind about my work.

Update: Received comments via facebook from a blogger that they were experiencing an issue with a self published writer who was throwing a tantrum because they wouldn’t review their book as it wasn’t very good. Interestingly it is the same writer I have had dealings with. It’s a small world. Feeling vindicated.

• Been sick for the past two weeks suffering from a throat infection. Lost my voice for three days-which is tough when you have a toddler around. Nearly 100%.
• Did an inspiring course run by Simmone Howell and Lisa D’Onofrio on creative journalling, then got knocked out by illness so haven’t been able to implement all my fabulous ideas. Hopefully next week.
• Through Lisa’s exercises discovered I have an affinity for poetry and plan to do a poetry workshop through the Brimbank Literary Festival (I blame all the children’s books I’m reading to my daughter at the moment). Reading poetry again and love dipping into beautiful sentences and images. Revisiting Gwen Harwood’s whose In The Park is my all time favourite poem and now as a Mum it is even more poignant.
• Hit 60,000 words on my manuscript and the end is so close I can taste it. Hoping to get back into a routine next week.
• Sunk into the Dawson’s Creek wormhole after reading Persnickety’s Snark’s revisit of her favourite scene featuring Pacey and Joey. Halfway through Season 2 and really love being able to watch it in one go and immerse myself in the world. It’s great writing and really entertaining to watch.
• Just googled myself and found my novel The Good Daughter for sale electronically at Readings where you can read the first chapter.
• Joined a writing group and love having a network of writers to discuss writerly things with, the opportunity to get feedback on my work and to get my brain functioning again as I critique. Makes me realise my last writing group was incredibly dysfunctional and it’s a lonely place to be without like-minded people around you.
• Ran a writing workshop yesterday that was really great. My confidence is soaring as I realise I really have a handle on that part of the job now-being the mentor for other aspiring writers and getting them enthused.
• Just finished reading Karen Healey’s The Shattering and found it a bloody great read. Very well paced, great characterisation with a spooky paranormal element.

A little while ago I posted that I’d been highly commended in this competition and my husband won. There is an anthology available for sale $8 each and available at any Hobsons Bay Library. If you have any queries, or difficulties getting to a library, please email them on info@willylitfest.org.au. Additional postage costs apply for mail orders. View Williamstown Festival Website for more info.