Community Publishing Newsletter - Issue 2
Fieldwork in Broken Hill, a new publication, and a publishing tip!
Greetings!
In March, two members of the Community Publishing in Regional Australia research team (Alex Dane and Beth Driscoll) travelled to Broken Hill. Broken Hill City Council is one of the partners in the project, and we were delighted to run a publishing workshop with the Broken Hill Library as well as meet and interview many local writers and booklovers.
Bookshops in Broken Hill
One of the wonderful things about Broken Hill is how many bookshops it has: this town of approximately 17,000 residents is served by an impressive four independent bookshops (see this recent ABC News story). Each bookshop has a story. Under the Silver Tree is a co-op, founded by volunteers and stocked with many donated secondhand books. It has a brilliant section on “Broken Hill and region” featuring old and new books written by locals. Under the Silver Tree also a hub for writing competitions and events. Big Sky Stories’s One More Page Emporium is another special space – run by former local teacher Jane Vaughan, it is a thoughtfully curated children’s bookstore full of bright colours, positive energy and nooks for reading. After a workshop run there with Westwords, they published Campaign to Sky’s End: Quests and Tales from the Youth of Far West NSW featuring stories and art by local young people.
Writers in Broken Hill
At our Community Publishing workshop, we met writers working on local histories, memoirs and business non-fiction. We also held a follow-up drop-in session, where we spoke with writers interested in fantasy and in children’s books. We shared knowledge of innovative print-on-demand options for cheaply producing paperback books in small quantities, as well as the latest strategies to to effectively market books to niche audiences.
Some of the writers we interviewed in depth included poet and writer Annette Herd, Christine Adams, author of A Monumental History: Broken Hill Cemetery & Its Stories and editor of Sharing the Lode: The Broken Hill Migrant Story, Tony James, author of From Dog Spikes to Lock Spikes, Fish Plates to No Plates: 50 years a Railway Worker, and Marilyn Harris, compiler of Dust & Drama: 75 years of live theatre in Broken Hill. Broken Hill writers definitely know how to pick a great title!
Recent Article
Read about our time in Mparntwe / Alice Springs in the March issue of INCITE magazine, published by the Australian Library and Information Association.
Next Up
Team researchers Alex Dane and Kim Wilkins are going to Winton in April. We’re really looking forward to learning more about the literary ecosystem around Winton, and sharing knowledge of how to publish meaningful, important books. You can keep up to date with our travels by subscribing to this newsletter, and by following us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Best wishes, Beth
Publishing Tip!
Did you know there are three main types of editing? Structural editing focuses on the overall structure and flow of the manuscript. Copy editing (also known as line editing) focuses on the expression and style. Proofreading identifies typos and errors.