New Trends in Literary Publishing- Author-Publishing in Australia

The purpose of this project is to make a limited edition special collectors edition of the novel The Antipode Room, which will be published on December 1, 2013. The aim is to make a limited edition eBook, and signed print book to commemorate the launch. This will also be the first book publication of its kind in Australia, hence the occasion for a commemorative edition.

The book began life in an MA and PhD in creative writing and literature and has since evolved into its own form. This is the first author-publisher new literary publication, to use eBook and printed book format in Australia, which aims to show other authors that this is a viable way of reaching new audiences and readers.

Synopsis:

Interweaving loss of self-awareness coupled with a strange excursion or journey, The Antipode Room, is a fugue narrative, telling of Ruby’s flight to Australia and her past lost life, it voices the main characters’ inner thoughts of: Ruby, Hugo, Ray and Margarita. She ends up on a murder charge in an Australian jail.

Innocents are often condemned, scapegoated, for crimes they did not commit, but is this the case with Ruby? Imprisoned in Australian jail she writes to remember what happened on that "fateful fatal afternoon" when her best friend violinist, Margy, was murdered. The Antipode Room is based in London, Sydney, Newcastle, forest in northern New South Wales, the underground opal town Cooper Peedy and the desert. The main character "Countess Ruby Rivers" emerged in London from an amnesiac fugue, forgetting her past, she reinvents her self-identity and her past. Her life is transformed when she meets the infamous conservative phenomenologist and professor, Hugo, who gives her Ruby Love, a contemporary art gallery in inner London. The Antipode Room is a point of departure, the space of the art gallery, it tells the story of their one-way trip to Australia on a mission to collect Australian artists for Ruby Love.

A chance meeting in a Sydney art galley, at the opening of the NEW REPUBLIC exhibition brings Ruby into dangerously close proximity to the leader of art-activists, Art Criminals, who had a mysteriously profound influence in another life; she has not been able to forget his words, and her lost self rushes back. Forgetting Hugo, she disappears with Ray.

I think you might lose yourself gazing into mesmerizing sclerophyll forests in northern New South Wales.

    Another day I might feel inclined at the low ebb before lunch, to go into my office and lock the door. Browse through my private collection; fall into images of beauty, irresistibly seductive objects of desire. Objects. I can hold within my gaze. I can own and possess in a way that’s impossible to ever possess a real lover. Make mine forever. (The Antipode Room)

The Antipode Room is 75,000 words, a medium length novel of approx. 240 pages to be published as an eBook, and printed book, with photographs.






The cover image is a new photographic work:


Blue Fugue, digital photographic montage, Ruth Skilbeck (2013)



E-Book and printed book.

UPDATE Australian Fugue literary novels: The Antipode Room and Sayonara, Baby

Due to technical issues, publication and distribution of these books was delayed. The books will be on sale to the public soon, information will be posted here.

by Ruth Skilbeck

I thought I would share with you some of the themes of The Antipode Room in my literary novel series Australian Fugue, which will be published as an e-book and printed book.

Ruth Skilbeck 

Photo: Jacquelene Drinkall, 2013

Australian art, love, eroticism, free spirits, betrayal and revenge, in the contemporary art/punk scene, are the themes of Ruth Skilbeck’s first novels in the Australian Fugue series, The Antipode Room, and Sayonara, Baby.

Ruth Skilbeck’s Australian Fugue novel series, traces the trajectory from not knowing to self-knowledge of the main protagonist Roxanne- Ruby.

The series begins in the novel, The Antipode Room. The first novel is set in the 21^st century, in London, Sydney, Newcastle NSW, Cooper Peedy and the desert. The main character “Countess Ruby Rivers” arrived in London, from Australia in a state of fugue, loss of awareness of self, she has lost her memory of her own identity and past – and met her to-be husband, a professor of philosophy, when she takes a course to try to find out more about herself, through philosophy.  With Hugo's support, she runs a contemporary art gallery and the polyphonic narrative traces their one-way doomed trip to Australia to collect contemporary Australian artists for The Antipode Room, where she meets by chance artist Raymond Furness – one of the reasons for her leaving Australia and going into a state of psychogenic fugue, and she goes with him on a painting trip to the Central desert, in a nightmarish night of hallucinations in the opal town Coober Peedy, in the desert, she confronts the causes of her fugue, and returns to find violinist Margarita – who is metaphorically murdered in the course of a sexual encounter. How this murder happened and who did it is the theme of the fugue, the first in the series Australian Fugue, which introduces the four voices, of Ruby, Margarita, Raymond and H.

The second Fugue novel, Sayonara, Baby is set in 1980 and 1981 mainly in Adelaide, also Melbourne, Canberra, rainforest outside Grafton and high country near Cooma, and in Sydney. Told in realism mode, it reveals the “true story” of how Roxanne-Ruby, who moved from Northern Ireland to Australia with her (Australian colonial) family- struggled to cope, when her best friend Margarita from school in County Antrim, moved into the place she vacated in her family home, in Canberra, after being kicked out by her Father who disapproved of her affair, aged 17, with biker, S. Unknown, perhaps, to her parents he is an heir to a fortune, inherited from his deceased German-Jewish father who committed suicide after S’s mother left him for her relationship with the principal of S’s alternative school in Melbourne (himself the heir of an Australian General’s dynasty). In this realism-mode of first person confessional novel, Roxanne, runs away from home only to leave S when Roxanne begins her own independent life at university. Things go awry after Roxanne begins a passionate “not-love” affair with Ray Furness, unofficial leader of neo-Dada art group the Art Criminals in Adelaide when her former best friend Margie moves into Roxanne’s new love with Ray; after a series of triangular relationship betrayals, and revenges, Roxanne leaves Australia, feeling nothing, and unaware of what she is flying into. But following the first novel’s hysterical tone, Roxanne, the narrator, is able to reconcile the truth against illusion and fantasy and come to the freedom of self-empowerment.

Reading:

As they are not consecutively ordered, and have circular structure, either fugue novel can be read first. They are separate novels written in different styles, and it is likely that some readers may like one more than the other, the second has more ‘sympathetic’ characters, and is a realistic view into the cultural time in Australia, it is set in Australia in late 70s to the early 1980s. The first fugue narrative is told in several voices, interweaves dream, reality, carnival and sophisticated eroticism, and is fantastical in places some readers may find shocking. The novels focus on the representation of self, and love in art and in life, they offer new literary fictional insights into passionate love affairs and the creative process, in contemporary Australia, of artists and writers, and are intended for a mature audience.

Both novels are fictional, and contain no intentional references to any real characters or events (other than the public figures and cultural and political history mentioned in the narratives as background to the stories).

The novels first began life, in much earlier form, as the novel Ruth Skilbeck wrote for her MA in Writing, at UTS. She went on to do her PhD in Creative Writing on fugue in literary narratives. This is due to be published soon, to be followed by a second book of critical theory on fugue narratives by Ruth Skilbeck that expands on her PhD.

The two novels will be for sale through Ruth’s Pozible campaign from the week of 28.10.13, as physical books and as e-Books that may be read on computers, phones, tablets, and e-Readers. The books will be delivered by mail after the Pozible campaign has ended. The e-Books will be sent after the campaign is ended. These is a numbered limited edition of the first print edition, and the author Ruth Skilbeck will sign the numbered copies of the printed book first edition.

The links for the Pozible campaign will be made available at intervals through Facebook by Ruth Skilbeck, and also on her websites, and website of her author-publisher house, Postmistress Press.

Pre-order the Antipode Room here: The Antipode Room pre-orders

Coming Next by Ruth Skilbeck:

Ruth Skilbeck’s Australian Fugue novel series, traces the trajectory from not knowing to self-knowledge of the main protagonist Roxanne- Ruby. The series begins in the novel, The Antipode Room. Planned publications:

PhD

Critical theory book from PhD 

AUSTRALIAN FUGUE Book 3 - Faerie Child - 2014

Faerie Child is set in the civil war in Northern Ireland where Roxanne is a teenager

All the best and happy reading,

Ruth

About Ruth:

Ruth Skilbeck has worked as a freelance: writer, art critic and literary reviewer, journalist and photographer, in Ireland, England and Australia including for the BBC World Service, national newspapers, magazines, and international arts periodicals; her work is also published in academic journals and books. She has a BA Honors in Philosophy from Birkbeck, London, MA and PhD in literature from UTS (University of Technology, Sydney). She also has a university teaching qualification in Higher Education Teaching and Learning  She has taught Communications and Media, and English and Creative Writing, and has designed, written and taught courses in writing and media publishing.    

Now Available:

Australian Fugue: The Antipode Room a novel by Ruth Skilbeck is on sale from PostMistress Press and on Amazon.

The link to the print book and kindle ebook on amazon where you can buy the books:

Australian Fugue: The Antipode Room. 

http://www.amazon.com/Australian-Fugue-The-Antipode-Room/dp/0992277922.

Postmistress Press: Notes from the Publisher

by Ruth Skilbeck

 I am now, as an author-publisher, writing and publishing my books, ten books that I have written over the past 15 years, of taking an MA and PhD in creative writng, and lecturing in universities, on contracts and working as a freelance arts writer. I am doing this, as there appears to be no one else in Australia taking this initiative and joining the new global literary movement of author-publishers, which is thriving in other parts of the world. I have wanted to publish my books for several years but held back until now due to the crisis in publishing - and authors not being paid in academic publishing. I have published over 10 articles in leading peer-reviewed research books and journals in my field  (including Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, ERA A listed journal, and a forthcoming article on a photographic research series I made, in International Journal of the Image) and hundred of media articles, in leading arts periodicals, newspapers and magazines (lists available), but still not making any income as an academic writer and blogger over the past years. To keep on writing, and working as a writer, and on encouragement and requests from readers of my works, I am starting up a new author-publisher house, Postmistress Press, in the cottage I own in Newcastle NSW, which was the first post office and telegraphy office in Adamstown, the inner city suburb (which had a postmistress). I plan to publish my own books of literary fiction, critical theory, and collections of my published essays and articles. Then I plan to publish books by authors, in the areas of my research.
     The only way I can do this is through support of readers, and that is why I am starting up by publishing my first two novels with pre-orders from a Pozible crowd-funding campaign. Without financial income support from book sales, I will not be able to do it, so all pledges for book pre-orders are very much appreciated, as sales are required to keep me going with my plans and enable me to publish my books, and then publish new works by authors in Australia, and internationally, if my publishing receives enough financial income from sales, I can do this, if not I will have to go back to contract teaching.

     My income is from publishing, so far as I have not yet published any books, income is nil, so the results of the first book sales, will be critical to the sustainability of the first year of my enterprise, which began in September. I have one year to see if this will work or not. Please help me support new Australian writing and literature by supporting, and buying, my books.

      If contributions exceed the target, the chance of being able to publish my next books will increase as all sales go into the publishing house.  My publishing house is a small literary enterprise that will be reliant on income from sales of books, to survive. I am the main employee at present, but if the house grows, later it will employ others to work in publishing books, as well as contracting for cover design, videos, and editing.

     I also plan to run teaching courses in writing and new publishing later in the year, and the success of this enterprise is critical to that as well. This is the first author-publisher house in Australia which aims to publish original new literary arts books, fiction and critical theory, and PhDs and MA in creative writing books. If it receives sufficient income to keep going, it can make a contribution more broadly to encouraging new Australian literary arts cultures. Postmistress Press, and this enterprise has been enabled by support from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations' funding for small business, which is very much appreciated.

Project sponsors and acknowledgements:

Ruth Skilbeck and Postmistress Press thank:

• Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
• New Hunter Business  

and the book lovers who pre-order books and art,  for their support.



Ruth Skilbeck, November 2013

Sex, Art, Fugue and the Antipode Room- Trends in Literary Publishing

by Ruth Skilbeck 

One of the fastest growing trends in new literary publishing is the new movement of author-publishers, and women publishing self-based literary books as e-books and printed books, via the internet.

There are several things that this shows: first women have been empowered through new publishing technologies, and the opportunities to network and create new communities online, that has given rise to the thriving new author publishing movement. Second, that new forms of literary writing and new hybrid genres are proliferating in the new world of publishing, which has proved to have only increased the number of books published and read, contrary to the dire warnings of a decade ago that books were dying.

Far from books dying, and authors becoming redundant, books have been rewritten as e-books, and authors have been reborn as author publishers, able to have the freedom to publish their own works, as they want to, and what this has done is to increase the reading public, and number of books being published online exponentially.

                                                      Pre order through The Antipode Room  

In this conducive and creative environment, women have emerged as strong voices in new ways: creating books about the inner life of women, and their relationships, books written from angles and dealing with subject matter that until now has been considered as inappropriate or vulgar, or smutty. Now women are writing and reading intelligent thoughtful and authentic stories about how women feel and live, in their real relationships with significant others, and with just others. This means writing about and of the body, and women are doing this in many ways, from the extraordinary stories (and success) of erotica E.L James, in her ‘Shades of Grey’ series on “bdsm” and the way this changes the life of the protagonist, to women’s memoirs and the creation of new genres such as romantic vampire thriller, to write about the inner world of women’s lives metaphorically and of course central to this is writing of sexuality and sex.

Until now, literature has been the realm of genres of books that have been termed erotica. Yet these have been seen generally as distinct from literature (except in the hands of the intellectually regarded authors such as Sacher von Masoch, author of the influential Venus in Furs, or George Bataille author of Story of the Eye and Blue of Noon, amongst others. These have been highly regarded and discussed in universities and amongst the intelligentsia. Yet, men have written them, about women. Now, at last literature is able to catch up with the changes that revolutionized Art in the 1970s, when women were able to participate as equals (well that is the idea, in reality it is not so conclusive) – by enrolling in art schools and universities in large numbers. Yet it was at this very time, that in universities, the idea of ‘the death of the author” took hold (I know this is not meant to be literal!) however it too neatly coincided with a dismissive attitude that arose to the idea of “originality” in authorship. One of the effects of this was to silence, or sideline life stories by authors in their own voices, confessional, first person, stories that lost credibility in the academy at that time. Yet this is the kind of writing that women in particular excel at, and love to read- and write.

In the new publishing world, where author publishers are rising into a strong new movement, that began in the US and spread to the UK and is now beginning to start up in other countries, such as Germany, and I hope will too in Australia, women have come to the fore- writing and publishing the stories that they like to read and write. These books are literary, they are serious works about what it means to be human from a women’s perspective. (Of course there are others as there always have been in publishing, but I am focusing here on serious literary writing by women).

To be honest and write authentically as a woman one must write about emotions, feelings, the body, sexuality, eroticism, and one’s own deepest experiences, which tend to be sexual, erotic, the experiences that have most deeply moved and affected us, as humans. New generations of women are writing about the inner world, of feelings and relationships, as lovers, mothers, sisters, friends, as workers and unemployed, or as “casual” workers and exploited, as successful, and as aspiring, in all the modes of life that we live for our selves.

Women are driving the new author publishing movement in new forms of literary writing about what it means and feels to be human and female. They are writing about all the stages of the life cycle, from childhood, through to teenage years and rites of passages, coming of age, to the struggles to develop relationships and assert oneself in ones twenties, raise families perhaps, or discover alternative ways of living and relating, alternative sexual lives, and/or focusing on careers.

This is a literary movement of women’s empowerment that women have been able to develop in the vectors of social, cultural and technological change enabled by new media communications technologies. In this new machine age of digital technologies, a new wave of humanity has swept forth as if we are redefining ourselves as human in this new matrix of digital media.  This coincides with women’s cultural movements of ‘the fourth wave’ of feminism, and the new movements of young women, which interesting involve bodily nudity, as a political statement of self-empowerment and new feminism.

There is a naked turn in culture and in author publishing where women are striving for the truth, and naked expression is part of this. There is a purity and innocence to nudity, as William Blake for one knew. Women are writing from their own lives and perceptions and from the body, and this is creating an interesting new movement in author publishing.

The new series of books that I am publishing is called Australian Fugue. The first book in the series is The Antipode Room; it is the first of two novels based in Australia and London and which tell the story of Roxanne-Ruby’s journey from a state of fugue, loss of awareness of identity, to self-knowledge.

The series is about women’s self-empowerment through culture, and the process of art writing, and the stories it tells are of sex, art and inner world- and how it feels to be an intelligent and artistic woman in different stages of life.

You can support the project of new artistic literary writing and publishing by pre-ordering a limited first edition copy of The Antipode Room as an e-book or as a printed book, through pozible a site for creative projects, that is based in Australia but which is now taking payment from the US.

Details on the book and on how to order it can be found by clicking this link.

The Antipode Room     http://www.pozible.com/project/174238

The e-book is only $19 and the printed book is only $34 – the original photographic cover art is also for sale in a limited edition. This is a unique opportunity to participate in a moment of literary history in Australia, the first book publication by the first author-publisher house, Postmistress Press.

I hope that you will enjoy the book.

All the best and happy reading,

Ruth

Project sponsors and acknowledgements:

Ruth Skilbeck and Postmistress Press thanks the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, and New Hunter Business for their support.