PostMistress Press

PostMistress Press: creative inspiration for author-publishers in literary arts publishing

Dear readers,

Since last I wrote much has happened which has consumed my attention, and taken me away from this blog, whilst I have started-up an online literary arts publishing house, which is now officially named PostMistress Press. FuguEditions, which I have already written about on this blog is an imprint of the press, which is based in the nineteenth century weatherboard cottage where I live, which happens to have been the first Post Office in Adamstown, an inner city suburb of Newcastle, Australia. 

When first I saw the house years ago, in 1995, I was drawn to it, even though it looked rundown and dilapidated. There were no trees in its overgrown garden, and the house was in need of repairs. The real estate agents tried to dissuade me, with their 'worst house in the best street' comments. But I was drawn to the tumbledown cottage. I had no idea then of its past, its history as the post and telegraphy office, in the historic regional area in which I live. I was to find out about this, over the coming years, when I was living in the small cottage with my young family. My ex-husband found the stories in the local heritage column in the Newcastle Herald, and we recognized photographs of our house. 

Now more years later, I have started up a publishing house, in a house which from the late 19^th century, was for decades the local hub of communications, of postal mail, the forerunner of online posting, and telegraphy, which is the predecessor to tweeting. 

It seems to be serendipitous that I should have started to design courses and lecture in Arts Media, and Communications, when I was living in this cottage years ago.  I began teaching and designing my own courses as Adult Education community classes at the Workers Educational Alliance (WEA). I wrote and ran adult education community courses in Freelance Journalism (which was my profession in Dublin, Ireland, and in London) and I designed and named and for two years taught the course: Find Your Voice- Creative Writing Workshop (which was my passion, creative writing). From that basis, I was asked if I would lecture in Business Communications courses at the WEA, and from that experience it was not long before I got a casual lecturing position, teaching Business Communications and Fine Arts Communications in several Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges in the Hunter region. I moved from the Old Post and Telegraphy Office, when I went to Sydney (my two young children with me) to pursue my career as an Art writer and at the same time, I took my PhD.

I founded and ran Arts Features International, an art writing business, which I started up in 2003, from my home. 
After publishing many essays and long features on prominent international and Australian contemporary artists, it was circumstance (not choice as such) that was to bring me back to Newcastle and the Old Post Office, almost four years ago. I told some of the story of why these events occurred and what happened when I returned, on this blog, which I began when I found myself alone here, with no company other than the small black kitten that I found almost starved to death and dehydrated in the overgrown garden when I was compelled to move back to the cottage. Shadow is now asleep, on my laptop case as I write, he is a companionable and well cared for adult cat, four years old.    

And I have just started up Postmistress Press, the first author-publishing house in Australia that will publish e-Books and printed books, literary fiction and other writings.

PostMistress Press:

This is the first author-publishing house in Australia to publish e-Book and printed books, of literary fiction and cultural theory books.

It is an author-publisher house and will start-up by publishing books by Ruth Skilbeck, her literary novels. Australian Fugue series, and a book from her research, The Writer’s Fugue. She will also publish collections of her essays published in international academic peer-reviewed books and journals. She will publish a book of her photographic works, and long essay of critical theory on single lens digital reflex photography and discussing her projects as a photographic artist. (Some of these works have appeared on this blog).

The Antipode Room is the first novel in the Australian Fugue series, of five novels. It is now published  a print book and in Kindle edition. 
Ruth is also an experienced editor and book designer.

After she has published her own books, and if this proves sustainable, Ruth plans to publish literary fiction and other works by Australian and international authors. 

About the Author:

Ruth Skilbeck has worked as an academic, arts writer and broadcaster, and run an international media arts writing business Arts Features International that she founded in Sydney. London-born, she has lived and worked in Dublin, London, and Sydney. She has recently started up an author-publisher publishing house, at The Old Post Office, a 19th century weatherboard cottage in Newcastle, NSW. She has published extensively as an arts writer, and her research writing also appears in leading scholarly journals such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, and book collections by Routledge and Taylor and Francis, and Demeter Press. Her research is in the field of Arts journalism reflective practice, art writing in global contexts of social, economic and technological change, mother art movements (MAM), and cultural history. She writes and publishes fiction, poetry, photography and essays. The Antipode Room is her first novel, and the first in her Australian Fugue series, with the second novel in the series to be published soon.  R has a first honours degree in Philosophy from Bikbeck, London, and a PhD, as well as professional qualifications in university teaching; and small business management. She has two children and lives in Newcastle, Australia.

Note: This was first written in 2013 and has been updated to reflect new publications.

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.