post-teen trauma

new URL

2009-01-16T05:27:35Z

Readers, update!
I have a new address.

http://postteentrauma.blogspot.com

Someday I will work out how to move all this over there.

everyone knows it's windy

2009-01-11T08:22:36Z

How very nice to go to Melbourne and fly a defunct kite on Brighton Beach and then drive wayyy across town to the Thornbury Theatre to see Bill Callahan. He came out wearing a simple shirt and white pants, bare feet and possibly freeballing, looking like Terry Melcher without the handlebar moustache. The Thornbury Theatre looks like the kind of place for a big fat greek wedding - plush carpet, chandiliers, mirrored tiles, cherubs, practically. Then how even lovelier to come back to the country to hear DJ Pop Proud playing groovy summer tunes like this:

some love and megan abbott

2009-01-06T10:47:43Z

Finally! A little bit of yankee love. I was getting a bit worried that the whole country thinks like Sara M: "Riley had nothing compelling about her."

First, one from Bookpeople - A massive independent bookstore in Austin, Texas who are "proud purveyors of Austin's famously weird vibe"
I'm down with that.

http://bookkids.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/favorites-teen-reads-of-2008/

And secondly, Colleen Mondor, whose blog Chasing Ray fulfills my smart YA and adventures-in-remote-places needs:

http://www.bookslut.com/bookslut_in_training/2009_01_013877.php

These are batch reviews, and the other books in the batch look like corkers - particularly Ron Koertge's Deadville - I love his books but they are rare as hen's teeth in these here parts.

EB comes out in the UK today! And there's been some pommie love too:

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php/Everything_Beautiful_by_Simmone_Howell

Book 3 goes snarly. I'm writing in circles again. It could be the weather, or because I have a crick neck... or it could be because I still don't know exactly how I can write what I'm writing. I have done a kind of plan but I like to keep things loosey-goosey, allow for the element of surprise. I'm less worried about this faff-writing now, though, because it's book 3, and faffing is part of my process (must remember to put that on the next grant application!) So. Crap words today may come golden tomorrow. I hope. I have signed up for week-long workshop at the end of January and I bloody better have something to work with.

Meanwhile I have been reading books by Megan Abbott. It's like having a Mildred Pierce party. Look at her lovely lovely covers

lenny and me and the twain

2008-12-30T22:07:27Z

I have a piece in the current Big Issue. It's about Lenny Kravitz, and me, and the twain.

Starts like this:

I rarely feel the urge to respond to articles in UK Elle magazine, but a recent ‘My World in 24 hours’, featuring Lenny Kravitz, got me thinking about lifestyle and wondering about mine…or if I even had one. Lenny, in case you’ve forgotten, once had a hit single, married actress Lisa (The Cosby Show) Bonet and might have been slugged by Mickey Rourke back when ‘sexy’ meant stonewash and acne-pitted complexions. In 1989, Lenny was like Jimi Hendrix, Prince and Terence Trent D’Arby stuffed into a snakeskin jumpsuit. He’s 44 now and, as the article claims, lives his life “to the full in New York”. I’m 36 and live my life semi-consciously in a mid-size country town, but the contrasts don’t end there ...

NB: A disclaimer. When I wrote about Megan Follows' facial tics, I meant Shanae Grimes. I blame Shania.

This is my first attempt at trying to be a freelance writer type. I had the idea that I would write heaps of these and send them off willy-nilly ... but then I started working in earnest on Book Three and that gets dibs on any freewheeling brain power. Maybe later.

xmas bobness

2008-12-28T11:21:59Z

Christmas done gone and a theme emerges:

I received:
Bob Dylan and Barry Feinstein's Hollywood Foto Rhetoric -

And this:

And W got this:

In other news: I read Charles Willeford's Sideswipe. It's genius.

"Hoke showered, slipped into slacks and a sport shirt, and walked to the Tropic Shop in the Ocean Mall to see if his jumpsuits were ready yet. he had ordered two yellow poplin jumpsuits when he bought his surfer trunks, but had asked the shop owner to have the sleeves cut off and hemmed above the elbow. This was Hoke's first positive step towards simplifying his life. He would wear one of the jumpsuits one day, wash it at night, and then wear the other one the next day. That way he wouldn't need any underwear ..."

I also have to say that as far as last lines go, Willeford rules the world. You'll have to read it to see what I mean.

Santa also brought me a blisteringly good review of Everything Beautiful from the Sydney Morning Herald. Here 'tis:

It is good and hot. Yesterday I swam in the local waterhole and it was divoon.

this week's haul

2008-12-18T05:34:02Z

1. The Curious Lobster's Island by Richard W. Hatch. Freaking lovely illustrations (look at the endpapers!) by Marion Freeman Wakeman
2. Wooden box for rings'n'things (insect wings)

And this one made me think of Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsals - (Bear-y nice but Bear-y dark)

speaking through hankies

2008-12-14T09:14:12Z

You can hear me talking about Everything Beautiful and other stuff here

nice things for christmas

2008-12-13T00:54:53Z

1. Books!

2.. Membership to the International Palm Society

3. Gennine's Tiny Book of Birds

4. Japanese Crockery

from here

5. 21st Anniversary edition of The Year My Voice Broke - anyone who thinks Australian films are all just old crapola should watch this and weep.

EB BOOK WINNERS

2008-12-02T10:22:10Z

First off I wish I could give a book to everyone who entered and that's the truth, but the good folk at Pan Macmillan are not CRAZY. So - in no particular order here are the winning entries. If you are one of the winners please send me an email at simmonehowell at hotmail dot com with your snailmail details and one signed copy of Everything Beautiful will be headed your way. I know I said there would be three winners but I can't count.

1. (because I like the string of memories)

My friends make my life meaningful... they're the family I got to choose and I believe they are genuinely some of the best people in the world. They make me laugh when I don't even feel like smiling, they don't judge me, they know when I know know when I need them to listen or when I need them to tell me everything will be okay, when my dad died they're the ones that helped me - more than they'll ever know.

So yeah, my friends make my life meaningful, there are other things that matter to me obviously but they're the thing that I know for sure I wouldn't be able to live without, the best memories I have are all with them... and to me that's what happiness is as the end of the day, a string of good memories that get you through the bad, I'm only 20 (I just turned 20 today actually) but I have had a lot of bad stuff in my life so far and I would have never got through any of it without my friends.

I don't know if that is what you meant by interesting but I figured I'd just go with the truth. :)

Posted by Lanna[Lovely]Pidge: I sometimes bite! on Monday, October 27, 2008 - 10:44 PM

2. (because I loves a visual and the note under 'imagine')

what makes your life meaningful? This is my response to the above question. It's not words, it's a photo, but that seemed more appropriate to me because...photography is definitely something that makes my life meaningful, and can also be a much more effective way of communicating sometimes. The image is sort of a symbolic representation of a number of things that make my life meaningful, some obvious and some maybe more obscure.

Posted by [ g e o r g i a ] on Monday, November 03, 2008 - 4:20 PM

3. (because it's so zen!)

</b></a>zoidberg_cool wrote:

Oct. 24th, 2008 11:24 pm (UTC)

what makes your life meaningful?
My life is meaningful because I have friends and family that love me. I might not have a lot of money but I don't need any because I'm happy with everything that I've got.
My life is also meaningful as I like to read funny blogs and videos like the book trailer for Everything Beautiful. X]

4. (because there's a school camp novel in you waiting to come out!)

</b></a> wrote:

Nov. 9th, 2008 09:16 am (UTC)

Camp Humiliation

‘Humiliation’ is pretty much my middle name. I’ve been on four camps in my life, all with school. None were pretty. When I got home at the end of the week, I felt like I’d stumbled across the Nullarbor, sole survivor of a zombie epidemic, or was I the zombie…? Sure, everyone else looked crap – but I, yes I – was in the utmost pain.

Camp at the beginning of Year 7 was my worst – they had it at the start of the year to help everyone get to know each other, which in my opinion was a terrible idea. In the course of three days, I managed to:

1. Become entangled in the ‘spiders web’ – a group activity where you have to wriggle through gaps between ropes. I was the last, after everyone else had gotten through to the other side. And, believe me, it was the pressure of everyone watching me, that made me somehow end up hanging by my arm, with fifteen classmates I didn’t know resisting the urge to laugh. The teacher actually did laugh. It was mortifying.
2. My birthday fell in the middle of camp, and my parents brought up cake. At dinner, when everyone sang happy birthday and watched me blow out the candles, a girl sitting on my table pointed out I had food in my teeth. I’m pretty sure it was spinach. I was smiling a lot, which it made it all the more worse.
3. A girl was moved into the cabin I was in, for talking in hers. We pretended to be asleep when the teacher brought her in, but resumed talking as soon as she left. Of course, it just so happens I’m remarking on how a certain girl dressed like a tart – and it was the girl who’d just come into our room. It got worse. I spent fifteen minutes insisting the girl in the room with us was a different girl than the one I was talking about. I learnt a very valuable lesson about shutting up, which was later forgotten.
4. I became the lost when the group was on a nighttime nature walk. I figured I’d find them sooner or later, but made the most of being by myself and began to sing, ‘We’re going on a bear hunt.’ Really, I’m quite the moron. I’d actually wandered ahead (god knows how) and luckily was only heard by one boy. Who’d been sent ahead to find me when the rest of the group stopped. Oh, yes.
5. I fell into the lake with my clothes on. The lake was about a metre deep, and filled with mud. I managed to crawl back to camp with one of my friend’s laughing deliriously, and my muddy clothes were hung on the fence outside our cabin. I discovered muddy clothes turn stiff when they dry.

I think you can gather from these five instances (and believe me, there are many more) that I’m extremely self-unaware and a klutz. I say awkward things at the most inopportune moments. And camp only exacerbates it, considering I never get any sleep.
(Sorry for the extremely long comment. If you could find it in your heart to forgive me…)

dirty subversive teenage literature

2008-11-29T08:15:56Z

For all my mopes there was a decent-sized review of EB in the Age today. Here is my favourite bit:

"Anyone wanting to have a go at Howell for writing dirty subversive teenage literature had better read the book to the very end ..."

Dang! I'm trying to write dirty subversive teenage literature!!

and this was nice:

"Everything Beautiful is bound to appeal to all the young girls who drink, sleep around, do drugs, and read.

(What is she trying to say? That they don't read? Or so few do that it's worth noting?)

It's funny, too because it's all about the content and nothing about style (or maybe the style - there is some, honest - gets swamped by the content. Or maybe that's just a YA problem - as in a problem of older people, possibly parents of wilful teenagers reviewing and not the target audience. (Though having said that, a young girl from Minnesota said EB was "boring and lacking in action for most of it" so maybe I'm better off if people get the shudders at mentions of pole-dancers and Jagermeister.)

Ack. It's all so subjective.

second book syndrome

2008-11-28T10:13:10Z

Seriously it is like the big elephant in the room ... or the big elephant not in the bookstore. Even my mum didn't buy as many copies as she did of Book One. Meanwhile I have been waiting patiently for the barrage of beautiful press but I'm starting to look around now. I'm starting to twitch. My publicist reckons YA literature is giving 'the media' a soft-on. It's just not sexy. Richard Flanagan is sexy! Baz Luhrmann is sexy! But six months ago YA was sexy - Golden, even. And now ... It's like there is too much of it or it's become too much of itself. YA is too much with us!

The answer, I think, is to write something as if no one's going to read it. Book Three - you've got your work cut out for you. Book Two, I'm sorry. It's not that you're terrible it's just that you're second. You are my Jan Brady.

Last week to win Everything Beautiful

2008-11-17T11:28:01Z

back and forward

2008-11-16T07:34:15Z

The launch for Everything Beautiful was about as warm and fuzzy and fuss-free as an anxious writer could hope for. Readings St Kilda - you are all charm*. First children's buyer Callie said some lovely things, then writer Kirsty Murray said some lovely things* then I read out the almost-sex-scene between Riley and cad/youth-leader Craig ... then I signed some books, met some people, ate some cupcakes, drank some champers, ate some Japanese and was home before 10pm. Wild! Here is a photo of Kirsty saying lovely things** and me in defensive pose like any minute she's going to turn around and say ... NOT! (Thanks to Megan for the photo)

This week I received two of the most lovely emails from readers, they made me feel all buzzy .. um ... privileged and humbled and just so lucky that I have been able to write something that has made a positive impact on another human bean's life. Looking back: When I was fused to a barstool at the Punters Club hotel circa 1993 (in requisite flannel shirt) i don't believe I ever thought I would affect anyone, anyhow. Looking forward: I've started three new projects in as many months like a girl going through an identity crisis. Now I have to choose which one is going to be the next one... and if the money runs out, I can always go back to selling books on eBay ...

Driving home today we passed a second hand book fair. Untold spoils.

And this afternoon I drank peach tea in the sun and finished E Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (fabulous!) to the strains of W on the baby piano that has no minor keys. Happiness.
******************************************************************************************************************************************************
*if you are in Melbourne seeking fine books, go there, friend.

**Like this: Riley Rose is everything beautiful in a girl. She is anything but appropriate and i doubt she has much vision of eternity. But she has the world in her heart, that's for sure.

***EB comes from the Ecclesiastes 3:11: He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end (King James version). Kirsty noted that the New American Standard Bible says: He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end...

... like, way to bleach the thing of all poetry ...

this week's haul

2008-11-13T10:25:21Z

1. Home-recorded videos. Imagine you bought a home-recorded video from an op-shop and pressed play and got something quite the opposite from what you were expecting. This happened to me! The first one was ok - it said it was a Robert Mapplethorpe documentary and it was a Robert Mapplethorpe documentary - and a good one at that. But I put in video #2 expecting to see Tender is the Night starring Jennifer Jones and Jason Robards - instead I got Guilty as Sin, all 80's-saxophone and venetian blinds starring Rebecca de Mornay and Don Johnson. Don Johnson plays a lothario (of course!) - "I've lived off of women all my life ..." accused of murder. Rebecca de Mornay is a high-powered defense attorney who takes his case - she's attracted to him, sure, but she's a professional, dammit. Will she get him off or will she get him off? Truly choke-worthy ... And after THAT came a show called 'Erotic Tales' starring Claudia Karvan as an artist's model ushered into the twilight world of Sapphic love. She is nude a lot. Alex Cox directed. We haven't watched videos #3 and #4 yet but I'm optimistic.

2.Oh, cute. Be your own printer. The stamp pad has dried out but the stamps are good - a tree, a sun, a boy, a girl, a train, a plane, a car, a cat, a dog and a house. 50 cents!

3. World Record Club 45. When We Very Young - stories of A. A Milne read by David Tomlinson, who according to the notes: "has the rare ability to talk intimately to small children on their own level without appearing patronising." Slightly warped, but still playable.

c'mon you videoheads

2008-11-09T12:44:20Z

No video responses!? C'mon people! I'm not asking for Apocalypse Now, I'd be happy with a talking hand. Make your own memory cross! Film the inside of your bag! (I have heard tell that the link is not working - if you go to youtube and search under 'simmonehowell', ye shall find me...) As for the camp horrors, I revealed on 3CR yesterday that one time at Christian camp I got my period while white-water rafting. As for the meanings of life, keep 'em coming.

I am resisting the urge to blog because I want lots of entries. This means that by the end of November there will be a veritable tsunami of wit and pith and dodgy film recommendations. You have been warned.

Also: I will be on 3RRR's Aural Text this Wednesday talking EB (and possibly periods) with those word-nerdy muppet-happy fiends Alicia Sometimes and Steve Grimwade. Sometime between 12 and 2pm. Catchya.

book trailer and competition!

2008-10-21T21:23:17Z

This is my one-handed DIY lofi book trailer for Everything Beautiful. What do you think? Does it tantalise ... or frustrate? That's a map of the little desert at the start where the novel is set and the quotes are from the book.

And now for the competition: Thanks to the lovely folk at Pan Macmillan, I have three signed copies of Everything Beautiful to give away.

1)One goes to whoever makes the best video response to my trailer

2)one goes to the most tragically humiliating real life camp story.

3)one goes to the most interesting response to this question: what makes your life meaningful?

Post your vids on the youtube site (pending approval) and post your dodgy camp stories and meaningfulness in the comments here. The competition will run until the end of November ... Spread the word and Best of British luck!

epigraph happy

2008-10-19T06:54:12Z

I am for epigraphs. Sadly I cannot always afford them. Epigraphs do more than set the theme, I think, they are like a window into 'further reading'... In the rebel days of Vandal Press we didn't care about copyright and so we were epigraph-happy.

From high:
'He realises that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl"
(Camus The Myth of Sisyphus)

to pop:
'I went back to the store They gave me four more The guy told me at the door It's a piece of crap'
(Neil Young)

Usually when I'm writing I stockpile quotes. For Everything Beautiful I had a couple that could have worked but in the end I didn't use them. They were:

'I am large, I contain multitudes'
(Walt Whitman, Song of myself)

'Repair is the dream of the broken thing'
(Silver Jews We are Real - from their album American Water which seriously contains so many astounding lines - lines like platforms, really - that it is never far from my ears)

'It is all part of an infinite world of aggression and retreat, survival and oblivion, regeneration and death'

(Colin Thiele - The Little Desert - v. inspirational text)

EB contains quotes/material from other literary sources. Most notably Utopia by Sir Thomas More (free because it's 15th century) and Anne Sexton (150 pounds!) The epigraph for Notes from the Teenage Underground (Dostoyevsky) cost 100 pounds.

Here is my favourite epigraph:
You need a man to go to hell with - Tuesday Weld
(from Barry Gifford's Wild at Heart.)

What's yours?

Launching!*

2008-10-16T12:48:26Z

Event | Saturday 15 November 2008 at 4:00pm
Simmone Howell book launch

Everything Beautiful will be launched by the fabulous Kirsty Murray!

Readings St Kilda: 112 Acland St, St Kilda, Victoria, 3182

Riley Rose doesn't want to be at Spirit Ranch Holiday Camp. Riley wants to be partying with her best friend Chloe at the beautiful Ben Sebatini's house. But is everything at the Spirit Ranch as it appears? What secrets are waiting for discovery in the abandoned Fraser house? And why doesn't anyone want to talk about the accident that landed the mysterious Dylan in a wheelchair last year?

Everything Beautiful is a love story about the broken and the broken-hearted from the award-winning author of Notes from the Teenage Underground.

This is a free event and I am going to make cupcakes.

light at the end of a long day

2008-10-15T08:46:54Z

Some days, I ask you. Nothing hugely wrong just lots of little not-quite-rights ... I fell asleep at the office! Just as well because the writing was not coming (and why should it? What have I done to encourage it lately?) I'm not going to write until the words are fighting to come out. I'm going to loll. And read things. So I decided to buy some mandarin sours to cheer myself up and as I was walking past the bookshop I spied Donald Rawley's The Night Bird Cantata in the bargain bin. I read his first collection Slow Dance along the Fault Line when I was heavy in my LA fiction stage, and it's beautiful and sad and elegant and inspiring. Then I read on his bio that he died in 1998. I don't believe in ghosts, but I'd forgotten all about Donald Rawley and now I feel like he's giving me a little nudge.

the humble cassette, patti smith and new links

2008-10-12T05:03:45Z

Today we found a sweet 70s cassette player (National Panasonic with record option!) and now w can listen to his op shop cassettes wherever he wants. His faves are Inti Illimani's Songs of the Andean Indians, Cab Calloway singing Minnie the Moocher, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk and The Adventures of Christopher Robin. Did you know there is cassette library in Darwin? The Darwin Visual Arts Association accepts donations. Such a cool idea: "Mixed tapes, language tapes, spoken word tapes, story tapes, tapes you pretend were never yours". I have added their website as a link.

I went to see Patti Smith's instore at Readings on Friday. She was great, talking about her favourite books and how the artist has to be in the moment and keep creating despite world turmoil. I didn't get to see Dream of Life, will have to wait for the DVD release. I got Patti to sign my Piss Factory 45. (I loved it the second I heard it ... so powerful and inspiring.) And I gave her a copy of NFTU, just because. Because it's about art and influence ... and because Patti Smith is so clearly one of Gem's formidable femmes. And anyway I think it would make a good plane read.

And speaking of art and influence I have also added a link to a fabulous essay by Jonathan Lethem called "The Ecstasy of Influence', and another to Shedworking.co.uk which has the most awesome sheds you could imagine (thankyou Alex for the link)

Hope you are having a good lazy Sunday.

shed beautiful

2008-10-03T12:30:04Z

Go read my first post at Mixtape Blog. It's all about my shed! Argh! I don't know how to link. You'll have to cut'n'paste to get there. Arse! http://www.mixtapezine.blogspot.com/

a cliff richard kind of feel

2008-10-01T10:44:10Z

It is October. 28 days until Everything Beautiful goes fishtailing into the universe (well, here and the US). I have pre-publication jitters. Best not to think about it. To launch or not to launch, that is the question.

PROS-
could be fun
could sell books
nice for posterity particularly if people take pictures

CONS -
Looks needy
Costs money
takes effort
people might take pictures of my bad side (everyone has a bad side - you might notice that Mariah Carey only ever has the same side of her face photographed.)

Ideally the launch would have a clean-cut Christian boy wandering around with a guitar singing songs like 'Lord of the Dance'- a Cliff Richard kind of a feel. I could wear a jumpsuit.

I will keep you posted.

romeo montague and duckie

2008-09-30T13:14:09Z

What was I thinking? Life is not mild at all. Life is full. Today it was almost perfect sunny. Had coffee, worked on the young man's anger management, got to sneak off an write for a few hours (and actually WROTE!), visited a friend, heard the mating call of the creek frogs (sounded like a 1970s computer game), and watched a turgid dramedy (Smart People - nice cast, shame about the mason willims style soundtrack ploughing through every pause.)

Things I have been thinking about: Definitions of poetry. Romanticism vs. Realism. How much I love pockets. The possibility of building a stick house. What happened to my fennel. Romeo Montague and Duckie.

We watched Pretty in Pink last week. Evidently there is a new release DVD but it doesn't contain the original ending - that is, Molly Ringwald ending up with Jon Cryer. When I first saw Pretty in Pink I remember being supremely irritated by Duckie, but watching it 20 years later, it struck me what a sad character he is - all that love and nowhere to put it. I related to him more than Andie (If I had been Andie I would have tumbled James Spader from the get-go and it would have been a whole other humiliation.) Then on the weekend, we cleared out stuff from my parent's attic - all the embarrassing things I left up there: old poems written by me (with watercolours - gag!) - and letters from my own duckie love. I would not go back to my teen years, not even for an afternoon. I bought the novelisation of Pretty in Pink at Doncaster Shoppingtown after seeing the movie (1986?). Last week I read it alongside Don't you Forget about me - Contemporary Writers writing about John Hughes.

When people write novelisations, do they work from the script or the finished film, does anyone know? (novelisation - what a word! I like them. I want to write one.) Anyway. I have been working on this Romeo story, and Duckie is bleeding in, and so is Wordsworth, and so is the St Kilda triangle. And I dont know what the hell it will read like when it's done and I almost don't care.

Speaking of Shaky, There's a great IV with John Marsden here. (Thanks Peter for the link) He reads from his Hamlet and talks about adaptation, filling in the gaps. He says everyone comes to Shakespeare with their own shit, and he's so right.

mild life

2008-09-23T23:38:43Z

VOTE! VOTE!

2008-09-14T11:40:16Z

The Inky Awards Shortlist is upon us: Six great books but only one Gold inky and YOU HAVE THE POWER...
Here they are. The way to vote is explained here...

GOLD INKY (AUSTRALEE)

TOWN - James Roy
TALES FROM OUTER SUBURBIA - Shaun Tan
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONTMARAY - Michelle Cooper

SILVER INKY (INTERNATIONALE)
GENESIS -Bernard Beckett
BOY TOY - Barry Lyga
BEFORE I DIE - Jenny Downham

In other news. Yesterday I went to the market and the tip - what a great day! Look what I found - a big sesame cookie (market) and a copy of Rumplestiltskin with pictures by Edward Gorey! (tip)