atheling suggestion

Kim Wilkins wrote a very important paper last year* on the treatment of fantasy literature in mainstream media, which I'll be nominating for the Atheling this year. I urge you to do the same. If you haven't read it, click here for a PDF. Here's the summary:

"Australian fantasy fiction is a highly successful field of Australian writing both nationally and internationally, and yet it occupies uncertain territory in the Australian literary community. In many ways, it is the opposite of that community’s default notion of Australian writing: it is popular, not literary; international, not local; fantastic, not realism. These incongruities make it an excellent case study for examining how the Australian literary community nteracts with popular fiction."

Fantasy, naturally, comes out rather poorly. If nothing else, read on to see how we fare, column inches-wise, in terms of book reviews in major papers.  It's shameful, but not surprising.

* Kim Wilkins, "Popular genres and the Australian literary community: the case of fantasy fiction", Journal of Australian Studies 32.2 (2008): 265-278.