Space 3 launched

The third annual volume of Geelong’s own literary magazine Space was launched in the Limelight Lounge by novelist and creative writing lecturer Marion M Campbell on Saturday. Edited once again by Anthony Lynch and David McCooey, the book contains some brilliant new poetry, stories and criticism and a series of paintings all presented in a stylish and impressive format.

Marion Campbell noted that the magazine’s standing had attracted some of the big names in Victorian and Australian literature including Paul Kane, John Kinsella, Jennifer Harrison and Anthony Lawrence, but their work was balanced by the appearance of several newcomers, whose efforts were not overshadowed  by the established contributors.

Gregory Day, who is establishing himself as the prose-poet of the Great Ocean Road, read his ‘The heavenly morning along the roads’, to an appreciative audience, while Jennifer Harrison contributed her poem ‘Baldanders’, a homage to the Latin-American writer Borges. Amanda Johnson delivered her ‘Perspectives to Nowhere: Imaging the Road in recent Australian Landscape painting,’ a nice blend of fictive-criticism which will appeal to anyone who has struggled with an old map book trying to find art galleries in remote corners of the state. Michele Burder’s series of paintings which form the centre-spread of the book are very evocative, not least for their titles ‘Travel Sickness’ and ‘Drowsy Drivers Die’.

There are forty contributors to Space 3 and readers will find a book of high and consistent quality which showcases some of the extraordinary talent at work in Geelong and further afield. No matter what your taste is in literature, you will find something to enjoy in this new collection.

The book is published by Whitmore Press and costs $19.95 and is supported by the City of Greater Geelong and Deakin University. Details are available from the website at <www.whitmorepress.com/space>.

(An edited version of this article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser, Thursday 3 August 2006, p. 12.)