Author

Anne Skyvington

Our Galactic Address: A Poem

Galactic Address

What are we doing here on this moving globe
Earth insects swimming in the Orion Way
far from the centre of the Galaxy
clinging to the cavity
of the Local Bubble
in this solar system called the Milky Way?

An insignificant metal ball,
trapped in motion,
endlessly, drawing
circles concentrically
around the fiery sphere,
mirrored in this movement
by sibling planets all
disciples of the father star?

As I look up into the night sky
from here, my galactic address,
the other planets are invisible
to the naked eye within the softly
gleaming ribbon arching there.
Better here, methinks, from where
I stand at the inner edge of this spiral
shaped confluence of gas and dust,
than in the Galactic Centre—
thought to be a large Black Hole!

© Anne Skyvington

Photo Credit: NASA found on Wikihow

August 16, 2017 0 comment

Emotions and Health Writing

Tell me who your mentors are and I’ll tell you who you are

Most people can only claim to have known one truly great love in their life. In the same way, it is likely that you will remember having had no more than one inspirational teacher while at school, and one helpful mentor in your later professional life. And most readers can remember one novel or non-fictional book that changed their life. The same holds true if you have been lucky enough to have found a spiritual mentor (a guru) in the short span of your life. One literary work that inspired me was the novel by Chilean writer, Isabel Allende The House of the Spirits.

I have always been drawn, from as far back as I can remember, to the numinous, especially in relation to psychology and philosophy. For want of a better term, the Jungian concept of the psyche and related matters have always interested me. One of the first non-fiction books—yes, there were two of them!—that changed my life was The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, containing events that were never discussed in the country milieu from which I sprang. Here they were written about as if normal occurrences in this other culture; there was the monk deciding it was his time to die, then returning to life for a short while to communicate something to his young disciple.

jung-autobiography

The other book was Carl Gustav Jung’s autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, first published in English in 1963, which I am re-reading at the moment. It wasn’t until my late thirties that I read this book; today its pages are yellowing to show its age. In this book, Jung writes of the influences on his life as a child, growing up in the country in Switzerland, and then later on during studies at university and work in Zurich as a psychiatrist. On reading this book, I had the sense of meeting someone with the same interests and life questions as myself, almost like finding a “soul mate”. But he was also a mentor, because he had delved deeply into these areas of shared interest, and produced a large body of work within his chosen field, which became known as the field of Analytical Psychology.

As a young boy Jung could find no one he was able to confide in about his ideas and experiences in nature and within the psyche, both of which enthralled him. His father was a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church, and the chances of his being a sympathetic confidant for his son were nil. The abyss between their philosophical thinking was huge and irreconcilable. So the younger Jung remained a carrier of huge secrets, and saw in himself two personalities that he named Number 1 and Number 2. Number 1 was his scientific and social side, that enabled him to become an admired professional of high standing; Number 2 was the humanist, who was interested in diverse subjects, including comparative religions, psychic phenomena, literature, the paranormal and alchemy.

Though Jung initially followed Freud’s theory of the Unconscious, as the psychic base formed by repressed desires, linked especially to sexuality, he later developed his own theory on the Unconscious to include the new concept of the archetypes.

More about this at a later date.

August 8, 2017 0 comment

Emotions and Health Writing

John Cade and Australia’s Greatest Mental Health Story

john-cade-biography It can be said that John Cade “discovered” lithium, in the sense that he actually identified this substance that would become the chemical that would help many in the manic-depressive (bipolar) community.

One of the best biographies I read last year was Finding Sanity by Greg de Moore and Ann Westmore, published by Allen&Unwin in 2016. This is a biography, not a memoir, as it explores the life of Doctor John Cade in detail, starting with that of his parents, and delving into his own family life spent (he, as caretaker and psychiatrist) in asylums in country Victoria during the 1940s.

John Cade is the Australian who discovered, in the fourth decade of the twentieth century, a simple treatment for severe manic illness: LITHIUM. This treatment was already used as a cure by ancient Greek doctors before the element had been identified scientifically. Soranus of Ephesus and others ordered salt baths containing high levels of lithium for excitable patients. Today it has become the gold standard for treating bipolar disorder and saving and supporting lives. Cade changed the course of medicine and saved millions of unwell mental illness patients from suffering, not to mention saving governments billions of dollars in health costs. Strangely enough, not many doctors or politicians appear to know about him and his story today.

To quote from the first pages of the biography, “Lithium is the penicillin story of mental health … and Australia’s greatest mental health story.”

In 1920, after his father David Cade returned from fighting in Gallipoli and France, he and his young family settled into a doctor’s cottage in the grounds of a Victorian country asylum there. The younger Cade followed his father into a medical career, also choosing to specialise in psychiatry. After he returned from Changi, where he was imprisoned in a hellish camp by the Japanese, he was anxious to catch up on lost time, and threw himself into work. His work was helping the mentally ill and experimenting with new treatments. This was a time when manic depression either went untreated, or cures were attempted through crude, early forms of lobotomies and electric shock treatment. His was the first effective medication to treat a mental illness, and in the form of a cheap and natural mineral salt.

John Cade at Bundoora

Cade tested his theories by injecting uric acid from his manic patients into guinea pigs. Unfortunately, all of the animals died. To prevent this, he used lithium urate, which was highly soluble, to see if urea was, indeed, the culprit in causing mania. To Cade’s surprise, he found this produced a calming effect in the guinea pigs, instead of increased excitation.

Through a series of very careful experiments on both guinea pigs and, later on, people, it was proven that lithium had a pronounced effect on mania. This wonderful discovery was quickly followed by the finding that lithium also helped with the depressive symptoms of bipolar.

Cade’s remarkably successful results were detailed in his paper, Lithium salts in the treatment of psychotic excitement, published in the Medical Journal of Australia (1949).

The significance of what John Cade achieved is hard to overestimate.

quote-depression-john-cade

August 8, 2017 0 comment

Writing

A Perfect Pitch to a Publisher

As a new writer, before too long, you may be ready to pitch your book or manuscript to a publisher or to an agent.

What’s A Pitch?

A pitch can be verbal or written and often a combination of both. Verbal pitches are for face-to-face meetings with an agent or publishers.

A synopsis answers the question of what’s in the novel, whereas a pitch tells the publishers why they should read the manuscript.

It should include the title, length and genre of your novel; a short synopsis; your target audience; where it fits in the market; and your bio.

Things to Consider For Your Pitch:

Which publishers are you pitching to? Do they have similar books to yours and have you read them? How can you simply describe what happens? Where does it fit on the shelves of bookshops? Who is your audience? What’s unique about your book? From where/what did you get the idea? Tagline? The central conflict? Have you been published? How might you assist with selling the book? Have you won any awards? Why should they read your book?

Who are your favourite authors?

Isabel Allende; Miles Franklin; Gabriel García Márquez; Stendhal; Hemingway; Milan Kundera; Salley Vickers; Tim Winton; Barbara Kingsolver; Emily Bronte; Jill Kerr Conway; Magda Szubanski; Helen Garner; Richard Glover

Which ones does your book resemble?

In terms of thematic content: My Brilliant Career; Wuthering Heights; Flight Behaviour; The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell; A Farewell to Arms

The Pitch

Your pitch should be short, interesting, and describe your novel’s best qualities. Read the blurbs on the back of paperback novels similar to yours, or on Amazon. That’s the level of detail you require, since a pitch would only last about 2-3 minutes in all. Ten or fifteen minute long appointments must also contain questions and small-talk. It must be kept short and snappy.

A good idea is to open with something short and catchy. You want a few sentences that describe your novel in the most compelling and intriguing way possible.

When Writing Your Pitch:

Lead with a hook or a tagline
one (or two) sentence description that boils it down to its essential dramatic narrative: who? what? where? when?
Genre?
Title
“Zingy” language, but an elegant presentation

A YouTube Video

The procedure is much the same as in the video above. Lucy Flynn, English literary agent is shown practising a pitch for a book, La Manciata, by an Italian writer, before a panel of judges. Did she give away too much of the story?

This video was created and published by “Free Word” (Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London) in association with the British Centre for Literary Translation (University of East Anglia, Norwich):

[Free Word works internationally to bring together communities, organisations and individuals through the belief that words change lives. In 2009, Free Word moved in, and, after refurbishing in 2014, has become a vibrant hub for literature]

Practising the Pitch

President of New York Writers Workshop, Tim Tomlinson, who hosts several pitch conferences annually, advises that writers plan out a pitch of 90 seconds to two minutes that they either memorise or read during their session, leaving time for questions and answers at the end. This way, you know you’ll say everything you needed to say. You’re also more likely to be articulate and clear about your message. Besides, this material will then make up your cover letter to publishers or agents.

After the Pitch

Even if you aren’t successful, you’ve had the experience of meeting a publisher or an agent, and practising your pitch, which you can use again in the future.

July 1, 2017 0 comment

Writing

Serendipity at the 2017 Sydney Writers’ Festival

Way back then, at Armidale Teachers’ College, Liz was reminiscent of one of those Botticelli angels, but without the curls. She looked a lot like Miranda from Picnic at Hanging Rock. Able to attract the attentions of the college Adonis at the time, ideal partner for an Aphrodite, she did so without vanity, without affectation. I remember her telling me that her mother had died when she was younger. My mother was alive, but there were issues. And my immaturity translated itself into a political conversion to Communism during my college years. Could it solve the world problems of inequality, the scurge of warring nations? I even travelled from France to the USSR after Teachers’ College, to try to find out the answer to this.

miranda-in-picnic-at-hanging-rock

Only in recent years, since the College Reunion in 2011, have Liz and I become close friends. Our common experiences of having lived and worked in France was one of the triggers.

She still has that angelic quality about her, but it is one that incarns wisdom now, rather than mere surface features.

We met in May at the Sydney Writers’ Festival this year. It has grown bigger each year, and the multiple venues are more comfortable and containing than before. Many sessions are free or inexpensive and easily accessible.

robert-dessaix-writer-essayist Liz chose the talk by Robert Dessaix: “On Kissing, Hugging and Saying ‘I Love You'”. I valued her judgement and went along with it. We were not disappointed.

“An orgy of kissing and hugging has broken out across the Western world”, Dessaix proclaimed in his satirical monologue, “and we have to take a stand”.

He kept us enthralled by his erudite, funny and poetic sentences, with lots of modern references, as well as allusions to Russian writings, such as Alexai Pushkin’s poem, “I Loved You”.

Typical of his ironic stand is when he noted that the liver is the organ to represent romantic love in Java, not the heart.

The high point for me was, while Liz was seeking out a political event, to happen upon a talk by a young American French woman, Nadja Spiegelman. Her talk about her memoir, “I’m Supposed to Protect You From All This”, I wouldn’t have missed for the world! I bought the book and read it greedily.

nadja-and-her-book copy The author is the daughter of a French woman and an American father, both well-known writers. The memoir traces four generations of mothers and daughters, from Paris to New York and back again. It is the story of strong French women who survive the war and battle against the patriarchal values of the times in France. The young author—she is twenty-seven years old—tells an archetypal story that all women could relate to in its universality, about jealousy and pain, often passed on to daughters, who often have to survive or resist their mothers’ stories. Françoise, the mother of the author, survived her background by emigrating to America. This memoir also recognises the truth of the fallibility of memory.

Angels, the kind without wings of course—magical women—inhabit this book. Their stories and voices will remain in the reader’s mind for a long time, given the writer’s artful use of language and her enviable communication skills.

The beginning sentences are marvellous: “When I was a child, I knew that my mother was a fairy. Not the kind of fairy with gauzy wings and a magic wand, but one with a thrift-store fur coat and ink-stained fingers.”

Other gems are: “Pure memories are like dinosaur bones…discrete fragments from which we compose the image of the dinosaur…But memories we tell as stories come alive. And when we look again, our memories are whole, breathing creatures that roam our past.”

Editor’s note: Thanks to Ian Wells for pointing out my incorrect use of the word “infallibility” above. I meant the opposite. Each mother/daughter in this memoir has a differing perspective on their past relationships and contradictory memories of similar events. I’ve now changed the word to the “fallibility” of memory.

The memoir emerged from Nadja’s own questions about the conflicting versions of family stories. Who decides what the truth is? Who owns a story? It’s these questions that Nadja wanted to explore. “Within families there often isn’t any kind of historical record, but there often is a real battle for who has the truth.”

Nadja and her mother, Françoise Mouly

June 10, 2017 2 comments