Web page update

I hae added new material to the Communication web pages What's New: Success Tips Leadership Communication Articles PowerPoint Tips: Create invisible buttons Words of the Heart Book Review Portable Writing: The Secret to Living Your Dreams with 25 Projects to Fund Your Freedom communication, leadership, Writing

Music therapy develops communication

" ... Music therapists take advantage of the ways mind and body are stimulated when people listen to and make music to hone motor and brain functions, said Al Bumanis, spokesman for the American Music Therapy Association..." Read the whole article ... music therapy, communication

Multicultural Anthology

The Multicultural Writers Association of Australia is seeking submissions in prose (up to 5,000 words) and verse (up to 50 lines) for a national anthology. The anthology, with the proposed title 'Culture Is...' aims to share experiences of living in Australia.Submissions should be sent to:

The Secretary

Multicultural Writers Association of Australia

P O Box 192

Kent Town

SA 5071

Verse contributions can also be submitted via email: vbalnaves@hotmail.com

Further information is available from the Association's secretary, Vanessa Balnaves, at the above email or by phone, 0413 127 211.

From AustLit

Amnesty rebukes search engines

Human-rights group says filtered results hurt Chinese users Technology giants Yahoo, Google and Microsoft need to establish a stronger stance on human rights by revealing more details about how they're filtering information and cooperating with the government in China, Amnesty International said Thursday. Read on ... censorship

Kibble and Dobbie Awards for Women Writers Announced

From Austlit

Brenda Walker's The Wing of Night is the winner of the 2006 Nita B. Kibble Award.

The annual prize is awarded to a woman writer of 'a published book of fiction or nonfiction classifiable as "life writing".'

The Dobbie Award, a similar prize but for a first published book, went to Carrie Tiffany for Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living.

Walker was especially delighted with her win 'because it is a prize about women's connections, and my book is all about how rural women connected with each other when the men were away at war, and how the connections forced by the war led to unlikely alliances.' (Australian, 11 May 2006)

Judging panel chair Elizabeth Webby noted that 2006 was the first time in the Kibble's twelve-year history that all finalists were works of fiction. 'There have been several articles recently about the decline of literary fiction so it was a pleasure to see it was a particularly strong year for fiction.' (Sydney Morning Herald, 11 May 2006)

The other finalists were Heather Rose's The Butterfly Man and Kate Grenville's The Secret River

women writers, Australian literature

Website update

I have just updated the Communication web pages at Pivotal Points.

The new Success Tips are in Public Speaking and Communication.

The new articles are Practicing Servant-Leadership

and

What You Can Accomplish in 6 Minutes.

communication, public speaking, leadership, meetings

ABR Poetry Prize to Judith Bishop

Judith Bishop is the winner of the 2006 Australian Book Review (ABR) Poetry Prize with her poem, 'Still Life with Cockles and Shells'. The poem, a response to a 17th century Italian painting, is described by the judges as 'unfailingly poised and suggestive', with not an 'otiose or misplaced' word. Bishop, a linguist, portrays herself as 'a "globalist" when it comes to language, and also, therefore, to poetry. I am just in love with the fact that each language brings with it a new horizon of experience; and each good poem does the same in miniature.' (ABR, no. 280, April 2006)

From Austlit poetry

the downside of Google

The readers editor on ... the downside of Google Stephen Pritchard Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, journalists seeking enlightenment and chasing a deadline relied on their dogeared contacts books to find experts, spokesmen and pundits. Today, we still reach for those phone numbers, but we also have an infinitely more powerful aid in our research - the internet. Search engines such as Google find acres of instant information and more 'experts' than you can shake a stick at, but every computer screen should carry the warning: 'Beware: all is not as it seems.' Read on … information literacy

Distinguished Poet Honoured in Premier's Awards

From Austlit

Rosemary Dobson, one of Australia's foremost poets, received the Special Award in the 2006 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. The Special Award is designed to recognise work 'not readily covered by the existing categories' or for a 'writer's achievements generally'. Dobson, who turns 86 in June, has published more than a dozen collections of poetry. Both her first and most recent selections were in booklet form, beginning with Poems (1937) and finishing – to date – with Folding the Sheets and Other Poems (2004).

Books in the intervening years include the prize-winning volumes The Three Fates and Other Poems (1984) and Untold Lives and Other Poems (2000). The citation for Dobson's award noted the remarkable circle of poets that gathered in the Canberra area in the 1970s. Among Dobson's acquaintances were David Campbell, A. D. Hope, R. F. Brissenden and Judith Wright; an assembly that generated fine writing and deep friendships.

The citation concludes: 'The level of originality and strength of Rosemary's poetry cannot be underestimated, nor can the contribution she has made to Australian literature. Her literary achievements, especially her poetry, are a testament to her talent and dedication to her art and we should feel honoured to know her.'

Other winners in the 2006 Awards include:

Kate Grenville for The Secret River (Fiction)

Jacob G. Rosenberg for East of Time (Non-Fiction)

Jaya Savige for Latecomers (Poetry)

Ursula Dubosarsky for Theodora's Gift (Young People's Literature)

Kierin Meehan for In the Monkey Forest (Children's Literature)

Steven Lang for An Accidental Terrorist (New Writing)

andThomas Murphy for 'Strangers In Between' (Drama)

A complete list of winners, with judges' comments, can be viewed on the Arts New South Wales website.

communication, Australian literature

THE INJUSTICE COLLECTOR

Is James Joyce’s grandson suppressing scholarship?

Read the article

The story continues ...

From AustLit The Story Continues...AustLit's April/May Newsletter reported on a perceived takeover in the writing and transmission of Australian history. ('Move Over History Wars – the Novelists are on Their Way') Led by historian and writer Mark McKenna, the argument ran that, in part because of recent disputes between Australian historians, 'writers of fiction are now more commonly seen as the most trustworthy purveyors of the past.' McKenna's fears will not be allayed, therefore, by Allen & Unwin's announcement that it plans to publish a three-volume 'People's History of Australia' to be written by Thomas Keneally. Keneally says that he 'will aim to cast a new lens over Australia and its people, so that you can see it in unexpected lights.' He hopes his work will surprise his readers and that they will be 'hearing from people they have never heard from before.' According to Allen & Unwin Chairman, Patrick Gallagher, '[n]o writer can better capture the essence of the Australian people than Tom Keneally ... we're all looking forward to publishing a series that will be of lasting importance to all Australians.' The first volume in the set is due for release in late 2008. (Allen & Unwin media release, April 2006) Australian history, communication

Public Speaking skills

Overcomethe fear of public speaking and polish your presentation skills. For tips, articles and links to useful information, visit Pivotal Public Speaking public speaking, presentations, communication

ABC to launch new book club programme

Via AustLit

ABC Television will soon launch the First Tuesday Book Club hosted by journalist and publisher Jennifer Byrne.

A panel of book lovers and book clubbers will join Byrne to 'consider titles from all genres including fiction, non-fiction, biography, thriller, romance and history.'

ABC Television's Head of Arts and Entertainment, Courtney Gibson, said, '[t]his will be a book-obsessed beast of a show where viewers can get involved by reading the book beforehand and participating in on-line discussion forums.'

Jennifer Byrne, who hosted the ABC's one-off special My Favourite Book in December 2004, says, '[f]or a book addict like myself, this is like rolling in clover ... Our book club will hunt out the best and liveliest of the new [and] the most memorable of the old.' (ABC Television media release, 15 May 2006)

First Tuesday Book Club is currently in production and will be screened for the first time on 1 August 2006. It will continue to air, as its name suggests, on the first Tuesday of each month.

book clubs, books

This blog has moved

I have moved this blog to Wordpress. Please come and visit there.

Conversation : A History of a Declining Art (Hardcover) by Stephen Miller

Stephen Miller gives us a celebration and elegy for the art of conversation. His work at once enlightens and saddens me, two effects that fuse into one."-Harold Bloom

Miller traces the history of conversation from Aristotle to the present day, focussing particularly on the eighteenth century. For him, the Paris salons where Diderot opined and the London coffeehouses where Dr. Johnson imbibed between aphorisms represent conversation's apogee. In America, he feels, it fared less well, even before the contemporary menace posed by the Internet, iPods, and the polarization of the political sphere. Thoreau dismissed conversation as a waste of time, and Melville thought it was a tool of con men. Miller defines conversation as the act of speaking with others without any objective other than enjoyment and exchange, and there is something conversational about his own style, which tends toward anecdote and ignores theoretical approaches that could have enriched his argument. Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

More reviews at Amazon where it is selling from $17.42 books, conversation,

Edublog simile generator

from David Davies who writes ...

" ... So anyhoo in order to help budding edubloggers I’ve created a little edugeek simile generator which may even help you come up with ideas for your post titles..."

Visit the simile generator

education,blogging, communication,